5 ms·

This country rapidly needs to regain its sanity when it comes to work/life balance. While some of us employed in tech may have the luxury of giving the middle

by doktrin 15y ago

This country rapidly needs to regain its sanity when it comes to work/life balance. While some of us employed in tech may have the luxury of giving the middle finger to stigma, many employees in other sectors are not able to do so. What do you do when a 11-12 hour workday is expected upon penalty of being marginalized and eventually let go? In particular, what do you do when you don't have extremely in-demand skills, and cannot readily take the gamble on being back in the market for a new job? This is a situation many of our peers are in, and it deserves attention - if for no other reason than it 1) applies to many tech jobs already and 2) will only become more of an issue if/when the current tech job market contracts. If this unfortunate workaholic-glamorization trend continues, we are setting ourselves up for very unpleasant professional careers down the line.

itg 15y ago
Sometimes it's not even the employer, it's the employees who see working extra hours as a badge of honor. Everyone stays longer than they need to so if you decide you want a work-life balance, you are the odd one out and made to feel guilty.
- j_baker 15y ago
  Yes, but the company isn't doing anything effectively to stop this culture from existing, is it? You know, sometimes I'm amazed at how groups frequently take on a life of their own. I've been in this situation before, and it's almost always more complex than meets the eye. Family therapists notice that usually the person who's acting up usually isn't the person who has a problem. They call this person the identified patient[1]. In other words, they're the ones the family has identified as being the patient. Having such a person helps create the appearance that the family doesn't have a problem. In this case, there's usually an employee or two who are "acting out" the company's problem. You see this kind of behavior more frequently when you have someone who's more manipulative than your typical office jerk running the company. They may want their employees to work around the clock, but they don't want to get their hands dirty. So they find a way to manipulate some people within the company to do the policing for them. This helps them to look like the good guy while others take the fall for doing their dirty work. It's generally a pretty ugly situation for all involved except for the person who's reaping its benefits. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identified_patient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identified_patient
  - kamaal 15y ago
    For a long while I used to think that if I work hard I will win. And I was right. But not for long. Because working hard is just one thing. You must know what to work on. True hard work is to utilize time in hand to continually move to the next level of challenges after you are done with the current one. Once you do this you will realize that you are doing jobs that demand better productivity and quality time and not necessarily quantity of time. It becomes a totally different story if the quality and quantity goals both merge. In such a case you are really in a different situation and I would say you are on the right path. And that is the path which leads to better life and pay. That is totally different that the current BigCorp set ups. Tending to endless bug tickets, and minor feature enhancements will give you nothing on the longer run. This is where you gradually realize you are robbed of your soul and purpose in life in return for crazy hours and peanuts in pay. When people talk of crazy hours doing no benefit this is what they are talking about. Not the prior one that I mentioned. In fact I would consider my self fortunate If I find my self in one such situation.
bearmf 15y ago
The average work week in US is 43 hours. To be precise, it is on average 8.6 hours per day worked. Working 11-12 hours is definitely not common. Of the few people I know who do it, all do it voluntarily.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  Indeed - people consistently overestimate the number of hours they work, particularly if they work more than 40. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/06/art3full.pdf http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/06/art3full.pdf
  - jackpirate 15y ago
    That's probably because most people have ridiculous commutes. Even if you only commute 30 minutes each way, and work 8 hours a day, it certainly feels like you've worked 9 hours that day.
    - yummyfajitas 15y ago
      The average commute is 2.5 hours/week (about 30 minutes/day, both ways). http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t01.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t01.htm (Compute "Working and work related activities" - "Working", but that's actually an overestimate, since there are more work related activities than travel.)
- mbell 15y ago
  The overall average is a poor metric to use in this context. How many jobs do you think are out there are are expressly limited to 40 hours a week to avoid over time? Or 20 hours a week to limit having to offer health insurance? I'd be far more interested in an average for "professional" employment paid on salary, it would be far more telling.
bunderbunder 15y ago
What do you do when a 11-12 hour workday is expected upon penalty of being marginalized and eventually let go? You take advantage of the fact that it's all but impossible for humans to sustain their productivity while working those kinds of hours for any length of time. With all due respect to whoever said it first, furious activity is no substitute for keeping yourself in working order. Or something like that.
- kamaal 15y ago
  You take advantage of the fact that it's all but impossible for humans to sustain their productivity while working those kinds of hours for any length of time. In current market economics those jobs will be moved to people who are ready to work for lesser pay. Like to china, what that means is now you get more people for same money. Therefore more hours.
dclowd9901 15y ago
I honestly don't get it. I am almost skipping to my car after my day job so I can go home and work on my personal projects. Why would anyone want to stick around later to make someone else more money?
- ronnier 15y ago
  I get obsessed with what I'm working on and have to force myself to stop and go home. I leave work and I'm still thinking about what I've left.
- Gats 15y ago
  Because you don't want to be the asshole that did not put enough hour, and did drive the project in a wall. Not that it was going anywhere else...
  - dclowd9901 15y ago
    If a project's success is hinging on its developers' willingness to lose valuable personal time for it, those companies better start coughing up equity.
    - lucian303 15y ago
      Or even better, they better start coughing up more $$$. As in substantially more. I think software companies should hire full time but pay by the hour. Overtime will disappear or be required rarely. Employees will be happier. Of course, bad managers, to make themselves look good will assign 1 weeks worth of work for every hour at first. Till they all lose their jobs.
- devs1010 15y ago
  I think it depends where you are in your career. For me, there are times / projects where I find that I am pushing myself and improving my skills by working on them so I may go beyond whats expected by really delving in, optimizing code, etc to better my skills. Other times, I feel the way you do and have little connection to the work.
MattRogish 15y ago
"What do you do when a 11-12 hour workday is expected upon penalty of being marginalized and eventually let go?" Quit and work somewhere sane :)
- geon 15y ago
  > In particular, what do you do when you don't have extremely in-demand skills, and cannot readily take the gamble on being back in the market for a new job?
  - MattRogish 15y ago
    Oh, I see that (Was that an edit?) In that case, you are in a world of shit. You'd the sub in the relationship and you'd either get used to it, or work your ass off after-hours to get skills and experience that make you more marketable. Nothing magic to that equation; plenty of people do it. It's hard, but better than overworking at a sweatshop
    - scarmig 15y ago
      Of course, once everyone does that, that just puts pressure on our jobs. Even for things that seem a mile away--a maid or a gas station attendant--as they move into something white collar, that puts pressure on existing lower-level white collar workers, who in turn respond by doing the same thing. For any suggestion that fixing something socially is equivalent to fixing it for an individual, you've got to ask yourself: what happens when everyone does it? Otherwise it's just a pleasant-sounding nostrum.
      - MattRogish 15y ago
        Yeah, but most people don't do that. That's the whole point. It's hard. People are lazy. The reason why we get paid to do what we do is that we climbed that particular mountain. If it was easy, we'd be unemployed. :)
    - mtrichardson 15y ago
lucian303 15y ago
Totally. Right on the money. And the irony is that most people do work better during the day usually having 1 peak in the morning and one in the afternoon. I used to work long hours and spend hours past midnight on problems I could have solved in half an hour after rest. This is something that should stop.
tsotha 15y ago
Why would you work an 11-12 hour work day? If I had a job like that I would quit, even with no real marketable skills. I'd rather take ye olde 9-5 job even if it meant a substantial drop in income.

