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> People who don't check their phones after-hours cannot be trusted to lead projects with demanding clients. Why not? Requiring off-hour access is admitting pr

> People who don't check their phones after-hours cannot be trusted to lead projects with demanding clients. Why not? Requiring off-hour access is admitting project management failure. That’s what on-call is for, and on-call engineers and management should rotate and be paid for on-call duty. For them, it’s working hours. When I’m on call for a client, I bill _for being available_, so basically for keeping the phone on.

sandworm101 8y ago
"Demanding client" doesnt mean unlimited funding. i find that the most demanding ones also look most closely at their bills.
- Xylakant 8y ago
  “Demanding client” is usually code for “behaves like a spoiled child because nobody dared to tell them no.” The most demanding clients I’ve witnessed were mid-level managers from MTV and Universal Music. Called for work being done on a weekend just because they felt like. The way I usually approach these discussions is “ok, you can have the feature built this weekend, this means people need to work their weekend, that costs 50% extra and means that the people working extra hours will be unavailable some time in the future.” Same thing with 24/7 support. It just costs money. Staff needs to be available. 90% of the people decide that Monday will be good enough. The hard fact is that someone needs to pay for 24/7. It’s either the client, the employer or the employee. It’s just that a lot of employees don’t realize that they’re getting shortchanged here with talk about engagement and promise of better projects and I’m trying my best that this doesn’t happen in my company on my watch.
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    Then they may go elsewhere, to someone not on a 9-5 monday-friday culture. Many now space people out (ie some on a w-th weekend) so the company can provide 7-day service at normal rates. I used to work in film/tv. 7-day service is a norm. 24-hour is harder, but when you have clients across different time zones, it is also a norm. Again, with big films scattering themselves across the globe, it is expected that someone in authority picks up 24/7 because your 3am is sometimes the client's 10am. You can charge more for this, but the client doesn't want to hear complaints. You will be judged on service rendered for a given price. The firm down the street, the one who can provide people on a sunday without overtime, will win the next contract.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Xylakant 8y ago
      You may have misread what I wrote. I’m not at all opposed to flex time, work schedules that include the weekend, people preferring off work hours. If someone prefers to work weekends and have weekdays off, fine. If someone prefers 6x6.66 hours instead of 5x8, good with me. People that work on drilling platforms or on ships have even more extreme schedules. Still, this is all fundamentally different from constant availability for a single person.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Good for them. If they demand that you're available 24/7, then they can pay for it.
lx3459683 8y ago
You two are talking about completely different things. There's no 'on call' for the kind of projects that parent is talking about. There's a small handful of guys who get shit done and maybe a second ring development team around them. For some people, the truly exciting work is the work where none of this stuff has been proceduralized. It's not feasible to train or do knowledge transfer between two shifts for these projects.
- Xylakant 8y ago
  What if that single person, the hero that bears the world of this project on his sole shoulders stumbles and falls, falls ill, or simply wants to go on holidays and sit in the desert without cell reception? Stop the world? I know folks that sit on packed bags, ready to fly to Alaska and hike another 50 miles to fix failing cell infrastructure, but even they have a notion of “i’m on duty now and I’m off duty.” And on top, they get paid a shitload of money for being available just in case.
  - lx3459683 8y ago
    At least in a startup environment, the bus factor risk isn't even on the same order of magnitude as much more tangible stuff like the client walking away. Doubling your labor costs to mitigate a risk that doesn't make the top 3 is just bad business. Sometimes it's not even an option. You make a deal with your #1s that they will get the fun projects, the paid vacations when the current crisis is over, the completely flexible hours and full autonomy. Anything they want within reason, as long as shit gets done. It's not for everyone, but I can see where GP is coming from.
    - Xylakant 8y ago
      So you’d rather like that the employees foot the bill? Someone needs to pay for that prized 24/7. Note that you can scrounge up an on-call schedule with three people, two if you squeeze it. Flex hours is a thing that helps, but even there must be an agreement that when you’re off, you’re off. Companies can be stuck in perceived crisis mode for years at a time.
kartan 8y ago
> Requiring off-hour access is admitting project management failure. You are completely right. Management lack of competence is pushed down and transforms in extra working hours for everyone else. In this kind of company, people are always putting down fires instead of working strategically. That causes more fires and more extra work at any time of the day.

sandworm101 8y ago

"Demanding client" doesnt mean unlimited funding. i find that the most demanding ones also look most closely at their bills.

