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> it doesn’t mean we should just abandon work commitments or dodge uncompensated overtime. it's not dodging! if you won't pay me for my work, i'm not going to

> it doesn’t mean we should just abandon work commitments or dodge uncompensated overtime. it's not dodging! if you won't pay me for my work, i'm not going to do the work!

eggsmediumrare 4y ago
It's crazy how many people don't understand this
- xyzelement 4y ago
  It depends on the job and company. I've worked with folks w your mindset who'd bail at 5 when their team stayed till 7. Then 5 years out, their team mates were making an extra 200k a year because they got bonuses and raises in return. So in their case it was short term uncompensated overtime , long term well compensated.
  - zabzonk 4y ago
    5 years is short term? do the maths. anyway, few people stay with a company that exploits them for 5 years.
    - xyzelement 4y ago
      I feel like you mentally inverted every thing in my post and then replied to that.
      - zabzonk 4y ago
        I feel otherwise, but please expand a bit.
        xyzelement 4y ago
        Alright. Two guys working in a great company. One had the attitude of "no uncomped OT" and leaves at 5. The other guy works till 7. At the end of the year guy 2 gets an extra 40k comp raise vs guy 1. In 5 years that's a 200k difference. So by avoiding "uncomped OT" guy 1 fucked himself out of a ton of comp. OBVIOUSLY this depends on the company and there's no guarantees. I've been lucky enough to work on companies that were like this and this every man for himself short term thinking was poison. YMMV.
        bigbillheck 4y ago
        You went from '200k a year' to '200k over five years'.
        xyzelement 4y ago
        I didn't... But to make it crystal clear. If you get an incremental 40k raise over someone else, every year for 5 years, you end up making 200 more than them PER YEAR after year 5.
        listenallyall 4y ago
        We get the math, what is less plausible is 40k raise every year for five years while remaining on the same team doing the same job. Few jobs pay $200,000 at all, very very few pay so well that two people with the same role could be $200k apart. It's not impossible, of course, but that would be an extremely rare situation.
        willcipriano 4y ago
        HR generally won't allow pay differences that large for the same role.
        xyzelement 4y ago
        Like I said, YMMV. 200k is the starting developer comp at a FAANG. As you rise in level, 200k becomes the comp range within a level (eg take a look at levels.fyi range for a Google L6 SWE). Same in finance. Agree that these jobs are few in the grand scheme of things but there are hundreds of thousands of people for whom this type of comp is reality. People can start at the same level out of school and then make MULTIPLES of that comp depending on what they do. If this doesn't apply to you, it doesn't apply to you. I am just pointing out that bailing because "this hour of overtime is not compensated" can be very nearsighted depending on your situation. Specifically, I am talking about someone I know who had this attitude in a company that very clearly rewarded value generation. He did "ok" since it was a great company but he literally had the situation I am describing where others were making 200k more than him 5 years later.
  - sage76 4y ago
    I have seen loyal people get exploited, frustrated and leave more often.
  - yedava 4y ago
    The way I see it, companies know that there will always be people who would sacrifice quality of life for money, and adjust compensation for that. This wouldn't be a problem if only a few companies do this. But when every company does this, it results in forcing everyone to just keep working long hours in order to stay afloat.
  - happytoexplain 4y ago
    Yes, but this form of gambling is a terrible thing to encourage implicitly. It's awful for society to ask people who have worked to attain a "normal" education, trying to apply to "normal" companies, to choose between life-harm and potential future compensation. For specialized cases like a silicon valley moonshot startup or whatever, fine. But this scenario, allowed to progress naturally, will work itself into more and more "normal" cases. This is especially compounded by the two facts that it's not a zero-sum game, and software developers have a higher tendency to fall outside some of the social norms that normally serve as natural controls on this kind of scenario. I.e. if you can do your job for unusually long (because it's not physical labor, and/or you enjoy doing it both as a job and a hobby), and you don't have many other obligations (you don't have kids, or you can afford childcare; or you don't have a wife, or you have a wife who doesn't mind you spending little time together; or you can afford to order prepared food often or don't have a cultural/personal bias against it), what happens is the people with these properties work more hours, causing the market to adapt and pressure the other people in the same field. In other fields, this doesn't happen in enough numbers to cause this problem.
    - Nevermark 4y ago
