5 ms·

If you stay in the office any longer, I’ll start charge you rent

61 points by sebazzz 8y ago

EZ-E 8y ago
Working anymore than 40h a week as developper for someone else is non-sense is you just earn a fixed salary
- baldfat 8y ago
  I have never had a salary job that did not require on a regular bases over 40 hours a week. I worked for a college and during August I would work easily 70+ hours a week getting ready for the school year.
  - saiya-jin 8y ago
    On contrary, I never had such a job - always 40h weeks, having 6 different employers. In past 15 years I worked literally once hard over whole weekend, to deliver on Monday 1am. In my current work I had to come during weekend once every few months for go-live, but it was due to business nature of employer - you can't patch ebanking or banking core integration during week (unless fixing showstoppers of course). I have some colleagues around me who work more than I do, for no good reason - they don't get pay more because of this, some vague promise never put on paper/email that maybe yearly bonus will reflect that (it rarely does), or they might get a raise (they rarely do), or even get promoted (happened like once in past 6 years). Surprisingly, their private life ain't very rich, they definitely don't compensate "quantity with quality". The remaining life that you have - be it next 30 or 60 years, NOW are the best times to enjoy it. You will not get healthier or stronger over time, you will not have more free time or motivation. You can't put a price on a life lived well. What you definitely can do is having regrets later, when its too late.
    - AndrewDucker 8y ago
      Yup, I work 35-40 hours a week, outside of emergencies and legislative deadlines.
- jgforbes 8y ago
  I agree, but feel that this is something that only comes with experience. It's very easy as a new grad to not value your time as much as it's worth (imposter syndrome maybe?). I signed a contract for $X salary for Y hours of work. If I work 1.5Y I never got paid $1.5X. That's a lesson most developers need to internalize.
jstanley 8y ago
> I’m going to assume that this job pay six to nine times more than the average developer can make [...] > I’m assuming there is no such upside. So which is it? :)
- j2ko4r 8y ago
  You cut both sentences midway through in full they read: >Based on the job posting and the interaction of the CEO on twitter, I’m going to assume that this job pay six to nine times more than the average developer can make, because otherwise I can’t really figure out why anyone would work in such a place. And, >For this job posting, again based solely on the text and the CEO’s behavior, I’m assuming there is no such upside. The first quote is a complete enclosed thought about how for such a large downside there must be a large upside. It sets up the rest of the article. The second quote comes much later in the article after he's explored why he thinks the 60+ work week is such a bad thing and given examples of careers where it is prevalent and that in most cases come with an upside to balance it. He's returning to the starting assumption and coming to a conclusion for the article based on all the points he's made in it including that the behaviour of the CEO makes it unlikely in his opinion that the job really will pay the employee back for all they give up to work a 60+ hour week. This isn't a contradiction you've just smashed together two sentence fragments without considering the context that led up to them.
peteboyd 8y ago
This is why I stopped practicing law and started my own web design company where I could set my own schedule. We strive to work 35 hour weeks and usually come in around 35 to 40 per week. Burnout will happen at higher numbers.
c17r 8y ago
I’ll admit in my early 30s I did 7a-12a 5 (sometimes 6) days a week. But I was the founding CTO and had a good amount of skin in the game. My hours broke down as: 7a-4p support, calls, meetings, being available to the team. 4p-12a working on my coding tasks. It also involved walking around 6p-7p and “kicking out” others. Very rare was anyone else there on the weekends with me. Do I regret it? No. Would I do it again? Hell no.
- sujal 8y ago
  It sounds like you made a choice, and like the examples he cites in the article, you had significant upside. And, kicking everyone else out meant that you were aware of the tradeoffs, at least conceptually. Think a lot of us have chose tradeoffs like that in our lives. The thing that's tacky here is that the CEO assumes his employees need to behave like a founder.
ericcholis 8y ago
