9 ms·

My biggest frustration at work is the colleagues - most of whom are software engineers - that are inconvenienced when being asked to consider work outside of no

My biggest frustration at work is the colleagues - most of whom are software engineers - that are inconvenienced when being asked to consider work outside of normal business hours. I don't really care if they are happy; that's what overpaying them is for. What I care about is getting one of them to answer the phone at 5:05pm on a tuesday and not getting a return call until 9:03 on a Wednesday.

cinquemb 10y ago
Solution to that is easy, just pay them less, and they'll leave, so you wont have to work with them during normal business hours!
StavrosK 10y ago
What the fuck? What is unclear about the term "non-work" meaning anything other than "they aren't at work"? If it's not during work hours, it's entirely at my discretion whether I'll pick up or not. I usually will, because my employer is good to me, but your comment sounds entitled and of exactly the type of employer I wouldn't pick up the phone for outside work hours.
taeric 10y ago
If you are constantly having a situation where you need them to answer a question as late as 4:50 on a regular basis, you've already failed. I seriously mean that. Movies and revisionist history are full of companies that successfully pulled out last minute victories. Real life is full of companies that kept that death march until the end, and blamed the workers for not keeping up.
- smileysteve 10y ago
  Steve Jobs killed Apple (Lisa, Macintosh, Apple2) and NEXT with the death marches; yet he is renowned because he did it better the last time.
  - asdfasdfa11112 10y ago
    I'd love to read more about this, without all the general Jobs fluff. Any recommendations?
throwaway368 10y ago
This is exactly the kind of moronic bs that I haven't and will not put up with. Executives most of the time are paid, and compensated to be there 24/7. Software engineers are not. While founders and other execs have tendency to forget that - deal with it. I am there between 8am - 4pm, or 6am - 2pm or what ever it says in my contract. No more, no less. You want me to do extra hours, fine, most of the time happy to, you just need to pay me for it. Oh btw -- we have this online service that needs one or more of of the devs to bring it up if it goes down at 3am - well - don't expect me to pick up the phone unless you've set up the appropriate schedule for us devs to be on call, and that we're compensated accordingly. Bottomline -- you want to call me outside work hours, then you better compensate me accordingly.
- pfarnsworth 10y ago
  My colleagues have base pays > $150k/yr and I'm closer to $200k/yr. I consider myself very well paid, I'm grateful for it, and I'm available whenever I'm needed, within reason.
  - rplst8 10y ago
    Not all software engineers make that kind of cash. In fact I'd say over 90% don't even come within 10% of that range.
  - TuringNYC 10y ago
    I once had a conversation with an HR manager in our Manhattan office, she was upset that the office cleared out at 5pm and how we didnt have a "banker's hour culture." I just nodded but knew the problem -- we had an underclass of workers, mostly H1Bs, on a tight HR-policy driven rate card, most making 2/3 or 1/2 that other workers were making. They made ends meet by living in outer New Jersey and commuting 2hrs each way. They jetted out quickly to catch the 5:35pm train out to NJ before express trains stopped. I'm sure the more we paid them the closer they could live to the office and the longer they would work. In NYC, homes and rents go down as distance to Manhattan increase. I knew this as a fairly senior manager. Many people dont realize the stark differences in pay across different classes of workers. Getting up at 3am to fix a problem doesnt work for someone who needs to then get up at 5am to commute into work. It needs more thought and I did just that -- we had workers rotate night batch schedules and gave them Work-From-Home days or late-come-in-days during on-call periods. Even some of these things require thought -- allowing someone to come in late does'nt help if they live so far away that express/local train schedules dont make it feasible to come in mid-day...the commute ends up being as long as the half-day. Sorry for the ramble, TLDR: be mindful of people's situations and things they dont control. Not everyone has it as good as you do. HR can save a dollar here but it comes out of productivity figures. Don't expect "banker's hours" but forget "banker's pay." ASIDE: Several years later, the HR group got absorbed into the executive offices in posh rural Connecticut, where few low-level workers could afford to live locally. Low-level workers were required to visit the head office 2x/wk. The same exact HR manager then complained (in earshot) of how her commute was close to 3hrs each way and how she planned to sneak out at 4:30pm because she couldn't take it anymore.
khedoros1 10y ago
I have a work phone for that purpose, currently. When I took the position, it was made clear that there would be occasional times that I'd need to work odd hours, and that my employer was going to pay for a method to contact me. We're changing management though, and in the new management's eyes, my position doesn't need to be contacted outside of work hours, so they're taking away the phones. Outside of an occasional pre-declared odd schedule, I won't have to deal with my job during my own time. If someone takes a position where it's clearly expected that they'll need to work off-hours, and they fight against that, that bothers me. It's an inconvenience that they've accepted as part of taking the position. The reverse applies too; if it isn't clear to me that a position I take will expect a certain amount of work outside of pre-agreed upon hours, I'll resent when they start piling them on.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
Yeah, there's something wrong with you. Not trying to be mean, but what you wrote, that's not normal.
drvdevd 10y ago
I've been on both sides of this equation: not wanting to be availble outside of "business hours" and also feeling frustrated when colleagues aren't available when I need them. I view this as an engineering and social process problem: your systems should be reliably engineered such that off hours maintenance or other technical issues are minimized. This gets to the social part: people will be more receptive to off hours work if its a rare occurance.
- rplst8 10y ago
  I'm not going to be on call for other's people's garbage they call a production system.
  - drvdevd 10y ago
    Exactly. And why should you? Especially if your own efforts to make something "production worthy" are shut down -- indicative of both a social and a technical problem.
nhangen 10y ago
I hear you.
allengeorge 10y ago
Sounds like you're not "overpaying" them enough then, right?

cinquemb 10y ago

Solution to that is easy, just pay them less, and they'll leave, so you wont have to work with them during normal business hours!