      In my experience, I agree: not everyone can put in the same kind of extra effort. And in areas where people are replaceable cogs, this can really hurt some people. But in knowledge work, if things are hitting the wall and there is pressure to extra-contribute but you are not in a position to put in extra time, you can still respond in a way that visibly shows your commitment. Express to your management & team your concern about the need for extra commitments and ask-for/suggest ways you can realign your work to prioritize what is most important to the situation. Nothing makes up for limited additional capacity more than demonstrating that despite your constraints, you are all in to help everyone around you succeed. Again, this may not work as a low level cog where management isn’t invested in the individuals that work for them. But in other cases, people do appreciate demonstrations of commitment even if you cannot contribute more on some dimensions. It’s just important to explicitly and visibly show your flexibility and willingness to incorporate others suggestions, on all the dimensions you can adapt.
  - bleep_bloop 4y ago
    The few companies I've worked at, by 5 years the company either has sold up and everyone was replaced / let go, maybe a select few get to stay out of dozens - the vast majority lose out and were exploited or the company goes on a hiring spree and there aren't pay raises or bonuses because company growth is valued over employee satisfaction. Feels like you're talking about the exception rather than the rule or perhaps the tech industry 10+ years ago but certainly not today.
  - AlexandrB 4y ago
    > So in their case it was short term uncompensated overtime , long term well compensated. How does one identify whether one will be long term compensated or not? Would an employer agree to committing to something like this via a contract? In my experience, switching jobs gets you there faster and without the unpaid overtime.
  - CapstanRoller 4y ago
    An extra 2 hours of work per day, assuming 260 work days per year, comes out to 520 hours. Over 5 years that adds up to 2600 hours of extra work. If you get a $200k bonus after putting in those extra hours, you effectively earned $77/hr or $160k/year for your time. That's basically a 0-3 YOE tech job on top of your regular job. Is it really a good deal, especially considering how much experienced developers make annually and the long-term effects of working 10 hours per day?
happytoexplain 4y ago
Indeed. That the author chose this wording is a signal of how sick and biased the employee/employer relationship is.
- zabzonk 4y ago
  but only in certain professions - you try getting a builder/electrician/plumber to do unpaid overtime! why programmers are suckers for this is a bit of a mystery.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I’ve done a fair bit of not-specifically-compensated overtime over my career. In my 20s and early 30s, if I didn’t have anything going on socially or sports on a given evening, I was pretty likely going to write code (for enjoyment). Sometimes that was for me, but often it was for the company. Doing what I enjoy is why I was a sucker in your estimation.
    - zabzonk 4y ago
      yes, i certainly used the university that i worked for facilities when i was starting out, but only for my own projects (arguably bad, i might admit) - i never did or have done any work for my employers that i wasn't compensated for, and i can't imagine why anyone would.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      I don't think you're a sucker, and I have any number of things you could work on for me, for free.
    - jakelazaroff 4y ago
      I mean, yes? You could have built side projects, contributed to open source, freelanced, etc. There are a ton of ways to do what you enjoy without allowing someone to profit off your unpaid labor.
  - sage76 4y ago
listenallyall 4y ago
At a basic level, sure. But if you're going to be so literal, you'd agree that a company should withhold any compensation when you're on vacation, or when you're out sick, or if you take a long lunch, right?
- happytoexplain 4y ago
  I don't understand how you're getting from a simple objection to the semantics of the word "dodging" as a description of "not working overtime for free", all the way to the implication that it's hypocritical to have that objection and also accept the concept of paid vacations, sick leaves, or lunch breaks.
  - LBJsPNS 4y ago
    "I am very smart."
  - listenallyall 4y ago
    (edit -- this comment is only directed towards salaried, exempt employees, I thought that was implied) It's not the word "dodging," it's the rest of the comment: "if you won't pay me for my work, i'm not going to do the work!" Don't know where you've worked, but the people who strictly abide by this concept are the worst types of coworkers. "it's 5:01, I refuse to respond to an email," "that's out of my scope," "I need 3 signatures before I can process this request" etc. These people belong at the DMV (for non-Americans, that's Division of Motor Vehicles), not at a dynamic company. I just think that people who live by the attitude above and take everything so literally should be consistent: "I'm not going to do the work (I'm on vacation, I called in sick)..." "ok, cool, but don't expect us to pay you while not doing work." Of course, such a scenario doesn't exist, nobody would work (or should) for a company that didn't offer paid vacation/sick days -- nor am I endorsing one. But real companies do require effective teamwork to succeed, and the types of people who find every excuse to NOT cooperate should be purged before they turn the company into a cliche of bureaucracy and frustrate the hell out of the effective employees.
- LBJsPNS 4y ago
  Vacation, sick leave, and the like are regulated by law in most states/countries. So is work without compensation. It's somewhat frowned on. Despite your absurd false equivalence.