I think somewhere there exists a perfect happy balance between work hour requirements, project productivity and employee hours. My ideal candidate is okay with a 45+ hour requirement, BUT does not become a clock-puncher. Hopefully putting in 50+ because they want to or are deep into a project and can't step away. But, will easily coast out of the office after 40 hours on occasion. I think the focus needs to be on setting a reasonable baseline and encouraging productivity without sacrificing well-being or the work/life balance. edit: I think maybe I wasn't clear about my last point. I'm very much on the life side of the work/life balance. I'm okay with an employee who puts in 35 hours but is meeting/exceeding expectations. In fact, I encourage it. It's up to the manager and the individual to have an understanding of what's expected.
- notfromhere 8y ago
  There's really no upside to regularly working over 40 unless you have some sort of equity stake or other upside (like a being on a promotion track). The company is not going to pay you extra and you're just decreasing your hourly rate
- nextlevelwizard 8y ago
  >will easily coast out of the office after 40 hours on occasion. This is sad to read. 40 hours is the max unless you are paying overtime.
  - ericcholis 8y ago
    So, are you suggesting that the company has an overtime policy (regardless of exemption status) in an effort to reward any extra time put in? I don't disagree in the least. But, that would still need to be reviewed to prevent abuse. Much in the same way a 35 hour employee's work would need to be reviewed to ensure they aren't being unproductive.
    - beobab 8y ago
      35 hours is 5 days 9am-5pm with an hour for lunch. Reviewing for abuse is of course correct and good behaviour, but your assumption seems to be that people putting in that amount of hours are probably going to be unproductive. Is that correct, or have I misinterpreted you?
locopati 8y ago
Yeah. Good luck filling that position when there's plenty of tech jobs that are sane, healthy, and respectful to their employees.
fabricexpert 8y ago
That 60+ hour week job ad is a bit weird- surely anyone good who reads it would immediately be put off? Why would you include that? Then I read the CEOs reply after being called out for it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/larbysamirouche/status/1031416807452635136 https://twitter.com/larbysamirouche/status/10314168074526351... If you don't want to look at twitter: "Update: @dhh Nobody @GitHub cares about your tweets. The post expired. Focus on your irrelevant development framework, failed career as a race car driver, or Basecamp, which as you know, has no future and has been replaced by much better alternatives that are highly innovative." @dhh created Ruby On Rails No wonder their website is still "under construction". Who funds these kind of narcissistic idiots?
- kennydude 8y ago
  Looking at his profile is fucking terrifying of the people who agree with him > @larbysamirouche is clever to post a job ad that weeds out lazy developers, and genius to get them to tweet it out. I’ve hired devs who voluntarily work 60+ hrs bc that’s what they truly enjoy doing. They get paid for their work, and I wish I had more employees like them! https://twitter.com/jasonargall/status/1031613026552692736 https://twitter.com/jasonargall/status/1031613026552692736
- gowld 8y ago
  Inferring from his LinkedIn, his company appear to be a web marketing/advertising services company for tech-unsavvy clients, not an investor funded startup. He works in the "shady used car sales" corner of the tech biz.
- stunt 8y ago
  A) He is trolling everyone. B) A social advertisement to put Github Jobs in the spotlight. Can't believe it is real.
- ericcholis 8y ago
  Wow...can easily call out @dhh for "unsuccessful" attempts at various endeavors, but fails to recognize his impact on the very industry this guy works in? Basecamp, being around since 1999 with 50 ish employees and contributed heavily to the remote work culture. 17 years profitable is nothing to sneeze at either. I'd call a guy who can even try to be a race car driver in his spare time immensely successful.
marsrover 8y ago
I saw this Twitter thread yesterday and it was really strange and cringeworthy. I saw this guy Ryan Eagle[0] and man I just don’t think I’ve ever not liked anyone as much as I now dislike him. [0] https://twitter.com/realryaneagle/status/1031541248451125248?s=21 https://twitter.com/realryaneagle/status/1031541248451125248...
- teh_klev 8y ago
  That must surely be a parody account?
- bdcravens 8y ago
  I noticed both Ryan and Larby (job poster) are in Chicago, same city as DHH. I find it hard to believe being involved in Internet marketing and angel investing they don't know of Rails and DHH, and being in the same city as him, almost makes me think this is a joke the 3 came up over beers.
Yizahi 8y ago
Apparently this guy and his biggest "admirer" in that thread were both sued for fraud (separate cases): https://twitter.com/larbysamirouche/status/1031416807452635136 https://twitter.com/larbysamirouche/status/10314168074526351... https://www.scribd.com/document/153765712/Class-Action-Lawsuit-Against-Eagle-Web-Assets-Ryan-Eagle-Harrison-Gevirtz-Others-In-Cook-County-Circuit-Court-Chicago https://www.scribd.com/document/153765712/Class-Action-Lawsu...