StavrosK 10y ago

What the fuck? What is unclear about the term "non-work" meaning anything other than "they aren't at work"? If it's not during work hours, it's entirely at my discretion whether I'll pick up or not. I usually will, because my employer is good to me, but your comment sounds entitled and of exactly the type of employer I wouldn't pick up the phone for outside work hours.

taeric 10y ago

If you are constantly having a situation where you need them to answer a question as late as 4:50 on a regular basis, you've already failed. I seriously mean that. Movies and revisionist history are full of companies that successfully pulled out last minute victories. Real life is full of companies that kept that death march until the end, and blamed the workers for not keeping up.

smileysteve 10y ago
Steve Jobs killed Apple (Lisa, Macintosh, Apple2) and NEXT with the death marches; yet he is renowned because he did it better the last time.
- asdfasdfa11112 10y ago
  I'd love to read more about this, without all the general Jobs fluff. Any recommendations?

throwaway368 10y ago

This is exactly the kind of moronic bs that I haven't and will not put up with. Executives most of the time are paid, and compensated to be there 24/7. Software engineers are not. While founders and other execs have tendency to forget that - deal with it. I am there between 8am - 4pm, or 6am - 2pm or what ever it says in my contract. No more, no less. You want me to do extra hours, fine, most of the time happy to, you just need to pay me for it. Oh btw -- we have this online service that needs one or more of of the devs to bring it up if it goes down at 3am - well - don't expect me to pick up the phone unless you've set up the appropriate schedule for us devs to be on call, and that we're compensated accordingly. Bottomline -- you want to call me outside work hours, then you better compensate me accordingly.

pfarnsworth 10y ago
My colleagues have base pays > $150k/yr and I'm closer to $200k/yr. I consider myself very well paid, I'm grateful for it, and I'm available whenever I'm needed, within reason.
- rplst8 10y ago
  Not all software engineers make that kind of cash. In fact I'd say over 90% don't even come within 10% of that range.
- TuringNYC 10y ago
  I once had a conversation with an HR manager in our Manhattan office, she was upset that the office cleared out at 5pm and how we didnt have a "banker's hour culture." I just nodded but knew the problem -- we had an underclass of workers, mostly H1Bs, on a tight HR-policy driven rate card, most making 2/3 or 1/2 that other workers were making. They made ends meet by living in outer New Jersey and commuting 2hrs each way. They jetted out quickly to catch the 5:35pm train out to NJ before express trains stopped. I'm sure the more we paid them the closer they could live to the office and the longer they would work. In NYC, homes and rents go down as distance to Manhattan increase. I knew this as a fairly senior manager. Many people dont realize the stark differences in pay across different classes of workers. Getting up at 3am to fix a problem doesnt work for someone who needs to then get up at 5am to commute into work. It needs more thought and I did just that -- we had workers rotate night batch schedules and gave them Work-From-Home days or late-come-in-days during on-call periods. Even some of these things require thought -- allowing someone to come in late does'nt help if they live so far away that express/local train schedules dont make it feasible to come in mid-day...the commute ends up being as long as the half-day. Sorry for the ramble, TLDR: be mindful of people's situations and things they dont control. Not everyone has it as good as you do. HR can save a dollar here but it comes out of productivity figures. Don't expect "banker's hours" but forget "banker's pay." ASIDE: Several years later, the HR group got absorbed into the executive offices in posh rural Connecticut, where few low-level workers could afford to live locally. Low-level workers were required to visit the head office 2x/wk. The same exact HR manager then complained (in earshot) of how her commute was close to 3hrs each way and how she planned to sneak out at 4:30pm because she couldn't take it anymore.

khedoros1 10y ago

I have a work phone for that purpose, currently. When I took the position, it was made clear that there would be occasional times that I'd need to work odd hours, and that my employer was going to pay for a method to contact me. We're changing management though, and in the new management's eyes, my position doesn't need to be contacted outside of work hours, so they're taking away the phones. Outside of an occasional pre-declared odd schedule, I won't have to deal with my job during my own time. If someone takes a position where it's clearly expected that they'll need to work off-hours, and they fight against that, that bothers me. It's an inconvenience that they've accepted as part of taking the position. The reverse applies too; if it isn't clear to me that a position I take will expect a certain amount of work outside of pre-agreed upon hours, I'll resent when they start piling them on.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

Yeah, there's something wrong with you. Not trying to be mean, but what you wrote, that's not normal.

drvdevd 10y ago

I've been on both sides of this equation: not wanting to be availble outside of "business hours" and also feeling frustrated when colleagues aren't available when I need them. I view this as an engineering and social process problem: your systems should be reliably engineered such that off hours maintenance or other technical issues are minimized. This gets to the social part: people will be more receptive to off hours work if its a rare occurance.

rplst8 10y ago
I'm not going to be on call for other's people's garbage they call a production system.
- drvdevd 10y ago
  Exactly. And why should you? Especially if your own efforts to make something "production worthy" are shut down -- indicative of both a social and a technical problem.

nhangen 10y ago

I hear you.

allengeorge 10y ago

Sounds like you're not "overpaying" them enough then, right?