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The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek

• creullin 10y ago
  I think this really boils down to self regulation. In some/most cases no one is forcing you to work 50+ hours a week. I remember a sign a coworker used to have in his office. The gist is - are you happy? If so, keep doing what you're doing, if not, change something.
• _ix 10y ago
  Just put in my two week's notice yesterday. I've been putting in a stupid amount of hours (80+) while my colleagues in other departments barely hit the 40 hour mark. This is a good omen.
  • muzster 10y ago
    Was that down to yourself or your employer ? Sometimes we are our own worst enemy.
    • wccrawford 10y ago
      Does it really matter? Since he put in his notice, I don't think he'd have worked 80 hour weeks if he didn't feel he had to. Either way, he feels pressured to do it and he is now out from under that pressure.
      • muzster 10y ago
        It does matter - we can fix self inflicted wounds a little easier than fix the culture of an organisation.
        • _ix 10y ago
          A little of both, actually. There was never a requirement to work more than 40 hours. In fact, last Friday I talked about how I'd probably work through the weekend to make the deadlines they set for the beginning of this week. They took pity on me and said I shouldn't even be checking my email over the weekend. I reluctantly agreed, and didn't work on the projects. But, guess who everyone was angry with come early this week for not having the deliverables to the clients?
          • muzster 10y ago
            Sometimes things need to fail to improve...
  • clifanatic 10y ago
    Why put in your notice? Why not just cut back your hours? Especially if everybody else is - walking out seems a little drastic in this case.
  • kraftman 10y ago
    How do you get to the stage where you're putting that many hours in? Does it start off just staying late one night and then turns into more nights and then every day? Or is it like that from day one trying to prove yourself?
    • _ix 10y ago
      It started off innocently enough. "I'll work just a few more hours on this project, because once these changes are in place, I'm going to save so much time when the client changes their mind again." That quickly turned into the normal amount of work on a daily basis, and then weekends started getting gobbled up. I also knew that I had a baby on the way, and I thought I'd put in yet more hours then, so now wouldn't be so bad. Now has come, and it is far worse than I could have imagines.
• edw519 10y ago
  Finally, you'll need to have the self-confidence or stubbornness to choose and stick to a path that most people don't take. You don't need self-confidence or stubbornness, just commitment to your principles... I have never worked more than 40 hours per week for anyone else. Ever. I arrive at 8. I leave at 5. I don't work from home. Except for emergencies. My definition of emergency: If someone is dying or their production software isn't working. That's it. Anything else, I'll be in all day tomorrow and will be happy to talk about it then. All you really need to do is reach an understanding with your manager about your boundaries and the definition of "emergency" at the beginning. If they want to pay 40 hours for more than 40 hours of work or have a different definition of emergency, they I'll work somewhere else. It's really that simple. I've been doing this for almost 40 years and have never had a single complaint about it. And I'm not sure which "most people" OP knows, but "most people" I know have a philosophy similar to mine. We'll do whatever it takes to get the job done, but we won't be suckers. OP, do you really need a whole book for this?
  • anotheryou 10y ago
    The article is also about going below 40h/week which is more challenging. I'm really happy to currently having an interesting 24h/w job with just enough pay to get by, but I'm currently also writing my thesis and definitely couldn't afford a child.
  • beachstartup 10y ago
    most people just don't have the balls to draw a line and not cross it, mainly because of fear. simple as that.
    • pc86 10y ago
      Most people also don't set an alarm on their phone for 4:59 at which point they leave no matter what is happening. Not saying the GP is that person, but there are certainly extremes on both ends of the spectrum (working 80 hours a week v. refusing to work 8h 0m 1s under any non-emergency circumstance no matter what), and I've worked with both of them and neither are very enjoyable to be around. I've had meetings scheduled that go past the end of my day. Or on a day where I work a different schedule (6-2 or 10-6 or whatever) a normal meeting outside of my schedule for the day. Sometimes professionalism dictates you suck it up and work more than 8 hours in a day. If you have a reasonable manager, just work less than 8 the next day! It's not that big of a deal, and to say "well I'll be in for 8 hours tomorrow so I'm leaving now you can go to hell" is not a reasonable way to handle it. I don't think it has anything to do with fear. It has to do with understanding that life (yes even non-emergency events) don't always fit into a neat 8-hour or 9-hour window, and adjusting yourself accordingly. I've often worked 10 or more hours in a day for non emergency reasons. I've often worked 5 hours or less in a day to make up for it. I still manage a roughly 40 hour or less work week and it's no less "sane" than any other approach.
