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This meme about how unfair it is that programmers work unpaid overtime is starting to drive me nuts. I've been in big stodgy software company where everyone wo

This meme about how unfair it is that programmers work unpaid overtime is starting to drive me nuts. I've been in big stodgy software company where everyone worked exactly 8 hours, and the whole company filed out the door at 5pm as if a factory whistle had blown. I've also worked at a smallish software company where the norm was at least 10 or 11 hours a day, and half the programmers came in on Saturdays and Sundays (and I did too). I much preferred the latter. Why? The work was more interesting, and the programmers were smarter (and nicer!), but the main reason I preferred it is, "What's the alternative for my free time?" What do you really do with the rest of the day? Yeah, sure, you have great "personal life with your family". But really, the typical programmer at BOTH companies was single, didn't have a girlfriend, and didn't have many friends. The free time was wasted on video games, lots and lots of video games, mindless chatter at a bar, watching team sports,... you get idea. Let's stop with the whining and sniveling about unpaid overtime among programmers. The average programmer is well paid, his work is usually interesting, and his free time will be squandered (applies to me too). I prefer to be at work where at least I'm doing something real.

cujo 15y ago
Maybe I'm missing your point, but from what I gather, no one should be whining about unpaid overtime because you don't think programmers have social lives and their time is better spent working for free. Have you heard the expression, "Speak for yourself"? It applies to you here.
- cantrevealname 15y ago
  But the OP is speaking to all software developers, and I'm offering an alternative viewpoint. > no one should be whining about unpaid overtime Do I think that I and other programmers should be paid for overtime? Yes, of course I do. I would gladly accept payment. My point is that this complaint about unpaid programmer time is becoming a recurring theme, as if it's a huge and terrible problem. What's next: programmers forming a union like Detroit auto workers.
  - mikeash 15y ago
    What's wrong with forming a union?
    - Drbble 15y ago
      One thing wrong is that programming is not homogeneous work, and unionization works better when different employees' work are completely substitutible. Otherwise you end up in a "market for lemons" race to the bottom in work quality situation.
      - nagrom 15y ago
        I'm curious...I haven't thought about this much at all and I've no experience in it, but your assertion doesn't seem obvious to me. Can you back it up with examples?
      - _delirium 15y ago
        There are a number of uniform-ish things that I wouldn't mind an advocacy group handling. For example, I think as an industry we could get better terms in employment agreements, e.g. less onerous noncompetes, claims to own out-of-work IP, and no-contact rules, if employers had to negotiate with a union over those things, instead of every individual employee having to fight an uphill battle to strike out lines in the agreement. Although an alternative, seen in California, is to bargain at the really collective level and deal with it through legislation that outlaws some kinds of terms entirely.
    - jt2190 15y ago
      [Warning: This question may seem like a troll... I'm just trying to provoke a little more thinking about the pros and cons of unions as they apply to programming.] Would a union allow it's members to contribute to open source projects? Especially those used in commercial products?
      - mikeash 15y ago
        I can't see many programmers joining a union that didn't allow members to contribute to open source. Remember, a union isn't some independent entity that rises up and dictates terms, it's simply a collection of its members. The organization can become corrupted if you're not careful, but there's certainly no reason to assume it would be here.
mikeash 15y ago
Let me make sure I understand your point correctly. You're saying that we should stop complaining about unpaid overtime because we have nothing better to do with our time anyway? If that is indeed correct, then you are off base to an insulting degree. I personally work a 40 hour week and never have enough free time to truly be satisfied despite that. I know no programmers who like working excessive hours simply because they never have anything else they'd rather do. Maybe you're single and can't think of anything else to do besides video games, bar hopping, and sports, but I'm married with a child and I have more than enough interesting hobbies to occupy as much time as I care to give them.
TylerE 15y ago
Your "wasted time" is my "stress relief", so I can actually be productive when I am in the office. There have been times when I've worked significantly more hours than my usual 40 (I'm hourly though, not salaried), and I can honestly say that for me it's unsustainable. After about the first week of working 60 hours+ I'm probably _less_ productive working the second 60 than if I'd just worked 40s.
demian 15y ago
There is nothing wrong with working 10 or 11 hours, if you want to. The problem is when programmers DON'T want to stay overtime. Have you read "In Praise of Idleness" by Bertrand Russell? It raises some interesting questions. http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
- Joeri 15y ago
