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This mirrors the sentiment of many people on HN are heavily against the idea of doing anything more than 9-5, and prefer to live the relaxed engineer life colle

This mirrors the sentiment of many people on HN are heavily against the idea of doing anything more than 9-5, and prefer to live the relaxed engineer life collecting paychecks and tending to their microbrews. Maybe the hatred stems from that there exists a large pool of engineers that are passionate about their work and are okay not measuring their work as "hours per week". And that makes the pool of engineers that don't want to do that look not desirable.

nowherebeen 6y ago
This is incredibly naive. Another view is that enough engineers have been burnt enough by these founders that they got smarter. Not everyone is looking to tend their microbrew as you think.
- Ihatelife2020 6y ago
  Hey
dkersten 6y ago
I've seen many, many people (myself included) burned by putting in many extra hours (in terms of burnout, in terms of the effort going to waste because higher ups decided to change the schedule, in terms of not being appreciated when the situation reversed), while the number of times where people, in hindsight, said it was worth it has been quite few. Its not that people aren't willing to dedicate themselves to their work, in my experience, most people do go above and beyond; its that more often than not, they get nothing for it or even suffer negative consequences long term while spending their precious time and energy to enrich someone else and end up feeling exploited. We need to stop glorifying exploitation.
- TuringNYC 6y ago
  I think this comment nails it. For me, I'm happy with a shared struggle towards some goal (though of course it cannot become the norm.) Pressure-Ease-Pressure-Ease cycles are also fine for me. ...but if all that results on a nice pat on the back while some salesperson or product manager gets promoted, then it isn't really a shared struggle anymore. Rewards need to be distributed to the entire team that struggled, not just the ones presenting the project. Further, i think organizations need to understand that different people want different things. Consulting firms have a firm-wide up-or-out policy...but tech companies should probably subscribe to a up-or-steady policy where some choose to worker more intensely for growth while others choose to work normally and remain stationary.
opportune 6y ago
I've worked way over 9-5 for ~months a few times and I usually feel very unhappy with my decision for months afterwards. If you are just an engineer, there is no point. You are just burning yourself out to make someone else's dream come true, or get your boss promoted, or get your director their bonus. Maybe you will get promoted, or a better rating. Even when I've seen that outcome I was still unhappy with it. Any company will always have an endless backlog of work and burning it down faster doesn't do anything. IMO you should only do it when financial or career incentives are very well aligned. I don't know if I've ever met another person who is truly (not for resume/career/money purposes) "passionate" about the kind of software people get paid to write. Most software is really boring. Even for software that isn't, it looks boring once you've seen how it works.
rleigh 6y ago
I used to be that workaholic who worked crazy hours and had "passion" for the job. Thing is, it's not sustainable in the long run no matter how much you love it. It might be OK in your twenties. But you're not going to be doing that for four decades. You need to live a life outside work as well. Otherwise you'll be a burned out wreck with crippling RSI. For the record, I did get crippling RSI in my early thirties and this forced a drastic reevaluation of my priorities. Eight years later, and the RSI is manageable but only because I completely changed my lifestyle. Part of that is only working a regular workday, and doing other stuff outside that time. Like running and mountain biking. I quit my "second job" as a Debian developer and general open source contributor because of that. I still do some, but it's strictly casual with no commitments. That's the price for not being physically crippled. You've got to consider your long-term health. Sitting at a desk is terrible for your body. Doing it in the evenings as well is even worse. Regarding not looking desirable. I think you're a bit off about that. Sane people and sane companies do not work themselves and their staff to death. They want people to be able to work over the longer term, and not burn out. In most of the places I've worked at, working out of hours has been strictly frowned upon. If you can't do your assigned tasks within work hours, that indicates a management failure in assigning you too much work, or in underestimating how long it would take, or in overestimating your capabilities. There is a reason we do all of the sprint planning and backlog refinement. It's to ensure no one is over- or under-worked over the long term by having a consistent and (most importantly) sustainable workload. If someone did find themselves having to work longer hours, the first thing they should do is tell their manager and get the situation fixed. Not to pull out all the stops and burn the midnight oil. The younger me would have been that person. But part of getting more experience is learning to say "no". No matter how much work you do, there will always be more work the next day. And you will rarely be thanked or acknowledged for going above and beyond the call of duty; ultimately you have to look out for your own self-interest as well as the interests of the company. Sometimes there are good reasons to work overtime, but that should never be a routine part of your existence. My personal experience of people who work crazy hours is that they wear their "heroic" efforts like a badge of honour, but the work itself is often terrible. (And I include myself here.) When called out upon this during code review, you get excuses like "yes, but it was 2am on Saturday". "OK, but it's Tuesday now, why didn't you review it in the cold light of day and fix all of these obvious defects? We don't lower the bar just because you chose to work late while very tired." Keep yourself healthy and sane for the long haul.
EliRivers 6y ago
Let me explain where the hatred stems from. The hatred stems from not wanting to spend all my life at work, doing work. Seriously, the narcissism on display here. Take a day off from your own ego, and perhaps also reflect on the idea that if your special sauce isn't competence or experience or even just plain genius, but that you're willing to spend stupid amounts of time in the office, then you've written "sucker" on your forehead in that special ink only managers can see.
cosmodisk 6y ago
This is crazy. The reason it's pointless to go past 40h/week is because programming isn't a walk in a park. It's extremely mentally draining activity. The notion that that people need to work silly hours to be seen as valuable and productive belongs to the Victorian times. My takeaway from the article is that the guy patting himself on the shoulder because he asks how many hours people did in their jobs. One of my first jobs was in construction,where the director was outright maniac. I remember he gathered us all around himself, he stepped on a a few bricks and started pointing fingers to all of us saying we are thieves. Why? Because he saw a couple of guys having 35min lunch, instead of 30min..He accused us stealing his time.. The guy in the article is a modern version of my ex director,only in software industry.
manigandham 6y ago
That's a lot of silly assumptions. Everyone has their own passions. Sometimes that aligns with their chosen field of work and sometimes it doesn't. This isn't unique to software development nor is it wrong for those who just want to deliver the responsibilities they're paid for. Unless "passion" is explicitly being compensated by the company, why would you expect others to freely deliver it? And if you're so passionate, why do you care? Focus on your ambitions and let others chase theirs.

