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This statement actually got me thinking: > I get paid because of my expertise. Agree. > You cant’s compensate me enough to put in more than 40-45 hours a wee

by bfung 4y ago

This statement actually got me thinking: > I get paid because of my expertise. Agree. > You cant’s compensate me enough to put in more than 40-45 hours a week Disagree. (There’s probably a speed to results + pay that has value here) The assumption is that there’s way more work to do than possible to finish.

XorNot 4y ago
The thing is if you can't budget the process into a regular work week, what is wrong with your project management? And why would throwing more hours at the problem fix it? In exceptional circumstances this would be true, but I seriously doubt many company's actually have those (as opposed to managers pushing the panic button at the last second after ignoring issues for months).
- scarface74 4y ago
  I had “exceptional circumstances” once in my career. At my first tech lead job working for a company that sent home health care workers to take care of special needs kids. The field workers were making around $12-$17 hour (government reimbursement rates suck). I was leading an integration effort based on my own designs and we were migrating off of their current payment platform. If the integration efforts didn’t get done by a cut off date around Christmas, they would have received paper checks late. The office salaried workers wouldn’t have been affected. My management said that was an ok alternative - I vehemently disagreed. I fought for my team to get comp time and bonuses for working over time to meet the deadline. I could also see mandated overtime at TurboTax. You have hard deadlines to meet and often the “requirements” aren’t set by the government until late.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - danaris 4y ago
    Yeah, but TurboTax (et al) actually lobbies to keep those requirements high and changing, specifically to increase their own profits. Yes, in any given year, the specific nature and timing of the requirements may be out of their hands, but in aggregate, they absolutely bear some responsibility for that. Furthermore, it should also be their responsibility to ensure they have enough trained staff on hand to handle the tax season rush without harming their employees.
pixelfarmer 4y ago
40-45 hours of actual work is already very stressful. 40-45 hours of being at work is more than enough and includes all the garbage you have to deal with by "being at work" and somehow getting your actual work done in that time, too. There is a limit to how long you can focus on a single task for longer periods of time before you need to rest up properly to recharge your batteries. Everything beyond that will lower your productivity, up to a point where you will end up negative due to the mistakes being made. If you are lightweight on useless processes and stuff, a 30 hour week would be way more optimal for a lot of people. Crunch time should be very short and if stuff cannot be "crunched" in a single week it is useless to continue on like that, because everyone involved will be like 50% as effective as someone just working 30h per week (who can focus on the actual work).
- bfung 4y ago
  Let’s say the job is trading derivatives, and the more data available, the better the trades. However, the data is never available until mid-day the day before (it’s all news based). The deadline is next trading day. You have 16hrs to make the new model and data work. The upside is that you’d be compensated a percentage of the trades. Positive is good(if you’re good, make millions), negative you get nothing. Is 40hr a hard limit to work now? My point is if someone was paid high enough, they’d bust that 40hr limit easy. It’s not really a hard limit of any sort. There’s a price for it, that’s for sure.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    The answer is still “no”. I make more than enough to meet my short term and long term wants and needs and I’m at about 90% of the compensation of an SDE 2 at BigTech at 49 years old. I asked in another reply would someone work for Twitter at twice their current compensation. Both of the replies were that wouldn’t. If I had an opportunity to make twice my current compensation but I had to give up my current lifestyle - working remotely, traveling six months a year, never being on call, doing the work I enjoy, I would say no without thinking twice.
  - pixelfarmer 4y ago
    We are all human. There are limits to what we can do, defined by our biology, and there is no way around that, no cheat available. If you can trust the stuff coming from psychology, there are numbers like ~25h/week floating around for being the most efficient when focusing on one task for white collar work. Anything beyond that makes you less efficient, your rate of mistakes increases, and your "batteries" will get drained. You can compensate latter through physical exercise, but I remember reading a headline that even this goes only so far (and I agree, from personal experience). Plus, if you have to do that to stay afloat, shouldn't be the time be accounted as "work" as well? Thing is, it will damage you, and no amount of money can save your rear end from an early exit out of this world through the accumulated damages.