  There is something wrong with working 11 hours on a constant basis. Peak performance is realized on a 40 hour schedule. Doing more hours just gets less work done in more time, even if it doesn't seem that way. Those extra 3 hours are better spent playing video games, because then they produce some value, as opposed to no value. Of course, crunching works, and there are times to do that, but you can't crunch all the time.
  - jrs235 15y ago
    I would almost argue peak [coding] performance is realized on less than a 40 hour work week schedule. I hate how I am required to be in my office 8 hours a day for 5 days a week. Somehow, filling chairs seems to be important. Management doesn't take into account the number of hours I think about the software development problems we face and their possible solutions and researching and evaluating how others have solved similar problems in the past. If I were to reserve doing this while in my seat, management and others in the organization would get mad since I wasn't actively typing away on my keyboard. It's also way more difficult to concentrate and remain undistracted in a busy office where people think you are readily available at any moment to answer any question (important or not) that they might have. This has been addressed before too... managers schedule vs makers schedule. Also, I prefer and believe I'm more productive mulling over the problem a few days, then coding for 10-14 hours for a day or two (while in flow) then taking a day or two easy or off to recuperate and re-energize. But maybe this is a personal myth I need to break... anyone know of any studies or info to tell me I'm wrong (just wondering).
msrpotus 15y ago
Not all of us want to spend every moment in the office. Some of us have girlfriends, hobbies, or just sometimes need a break from sitting in front of a computer.
bryanbibat 15y ago
Been there done that. Wait a couple of years and those people from the second company will start dropping like flies. They either get a personal life and move to a company that allows that, or burnout / go insane because they don't have anything to live for. Not everyone is built to live just for "code".
melling 15y ago
You're an excellent little drone worker. Unfortunately, on their deathbed, most people probably aren't going to wished that they worked more. Maybe trying to find a girlfriend, a few good friends, dancing late into the night, learning another language, writing the great American novel, etc. should be part of a complete life. At the very least, if all you want to do is work, start your own company. You're probably just making someone else rich who is enjoying life a lot more than you. You only go around once and you can't take it with you.
jt2190 15y ago
It appears that your comment has been taken the wrong way... I think what you're saying is this: * It's more fun (for you) to work with people who like to program and ship software than it is to work with people who just program to pay their bills and would rather be anywhere else than at work. When employees care about solving problems, they put in extra hours sometimes. Managers have the problem of making sure that team members don't burn themselves out. At these companies you see things like as much time off as you want, work what hours you want, work where you want. There's no need to make people work. When employees don't care, they spend lots of time in the office getting coffee, checking email, IM chatting, surfing the web, having endless meetings arguing about whether or not source control is a good idea, etc. The managers there have the problem of getting the staff to do any real work at all. For an employee who wants to work at one kind of company, it's very frustrating to work at the other kind.
- jtagen 15y ago
  This describes the kind of place I want to work. Employees want to be there for crazy hours because it's such a fun environment, and employers push back to prevent burnout.
- _delirium 15y ago
  Many really good people who love to program, though, don't necessarily love to spend 100% of their time programming one thing. Lots of strong, motivated programmers work on open-source projects and other side projects in addition to their day job, and try to avoid companies where excessive crunch-time would make that impossible.
- Natsu 15y ago
  Yeah, I've seen both ends of that. I really understand wanting to work with people who care a lot about what they're doing and who want to get things done right. At the same time, I've also seen short-sighted management where they're just trying to wring you dry and pulling really stupid stunts that really hurt the people who do care. And when they do those, I find myself starting to care less, because some of the stupid little things they do when trying to save a few pennies can just totally sap your ability to care. Just got a fresh reminder of that, sadly. Cancelled a cheap parts order just because we managed to get the flaky part to work for a short time, but it still breaks down half the time as they'd know if they hadn't left early.
Joeri 15y ago
Ok, so you were doing what you loved, because you love it. That's fine. But at the same time, you were working for a business, and the manager of that business should have known that they were hurting their bottom line because they allowed people to come in on the weekends. For the reason why, read peopleware, or http://www.igda.org/why-crunch-modes-doesnt-work-six-lessons http://www.igda.org/why-crunch-modes-doesnt-work-six-lessons It keeps amazing me how clearly peopleware spells out how you're supposed to manage software teams, and how few teams are actually managed that way.