61 points by sebazzz 8y ago

EZ-E 8y ago

Working anymore than 40h a week as developper for someone else is non-sense is you just earn a fixed salary

baldfat 8y ago
I have never had a salary job that did not require on a regular bases over 40 hours a week. I worked for a college and during August I would work easily 70+ hours a week getting ready for the school year.
- saiya-jin 8y ago
  On contrary, I never had such a job - always 40h weeks, having 6 different employers. In past 15 years I worked literally once hard over whole weekend, to deliver on Monday 1am. In my current work I had to come during weekend once every few months for go-live, but it was due to business nature of employer - you can't patch ebanking or banking core integration during week (unless fixing showstoppers of course). I have some colleagues around me who work more than I do, for no good reason - they don't get pay more because of this, some vague promise never put on paper/email that maybe yearly bonus will reflect that (it rarely does), or they might get a raise (they rarely do), or even get promoted (happened like once in past 6 years). Surprisingly, their private life ain't very rich, they definitely don't compensate "quantity with quality". The remaining life that you have - be it next 30 or 60 years, NOW are the best times to enjoy it. You will not get healthier or stronger over time, you will not have more free time or motivation. You can't put a price on a life lived well. What you definitely can do is having regrets later, when its too late.
  - AndrewDucker 8y ago
    Yup, I work 35-40 hours a week, outside of emergencies and legislative deadlines.
jgforbes 8y ago
I agree, but feel that this is something that only comes with experience. It's very easy as a new grad to not value your time as much as it's worth (imposter syndrome maybe?). I signed a contract for $X salary for Y hours of work. If I work 1.5Y I never got paid $1.5X. That's a lesson most developers need to internalize.

jstanley 8y ago

> I’m going to assume that this job pay six to nine times more than the average developer can make [...] > I’m assuming there is no such upside. So which is it? :)

j2ko4r 8y ago
You cut both sentences midway through in full they read: >Based on the job posting and the interaction of the CEO on twitter, I’m going to assume that this job pay six to nine times more than the average developer can make, because otherwise I can’t really figure out why anyone would work in such a place. And, >For this job posting, again based solely on the text and the CEO’s behavior, I’m assuming there is no such upside. The first quote is a complete enclosed thought about how for such a large downside there must be a large upside. It sets up the rest of the article. The second quote comes much later in the article after he's explored why he thinks the 60+ work week is such a bad thing and given examples of careers where it is prevalent and that in most cases come with an upside to balance it. He's returning to the starting assumption and coming to a conclusion for the article based on all the points he's made in it including that the behaviour of the CEO makes it unlikely in his opinion that the job really will pay the employee back for all they give up to work a 60+ hour week. This isn't a contradiction you've just smashed together two sentence fragments without considering the context that led up to them.

peteboyd 8y ago

This is why I stopped practicing law and started my own web design company where I could set my own schedule. We strive to work 35 hour weeks and usually come in around 35 to 40 per week. Burnout will happen at higher numbers.

c17r 8y ago

I’ll admit in my early 30s I did 7a-12a 5 (sometimes 6) days a week. But I was the founding CTO and had a good amount of skin in the game. My hours broke down as: 7a-4p support, calls, meetings, being available to the team. 4p-12a working on my coding tasks. It also involved walking around 6p-7p and “kicking out” others. Very rare was anyone else there on the weekends with me. Do I regret it? No. Would I do it again? Hell no.

sujal 8y ago
It sounds like you made a choice, and like the examples he cites in the article, you had significant upside. And, kicking everyone else out meant that you were aware of the tradeoffs, at least conceptually. Think a lot of us have chose tradeoffs like that in our lives. The thing that's tacky here is that the CEO assumes his employees need to behave like a founder.

ericcholis 8y ago

I think somewhere there exists a perfect happy balance between work hour requirements, project productivity and employee hours. My ideal candidate is okay with a 45+ hour requirement, BUT does not become a clock-puncher. Hopefully putting in 50+ because they want to or are deep into a project and can't step away. But, will easily coast out of the office after 40 hours on occasion. I think the focus needs to be on setting a reasonable baseline and encouraging productivity without sacrificing well-being or the work/life balance. edit: I think maybe I wasn't clear about my last point. I'm very much on the life side of the work/life balance. I'm okay with an employee who puts in 35 hours but is meeting/exceeding expectations. In fact, I encourage it. It's up to the manager and the individual to have an understanding of what's expected.