> it doesn’t mean we should just abandon work commitments or dodge uncompensated overtime. it's not dodging! if you won't pay me for my work, i'm not going to do the work!

eggsmediumrare 4y ago

It's crazy how many people don't understand this

xyzelement 4y ago
It depends on the job and company. I've worked with folks w your mindset who'd bail at 5 when their team stayed till 7. Then 5 years out, their team mates were making an extra 200k a year because they got bonuses and raises in return. So in their case it was short term uncompensated overtime , long term well compensated.
- zabzonk 4y ago
  5 years is short term? do the maths. anyway, few people stay with a company that exploits them for 5 years.
  - xyzelement 4y ago
    I feel like you mentally inverted every thing in my post and then replied to that.
    - zabzonk 4y ago
      I feel otherwise, but please expand a bit.
      - xyzelement 4y ago
        Alright. Two guys working in a great company. One had the attitude of "no uncomped OT" and leaves at 5. The other guy works till 7. At the end of the year guy 2 gets an extra 40k comp raise vs guy 1. In 5 years that's a 200k difference. So by avoiding "uncomped OT" guy 1 fucked himself out of a ton of comp. OBVIOUSLY this depends on the company and there's no guarantees. I've been lucky enough to work on companies that were like this and this every man for himself short term thinking was poison. YMMV.
        bigbillheck 4y ago
        You went from '200k a year' to '200k over five years'.
        xyzelement 4y ago
        I didn't... But to make it crystal clear. If you get an incremental 40k raise over someone else, every year for 5 years, you end up making 200 more than them PER YEAR after year 5.
        listenallyall 4y ago
        We get the math, what is less plausible is 40k raise every year for five years while remaining on the same team doing the same job. Few jobs pay $200,000 at all, very very few pay so well that two people with the same role could be $200k apart. It's not impossible, of course, but that would be an extremely rare situation.
        willcipriano 4y ago
        HR generally won't allow pay differences that large for the same role.
        xyzelement 4y ago
        Like I said, YMMV. 200k is the starting developer comp at a FAANG. As you rise in level, 200k becomes the comp range within a level (eg take a look at levels.fyi range for a Google L6 SWE). Same in finance. Agree that these jobs are few in the grand scheme of things but there are hundreds of thousands of people for whom this type of comp is reality. People can start at the same level out of school and then make MULTIPLES of that comp depending on what they do. If this doesn't apply to you, it doesn't apply to you. I am just pointing out that bailing because "this hour of overtime is not compensated" can be very nearsighted depending on your situation. Specifically, I am talking about someone I know who had this attitude in a company that very clearly rewarded value generation. He did "ok" since it was a great company but he literally had the situation I am describing where others were making 200k more than him 5 years later.
- sage76 4y ago
  I have seen loyal people get exploited, frustrated and leave more often.
- yedava 4y ago
  The way I see it, companies know that there will always be people who would sacrifice quality of life for money, and adjust compensation for that. This wouldn't be a problem if only a few companies do this. But when every company does this, it results in forcing everyone to just keep working long hours in order to stay afloat.
- happytoexplain 4y ago
  Yes, but this form of gambling is a terrible thing to encourage implicitly. It's awful for society to ask people who have worked to attain a "normal" education, trying to apply to "normal" companies, to choose between life-harm and potential future compensation. For specialized cases like a silicon valley moonshot startup or whatever, fine. But this scenario, allowed to progress naturally, will work itself into more and more "normal" cases. This is especially compounded by the two facts that it's not a zero-sum game, and software developers have a higher tendency to fall outside some of the social norms that normally serve as natural controls on this kind of scenario. I.e. if you can do your job for unusually long (because it's not physical labor, and/or you enjoy doing it both as a job and a hobby), and you don't have many other obligations (you don't have kids, or you can afford childcare; or you don't have a wife, or you have a wife who doesn't mind you spending little time together; or you can afford to order prepared food often or don't have a cultural/personal bias against it), what happens is the people with these properties work more hours, causing the market to adapt and pressure the other people in the same field. In other fields, this doesn't happen in enough numbers to cause this problem.
  - Nevermark 4y ago
    In my experience, I agree: not everyone can put in the same kind of extra effort. And in areas where people are replaceable cogs, this can really hurt some people. But in knowledge work, if things are hitting the wall and there is pressure to extra-contribute but you are not in a position to put in extra time, you can still respond in a way that visibly shows your commitment. Express to your management & team your concern about the need for extra commitments and ask-for/suggest ways you can realign your work to prioritize what is most important to the situation. Nothing makes up for limited additional capacity more than demonstrating that despite your constraints, you are all in to help everyone around you succeed. Again, this may not work as a low level cog where management isn’t invested in the individuals that work for them. But in other cases, people do appreciate demonstrations of commitment even if you cannot contribute more on some dimensions. It’s just important to explicitly and visibly show your flexibility and willingness to incorporate others suggestions, on all the dimensions you can adapt.
- bleep_bloop 4y ago
  The few companies I've worked at, by 5 years the company either has sold up and everyone was replaced / let go, maybe a select few get to stay out of dozens - the vast majority lose out and were exploited or the company goes on a hiring spree and there aren't pay raises or bonuses because company growth is valued over employee satisfaction. Feels like you're talking about the exception rather than the rule or perhaps the tech industry 10+ years ago but certainly not today.
- AlexandrB 4y ago
  > So in their case it was short term uncompensated overtime , long term well compensated. How does one identify whether one will be long term compensated or not? Would an employer agree to committing to something like this via a contract? In my experience, switching jobs gets you there faster and without the unpaid overtime.
- CapstanRoller 4y ago
  An extra 2 hours of work per day, assuming 260 work days per year, comes out to 520 hours. Over 5 years that adds up to 2600 hours of extra work. If you get a $200k bonus after putting in those extra hours, you effectively earned $77/hr or $160k/year for your time. That's basically a 0-3 YOE tech job on top of your regular job. Is it really a good deal, especially considering how much experienced developers make annually and the long-term effects of working 10 hours per day?

