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> the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it. This is very ignorant. There are many outside f

> the ability to leave work at work is a personality trait. the job, or type of job, has little to do with it. This is very ignorant. There are many outside factors that go into if an employee needs to focus on work after hours, such as accessibility to the working environment, cultural practices at the company, etc. Who said anything about haunting? If my manager hits me up at 11pm asking for something, sure I can ignore him or her. Then I come in the next day, they already did the thing they asked for themselves because [insert business reason], and says “never mind”. Next time it happens, they go to the other dev who is happy to do it at 11pm. Guess who gets the promotion?

disgruntledphd2 6y ago
The sucker who's working at 11pm? More seriously, if this is you, find an employer/manager who's not gratuitously invading your non work time.
- asidiali 6y ago
  Very much agreed. You have to do what is in your control as an employee. If it’s a cultural problem, that usually means your best bet is to simply find a team with better culture. Culture is a hard problem to solve if it’s not right.
aerosmile 6y ago
With two comments quoting the same example, you seem really hell-bent on driving this point home. Ok, I'll bite. How often do you get those 11pm requests that will otherwise get rerouted to someone else unless you respond before 8am? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? A few times per year? Context matters, because believe it or not, most professionals occasionally go the extra mile no matter what industry they are in. I recently dropped off a motorcycle for a repair, and the young guy working at that shop stayed an hour late to get my business. When something breaks in my house, I have hundreds of people jumping at the bit to come to fix it at any given time, before or after work, weekday or weekend. Nothing is ever perfect in life, but your criticism of your experience as a software engineer would come across as a lot more empathetic if you started off by acknowledging that you made an excellent career choice to start with, and that this allows you unprecedented career mobility, including the option of easily quitting your job should you have the rare misfortune of having landed at any of the few bad apples that do not reward you for your stress with oodles of money that you wouldn't be able to make anywhere else with that amount of effort and work experience. Not to mention that if stress and money are not your thing, go and work as a software engineer at an old school Fortune 500 company. I promise to you that nobody will ever ask you to do anything at 11pm there, and you'll still get paid well.
- asidiali 6y ago
  > How often do you get those 11pm requests that will otherwise get rerouted to someone else unless you respond before 8am? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? A few times per year? Multiple times per month. 3/4 weekends per month. How’s that? Not uncommon in many small startups I’ve been a part of as an employee, founder, or advisor. Your point is fine, except for the fact that it totally overlooks if an employee is actually already putting in that extra effort, and is just getting taken advantage of by their company. What if I am already objectively going the extra mile? Who's to say I'm not? My boss. And they will say that. See: Tesla Skips 401k Match for Third Straight Year [1], while simultaneously investing over $1B into Bitcoin. > and that this allows you unprecedented career mobility, including the option of easily quitting your job should you have the rare misfortune of having landed at any of the few bad apples that do not reward you for your stress with oodles of money that you wouldn't be able to make anywhere else with that amount of effort and work experience. Ok, setting aside the fact that the money is relative to the value created for these companies (see: richest people on the planet and how they got there)... You didn’t actually comment on the main point. You just said, oh if that happens, you are able to leave. Yeah - that’s the point. It happens. And if it does, you should leave. Not succumb to Stockholm syndrome and act like oh it’s part of “sacrificing for this awesome job”. Even you said it. Go find another job. If you think this is just happening at "a few bad apples" then I'm inclined to assume you have not experienced a wide variety of startup and company cultures in multiple locales - not saying this is true of you but what it sounds like. I only used the same comment because another person made a similar point which warranted an identical response. [1] https://www.pionline.com/defined-contribution/tesla-skips-401k-match-third-straight-year https://www.pionline.com/defined-contribution/tesla-skips-40...
  - aerosmile 6y ago
    > many small startups I’ve been a part of as an employee, founder, or advisor As a significant equity holder in an early stage company, you cannot compare yourself to regular employees. We're no longer comparing professions, and instead are comparing approaches to wealth creation: salary vs equity. Again, if you're not a fan of risk, get a job at a bank. To bring it back to your original post - you called someone ignorant for stating that leaving work at work is a choice. It is indeed a choice, as we both concluded by stating that this career gives you plenty of opportunity for career mobility. EDIT: your post changed a couple of times and most recently added some bizarre criticism of capitalism ("setting aside the fact that the money is relative to the value created for these companies"). This is totally off-topic, and frankly I am having a hard time following your reasoning so I'll disengage and just hope you'll find peace and appreciation for the good things in life.
bhandziuk 6y ago
Sounds like if you have the potential to be addressing business problems at 11pm you should have an on-call schedule. Your boss just calling people randomly in the night is not a great way to get things done reliably anyway.
- asidiali 6y ago
  Agreed! It's a business problem. It's not a problem of the employee to shift their mentality to suit the demands of their employer. People want to do a good job though. Hence why there is onus on the employer to provide work-life balance. It's not enough to just "not ask" for work on the weekends. You need to proactively discourage it.

