7 ms·

Most jobs want you in the office 8 hours a day.

cjbgkagh 4y ago
I think it’s the long hours of abuse, not that the long hours are themselves abuse.
jedberg 4y ago
Yes but I think you're missing the point. It's not the eight hours, it was the specific eight hours regardless of any other work you did plus all the overtime that couldn't be done at home. ie. The complete lack of seeing one's family.
- Xenoamorphous 4y ago
  Most of the jobs I can think have fixed working hours/shifts?
  - jedberg 4y ago
    Not most software engineering jobs. And it wasn't the fixed eight hours, it was the eight hours on top of that each day that was the problem.
    - jack_pp 4y ago
      how do you know for certain you'd be required to do overtime consistently? you've never worked in the field. I haven't either but I'm not assuming crazy stuff like being required to work 16h a day. your stance is completely unreasonable. There are other commenters who have worked in the field and said no one was expected to be in the office after normal working hours
      - jiggawatts 4y ago
        Not to mention that programmers consistently doing 16 hour days would get exhausted and burnt out within a week, making their productivity plummet. No manager in their right mind would trust code from utterly exhausted people written after midnight to manage billions of dollars of capital.
        roundandround 4y ago
        I met a banking C++ engineer years ago who was the only one left locally and spent his time teaching C++ to fresh offshore engineers in the form of code reviews. He was kind of a manager, though also his manager was probably rational. 1. It makes no correction in how an irrational institution is run that first level managers are rational. It just means they are stressed. 2. I met him at a language meetup for another language, he wanted out but would have trouble making half his salary. (If you wanted me to trust code written by interns and reviewed across distance and language barriers, C++ wouldn't be my first choice, assuming I got a job in banking management, how likely would it be that I could change anything about that?)
        silverstein420 4y ago
        [flagged]
        andirk 4y ago
        I think it's safe to say that software development drains the brain fairly quickly. We've all slept under our desks a couple times and worked crazy hours for a few weeks, but anything beyond that doesn't sound humane or even possible. I straight up have difficulty conversing with people after those stints. Brain just shuts off. Stare at wall. Then again, there's astronauts and brain surgeons. Apparently trading desks need freaks.
    - Xenoamorphous 4y ago
      Well most software engineering jobs don’t pay $700k per tear either.
tropicalbeach 4y ago
Yeah for real, I there is so many tech people are sheltered now days that if anything difficult comes there way they can't handle it. 700k for an 8 hour a day job and claiming to be abused is ridiculous. It's fine for someone to say they don't want the job but claiming abused is something else. People work months away from there families to provide for them and make 10% of that wage.
- jedberg 4y ago
  It's not an eight hour job, you're completely misreading it. It's eight hours required plus another eight each day of overtime. Which is abusive for a software engineer. And those people that work months away from their families -- they're being abused too. You'll notice that the owners of oil rigs aren't out there with them, for example.
  - albntomat0 4y ago
    > But I would have had to work in their office in Manhattan, be in by 8:30am every day and not leave until after 5 at a miniumum. That’s what you said originally, which reads as mostly normal work hours, plus maybe some overtime. If it was 16 hours a day, then please say so.
    - jedberg 4y ago
      Read the rest of the comment? > I wouldn't be allowed to take my laptop home, so if I had a hard problem to solve, I'd have to stay in the office the whole time. So basically they expected us to never see our family nor collaborate with anyone.
      - albntomat0 4y ago
        I did. Myself and multiple other commenters all seem to be on the same page, that your original comment says the job required being in the office 8.5 hours per day, and does not allow work from home. Your follow up comments imply the expectations were an order of magnitude higher. The part you highlighted says you cannot work from home. That’s unrelated to the number of hours they expected you to work.

I think it’s the long hours of abuse, not that the long hours are themselves abuse.

Yes but I think you're missing the point. It's not the eight hours, it was the specific eight hours regardless of any other work you did plus all the overtime that couldn't be done at home. ie. The complete lack of seeing one's family.

Xenoamorphous 4y ago
Most of the jobs I can think have fixed working hours/shifts?
- jedberg 4y ago
  Not most software engineering jobs. And it wasn't the fixed eight hours, it was the eight hours on top of that each day that was the problem.
  - jack_pp 4y ago
    how do you know for certain you'd be required to do overtime consistently? you've never worked in the field. I haven't either but I'm not assuming crazy stuff like being required to work 16h a day. your stance is completely unreasonable. There are other commenters who have worked in the field and said no one was expected to be in the office after normal working hours
    - jiggawatts 4y ago
      Not to mention that programmers consistently doing 16 hour days would get exhausted and burnt out within a week, making their productivity plummet. No manager in their right mind would trust code from utterly exhausted people written after midnight to manage billions of dollars of capital.
      - roundandround 4y ago
        I met a banking C++ engineer years ago who was the only one left locally and spent his time teaching C++ to fresh offshore engineers in the form of code reviews. He was kind of a manager, though also his manager was probably rational. 1. It makes no correction in how an irrational institution is run that first level managers are rational. It just means they are stressed. 2. I met him at a language meetup for another language, he wanted out but would have trouble making half his salary. (If you wanted me to trust code written by interns and reviewed across distance and language barriers, C++ wouldn't be my first choice, assuming I got a job in banking management, how likely would it be that I could change anything about that?)
      - silverstein420 4y ago
        [flagged]
      - andirk 4y ago
        I think it's safe to say that software development drains the brain fairly quickly. We've all slept under our desks a couple times and worked crazy hours for a few weeks, but anything beyond that doesn't sound humane or even possible. I straight up have difficulty conversing with people after those stints. Brain just shuts off. Stare at wall. Then again, there's astronauts and brain surgeons. Apparently trading desks need freaks.
  - Xenoamorphous 4y ago
    Well most software engineering jobs don’t pay $700k per tear either.

tropicalbeach 4y ago

Yeah for real, I there is so many tech people are sheltered now days that if anything difficult comes there way they can't handle it. 700k for an 8 hour a day job and claiming to be abused is ridiculous. It's fine for someone to say they don't want the job but claiming abused is something else. People work months away from there families to provide for them and make 10% of that wage.

jedberg 4y ago
It's not an eight hour job, you're completely misreading it. It's eight hours required plus another eight each day of overtime. Which is abusive for a software engineer. And those people that work months away from their families -- they're being abused too. You'll notice that the owners of oil rigs aren't out there with them, for example.
- albntomat0 4y ago
  > But I would have had to work in their office in Manhattan, be in by 8:30am every day and not leave until after 5 at a miniumum. That’s what you said originally, which reads as mostly normal work hours, plus maybe some overtime. If it was 16 hours a day, then please say so.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    Read the rest of the comment? > I wouldn't be allowed to take my laptop home, so if I had a hard problem to solve, I'd have to stay in the office the whole time. So basically they expected us to never see our family nor collaborate with anyone.
    - albntomat0 4y ago
      I did. Myself and multiple other commenters all seem to be on the same page, that your original comment says the job required being in the office 8.5 hours per day, and does not allow work from home. Your follow up comments imply the expectations were an order of magnitude higher. The part you highlighted says you cannot work from home. That’s unrelated to the number of hours they expected you to work.