by doktrin 15y ago

itg 15y ago

Sometimes it's not even the employer, it's the employees who see working extra hours as a badge of honor. Everyone stays longer than they need to so if you decide you want a work-life balance, you are the odd one out and made to feel guilty.

j_baker 15y ago
Yes, but the company isn't doing anything effectively to stop this culture from existing, is it? You know, sometimes I'm amazed at how groups frequently take on a life of their own. I've been in this situation before, and it's almost always more complex than meets the eye. Family therapists notice that usually the person who's acting up usually isn't the person who has a problem. They call this person the identified patient[1]. In other words, they're the ones the family has identified as being the patient. Having such a person helps create the appearance that the family doesn't have a problem. In this case, there's usually an employee or two who are "acting out" the company's problem. You see this kind of behavior more frequently when you have someone who's more manipulative than your typical office jerk running the company. They may want their employees to work around the clock, but they don't want to get their hands dirty. So they find a way to manipulate some people within the company to do the policing for them. This helps them to look like the good guy while others take the fall for doing their dirty work. It's generally a pretty ugly situation for all involved except for the person who's reaping its benefits. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identified_patient http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identified_patient
- kamaal 15y ago
  For a long while I used to think that if I work hard I will win. And I was right. But not for long. Because working hard is just one thing. You must know what to work on. True hard work is to utilize time in hand to continually move to the next level of challenges after you are done with the current one. Once you do this you will realize that you are doing jobs that demand better productivity and quality time and not necessarily quantity of time. It becomes a totally different story if the quality and quantity goals both merge. In such a case you are really in a different situation and I would say you are on the right path. And that is the path which leads to better life and pay. That is totally different that the current BigCorp set ups. Tending to endless bug tickets, and minor feature enhancements will give you nothing on the longer run. This is where you gradually realize you are robbed of your soul and purpose in life in return for crazy hours and peanuts in pay. When people talk of crazy hours doing no benefit this is what they are talking about. Not the prior one that I mentioned. In fact I would consider my self fortunate If I find my self in one such situation.

