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I've had the luxury of a 36.5 hour work week, with no on call for about 18 years. It exists, but don't expect $300,000 salaries with it. You want to be rich, or

I've had the luxury of a 36.5 hour work week, with no on call for about 18 years. It exists, but don't expect $300,000 salaries with it. You want to be rich, or do you want to live a rich life?

mdszy 7y ago
Nobody mentioned salary amounts until you did.
- overcast 7y ago
  Astute observation. I thought it was worth mentioning in the context of what I was talking about.
tonyedgecombe 7y ago
I think you'll find people on the lower end of the pay scale get the most abuse.
mattmar96 7y ago
Id disagree here. Rarely will a $300K employee be the one on call.
- yabadabadoes 7y ago
  Not technically on call, yet it takes about 20 minutes to get through the corporate officer titles on an enterprise bridge, making it hard to complete the reboot sequence within the Platinum response time.
  - kibwen 7y ago
    We've reached a strange point where I can no longer tell if the above comment is genuine, satire, or schizophrenia.
    - overcast 7y ago
      It's like some crappy AI bot learning to interact with humans.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  When I worked for a department that had a rotating on-call person, if they didn't answer the call, then it was escalated up the chain, and sometimes that in fact happened. Nobody was actually making $300K, I don't think, but still, management was effectively always on call, just with less odds.
  - Dunedan 7y ago
    Not sure if that's still the case, but a while ago as an AWS customer with premium support you got a very extensive list of phone numbers of AWS representatives to escalate issues to in case your technical account manager or his supervisor were not available in emergencies. While I believe the list didn't include somebody from AWS' C-level, it went pretty high up. As I customer that felt very good, because it gave us the confidence that there is always somebody available in case of emergencies.
lonelappde 7y ago
FAANG disagrees. Money and proper oncall rotations and comp, because you don't run a world class site with a bus factor of 1.
- pbalau 7y ago
  My experience as both a swe and a pe at Facebook was that all the overtime I put in was caused by my peers, not by management. I even had up the ladder managers helping me during their holidays.
jermaustin1 7y ago
I'm a consultant, so this doesn't really match 1:1 with expectations of a salaried employee. My work phone goes into DnD from 5pm until 8am. I don't answer emails or phone calls, and I don't make exceptions for free. If I'm on call for a weekend, I bill 16 hours, regardless of if I worked, because I cannot go anywhere if I'm needed at my laptop. When I go on vacation, I leave my phone at home and take an sim-less android, and buy a new sim/number when I reach my destination.
- wry_discontent 7y ago
  Do you have any advice for younger developers looking to get into the consulting life? I really hate the 9-5 life, and consulting seems like the best way to break out of it.
  - overcast 7y ago
    Just start doing it, in your free time. You'll be burning the candle at both ends for a while as you build up clients, but you're young, you've got the energy and the time.
    - ticmasta 7y ago
      >> Just start doing it, in your free time. You'll be burning the candle at both ends for a while as you build up clients, but you're young, you've got the energy and the time. While you're employed? This is terrible advice. You get consulting money for combining expertise with availability. Younger employees have neither of these. If I found out one of my salaried employees was moonlighting I'd immediately be looking for evidence that it had the slightest impact on their responsibilities & performance. I'd be very surprised not to find any PDQ
      - chownie 7y ago
        This is a shortcut to major employee churn. Don't over-manage people, acknowledge and accept that the instant they clock out you no longer have any right to their time. If they're moonlighting, it means either you or they are missing something in your work contract, that should concern you.
wutbrodo 7y ago
Fwiw, I've made >300k with a hard <40 hr week. Honestly, high salaries and flexible work hours seem like they should correlate (and always have for me): both are simply a result of how in-demand your labor is. There are certain jobs that require high availability, but many that don't, and if you're able to command a high salary, it shouldn't be very difficult to get some of your effective comp paid out in flexibility.
- overcast 7y ago
  Sounds like you hit the jackpot. Generally high compensation demands high hours. You the man!
  - wutbrodo 7y ago
    I was very very lucky, a couple times, with the timing of what I was passionate about and what the market was interested in. And plenty of the people I know work longer hours because they're so in-demand. But I think the underlying principle is sound: if you have the market power to command high salaries, most companies wont push you away for wanting reasonable working hours.
munk-a 7y ago
Nice, I've had the luxury of 50 hour work weeks for ~65k CAD. Maybe we could compromise on everyone could working 38 or 36 hours a week for somewhere between 80k and 140k.