• patrickdavey 10y ago
  I went to a talk once on leadership. One of the suggestions was to get your "go to hell kit" ready. That is, get enough money in the bank (whatever that means for you) so that you can walk away if things cross your personal lines, be they moral / work-life balance, whatever. It's a good thing if there's pressure to work silly hours. In my first job (recent grad) before I left the job, I'd been working 5 weekends straight (at least a Sat/Sun). Looking back, insane, now I'd be having a conversation with my manager. Sometimes it's hard when the "norm" is to work these extra hours. Where I live now, I have worked a normal 8:45ish to 5:15ish and haven't had to stay late or work weekends in years. It can be like that, I reckon it _ought_ to be like that. If your contract says 40 hours a week, why would you work more? You're just reducing your hourly rate. Now, I don't mind putting in extra effort if needed, no worries, but if it's the culture that it's just long hours, well that's crazy.
  • flanbiscuit 10y ago
    > You're just reducing your hourly rate. This is how I've always explained to people who constantly work overtime in salaried positions where they don't actually get paid for that overtime. You can at look at it one of 2 ways. 1. Your billable self stopped at the 8-hour mark on a given weekday and every hour after that, including weekends, you're just giving away free labor to the company. Just think about that every time you're working overtime, every minute after 8-hours you're freely giving away to the company. This is your personal free time. 2. Or, like patrickdavey said, you dilute your hourly worth. Say you're a dev who makes $90K, that's roughly $43.xx/hr for a 40 hour work week. But if you're actually working 50hr work weeks you're now worth $34.xx, and so on. The company just saved money on you (or they are making money off you).
    • ThePawnBreak 10y ago
      Do you also account for the fact that you are way more likely to be promoted if you work overtime?
      • OpenDrapery 10y ago
• kamaal 10y ago
  The problem is never more working hours. Nobody minds working extra hours as long as they are paid for it. The problem really is companies expecting people to do far more then anything they are ready to pay for. Sometime its even more worse when a few people have to make up for other people, and then watch the lazy group get rewarded better for political reasons. The real issue is resentment not extra working hours.
  • resmote 10y ago
    They don't?
  • majewsky 10y ago
    > Nobody minds working extra hours as long as they are paid for it. "As long as they are paid for it" may already be fairyland. A usual clause in employment contracts for developers in Germany goes like "The salary is X per month. Overtime is satisfied by this."
    • biztos 10y ago
      Don't larger companies in Germany usually do flex-time (Gleitzeit) for non-management employees? So, my boss can require that I work an extra 10 hours this week, but I need to get it back at some point, right?
      • mschuetz 10y ago
        I know it as "Zeitausgleich". You don't get paid overtime but you accumulate time off. Pretty much like getting additional vacation days. And to be honest, I kind of like this system. I'm happy to work >40h every now and then, but I won't work >40h on average.
  • cookiecaper 10y ago
    There are people that have obligations outside of the work day, particularly people with families. You couldn't pay me to work a 12 hour day, for example, because those hours are reserved for my wife and kids. Emergencies are one thing, but no way would I accept it as routine, even if I got paid extra.
• thedonkeycometh 10y ago
  I read up to the part where he said he worked at google, then shut my computer down and jumped out of a window.
  • Smircio- 10y ago
    It IS always Google isn't it? That's what turned me off of Quora. For me every other post is, "I work at Google and I think this", or the flip side someone asking about Google.
  • freyr 10y ago
    Could you explain?
    • initram 10y ago
      I've not worked at Google, but my guess is that: 1) Google is able to be flexible about many things that other companies are not 2) If you work at Google, you have many job opportunities open to you that others might not. So just leaving and finding or creating a job where you can work fewer hours is much easier than someone working in a lower-end position for a small company in a market with few opportunities.
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
• zelos 10y ago
  What do people consider an average work week? I do 37.5hrs religiously and have never had a problem. A good fraction of developers at head office do 30-32hrs (4 days/wk).
  • biztos 10y ago
    I consider 40-ish to be "normal" but I don't always organize my time that way, it's just some ingrained cultural thing because I'm from the USA. When I feel like I'm working much less than 40, I check my productivity. If my productivity feels good I stop worrying; if not then I try to work more. (I've been in the game long enough to have a pretty good sense of this.) When I feel like I'm working much more than 40, I worry about my time-management and try to correct it. I would find it completely reasonable for someone else to do the same reckoning with 30 instead of 40 hours, as long as they get shit done. On the occasions when I've found myself stuck in crazy ruts, like six months at 80 hours per week, in hindsight it's always been because I followed some wrong lead -- a workaholic boss, an arbitrary deadline -- that I didn't actually have to follow.