nowherebeen 6y ago

This is incredibly naive. Another view is that enough engineers have been burnt enough by these founders that they got smarter. Not everyone is looking to tend their microbrew as you think.

Ihatelife2020 6y ago
Hey

dkersten 6y ago

I've seen many, many people (myself included) burned by putting in many extra hours (in terms of burnout, in terms of the effort going to waste because higher ups decided to change the schedule, in terms of not being appreciated when the situation reversed), while the number of times where people, in hindsight, said it was worth it has been quite few. Its not that people aren't willing to dedicate themselves to their work, in my experience, most people do go above and beyond; its that more often than not, they get nothing for it or even suffer negative consequences long term while spending their precious time and energy to enrich someone else and end up feeling exploited. We need to stop glorifying exploitation.

TuringNYC 6y ago
I think this comment nails it. For me, I'm happy with a shared struggle towards some goal (though of course it cannot become the norm.) Pressure-Ease-Pressure-Ease cycles are also fine for me. ...but if all that results on a nice pat on the back while some salesperson or product manager gets promoted, then it isn't really a shared struggle anymore. Rewards need to be distributed to the entire team that struggled, not just the ones presenting the project. Further, i think organizations need to understand that different people want different things. Consulting firms have a firm-wide up-or-out policy...but tech companies should probably subscribe to a up-or-steady policy where some choose to worker more intensely for growth while others choose to work normally and remain stationary.

opportune 6y ago

I've worked way over 9-5 for ~months a few times and I usually feel very unhappy with my decision for months afterwards. If you are just an engineer, there is no point. You are just burning yourself out to make someone else's dream come true, or get your boss promoted, or get your director their bonus. Maybe you will get promoted, or a better rating. Even when I've seen that outcome I was still unhappy with it. Any company will always have an endless backlog of work and burning it down faster doesn't do anything. IMO you should only do it when financial or career incentives are very well aligned. I don't know if I've ever met another person who is truly (not for resume/career/money purposes) "passionate" about the kind of software people get paid to write. Most software is really boring. Even for software that isn't, it looks boring once you've seen how it works.