I've had the luxury of a 36.5 hour work week, with no on call for about 18 years. It exists, but don't expect $300,000 salaries with it. You want to be rich, or do you want to live a rich life?

mdszy 7y ago

Nobody mentioned salary amounts until you did.

overcast 7y ago
Astute observation. I thought it was worth mentioning in the context of what I was talking about.

tonyedgecombe 7y ago

I think you'll find people on the lower end of the pay scale get the most abuse.

mattmar96 7y ago

Id disagree here. Rarely will a $300K employee be the one on call.

yabadabadoes 7y ago
Not technically on call, yet it takes about 20 minutes to get through the corporate officer titles on an enterprise bridge, making it hard to complete the reboot sequence within the Platinum response time.
- kibwen 7y ago
  We've reached a strange point where I can no longer tell if the above comment is genuine, satire, or schizophrenia.
  - overcast 7y ago
    It's like some crappy AI bot learning to interact with humans.
perl4ever 7y ago
When I worked for a department that had a rotating on-call person, if they didn't answer the call, then it was escalated up the chain, and sometimes that in fact happened. Nobody was actually making $300K, I don't think, but still, management was effectively always on call, just with less odds.
- Dunedan 7y ago
  Not sure if that's still the case, but a while ago as an AWS customer with premium support you got a very extensive list of phone numbers of AWS representatives to escalate issues to in case your technical account manager or his supervisor were not available in emergencies. While I believe the list didn't include somebody from AWS' C-level, it went pretty high up. As I customer that felt very good, because it gave us the confidence that there is always somebody available in case of emergencies.

lonelappde 7y ago

FAANG disagrees. Money and proper oncall rotations and comp, because you don't run a world class site with a bus factor of 1.

pbalau 7y ago
My experience as both a swe and a pe at Facebook was that all the overtime I put in was caused by my peers, not by management. I even had up the ladder managers helping me during their holidays.

jermaustin1 7y ago

I'm a consultant, so this doesn't really match 1:1 with expectations of a salaried employee. My work phone goes into DnD from 5pm until 8am. I don't answer emails or phone calls, and I don't make exceptions for free. If I'm on call for a weekend, I bill 16 hours, regardless of if I worked, because I cannot go anywhere if I'm needed at my laptop. When I go on vacation, I leave my phone at home and take an sim-less android, and buy a new sim/number when I reach my destination.

wry_discontent 7y ago
Do you have any advice for younger developers looking to get into the consulting life? I really hate the 9-5 life, and consulting seems like the best way to break out of it.
- overcast 7y ago
  Just start doing it, in your free time. You'll be burning the candle at both ends for a while as you build up clients, but you're young, you've got the energy and the time.
  - ticmasta 7y ago
    >> Just start doing it, in your free time. You'll be burning the candle at both ends for a while as you build up clients, but you're young, you've got the energy and the time. While you're employed? This is terrible advice. You get consulting money for combining expertise with availability. Younger employees have neither of these. If I found out one of my salaried employees was moonlighting I'd immediately be looking for evidence that it had the slightest impact on their responsibilities & performance. I'd be very surprised not to find any PDQ
    - chownie 7y ago
      This is a shortcut to major employee churn. Don't over-manage people, acknowledge and accept that the instant they clock out you no longer have any right to their time. If they're moonlighting, it means either you or they are missing something in your work contract, that should concern you.

wutbrodo 7y ago

Fwiw, I've made >300k with a hard <40 hr week. Honestly, high salaries and flexible work hours seem like they should correlate (and always have for me): both are simply a result of how in-demand your labor is. There are certain jobs that require high availability, but many that don't, and if you're able to command a high salary, it shouldn't be very difficult to get some of your effective comp paid out in flexibility.

overcast 7y ago
Sounds like you hit the jackpot. Generally high compensation demands high hours. You the man!
- wutbrodo 7y ago
  I was very very lucky, a couple times, with the timing of what I was passionate about and what the market was interested in. And plenty of the people I know work longer hours because they're so in-demand. But I think the underlying principle is sound: if you have the market power to command high salaries, most companies wont push you away for wanting reasonable working hours.

munk-a 7y ago

Nice, I've had the luxury of 50 hour work weeks for ~65k CAD. Maybe we could compromise on everyone could working 38 or 36 hours a week for somewhere between 80k and 140k.