• antirez 10y ago
  I don't know what's the perfect amount of work every week, but I'm sure anything > 40h is wrong, and you should add commute time if more than 30min/day, otherwise it's a fake figure. In 36-40h/week it's possible to do a lot of things. If you can't often is not because of the time, but because the same people wanting you to work more vaporize your time with meetings, conference calls, emails, phone calls, at a rate that makes it impossible for you to work. Or your coworkers are tempesting you with questions. Or your boss is switching your goal every day not allowing you to produce properly. Or you lack discipline to sit down and work instead of surfing random websites. Anyway whatever the problem is, the solution is NEVER to work more than 40h. Working more can just lead to a shitty life, depression, burn-out, and so forth.
  • dx034 10y ago
    I wouldn't necessarily draw the line there. It always depends on your situation. If you don't have a family, working 7.30am-5.30pm (my approx working hours) 5 days per week still allows you to have enough time to spend with friends and for side projects. If your really dedicated to your project and have no family waiting at home, why should you always leave after 8 hours? Sitting in front of the TV at home isn't necessarily better than an interesting project at work. Will not always be the case, so it's (in my opinion) completely normal to work longer during some months of the year and shorter during others. For me, flexibility is clearly more importan than working hours. It's great to have a workplace where you can go for a long lunch once in a while or a doctor's appointment without anyone raising questions. It's about being able to make plans. If I know that I can go out for Dinner next Wed on 5pm then it's no problem to work longer on other days. Not being able to plan this sucks, no matter how much you actually work. But I agree that if the work environment is unproductive, working more is definitely not the solution.
    • antirez 10y ago
      7.30/5.30 works, but if you think at the lunch pause and the inevitable things to do a few hours a week, you are into the 40h limits more or less... This is why I say 40h is likely the limit. Then if it's 38 or 43... is a small percentage, but 50 is already out of order and 60 crazy IMHO.
• bikamonki 10y ago
  Where I live IT workers are not fairly valued, the average one can charge and still get contracts is around USD $30/hr. As such, reducing working hours will make it really difficult to pay bills (forget about early retirement). So, instead of working less I work on developing products that bring in passive income. These products are not the next ubers, just small B2B apps that serve local/niche markets. I started this strategy a couple of years ago and now half my income comes from selling my time while the other half comes from selling saas. Furthermore, time is limited so income from selling dev hours can only increase if rates increase or if extra hands are hired. Selling saas does not have this growth restriction.
  • shostack 10y ago
    Can you share some examples of these projects?
• makecheck 10y ago
  One red flag is this: does a company zealously track every hour of vacation time but not even give you a place to log overtime? These two things should be treated with equal importance because they are fundamentally the same measurement. If they expect you to take precisely 2 weeks of vacation a year then be sure to reward them by doing precisely 8 hours of work each day. If they have leniency in vacation, reward them with some leniency in when you are willing to handle emergency situations.
  • triplesec 10y ago
    or four weeks' vacation in a jurisdiction with humane labour practices
    • adrianratnapala 10y ago
      I agree that 28 days is reasonable while 14 isn't really. But if we start calling 14 "inhumane", then we are in danger of losing our grip on what what inhumanity is. Which is to lose our grip on our moral compass.
      • grecy 10y ago
        "inhumane relative to the developed world", then.
      • triplesec 10y ago
        I'd rather lose my grip in that direction than in the other
  • CodeMage 10y ago
    Overtime? For software engineers? Where?
  • gwbas1c 10y ago
    I nearly lost it once when an employer asked me to start deducting vacation time for some appointments. My answer was a shouted, "No, I work late for you and you call me up on the weekends and make me spend half of my day looking at phony database problems. If I have to deduct time for an appointment I will find another job." The topic was never brought up again.
• biztos 10y ago
  Does it count as irony that the only hope for a sane work week is coding with rules?
• jnordwick 10y ago
  Let me come in with a contradictory opinion especially on the overtime. You don't work for your current salary, you work for your next one. If you are one of those 9 to 5 ers, don't complain when the guy working 60 hours and more gets that promotion over you. The higher up the ladder you go, the more that will be required of you. Also, startups or high paying jobs will require more of you since you will get getting more in return for better performance. It is a trade off, and as you get older your priorities change. But there is a trade off to be made. 60 hours is the norm in my field, and often I'll put out more (including the random 2am call), and sometimes much more.
  • jazzyk 10y ago
    >when the guy working 60 hours and more gets that promotion over you Plenty of people who work hard (whether 40 or 60 hours/week) do not get promoted because they can't or won't spend half of that time on self-promotion. They are seen as valuable worker-bees, but promotions go to self-promoters and schmoozers.