disgruntledphd2 6y ago

The sucker who's working at 11pm? More seriously, if this is you, find an employer/manager who's not gratuitously invading your non work time.

asidiali 6y ago
Very much agreed. You have to do what is in your control as an employee. If it’s a cultural problem, that usually means your best bet is to simply find a team with better culture. Culture is a hard problem to solve if it’s not right.

aerosmile 6y ago

With two comments quoting the same example, you seem really hell-bent on driving this point home. Ok, I'll bite. How often do you get those 11pm requests that will otherwise get rerouted to someone else unless you respond before 8am? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? A few times per year? Context matters, because believe it or not, most professionals occasionally go the extra mile no matter what industry they are in. I recently dropped off a motorcycle for a repair, and the young guy working at that shop stayed an hour late to get my business. When something breaks in my house, I have hundreds of people jumping at the bit to come to fix it at any given time, before or after work, weekday or weekend. Nothing is ever perfect in life, but your criticism of your experience as a software engineer would come across as a lot more empathetic if you started off by acknowledging that you made an excellent career choice to start with, and that this allows you unprecedented career mobility, including the option of easily quitting your job should you have the rare misfortune of having landed at any of the few bad apples that do not reward you for your stress with oodles of money that you wouldn't be able to make anywhere else with that amount of effort and work experience. Not to mention that if stress and money are not your thing, go and work as a software engineer at an old school Fortune 500 company. I promise to you that nobody will ever ask you to do anything at 11pm there, and you'll still get paid well.

asidiali 6y ago
> How often do you get those 11pm requests that will otherwise get rerouted to someone else unless you respond before 8am? Daily? Weekly? Monthly? A few times per year? Multiple times per month. 3/4 weekends per month. How’s that? Not uncommon in many small startups I’ve been a part of as an employee, founder, or advisor. Your point is fine, except for the fact that it totally overlooks if an employee is actually already putting in that extra effort, and is just getting taken advantage of by their company. What if I am already objectively going the extra mile? Who's to say I'm not? My boss. And they will say that. See: Tesla Skips 401k Match for Third Straight Year [1], while simultaneously investing over $1B into Bitcoin. > and that this allows you unprecedented career mobility, including the option of easily quitting your job should you have the rare misfortune of having landed at any of the few bad apples that do not reward you for your stress with oodles of money that you wouldn't be able to make anywhere else with that amount of effort and work experience. Ok, setting aside the fact that the money is relative to the value created for these companies (see: richest people on the planet and how they got there)... You didn’t actually comment on the main point. You just said, oh if that happens, you are able to leave. Yeah - that’s the point. It happens. And if it does, you should leave. Not succumb to Stockholm syndrome and act like oh it’s part of “sacrificing for this awesome job”. Even you said it. Go find another job. If you think this is just happening at "a few bad apples" then I'm inclined to assume you have not experienced a wide variety of startup and company cultures in multiple locales - not saying this is true of you but what it sounds like. I only used the same comment because another person made a similar point which warranted an identical response. [1] https://www.pionline.com/defined-contribution/tesla-skips-401k-match-third-straight-year https://www.pionline.com/defined-contribution/tesla-skips-40...
- aerosmile 6y ago
  > many small startups I’ve been a part of as an employee, founder, or advisor As a significant equity holder in an early stage company, you cannot compare yourself to regular employees. We're no longer comparing professions, and instead are comparing approaches to wealth creation: salary vs equity. Again, if you're not a fan of risk, get a job at a bank. To bring it back to your original post - you called someone ignorant for stating that leaving work at work is a choice. It is indeed a choice, as we both concluded by stating that this career gives you plenty of opportunity for career mobility. EDIT: your post changed a couple of times and most recently added some bizarre criticism of capitalism ("setting aside the fact that the money is relative to the value created for these companies"). This is totally off-topic, and frankly I am having a hard time following your reasoning so I'll disengage and just hope you'll find peace and appreciation for the good things in life.

bhandziuk 6y ago

Sounds like if you have the potential to be addressing business problems at 11pm you should have an on-call schedule. Your boss just calling people randomly in the night is not a great way to get things done reliably anyway.

asidiali 6y ago
Agreed! It's a business problem. It's not a problem of the employee to shift their mentality to suit the demands of their employer. People want to do a good job though. Hence why there is onus on the employer to provide work-life balance. It's not enough to just "not ask" for work on the weekends. You need to proactively discourage it.