7 ms·

One of the opening lines resonated with me: "...I cannot trust employers to provide me with an adequate work environment." This is becoming more and more th

by Jaruzel 10y ago

One of the opening lines resonated with me: "...I cannot trust employers to provide me with an adequate work environment." This is becoming more and more the default position, especially in the contract market. A recent contract I had, had quite poor office space - small old desks, old 17" monitors, no personal storage, chairs in poor repair, and a badly working hot-desk system (I have yet to encounter 'working' hot-desking). As a designer, I was expected to work on these 17" monitors (or 15" laptop screens) do multiple large document work, and loads of complex diagrams in Visio. Not a fun experience. In comparison, my home office contains an executive office chair bought to my specifications, a large desk laid out just for me, and a nice 24" 1920x1200 monitor (soon to be replaced with a 27" 2456x1440 one). I have Skype for audio and video calls, and my kitchen has food and drink in it that I actually like. When I'm in the zone, and working from home, my productivity is doubled compared to working in a poor open plan environment, so where I can, I request work from home arrangements in my contracts. Like the author of the article, I too am not a morning person - people may scoff at this, but it's a real thing. Before noon I am almost useless, the proverbial bear with a sore head. Once the sun is past the yard arm however, my focus kicks in, and I can power through my tasks until about 8pm-10pm. It's a full working day, just offset. I don't really know the point I'm making here... but I do empathise heavily with the article author.

gcp 10y ago
In most engineering offices I've been into being a morning person would mean you have less overlap with everyone else, since coming in late and staying late is the norm. In one company I consulted for, a morning person almost got fired when a regional manager noticed he left 2 hours earlier than everyone else. It was hilarious, in the saddest possible way.
- lj3 10y ago
  Can confirm; I have been that morning person who left 2 hours before everyone else and, while I didn't get fired, I was punished for it.
  - mbrzuzy 10y ago
    This is problem with flex time. Companies love to advertise flex time, but when you come in at 7am and leave at 3, you get tons of looks and even the odd comment.
    - lj3 10y ago
      It my case, things went beyond odd looks. You're technically obeying the company policy, so they can't punish you officially, but there are lots of ways to punish you unofficially for violating an unwritten social convention. In my case, suddenly I wasn't trusted with working on anything more complicated than the most basic bug fix.
    - traviswingo 10y ago
      The tons of looks and odd comments bug the shit out of me. Being an engineer, my job is to produce, period. Don't worry about where it happens, just know that every time you pick up the phone and promise something that doesn't exist to someone else, the fact that it suddenly, magically, exists for you to show them is because people like me are plugging away around the clock. Dev work isn't 9-5. It's 24/7 and whenever the light bulb goes off.
      - traviswingo 10y ago
        This isn't an angry rant - I just had a large cup of coffee so I'm in my "no bullshit" mode :)
      - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
        well.. yes and no. you aren't developing in a vacuum unless you're the only dev in the company, and even in that case you'd have some coordination to do. drives me nuts when I need to run something by a dev and he's gone at 2 pm and I need to wait till he gets into the beer-induced code rage mode at 10 pm and even then he might be on slack or maybe not :)
        middlering 10y ago
- westbywest 10y ago
  Having young children can place constraints on your ability to shift work hours away from conventional 9-5. Childcare/schooling/etc are not as flexible in the schedules they follow, and not everyone has a spouse/partner with sufficient free time to compensate for your unavailability.
  - gcp 10y ago
    School starts at 8.45 and ends at 15.30hrs here. Without shifting work hours, it's outright impossible to take care of kids with 2 working partners, unless you want the kids to spend a lot of time in aftercare etc. With shifting hours, it's possible by shifting both partners relative to each other, so IMHO this is a point in favor of flex hours. In reality, most families need help from grandparents, too.
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    Another difficulty is that very young children don't always understand the concept of "daddy is working now and can't play". Hell, not all spouses understand the concept of "no, just because I'm home doesn't mean I can watch the kids while you go out and run errands". Being physically in an office somewhere else helps to prevent the lines between "work time" and "home time" from becoming blurred.
