8 ms·

Wow. "core hours" is full time, but there's also mandatory overtime. Anyone not in the boss's timezone has to to work weird hours to satisfy the micromanager's

by kolpa 8y ago

Wow. "core hours" is full time, but there's also mandatory overtime. Anyone not in the boss's timezone has to to work weird hours to satisfy the micromanager's desire for fiefdom face-time. Work starts before 9am every day, to prep for a 9am dressing-down. This is not a place where anyone with a choice would want to work. > * Each workday has a team standup meeting. We choose 9 a.m., because it sets the tone for the day. > * The workday has core hours when we expect people to be together. We choose core hours 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in our team's main time zone, because these are typical business hours for typical offices. > * Beyond the workday core hours, we expect people to do their own schedule

jph 8y ago
You make great points and I'll edit now to make it more clear that the goal of the ground rules is to be communicating, and the goal of the writeup is to show a bunch of examples gathered from many teams in many industries. Can you refresh the repo page now and see if it is more helpful and clear? Thank you! For example, the item about 9-5 core hours actually comes from a bank that has tellers, call center operators, and an IT staff that needs to be onsite and available for helping with physical hardware. Again, the point of the ground rules isn't the hours per se; the point is that the team writes its expectations so everyone has a good understanding.
- humbleMouse 8y ago
  9-5 core hours is bullshit. The whole point of core hours is to be a window of time where you can guarantee a meeting can be scheduled with people across time zones. This doesn't mean you have 8 hours of core hours. That's literally insane.
  - icelancer 8y ago
    Agreed. When I run teams the core hours are typically 10 AM - 2 PM or some band of 4 hours around a key time.
  - dahart 8y ago
    It feels like you didn't even read the comment you replied to. FWIW, I've worked in a company where the whole point of core hours was to have a working set of people in the building at the same time, and wasn't related to time zones or even meetings.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Not to mention you can’t adjust your hours at all to avoid rush hour or cooperate with a spouse in day care management. 9-5 is necessary for banks, but not for software developers. Having a few core hours is necessary, but if it’s 8, you can no longer call them “core”.
    - dahart 8y ago
      > if it’s 8, you can no longer call them “core” You are lucky if you think 10-12 hour work days don't exist in software development. You might also be forgetting about flex schedules, core hours may include the entire working day and may be a signal that substituting 9-10am for 5-6pm is not acceptable because you were hired to do a job that depends on your presence when others are also there. There are multiple legitimate reasons that core hours exist in 8 hour blocks in some places. And that's all moot since the specific hours in this discussion are unrelated to the point @jph was making, which he already stated kindly and clearly.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        No, they really can't do that, at least they can't document it, unless the employees are non-exempt or they wish for the employees to be paid overtime. Even having core time at all sounds like a non-exempt requirement, let alone the whole day. Many managers are completely oblivious to federal labor laws, unfortunately.
        dahart 8y ago
        It would help to have more specifics about who & what you're talking about, I'm not sure what you mean when you say they can't do that. But, I worked in a very well known Hollywood film studio that had mandatory 10 hour work days with an 8 hour core window, not including crunch times. They factored overtime pay into the schedule. This meant that all employees were being paid some 1.5 time, that double-time would hit sooner than you'd think, but also be a lower rate than what you might expect. It was all documented and reported on my tax forms, and within the bounds of California law AFAIK.
gaius 8y ago
We choose... We choose... we expect That’s the royal “we” isn’t it?

by kolpa 8y ago

jph 8y ago

You make great points and I'll edit now to make it more clear that the goal of the ground rules is to be communicating, and the goal of the writeup is to show a bunch of examples gathered from many teams in many industries. Can you refresh the repo page now and see if it is more helpful and clear? Thank you! For example, the item about 9-5 core hours actually comes from a bank that has tellers, call center operators, and an IT staff that needs to be onsite and available for helping with physical hardware. Again, the point of the ground rules isn't the hours per se; the point is that the team writes its expectations so everyone has a good understanding.

humbleMouse 8y ago
9-5 core hours is bullshit. The whole point of core hours is to be a window of time where you can guarantee a meeting can be scheduled with people across time zones. This doesn't mean you have 8 hours of core hours. That's literally insane.
- icelancer 8y ago
  Agreed. When I run teams the core hours are typically 10 AM - 2 PM or some band of 4 hours around a key time.
- dahart 8y ago
  It feels like you didn't even read the comment you replied to. FWIW, I've worked in a company where the whole point of core hours was to have a working set of people in the building at the same time, and wasn't related to time zones or even meetings.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Not to mention you can’t adjust your hours at all to avoid rush hour or cooperate with a spouse in day care management. 9-5 is necessary for banks, but not for software developers. Having a few core hours is necessary, but if it’s 8, you can no longer call them “core”.
  - dahart 8y ago
    > if it’s 8, you can no longer call them “core” You are lucky if you think 10-12 hour work days don't exist in software development. You might also be forgetting about flex schedules, core hours may include the entire working day and may be a signal that substituting 9-10am for 5-6pm is not acceptable because you were hired to do a job that depends on your presence when others are also there. There are multiple legitimate reasons that core hours exist in 8 hour blocks in some places. And that's all moot since the specific hours in this discussion are unrelated to the point @jph was making, which he already stated kindly and clearly.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      No, they really can't do that, at least they can't document it, unless the employees are non-exempt or they wish for the employees to be paid overtime. Even having core time at all sounds like a non-exempt requirement, let alone the whole day. Many managers are completely oblivious to federal labor laws, unfortunately.
      - dahart 8y ago
        It would help to have more specifics about who & what you're talking about, I'm not sure what you mean when you say they can't do that. But, I worked in a very well known Hollywood film studio that had mandatory 10 hour work days with an 8 hour core window, not including crunch times. They factored overtime pay into the schedule. This meant that all employees were being paid some 1.5 time, that double-time would hit sooner than you'd think, but also be a lower rate than what you might expect. It was all documented and reported on my tax forms, and within the bounds of California law AFAIK.

gaius 8y ago

We choose... We choose... we expect That’s the royal “we” isn’t it?