by bfung 4y ago

XorNot 4y ago

The thing is if you can't budget the process into a regular work week, what is wrong with your project management? And why would throwing more hours at the problem fix it? In exceptional circumstances this would be true, but I seriously doubt many company's actually have those (as opposed to managers pushing the panic button at the last second after ignoring issues for months).

scarface74 4y ago
I had “exceptional circumstances” once in my career. At my first tech lead job working for a company that sent home health care workers to take care of special needs kids. The field workers were making around $12-$17 hour (government reimbursement rates suck). I was leading an integration effort based on my own designs and we were migrating off of their current payment platform. If the integration efforts didn’t get done by a cut off date around Christmas, they would have received paper checks late. The office salaried workers wouldn’t have been affected. My management said that was an ok alternative - I vehemently disagreed. I fought for my team to get comp time and bonuses for working over time to meet the deadline. I could also see mandated overtime at TurboTax. You have hard deadlines to meet and often the “requirements” aren’t set by the government until late.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- danaris 4y ago
  Yeah, but TurboTax (et al) actually lobbies to keep those requirements high and changing, specifically to increase their own profits. Yes, in any given year, the specific nature and timing of the requirements may be out of their hands, but in aggregate, they absolutely bear some responsibility for that. Furthermore, it should also be their responsibility to ensure they have enough trained staff on hand to handle the tax season rush without harming their employees.

pixelfarmer 4y ago

40-45 hours of actual work is already very stressful. 40-45 hours of being at work is more than enough and includes all the garbage you have to deal with by "being at work" and somehow getting your actual work done in that time, too. There is a limit to how long you can focus on a single task for longer periods of time before you need to rest up properly to recharge your batteries. Everything beyond that will lower your productivity, up to a point where you will end up negative due to the mistakes being made. If you are lightweight on useless processes and stuff, a 30 hour week would be way more optimal for a lot of people. Crunch time should be very short and if stuff cannot be "crunched" in a single week it is useless to continue on like that, because everyone involved will be like 50% as effective as someone just working 30h per week (who can focus on the actual work).

bfung 4y ago
Let’s say the job is trading derivatives, and the more data available, the better the trades. However, the data is never available until mid-day the day before (it’s all news based). The deadline is next trading day. You have 16hrs to make the new model and data work. The upside is that you’d be compensated a percentage of the trades. Positive is good(if you’re good, make millions), negative you get nothing. Is 40hr a hard limit to work now? My point is if someone was paid high enough, they’d bust that 40hr limit easy. It’s not really a hard limit of any sort. There’s a price for it, that’s for sure.
- scarface74 4y ago
  The answer is still “no”. I make more than enough to meet my short term and long term wants and needs and I’m at about 90% of the compensation of an SDE 2 at BigTech at 49 years old. I asked in another reply would someone work for Twitter at twice their current compensation. Both of the replies were that wouldn’t. If I had an opportunity to make twice my current compensation but I had to give up my current lifestyle - working remotely, traveling six months a year, never being on call, doing the work I enjoy, I would say no without thinking twice.
- pixelfarmer 4y ago
  We are all human. There are limits to what we can do, defined by our biology, and there is no way around that, no cheat available. If you can trust the stuff coming from psychology, there are numbers like ~25h/week floating around for being the most efficient when focusing on one task for white collar work. Anything beyond that makes you less efficient, your rate of mistakes increases, and your "batteries" will get drained. You can compensate latter through physical exercise, but I remember reading a headline that even this goes only so far (and I agree, from personal experience). Plus, if you have to do that to stay afloat, shouldn't be the time be accounted as "work" as well? Thing is, it will damage you, and no amount of money can save your rear end from an early exit out of this world through the accumulated damages.