    - gcp 10y ago
      Never had problems explaining to the kids I'm unavailable during work time. You pretty much need a separate office room, of course. Home time and work time do end up hopelessly intermingled, but it works both ways. The extra flexibility ends up giving me more time with my kids, I think.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    Exactly. This is why people with children shouldn't also have jobs. At least one person needs to be at home to take care of the kids. However, with divorce so commonplace, you can't count on having one spouse earning an income any more, it's just too much of a risk, so I don't think anyone should have any kids at all. Having kids simply is not compatible with living in modern society. (No, this is not satire.)
- gozur88 10y ago
  This doesn't surprise me. Early in my career I tried to take advantage of flex time so I could miss commute traffic. I came in at 6:00 and tried to leave at 3:00. Three things would happen: 1) Managers scheduled meetings at 3:00 or even 4:00. "Yeah, I know you normally leave at 3:00, but this is the only time I could find where everyone was free." Dolt. I'm not free. 2) I'm sitting at my desk at 2:45 and someone walks in with a Problem. It's not something that can't wait until tomorrow in the great scheme of things. But they're planning to work until 7:00, and if I don't solve this problem they're going to be unable to do anything until tomorrow. 3) I'm in the groove. My fingers are flying, code is being created. Five or six mental balls are in the air. I'm in a mental state that doesn't happen all the time, or even every day. I don't want to stop, and it's time to go home. If I came in late like everyone else the longer I stay the better my commute. But since I came in early every minute I stay is two minutes I lose from my day. So do I shut down and leave, or do I mentally commit myself to staying for at least three more hours? Beyond that, while being all alone is great if you have everything you need, I found people need input from me and vice versa quite a bit more often than I expected, which really cut down on the actual productivity.
NTripleOne 10y ago
As far as I'm concerned, hot desking as a concept doesn't even exist - you either (get) move(d) around a lot or you don't.
Touche 10y ago
Just curious, as I'm a morning person, when do you get non-work stuff done? I start work at 8 and stop at 5. From 5 to 8/8:30 I'm doing chores like cleaning up the house, running errands, making dinner, washing dishes. I get an hour or two of relaxation in watching a movie or reading a book and then I go to bed. When do night people fit in the time for that sort of stuff? I would imagine that you could do that sort of thing in the morning when I'm working but my perception (perhaps false) is that night people sleep in later.
- gr3yh47 10y ago
  as a night person, Ive worked in 2 slightly different optimal modes 1 - I wake up at 8 and get repetitive stuff done from 8-9 before I leave for work. this wakes me up and gets my day started. anything remaining gets done after work 2 - a simple couple/few hour shift from your paradigm. at work from 10-whenever. get stuff done for a couple hours after i get home. we're getting up later but we're also going to bed later.
  - Touche 10y ago
    Yeah, if it's only a couple of hours shift then there's not a huge difference, you just do chores a little later than morning people. I'm thinking more in terms of the true night people, those like in the grandparent comment who don't really start working until noon and stop at 9:30 or 10. There's real practical blockers to just doing chores on a time shift there. You can't do a lot of errands at 10:30 at night, most places are closed. You can do some stuff, like pick up groceries, but most businesses are closed by 9pm. My admittedly biased perception is that night people tend to be younger and have fewer responsibilities that need their time. Instead of making dinner they just eat out most of the time.
    - gcp 10y ago
      You need to do the groceries in the morning, shortly after shops open. There's usually less long waiting lines than at 6pm, too. The main problem, in my experience, is making appointments.
- 10y ago
intoverflow2 10y ago
> Like the author of the article, I too am not a morning person - people may scoff at this, but it's a real thing. Before noon I am almost useless, the proverbial bear with a sore head. Barely done an ounce of work before 11:00 in my entire working life. At home at least I can ease into it and work later comfortably. While I'm working in an office there is always someone super focused on how many bums are on seats at 9:30 every morning (even in places with flexible hours this always seems to inevitably happen at some point). So I'm forced to under sleep and just procrastinate for the first few hours of the day to keep them happy. Not to mention get stressed while trying to fall asleep because I'm scared of oversleeping.