bearmf 15y ago

The average work week in US is 43 hours. To be precise, it is on average 8.6 hours per day worked. Working 11-12 hours is definitely not common. Of the few people I know who do it, all do it voluntarily.

yummyfajitas 15y ago
Indeed - people consistently overestimate the number of hours they work, particularly if they work more than 40. http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/06/art3full.pdf http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/06/art3full.pdf
- jackpirate 15y ago
  That's probably because most people have ridiculous commutes. Even if you only commute 30 minutes each way, and work 8 hours a day, it certainly feels like you've worked 9 hours that day.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    The average commute is 2.5 hours/week (about 30 minutes/day, both ways). http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t01.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t01.htm (Compute "Working and work related activities" - "Working", but that's actually an overestimate, since there are more work related activities than travel.)
mbell 15y ago
The overall average is a poor metric to use in this context. How many jobs do you think are out there are are expressly limited to 40 hours a week to avoid over time? Or 20 hours a week to limit having to offer health insurance? I'd be far more interested in an average for "professional" employment paid on salary, it would be far more telling.

bunderbunder 15y ago

What do you do when a 11-12 hour workday is expected upon penalty of being marginalized and eventually let go? You take advantage of the fact that it's all but impossible for humans to sustain their productivity while working those kinds of hours for any length of time. With all due respect to whoever said it first, furious activity is no substitute for keeping yourself in working order. Or something like that.

kamaal 15y ago
You take advantage of the fact that it's all but impossible for humans to sustain their productivity while working those kinds of hours for any length of time. In current market economics those jobs will be moved to people who are ready to work for lesser pay. Like to china, what that means is now you get more people for same money. Therefore more hours.

dclowd9901 15y ago

I honestly don't get it. I am almost skipping to my car after my day job so I can go home and work on my personal projects. Why would anyone want to stick around later to make someone else more money?

ronnier 15y ago
I get obsessed with what I'm working on and have to force myself to stop and go home. I leave work and I'm still thinking about what I've left.
Gats 15y ago
Because you don't want to be the asshole that did not put enough hour, and did drive the project in a wall. Not that it was going anywhere else...
- dclowd9901 15y ago
  If a project's success is hinging on its developers' willingness to lose valuable personal time for it, those companies better start coughing up equity.
  - lucian303 15y ago
    Or even better, they better start coughing up more $$$. As in substantially more. I think software companies should hire full time but pay by the hour. Overtime will disappear or be required rarely. Employees will be happier. Of course, bad managers, to make themselves look good will assign 1 weeks worth of work for every hour at first. Till they all lose their jobs.
devs1010 15y ago
I think it depends where you are in your career. For me, there are times / projects where I find that I am pushing myself and improving my skills by working on them so I may go beyond whats expected by really delving in, optimizing code, etc to better my skills. Other times, I feel the way you do and have little connection to the work.

MattRogish 15y ago

"What do you do when a 11-12 hour workday is expected upon penalty of being marginalized and eventually let go?" Quit and work somewhere sane :)

geon 15y ago
> In particular, what do you do when you don't have extremely in-demand skills, and cannot readily take the gamble on being back in the market for a new job?
- MattRogish 15y ago
  Oh, I see that (Was that an edit?) In that case, you are in a world of shit. You'd the sub in the relationship and you'd either get used to it, or work your ass off after-hours to get skills and experience that make you more marketable. Nothing magic to that equation; plenty of people do it. It's hard, but better than overworking at a sweatshop
  - scarmig 15y ago
    Of course, once everyone does that, that just puts pressure on our jobs. Even for things that seem a mile away--a maid or a gas station attendant--as they move into something white collar, that puts pressure on existing lower-level white collar workers, who in turn respond by doing the same thing. For any suggestion that fixing something socially is equivalent to fixing it for an individual, you've got to ask yourself: what happens when everyone does it? Otherwise it's just a pleasant-sounding nostrum.
    - MattRogish 15y ago
      Yeah, but most people don't do that. That's the whole point. It's hard. People are lazy. The reason why we get paid to do what we do is that we climbed that particular mountain. If it was easy, we'd be unemployed. :)
  - mtrichardson 15y ago

lucian303 15y ago

Totally. Right on the money. And the irony is that most people do work better during the day usually having 1 peak in the morning and one in the afternoon. I used to work long hours and spend hours past midnight on problems I could have solved in half an hour after rest. This is something that should stop.

tsotha 15y ago

Why would you work an 11-12 hour work day? If I had a job like that I would quit, even with no real marketable skills. I'd rather take ye olde 9-5 job even if it meant a substantial drop in income.