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I agree if you're talking strictly about salaried employees, because you don't get paid for that overtime work. But as a contract developer if I want to work 60

by adossi 7y ago

I agree if you're talking strictly about salaried employees, because you don't get paid for that overtime work. But as a contract developer if I want to work 60 hours each week, instead of 40, to earn an extra 50% when I invoice them at the end of the month, that is my prerogative.

sriram_sun 7y ago
I'm a contractor. I've been working extra hours continuously for a few months. The money and flexibility are great. However, more than a few times my 6yr old (Whoa, he is 6 already?) has stumbled into my home office at 9:00 PM. I've been telling myself that this should stop. But I've been ploughing on. What if my contracts run out the end of the year? I need to upgrade my skills. So I'm traveling next week for a week long programming course. I hear first hand accounts of L5 to L6 employees and first level managers working unbelievably hard. The pay off is probably "worth it" if they or their kid don't end up being "a statistic". To be in this place (CEO, Founder, AppMaGooSoft) the odds were always in their favor to begin with. So why would the odds be unfavorable going forward? As a result there will always be a group of employees willing to throw themselves head first into whatever "challenge" "management" throws down.
dtech 7y ago
That is of course your choice, but if you do that for a long time, there's a chance of burning out, divorce, losing touch with friends and family etc. Money isn't everything.
- geodel 7y ago
  'Money isn't everything' is kind of truism. Stories abound, however of divorce, losing touch with friends and family once a person faces money troubles. Note that I am not trying to justify any particular way. It is just things are going to happen irrespective of one's outlook towards money.
deleted 7y ago
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CalRobert 7y ago
It definitely is - and if you're paid overtime it's fantastic because it gives the company a signal that yes, this is possible if they need it, but it doesn't come free. I don't mean that it's bad to work hard, or long sometimes. But it MUST cause the employer some pain. I'm talking about salary jobs where meetings scheduled to end at 6 routinely run past 6:30 (even though daycare closes at 6:30 too). Where you get non-actionable pages all the goddamn time because it doesn't cost the company anything. Where you say better integration tests should be a higher priority, but nah, it's all good we've got Datadog alarms set up so let's launch that bad boy! Where week-long work trips come with the assumption you'll fly on Sunday and Saturday with no time off in lieu, and people ask how they can reach you on vacation.

by adossi 7y ago

sriram_sun 7y ago

I'm a contractor. I've been working extra hours continuously for a few months. The money and flexibility are great. However, more than a few times my 6yr old (Whoa, he is 6 already?) has stumbled into my home office at 9:00 PM. I've been telling myself that this should stop. But I've been ploughing on. What if my contracts run out the end of the year? I need to upgrade my skills. So I'm traveling next week for a week long programming course. I hear first hand accounts of L5 to L6 employees and first level managers working unbelievably hard. The pay off is probably "worth it" if they or their kid don't end up being "a statistic". To be in this place (CEO, Founder, AppMaGooSoft) the odds were always in their favor to begin with. So why would the odds be unfavorable going forward? As a result there will always be a group of employees willing to throw themselves head first into whatever "challenge" "management" throws down.

dtech 7y ago

That is of course your choice, but if you do that for a long time, there's a chance of burning out, divorce, losing touch with friends and family etc. Money isn't everything.

geodel 7y ago
'Money isn't everything' is kind of truism. Stories abound, however of divorce, losing touch with friends and family once a person faces money troubles. Note that I am not trying to justify any particular way. It is just things are going to happen irrespective of one's outlook towards money.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

CalRobert 7y ago

It definitely is - and if you're paid overtime it's fantastic because it gives the company a signal that yes, this is possible if they need it, but it doesn't come free. I don't mean that it's bad to work hard, or long sometimes. But it MUST cause the employer some pain. I'm talking about salary jobs where meetings scheduled to end at 6 routinely run past 6:30 (even though daycare closes at 6:30 too). Where you get non-actionable pages all the goddamn time because it doesn't cost the company anything. Where you say better integration tests should be a higher priority, but nah, it's all good we've got Datadog alarms set up so let's launch that bad boy! Where week-long work trips come with the assumption you'll fly on Sunday and Saturday with no time off in lieu, and people ask how they can reach you on vacation.