rleigh 6y ago

I used to be that workaholic who worked crazy hours and had "passion" for the job. Thing is, it's not sustainable in the long run no matter how much you love it. It might be OK in your twenties. But you're not going to be doing that for four decades. You need to live a life outside work as well. Otherwise you'll be a burned out wreck with crippling RSI. For the record, I did get crippling RSI in my early thirties and this forced a drastic reevaluation of my priorities. Eight years later, and the RSI is manageable but only because I completely changed my lifestyle. Part of that is only working a regular workday, and doing other stuff outside that time. Like running and mountain biking. I quit my "second job" as a Debian developer and general open source contributor because of that. I still do some, but it's strictly casual with no commitments. That's the price for not being physically crippled. You've got to consider your long-term health. Sitting at a desk is terrible for your body. Doing it in the evenings as well is even worse. Regarding not looking desirable. I think you're a bit off about that. Sane people and sane companies do not work themselves and their staff to death. They want people to be able to work over the longer term, and not burn out. In most of the places I've worked at, working out of hours has been strictly frowned upon. If you can't do your assigned tasks within work hours, that indicates a management failure in assigning you too much work, or in underestimating how long it would take, or in overestimating your capabilities. There is a reason we do all of the sprint planning and backlog refinement. It's to ensure no one is over- or under-worked over the long term by having a consistent and (most importantly) sustainable workload. If someone did find themselves having to work longer hours, the first thing they should do is tell their manager and get the situation fixed. Not to pull out all the stops and burn the midnight oil. The younger me would have been that person. But part of getting more experience is learning to say "no". No matter how much work you do, there will always be more work the next day. And you will rarely be thanked or acknowledged for going above and beyond the call of duty; ultimately you have to look out for your own self-interest as well as the interests of the company. Sometimes there are good reasons to work overtime, but that should never be a routine part of your existence. My personal experience of people who work crazy hours is that they wear their "heroic" efforts like a badge of honour, but the work itself is often terrible. (And I include myself here.) When called out upon this during code review, you get excuses like "yes, but it was 2am on Saturday". "OK, but it's Tuesday now, why didn't you review it in the cold light of day and fix all of these obvious defects? We don't lower the bar just because you chose to work late while very tired." Keep yourself healthy and sane for the long haul.

EliRivers 6y ago

Let me explain where the hatred stems from. The hatred stems from not wanting to spend all my life at work, doing work. Seriously, the narcissism on display here. Take a day off from your own ego, and perhaps also reflect on the idea that if your special sauce isn't competence or experience or even just plain genius, but that you're willing to spend stupid amounts of time in the office, then you've written "sucker" on your forehead in that special ink only managers can see.

cosmodisk 6y ago

This is crazy. The reason it's pointless to go past 40h/week is because programming isn't a walk in a park. It's extremely mentally draining activity. The notion that that people need to work silly hours to be seen as valuable and productive belongs to the Victorian times. My takeaway from the article is that the guy patting himself on the shoulder because he asks how many hours people did in their jobs. One of my first jobs was in construction,where the director was outright maniac. I remember he gathered us all around himself, he stepped on a a few bricks and started pointing fingers to all of us saying we are thieves. Why? Because he saw a couple of guys having 35min lunch, instead of 30min..He accused us stealing his time.. The guy in the article is a modern version of my ex director,only in software industry.

manigandham 6y ago

That's a lot of silly assumptions. Everyone has their own passions. Sometimes that aligns with their chosen field of work and sometimes it doesn't. This isn't unique to software development nor is it wrong for those who just want to deliver the responsibilities they're paid for. Unless "passion" is explicitly being compensated by the company, why would you expect others to freely deliver it? And if you're so passionate, why do you care? Focus on your ambitions and let others chase theirs.