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I keep getting the calendar used against me. I'm super human by all honest measures, but management without fail starts giving me guff about going to the gym a

I keep getting the calendar used against me. I'm super human by all honest measures, but management without fail starts giving me guff about going to the gym and having lunches away from my desk. I can venture into justifying that I don't use social or anything on the clock which creates clear head space, etc etc, but it'd fall on deaf ears... I'm old school like that. But the calendar creates an attack surface. I don't want to work at such companies, it's not always been that way, but it's been consistent across shit rung startups. Management wants me at my desk 12 hours a day and always on call, and makes "jokes" about anything that I mark as time I want away from my desk. Often 2 hours discussions start 15 minutes before I have an outside event noted. I quit these jobs when the abuse threshold is crossed, but the departments are made up of mostly people on visas etc so they're not so lucky. It should never strike management as a surprise when I leave, but I get the impression they're used to dishing out abuse to "non-compliant" programmers. The bros thrive, the meek get beat down and go home to lonely apartments full of cats where they passionately code themselves to sleep with Netflix.

itronitron 9y ago
lousy management, they don't seem to understand that most of the metrics they can measure in the time span of a week are not going to be useful for predicting success
toomanybeersies 9y ago
If someone told me that I had to have lunch at my desk, I'd tell them to pound sand. In both jobs I've had, the opposite has been encouraged. At my current job, we go out for a team lunch most days (sadly not paid for by the company). I'd lose my shit if I sat at my desk for 9 hours straight. At my old job, I used to go to the gym at lunch, and it had to be at a set time due to classes. I blocked it out in my calendar indefinitely and made sure everyone knew. I also made my displeasure very apparent the few times it was booked over. As far as I was concerned, going to the gym was more productive than any meeting I could participate in, my productivity was at its peak right after the gym.
rublev 9y ago
I quit when they expect me to stay beyond 5pm. It's software. It can wait more often than not.
- carlmr 9y ago
  I've found that a lot of problems solve themselves if you stay away long enough. I can't count the number of times that some urgent issue came in when I went on vacation and by the time I got back there were more emails saying that it wasn't needed after all, or "nevermind".

itronitron 9y ago

lousy management, they don't seem to understand that most of the metrics they can measure in the time span of a week are not going to be useful for predicting success

toomanybeersies 9y ago

If someone told me that I had to have lunch at my desk, I'd tell them to pound sand. In both jobs I've had, the opposite has been encouraged. At my current job, we go out for a team lunch most days (sadly not paid for by the company). I'd lose my shit if I sat at my desk for 9 hours straight. At my old job, I used to go to the gym at lunch, and it had to be at a set time due to classes. I blocked it out in my calendar indefinitely and made sure everyone knew. I also made my displeasure very apparent the few times it was booked over. As far as I was concerned, going to the gym was more productive than any meeting I could participate in, my productivity was at its peak right after the gym.

rublev 9y ago

I quit when they expect me to stay beyond 5pm. It's software. It can wait more often than not.

carlmr 9y ago
I've found that a lot of problems solve themselves if you stay away long enough. I can't count the number of times that some urgent issue came in when I went on vacation and by the time I got back there were more emails saying that it wasn't needed after all, or "nevermind".