cujo 15y ago

Maybe I'm missing your point, but from what I gather, no one should be whining about unpaid overtime because you don't think programmers have social lives and their time is better spent working for free. Have you heard the expression, "Speak for yourself"? It applies to you here.

cantrevealname 15y ago
But the OP is speaking to all software developers, and I'm offering an alternative viewpoint. > no one should be whining about unpaid overtime Do I think that I and other programmers should be paid for overtime? Yes, of course I do. I would gladly accept payment. My point is that this complaint about unpaid programmer time is becoming a recurring theme, as if it's a huge and terrible problem. What's next: programmers forming a union like Detroit auto workers.
- mikeash 15y ago
  What's wrong with forming a union?
  - Drbble 15y ago
    One thing wrong is that programming is not homogeneous work, and unionization works better when different employees' work are completely substitutible. Otherwise you end up in a "market for lemons" race to the bottom in work quality situation.
    - nagrom 15y ago
      I'm curious...I haven't thought about this much at all and I've no experience in it, but your assertion doesn't seem obvious to me. Can you back it up with examples?
    - _delirium 15y ago
      There are a number of uniform-ish things that I wouldn't mind an advocacy group handling. For example, I think as an industry we could get better terms in employment agreements, e.g. less onerous noncompetes, claims to own out-of-work IP, and no-contact rules, if employers had to negotiate with a union over those things, instead of every individual employee having to fight an uphill battle to strike out lines in the agreement. Although an alternative, seen in California, is to bargain at the really collective level and deal with it through legislation that outlaws some kinds of terms entirely.
  - jt2190 15y ago
    [Warning: This question may seem like a troll... I'm just trying to provoke a little more thinking about the pros and cons of unions as they apply to programming.] Would a union allow it's members to contribute to open source projects? Especially those used in commercial products?
    - mikeash 15y ago
      I can't see many programmers joining a union that didn't allow members to contribute to open source. Remember, a union isn't some independent entity that rises up and dictates terms, it's simply a collection of its members. The organization can become corrupted if you're not careful, but there's certainly no reason to assume it would be here.

mikeash 15y ago

Let me make sure I understand your point correctly. You're saying that we should stop complaining about unpaid overtime because we have nothing better to do with our time anyway? If that is indeed correct, then you are off base to an insulting degree. I personally work a 40 hour week and never have enough free time to truly be satisfied despite that. I know no programmers who like working excessive hours simply because they never have anything else they'd rather do. Maybe you're single and can't think of anything else to do besides video games, bar hopping, and sports, but I'm married with a child and I have more than enough interesting hobbies to occupy as much time as I care to give them.

TylerE 15y ago

Your "wasted time" is my "stress relief", so I can actually be productive when I am in the office. There have been times when I've worked significantly more hours than my usual 40 (I'm hourly though, not salaried), and I can honestly say that for me it's unsustainable. After about the first week of working 60 hours+ I'm probably _less_ productive working the second 60 than if I'd just worked 40s.

demian 15y ago

There is nothing wrong with working 10 or 11 hours, if you want to. The problem is when programmers DON'T want to stay overtime. Have you read "In Praise of Idleness" by Bertrand Russell? It raises some interesting questions. http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

