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"in many cases" being the operative term there. How many YC startups would kill to get Steve Jobs to work even 1 hour a week for them as employee #1? It's all

by gnosis 15y ago

"in many cases" being the operative term there. How many YC startups would kill to get Steve Jobs to work even 1 hour a week for them as employee #1? It's all about perceived value and negotiation. If your company values you enough, they will not make you work unreasonable hours. And if a non-workaholic employee values himself enough, he will not agree to work unreasonable hours. Death marches are definitely a pathology in the computer industry, as they are in the medical field, where residents are forced to work insanely long shifts without sleep. In both cases, people's mental and physical well being is put at risk, the chance of burnout increases, and the quality of the results suffers. It does not have to be this way. What will it take for management to stop understaffing and overworking their employees? And how long will employees consent to being worked in to an early grave? Companies pulling this sort of crap is what really makes me wish the computer field had some effective unions that could collectively bargain for reasonable hours for reasonable pay. I know I'd join in a heartbeat.

kenjackson 15y ago
It does not have to be this way. It doesn't, but it will be. :-) I worked on bug, almost full time, about a decade ago, for about a month. A single bug. I hadn't anticipated the bug, and didn't plan for it. I've seen teams spend months trying to hit perf targets. It's the type of thing that isn't uncommon in our industry. I'm not sure how you plan for it. What will it take for management to stop understaffing and overworking their employees? Many tmies its not understaffing. Again, I've seen teams struggle to hit perf targets. If you doubled the size of the team it wouldn't make their lives much easier. It may even make it worse. Our industry is one where you are fundamentally solving new problems (because if someone else solved it, you'd use their code). Now maybe you're saying we need to toss schedules altogether. Things are done when they're done -- and no crunch time. You do it with 40 hours/week for however long it takes. I'd love to see that dream happen to, but I honestly don't think it ever will.

by gnosis 15y ago

kenjackson 15y ago

It does not have to be this way. It doesn't, but it will be. :-) I worked on bug, almost full time, about a decade ago, for about a month. A single bug. I hadn't anticipated the bug, and didn't plan for it. I've seen teams spend months trying to hit perf targets. It's the type of thing that isn't uncommon in our industry. I'm not sure how you plan for it. What will it take for management to stop understaffing and overworking their employees? Many tmies its not understaffing. Again, I've seen teams struggle to hit perf targets. If you doubled the size of the team it wouldn't make their lives much easier. It may even make it worse. Our industry is one where you are fundamentally solving new problems (because if someone else solved it, you'd use their code). Now maybe you're saying we need to toss schedules altogether. Things are done when they're done -- and no crunch time. You do it with 40 hours/week for however long it takes. I'd love to see that dream happen to, but I honestly don't think it ever will.