Xylakant 8y ago
“Demanding client” is usually code for “behaves like a spoiled child because nobody dared to tell them no.” The most demanding clients I’ve witnessed were mid-level managers from MTV and Universal Music. Called for work being done on a weekend just because they felt like. The way I usually approach these discussions is “ok, you can have the feature built this weekend, this means people need to work their weekend, that costs 50% extra and means that the people working extra hours will be unavailable some time in the future.” Same thing with 24/7 support. It just costs money. Staff needs to be available. 90% of the people decide that Monday will be good enough. The hard fact is that someone needs to pay for 24/7. It’s either the client, the employer or the employee. It’s just that a lot of employees don’t realize that they’re getting shortchanged here with talk about engagement and promise of better projects and I’m trying my best that this doesn’t happen in my company on my watch.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  Then they may go elsewhere, to someone not on a 9-5 monday-friday culture. Many now space people out (ie some on a w-th weekend) so the company can provide 7-day service at normal rates. I used to work in film/tv. 7-day service is a norm. 24-hour is harder, but when you have clients across different time zones, it is also a norm. Again, with big films scattering themselves across the globe, it is expected that someone in authority picks up 24/7 because your 3am is sometimes the client's 10am. You can charge more for this, but the client doesn't want to hear complaints. You will be judged on service rendered for a given price. The firm down the street, the one who can provide people on a sunday without overtime, will win the next contract.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - Xylakant 8y ago
    You may have misread what I wrote. I’m not at all opposed to flex time, work schedules that include the weekend, people preferring off work hours. If someone prefers to work weekends and have weekdays off, fine. If someone prefers 6x6.66 hours instead of 5x8, good with me. People that work on drilling platforms or on ships have even more extreme schedules. Still, this is all fundamentally different from constant availability for a single person.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
Good for them. If they demand that you're available 24/7, then they can pay for it.

lx3459683 8y ago

You two are talking about completely different things. There's no 'on call' for the kind of projects that parent is talking about. There's a small handful of guys who get shit done and maybe a second ring development team around them. For some people, the truly exciting work is the work where none of this stuff has been proceduralized. It's not feasible to train or do knowledge transfer between two shifts for these projects.

Xylakant 8y ago
What if that single person, the hero that bears the world of this project on his sole shoulders stumbles and falls, falls ill, or simply wants to go on holidays and sit in the desert without cell reception? Stop the world? I know folks that sit on packed bags, ready to fly to Alaska and hike another 50 miles to fix failing cell infrastructure, but even they have a notion of “i’m on duty now and I’m off duty.” And on top, they get paid a shitload of money for being available just in case.
- lx3459683 8y ago
  At least in a startup environment, the bus factor risk isn't even on the same order of magnitude as much more tangible stuff like the client walking away. Doubling your labor costs to mitigate a risk that doesn't make the top 3 is just bad business. Sometimes it's not even an option. You make a deal with your #1s that they will get the fun projects, the paid vacations when the current crisis is over, the completely flexible hours and full autonomy. Anything they want within reason, as long as shit gets done. It's not for everyone, but I can see where GP is coming from.
  - Xylakant 8y ago
    So you’d rather like that the employees foot the bill? Someone needs to pay for that prized 24/7. Note that you can scrounge up an on-call schedule with three people, two if you squeeze it. Flex hours is a thing that helps, but even there must be an agreement that when you’re off, you’re off. Companies can be stuck in perceived crisis mode for years at a time.

kartan 8y ago

> Requiring off-hour access is admitting project management failure. You are completely right. Management lack of competence is pushed down and transforms in extra working hours for everyone else. In this kind of company, people are always putting down fires instead of working strategically. That causes more fires and more extra work at any time of the day.