  • formula1 10y ago
    This is the culture you want to support and see thrive? Or are you a survival of the fittest kind of person? Many people in the software community believe in opensource and freedom of information. A single one of us often replaces at least 20 peoples jobs due to automation and that number will go up. Tech attracts the most spineless yet sweet personalities. With all this in mind, you believe that the person allowing you to live should dictate the lifestyle you are allowed to. And their choice is one of "12 hours is not enough but you need sleep so you can do it again tomarrow". Do you want to live your life with only glimpses of the outside world? Do you think success in the ccorperate bubble is worth more than exploring what you want?
  • taeric 10y ago
    I have a simple rebuttal to that. It doesn't scale. This is actually sign of poor management. You should not reward people for working 60+ hours. If you want to reward anyone, you should find the ones that can get the same work done in about 30 hours. Hard to believe, but they do exist. What you will find, is that the people that need 60 hours at one level, are likely to think they need 80 hours at the next. Or more. This clearly is not going to be available. Worse, you don't think so, but the odds are high that as you get older, you will get a family and possibly children. When that happens, the ability to get 60 hours is now in jeopardy. Heck, many weeks, that 40 is tough. Note carefully, I do not believe you should punish people for working extra hours. But incentives should not be such that they are required or encouraged. Unless you like seeing ruined lives. And businesses.
• ryandrake 10y ago
  The "paths to a saner week" seem pretty simplistic and unrealistic. Want fewer hours? Work fewer hours! Wow, you don't say?! That simple, huh? The quote from the article is "you always have the option of unilaterally normalizing your hours." Oh reeeeally? Don't like your commute? Don't commute so much. Just snap your fingers and afford to live closer to work! Got it. Want a shorter work week? Just "negotiate" (word mentioned 9 times in the story). Oh, silly me, I was forgetting all of that extra power most people have in the employee/employer relationship! Any advice for those of us living in the real world?
  • mixmastamyk 10y ago
    While it's true few people can snap their fingers to accomplish these goals, you certainly can over a period of 5-10 years by working on them consciously.
  • NoGravitas 10y ago
    Take advantage of the one proven means of normalizing the negotiation power between you and your employer: join a union, organize your shop, and take advantage of collective bargaining rights. This is obviously easier said than done, but at least it's not based on magical thinking.
    • adrianratnapala 10y ago
      Or become a contractor. That's what I'm doing.
    • itamarst 10y ago
      Unionizing is definitely an option... but it's worth noting that the balance of power between programmers and employers isn't the same as factory workers. In particular the means of production are so cheap anyone can start a software company.
  • AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    If your employer expects constant overtime from you, start looking. When you have an offer from a sane place in hand, quit your current job. On the way out, tell them why. It might help the others who are still there. In a world that complains about a shortage of programmers, you have more leverage than you may think.
• grecy 10y ago
  I think the easiest and most overlooked piece of advice revolves around cell phones. When you start a new job, under no circumstance should you give them your personal cell phone number. Tell them it's inappropriate, tell them it could turn into a conflict of interest, tell them you don't have a cell (true for me), tell them you can't afford a cell, tell them you can't afford roaming, tell them you only have data, not a number, tell them anything you have to so you don't give them your personal cell number. Don't ever, ever let them install anything on your phone either, "BYOD" style. Same applies for your home number, if you have one, and your personal email address. Setup a different email and google voice number for the purposes of interviewing, etc. Once you have a job, don't respond to it "real time". Now, if they want you to have a work cell, they can provide and pay for it, and before you put a hand on it, you make them very, very clearly document under what circumstances and times you are expected to answer that phone, and what compensation you get for doing so. If they won't provide extra compensation, you make it very clear your home commitments (kids, sick family, make something up) are your priority, and you won't be taking that cell home with you. Leave it in your desk drawer at work, turn it on at 8:30am and turn it off at 5pm and leave it there. If your employer won't accept that, find another one. Life is too short.
• jnordwick 10y ago
  I think it also depends on the industry and way you are paid. If you are getting paid $100k doing simple web work, CRUD database stuff, JEE plumbing type where, wiring together libraries with Spring, etc. then you are probably going to complain about working more hours. If you are getting paid $250k or $300k doing something highly interesting that comes with tight deadlines like finance or trading, then you are going to push yourself a lot harder. And especially if much of your pay is bonus-based, you will definitely push harder. For example, working in the front-office of a trading company where even developers are getting paid mostly in bonus it is very common to put in more than 60 hours a week. And people love it because the work it very exciting. One of the most important questions is do you love what you do. I love working in front-office in finance, and i'll gladly put in plenty of hours, especially since getting the promotion to director or principal carries a huge pay increase. I don't work for my current salary, I work for the next one. I don't do any side projects because getting that next strategy or gateway up and running is worth more than any project I could work on. My job is my side project. And I really like it that way. Instead of figuring out to only work so many hours, why not try to figure out how to find jobs that excite you more. Find that field you really love and that pays you well or find that startup where you can really see yourself making a huge contribution.