by Jaruzel 10y ago

gcp 10y ago

In most engineering offices I've been into being a morning person would mean you have less overlap with everyone else, since coming in late and staying late is the norm. In one company I consulted for, a morning person almost got fired when a regional manager noticed he left 2 hours earlier than everyone else. It was hilarious, in the saddest possible way.

lj3 10y ago
Can confirm; I have been that morning person who left 2 hours before everyone else and, while I didn't get fired, I was punished for it.
- mbrzuzy 10y ago
  This is problem with flex time. Companies love to advertise flex time, but when you come in at 7am and leave at 3, you get tons of looks and even the odd comment.
  - lj3 10y ago
    It my case, things went beyond odd looks. You're technically obeying the company policy, so they can't punish you officially, but there are lots of ways to punish you unofficially for violating an unwritten social convention. In my case, suddenly I wasn't trusted with working on anything more complicated than the most basic bug fix.
  - traviswingo 10y ago
    The tons of looks and odd comments bug the shit out of me. Being an engineer, my job is to produce, period. Don't worry about where it happens, just know that every time you pick up the phone and promise something that doesn't exist to someone else, the fact that it suddenly, magically, exists for you to show them is because people like me are plugging away around the clock. Dev work isn't 9-5. It's 24/7 and whenever the light bulb goes off.
    - traviswingo 10y ago
      This isn't an angry rant - I just had a large cup of coffee so I'm in my "no bullshit" mode :)
    - ChemicalWarfare 10y ago
      well.. yes and no. you aren't developing in a vacuum unless you're the only dev in the company, and even in that case you'd have some coordination to do. drives me nuts when I need to run something by a dev and he's gone at 2 pm and I need to wait till he gets into the beer-induced code rage mode at 10 pm and even then he might be on slack or maybe not :)
      - middlering 10y ago
westbywest 10y ago
Having young children can place constraints on your ability to shift work hours away from conventional 9-5. Childcare/schooling/etc are not as flexible in the schedules they follow, and not everyone has a spouse/partner with sufficient free time to compensate for your unavailability.
- gcp 10y ago
  School starts at 8.45 and ends at 15.30hrs here. Without shifting work hours, it's outright impossible to take care of kids with 2 working partners, unless you want the kids to spend a lot of time in aftercare etc. With shifting hours, it's possible by shifting both partners relative to each other, so IMHO this is a point in favor of flex hours. In reality, most families need help from grandparents, too.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Another difficulty is that very young children don't always understand the concept of "daddy is working now and can't play". Hell, not all spouses understand the concept of "no, just because I'm home doesn't mean I can watch the kids while you go out and run errands". Being physically in an office somewhere else helps to prevent the lines between "work time" and "home time" from becoming blurred.
  - gcp 10y ago
    Never had problems explaining to the kids I'm unavailable during work time. You pretty much need a separate office room, of course. Home time and work time do end up hopelessly intermingled, but it works both ways. The extra flexibility ends up giving me more time with my kids, I think.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  Exactly. This is why people with children shouldn't also have jobs. At least one person needs to be at home to take care of the kids. However, with divorce so commonplace, you can't count on having one spouse earning an income any more, it's just too much of a risk, so I don't think anyone should have any kids at all. Having kids simply is not compatible with living in modern society. (No, this is not satire.)
gozur88 10y ago
This doesn't surprise me. Early in my career I tried to take advantage of flex time so I could miss commute traffic. I came in at 6:00 and tried to leave at 3:00. Three things would happen: 1) Managers scheduled meetings at 3:00 or even 4:00. "Yeah, I know you normally leave at 3:00, but this is the only time I could find where everyone was free." Dolt. I'm not free. 2) I'm sitting at my desk at 2:45 and someone walks in with a Problem. It's not something that can't wait until tomorrow in the great scheme of things. But they're planning to work until 7:00, and if I don't solve this problem they're going to be unable to do anything until tomorrow. 3) I'm in the groove. My fingers are flying, code is being created. Five or six mental balls are in the air. I'm in a mental state that doesn't happen all the time, or even every day. I don't want to stop, and it's time to go home. If I came in late like everyone else the longer I stay the better my commute. But since I came in early every minute I stay is two minutes I lose from my day. So do I shut down and leave, or do I mentally commit myself to staying for at least three more hours? Beyond that, while being all alone is great if you have everything you need, I found people need input from me and vice versa quite a bit more often than I expected, which really cut down on the actual productivity.

NTripleOne 10y ago

As far as I'm concerned, hot desking as a concept doesn't even exist - you either (get) move(d) around a lot or you don't.

Touche 10y ago

Just curious, as I'm a morning person, when do you get non-work stuff done? I start work at 8 and stop at 5. From 5 to 8/8:30 I'm doing chores like cleaning up the house, running errands, making dinner, washing dishes. I get an hour or two of relaxation in watching a movie or reading a book and then I go to bed. When do night people fit in the time for that sort of stuff? I would imagine that you could do that sort of thing in the morning when I'm working but my perception (perhaps false) is that night people sleep in later.

gr3yh47 10y ago
as a night person, Ive worked in 2 slightly different optimal modes 1 - I wake up at 8 and get repetitive stuff done from 8-9 before I leave for work. this wakes me up and gets my day started. anything remaining gets done after work 2 - a simple couple/few hour shift from your paradigm. at work from 10-whenever. get stuff done for a couple hours after i get home. we're getting up later but we're also going to bed later.
- Touche 10y ago
  Yeah, if it's only a couple of hours shift then there's not a huge difference, you just do chores a little later than morning people. I'm thinking more in terms of the true night people, those like in the grandparent comment who don't really start working until noon and stop at 9:30 or 10. There's real practical blockers to just doing chores on a time shift there. You can't do a lot of errands at 10:30 at night, most places are closed. You can do some stuff, like pick up groceries, but most businesses are closed by 9pm. My admittedly biased perception is that night people tend to be younger and have fewer responsibilities that need their time. Instead of making dinner they just eat out most of the time.
  - gcp 10y ago
    You need to do the groceries in the morning, shortly after shops open. There's usually less long waiting lines than at 6pm, too. The main problem, in my experience, is making appointments.
10y ago

intoverflow2 10y ago

> Like the author of the article, I too am not a morning person - people may scoff at this, but it's a real thing. Before noon I am almost useless, the proverbial bear with a sore head. Barely done an ounce of work before 11:00 in my entire working life. At home at least I can ease into it and work later comfortably. While I'm working in an office there is always someone super focused on how many bums are on seats at 9:30 every morning (even in places with flexible hours this always seems to inevitably happen at some point). So I'm forced to under sleep and just procrastinate for the first few hours of the day to keep them happy. Not to mention get stressed while trying to fall asleep because I'm scared of oversleeping.