Joeri 15y ago
There is something wrong with working 11 hours on a constant basis. Peak performance is realized on a 40 hour schedule. Doing more hours just gets less work done in more time, even if it doesn't seem that way. Those extra 3 hours are better spent playing video games, because then they produce some value, as opposed to no value. Of course, crunching works, and there are times to do that, but you can't crunch all the time.
- jrs235 15y ago
  I would almost argue peak [coding] performance is realized on less than a 40 hour work week schedule. I hate how I am required to be in my office 8 hours a day for 5 days a week. Somehow, filling chairs seems to be important. Management doesn't take into account the number of hours I think about the software development problems we face and their possible solutions and researching and evaluating how others have solved similar problems in the past. If I were to reserve doing this while in my seat, management and others in the organization would get mad since I wasn't actively typing away on my keyboard. It's also way more difficult to concentrate and remain undistracted in a busy office where people think you are readily available at any moment to answer any question (important or not) that they might have. This has been addressed before too... managers schedule vs makers schedule. Also, I prefer and believe I'm more productive mulling over the problem a few days, then coding for 10-14 hours for a day or two (while in flow) then taking a day or two easy or off to recuperate and re-energize. But maybe this is a personal myth I need to break... anyone know of any studies or info to tell me I'm wrong (just wondering).

msrpotus 15y ago

Not all of us want to spend every moment in the office. Some of us have girlfriends, hobbies, or just sometimes need a break from sitting in front of a computer.

bryanbibat 15y ago

Been there done that. Wait a couple of years and those people from the second company will start dropping like flies. They either get a personal life and move to a company that allows that, or burnout / go insane because they don't have anything to live for. Not everyone is built to live just for "code".

melling 15y ago

You're an excellent little drone worker. Unfortunately, on their deathbed, most people probably aren't going to wished that they worked more. Maybe trying to find a girlfriend, a few good friends, dancing late into the night, learning another language, writing the great American novel, etc. should be part of a complete life. At the very least, if all you want to do is work, start your own company. You're probably just making someone else rich who is enjoying life a lot more than you. You only go around once and you can't take it with you.

jt2190 15y ago

It appears that your comment has been taken the wrong way... I think what you're saying is this: * It's more fun (for you) to work with people who like to program and ship software than it is to work with people who just program to pay their bills and would rather be anywhere else than at work. When employees care about solving problems, they put in extra hours sometimes. Managers have the problem of making sure that team members don't burn themselves out. At these companies you see things like as much time off as you want, work what hours you want, work where you want. There's no need to make people work. When employees don't care, they spend lots of time in the office getting coffee, checking email, IM chatting, surfing the web, having endless meetings arguing about whether or not source control is a good idea, etc. The managers there have the problem of getting the staff to do any real work at all. For an employee who wants to work at one kind of company, it's very frustrating to work at the other kind.

jtagen 15y ago
This describes the kind of place I want to work. Employees want to be there for crazy hours because it's such a fun environment, and employers push back to prevent burnout.
_delirium 15y ago
Many really good people who love to program, though, don't necessarily love to spend 100% of their time programming one thing. Lots of strong, motivated programmers work on open-source projects and other side projects in addition to their day job, and try to avoid companies where excessive crunch-time would make that impossible.
Natsu 15y ago
Yeah, I've seen both ends of that. I really understand wanting to work with people who care a lot about what they're doing and who want to get things done right. At the same time, I've also seen short-sighted management where they're just trying to wring you dry and pulling really stupid stunts that really hurt the people who do care. And when they do those, I find myself starting to care less, because some of the stupid little things they do when trying to save a few pennies can just totally sap your ability to care. Just got a fresh reminder of that, sadly. Cancelled a cheap parts order just because we managed to get the flaky part to work for a short time, but it still breaks down half the time as they'd know if they hadn't left early.

Joeri 15y ago

Ok, so you were doing what you loved, because you love it. That's fine. But at the same time, you were working for a business, and the manager of that business should have known that they were hurting their bottom line because they allowed people to come in on the weekends. For the reason why, read peopleware, or http://www.igda.org/why-crunch-modes-doesnt-work-six-lessons http://www.igda.org/why-crunch-modes-doesnt-work-six-lessons It keeps amazing me how clearly peopleware spells out how you're supposed to manage software teams, and how few teams are actually managed that way.