  • formula1 10y ago
    In my opinion, when you work for bonuses/commission they have effectively hired you as a contractor. At that point you are your own business and can go anywhere. But you give away the rights to your work for stability in income, scalable structure and having a team. Edit* also capital is pretty important which huge companies have and being self employed becomes more difficult to obtain But, like any self owned business, you get out what you put in.
  • shostack 10y ago
    Your point about comp is really important. In roles where I felt I was not paid enough, and the pay was not life changing to begin with, I definitely valued my work/life balance more. In roles where significant changes in quality of life came from the job or comp, I pushed myself harder if it materially improved my outcomes. That said, if your goals are financial independence, everyone needs to do a real reality check as to whether their current job (or even career path if you are junior) will ever let you reach that with your target lifestyle. I know people who love what they do, but the reality is I can't see how they could ever retire with what they earn even with a relatively frugal lifestyle. On the flip side, I have an ibanker relative who would be on track for financial independence in his early thirties if only he didn't live an ibanker lifestyle.
• jefe_ 10y ago
  Lots of work isn't always bad, but we move in the direction of where we spend our time. First decide, where do I want to be in 1,3,5 years? Map your time usage (including work & leisure), determine how much truly free-time you have left and split it into 9. Spend 5/9 of free-time positioning for where you want to be in 1 year, 3/9 positioning for where you want to be in 3 years, and 1/9 positioning for where you want to be in 5 years. If your 1,3 & 5 year goals relate to climbing ladder at company you're in now, then your work weeks may be many hours (Jeffrey Immelt of GE for example), if your goal is successful completion of a project your managing due in 1 year, so you can move to another company in 3 years and then do whatever after that, your workweeks this year will be standard hours + 5/9 of your free time. The further the goal, the less time you devote today, but if you devote no time, the goal won't ever happen. This is the cost of leadership.
• gavanwoolery 10y ago
  I can't stress how important it is to cut commuting out of your life. I know many people who commute an hour each way, each day. Two hours per day. ~500 hours per year. Thats 20 to 30 days of your life each year wasted commuting, depending on whether or not you just count waking hours. And not only are you not making money those hours, you are spending it - on gas, insurance, the life of your vehicle, etc.
  • shostack 10y ago
    Last year I moved from 1.2 miles away from work with a ~10 min. door-to-door commute whether I biked or drove, to roughly a 16 mile 30-45 min. commute each way (depending on traffic) in order to buy a house, get more space, etc. I desperately wish I had my old commute back, but am making the sacrifice for the time being and enjoying the gorgeous drive home on 280 as the sun sets while listening to some relaxing music or podcasts. That said, the car maintenance costs have gone up, gas has gone way up, and my free time has gone down. Those are all real costs. I did the math on them before the move, but the real cumulative impact of the reduced free time was something that didn't really hit me until I was doing it. If only non-engineering jobs had as much flexibility with remote work.
• krupan 10y ago
  Here's the somewhat passive aggressive approach. 1. Make sure you either arrive at work before your boss each day, or leave after your boss each day, or at least the large majority of days. 2. A couple times a week answer an email or two during the evening or weekend, preferably ones your boss will see. This doesn't have to take very much time. Don't force it, make sure they are emails that you are actually interested in and have a good response to. 3. Work smart and hard when you are working, be above average on your team despite probably spending less time in the office. 4. Work longer hours than you normally do when it's something really fun and you don't have much going on at home anyway. That situation does arise from time to time. Make sure, in a very natural way, that your boss notices when you do this, probably by telling him/her how fun it was. 5. When you have to duck out for an hour or two for the dentist or whatever, don't tell your boss unless you absolutely have to (e.g., you have to miss a meeting with him/her). You are an adult, he/she doesn't need to know where you are at all times. You don't ask permission to go to the bathroom, do you? In short, don't emphasize to your boss, "I'm not going to be working for the next little while" if you don't have to. 6. Keep all commitments that you make to be at work at a certain time. Try not to make very many of those commitments. Instead commit to getting work done, not just being somewhere. If you are doing all that, you can work less than 40 hours most weeks and nobody will care.
• contingencies 10y ago
  If your biggest concern with work is how many hours you are doing, then you have bigger problems.