happytoexplain 4y ago

Indeed. That the author chose this wording is a signal of how sick and biased the employee/employer relationship is.

zabzonk 4y ago
but only in certain professions - you try getting a builder/electrician/plumber to do unpaid overtime! why programmers are suckers for this is a bit of a mystery.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I’ve done a fair bit of not-specifically-compensated overtime over my career. In my 20s and early 30s, if I didn’t have anything going on socially or sports on a given evening, I was pretty likely going to write code (for enjoyment). Sometimes that was for me, but often it was for the company. Doing what I enjoy is why I was a sucker in your estimation.
  - zabzonk 4y ago
    yes, i certainly used the university that i worked for facilities when i was starting out, but only for my own projects (arguably bad, i might admit) - i never did or have done any work for my employers that i wasn't compensated for, and i can't imagine why anyone would.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    I don't think you're a sucker, and I have any number of things you could work on for me, for free.
  - jakelazaroff 4y ago
    I mean, yes? You could have built side projects, contributed to open source, freelanced, etc. There are a ton of ways to do what you enjoy without allowing someone to profit off your unpaid labor.
- sage76 4y ago

listenallyall 4y ago

At a basic level, sure. But if you're going to be so literal, you'd agree that a company should withhold any compensation when you're on vacation, or when you're out sick, or if you take a long lunch, right?

happytoexplain 4y ago
I don't understand how you're getting from a simple objection to the semantics of the word "dodging" as a description of "not working overtime for free", all the way to the implication that it's hypocritical to have that objection and also accept the concept of paid vacations, sick leaves, or lunch breaks.
- LBJsPNS 4y ago
  "I am very smart."
- listenallyall 4y ago
  (edit -- this comment is only directed towards salaried, exempt employees, I thought that was implied) It's not the word "dodging," it's the rest of the comment: "if you won't pay me for my work, i'm not going to do the work!" Don't know where you've worked, but the people who strictly abide by this concept are the worst types of coworkers. "it's 5:01, I refuse to respond to an email," "that's out of my scope," "I need 3 signatures before I can process this request" etc. These people belong at the DMV (for non-Americans, that's Division of Motor Vehicles), not at a dynamic company. I just think that people who live by the attitude above and take everything so literally should be consistent: "I'm not going to do the work (I'm on vacation, I called in sick)..." "ok, cool, but don't expect us to pay you while not doing work." Of course, such a scenario doesn't exist, nobody would work (or should) for a company that didn't offer paid vacation/sick days -- nor am I endorsing one. But real companies do require effective teamwork to succeed, and the types of people who find every excuse to NOT cooperate should be purged before they turn the company into a cliche of bureaucracy and frustrate the hell out of the effective employees.
LBJsPNS 4y ago
Vacation, sick leave, and the like are regulated by law in most states/countries. So is work without compensation. It's somewhat frowned on. Despite your absurd false equivalence.