notfromhere 8y ago
There's really no upside to regularly working over 40 unless you have some sort of equity stake or other upside (like a being on a promotion track). The company is not going to pay you extra and you're just decreasing your hourly rate
nextlevelwizard 8y ago
>will easily coast out of the office after 40 hours on occasion. This is sad to read. 40 hours is the max unless you are paying overtime.
- ericcholis 8y ago
  So, are you suggesting that the company has an overtime policy (regardless of exemption status) in an effort to reward any extra time put in? I don't disagree in the least. But, that would still need to be reviewed to prevent abuse. Much in the same way a 35 hour employee's work would need to be reviewed to ensure they aren't being unproductive.
  - beobab 8y ago
    35 hours is 5 days 9am-5pm with an hour for lunch. Reviewing for abuse is of course correct and good behaviour, but your assumption seems to be that people putting in that amount of hours are probably going to be unproductive. Is that correct, or have I misinterpreted you?

locopati 8y ago

Yeah. Good luck filling that position when there's plenty of tech jobs that are sane, healthy, and respectful to their employees.

fabricexpert 8y ago

That 60+ hour week job ad is a bit weird- surely anyone good who reads it would immediately be put off? Why would you include that? Then I read the CEOs reply after being called out for it on Twitter: https://twitter.com/larbysamirouche/status/1031416807452635136 https://twitter.com/larbysamirouche/status/10314168074526351... If you don't want to look at twitter: "Update: @dhh Nobody @GitHub cares about your tweets. The post expired. Focus on your irrelevant development framework, failed career as a race car driver, or Basecamp, which as you know, has no future and has been replaced by much better alternatives that are highly innovative." @dhh created Ruby On Rails No wonder their website is still "under construction". Who funds these kind of narcissistic idiots?

kennydude 8y ago
Looking at his profile is fucking terrifying of the people who agree with him > @larbysamirouche is clever to post a job ad that weeds out lazy developers, and genius to get them to tweet it out. I’ve hired devs who voluntarily work 60+ hrs bc that’s what they truly enjoy doing. They get paid for their work, and I wish I had more employees like them! https://twitter.com/jasonargall/status/1031613026552692736 https://twitter.com/jasonargall/status/1031613026552692736
gowld 8y ago
Inferring from his LinkedIn, his company appear to be a web marketing/advertising services company for tech-unsavvy clients, not an investor funded startup. He works in the "shady used car sales" corner of the tech biz.
stunt 8y ago
A) He is trolling everyone. B) A social advertisement to put Github Jobs in the spotlight. Can't believe it is real.
ericcholis 8y ago
Wow...can easily call out @dhh for "unsuccessful" attempts at various endeavors, but fails to recognize his impact on the very industry this guy works in? Basecamp, being around since 1999 with 50 ish employees and contributed heavily to the remote work culture. 17 years profitable is nothing to sneeze at either. I'd call a guy who can even try to be a race car driver in his spare time immensely successful.

marsrover 8y ago

I saw this Twitter thread yesterday and it was really strange and cringeworthy. I saw this guy Ryan Eagle[0] and man I just don’t think I’ve ever not liked anyone as much as I now dislike him. [0] https://twitter.com/realryaneagle/status/1031541248451125248?s=21 https://twitter.com/realryaneagle/status/1031541248451125248...

teh_klev 8y ago
That must surely be a parody account?
bdcravens 8y ago
I noticed both Ryan and Larby (job poster) are in Chicago, same city as DHH. I find it hard to believe being involved in Internet marketing and angel investing they don't know of Rails and DHH, and being in the same city as him, almost makes me think this is a joke the 3 came up over beers.

Yizahi 8y ago

Apparently this guy and his biggest "admirer" in that thread were both sued for fraud (separate cases): https://twitter.com/larbysamirouche/status/1031416807452635136 https://twitter.com/larbysamirouche/status/10314168074526351... https://www.scribd.com/document/153765712/Class-Action-Lawsuit-Against-Eagle-Web-Assets-Ryan-Eagle-Harrison-Gevirtz-Others-In-Cook-County-Circuit-Court-Chicago https://www.scribd.com/document/153765712/Class-Action-Lawsu...