Eh, I'm a SysAdmin, so generally speaking, my "bugs" are quite a bit more urgent. Yeah, sometimes you need to drop everything and then go deal with it. The d

Eh, I'm a SysAdmin, so generally speaking, my "bugs" are quite a bit more urgent. Yeah, sometimes you need to drop everything and then go deal with it. The difference between a reasonable company that can keep good people and an unreasonable company that cycles through burnt-out husks is seen the day after you had to pull an all nighter. At the company you want to work for, you get a day of flex time, and even if you don't take it, you get thanked (and not berated) when you stumble in around 3pm. My general rule is "If you can't get it done before you sleep, you might as well go to sleep on whatever schedule gives you the most total productivity" This means no sleep deprivation during crunch time, unless you can reasonably stay up long enough to finish. Sleep-deprivation for projects that last more than a day is completely stupid because you trade away all your good hours tomorrow for a few more tired hours tonight. It's harder than that, too, because sleep isn't the only need. Sure you can go longer without seeing your friends/family or doing whatever it is you do to relax, probably, than you can go without sleep, but most people's performance starts to degrade sharply after a week or so of not having personal time, even if they do get enough sleep. So again, if the crunch time is going to last more than a week, having people do overtime is probably going to net you less total productivity than just having them work optimal hours. The thing is, humans have limits. there's only so many hours in a row someone can usefully work. There is no point in paying someone to sit in the seat if they are burnt out. You might as well pay them to be home doing something else, becoming not-burnt-out so they can then get something done for you the next day.