4 ms·

I'd rather not work on the weekend, even for an overtime rate. Thanks.

silisili 2y ago
That's the benefit of working on a small team/startup. Whoever smelt it dealt it kind of situation. Basically, at first at least, whoever's application is erroring is getting a call when it breaks. It sounds bad, but it encourages everyone to write more fault tolerant code. Way moreso then a random bigcorp with an on call team.
- aqme28 2y ago
  This is how you end up in situations where no one wants to work on the team that actually needs the most help
- grecy 2y ago
  I used to get called all the time because our in house infrastructure would fall over, and my apps would crash. It didn’t matter how many times I explained my apps couldn’t run without good infra, and that I wasn’t on that team, and that I had no access or authority to do anything… when my apps when down I got called. So actually, I really don’t like your idea.
  - majewsky 2y ago
    Or, to be more specific, you don't like your company's implementation of their idea. We have the same setup in my org, but we get to define alerts ourselves. All our own alerts are built so that they don't go off if the underlying infra is borked, and only if there's something we can actually do on our level. We are being kept honest because there is a big kerfuffle when an incident is reported by customers first (instead of alerting).
    - potamic 2y ago
      What metrics do you alert on? How do you distinguish between error due to faulty database client vs error due to database disk failure?
      - dullcrisp 2y ago
        Define SLOs based on what can realistically be achieved with underlying infrastructure, only alert if those SLOs are breached?
      - majewsky 2y ago
        Taking my managed container image registry service as an example. - The only critical alert that can actually page people is if the blackbox test fails. Every 30 seconds, it downloads a test image and if the contents don't match the expectation, an alert is raised (with some delay). - Warning alerts are mostly for any errors being returned from background tasks, but these are only monitored during business hours.
        perfect_wave 2y ago
        i dont see how that is separated from the underlying infra. If the network/server/some dependency goes down, the blackbox test will fail and you'll get paged.
        silisili 2y ago
        You can test for this. For example, we had routines that were called on repeated HTTP failures that would then get 5 or so of the top US websites. If those fail too, it moves from an application error to an infra one.
      - sgarland 2y ago
        If your endpoint is failing, it might be you. If everyone’s endpoint is failing, it’s almost certainly not you.
  - latexr 2y ago
    Pretty sure your parent poster meant a small overall team. As in, the company is small enough that everyone knows who everyone else is and there’s little to no bureaucracy to reach the right person. Doesn’t seem like your case at all.
- watwut 2y ago
  Unless of course the "guilty" is not immediately apparent. If it happens frequently, the guilty is the process, team lead or whoever runs the things.
- teeray 2y ago
  > Whoever smelt it dealt it Until whoever dealt it just leaves the team. Then it’s everyone’s problem.
- amrocha 2y ago
  I joined a startup a couple years ago, and got handed a poisoned chalice. It was a project that was critical to the company, but that was not very reliable, and broke overnight very often, sometimes 3-4 days per week. I was the 4th dev on it. Everyone else who worked on it before had burned out and quit. The dev before me couldn’t tough it out another 2 weeks and quit before i joined. Eventually I burned out after a year and quit too. All this to say, that’s great when it works, but when it goes bad it’s real bad hahaha.
- Flop7331 2y ago
  There's also the call you get when the founder breaks something and blames the person who touched it before them.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
dukeyukey 2y ago
That's fine, but I'd be willing to. Always a chance I'm I'm far from a laptop or even signal, but if I'm having a quiet weekend and something comes up, some overtime sounds great.
- KoolKat23 2y ago
  I understand. Problem is this kind of thing is a race to the bottom. Because of the silly ways humans work (mostly due to imperfect information), I'd feel obliged and will agree to it, despite not wanting to (concerns I will automatically be perceived as a lesser employee). And then we're all working weekends.
  - dukeyukey 2y ago
    This is one of those things that I can see happening, but also has never happened anywhere I've worked.
  - Xylakant 2y ago
    A sufficiently large overtime/weekend bonus will prevent that easily. I've had quite a few conversations both internally and with customers that started with "we need that by monday" and went via "we can do that, but it will cost X extra" to "well, i guess wednesday is fine, too." Mandatory weekend work is an extremely rare occurence here, I can count all occurences in the last five years on one hand and still have fingers to spare.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - KoolKat23 2y ago
      It tends to be an issue with more "vulnerable" workers, ones with less leverage. Shift work, nurses and hospitality. Margins are ample to cover low wages.
      - Xylakant 2y ago
prmoustache 2y ago
Law again takes care of that, because the right to rest also exist. So if you are asked to work 1h during the weekend, you usually gain 2.5 to 3 hours of rest in exchange.

That's the benefit of working on a small team/startup. Whoever smelt it dealt it kind of situation. Basically, at first at least, whoever's application is erroring is getting a call when it breaks. It sounds bad, but it encourages everyone to write more fault tolerant code. Way moreso then a random bigcorp with an on call team.

aqme28 2y ago
This is how you end up in situations where no one wants to work on the team that actually needs the most help
grecy 2y ago
I used to get called all the time because our in house infrastructure would fall over, and my apps would crash. It didn’t matter how many times I explained my apps couldn’t run without good infra, and that I wasn’t on that team, and that I had no access or authority to do anything… when my apps when down I got called. So actually, I really don’t like your idea.
- majewsky 2y ago
  Or, to be more specific, you don't like your company's implementation of their idea. We have the same setup in my org, but we get to define alerts ourselves. All our own alerts are built so that they don't go off if the underlying infra is borked, and only if there's something we can actually do on our level. We are being kept honest because there is a big kerfuffle when an incident is reported by customers first (instead of alerting).
  - potamic 2y ago
    What metrics do you alert on? How do you distinguish between error due to faulty database client vs error due to database disk failure?
    - dullcrisp 2y ago
      Define SLOs based on what can realistically be achieved with underlying infrastructure, only alert if those SLOs are breached?
    - majewsky 2y ago
      Taking my managed container image registry service as an example. - The only critical alert that can actually page people is if the blackbox test fails. Every 30 seconds, it downloads a test image and if the contents don't match the expectation, an alert is raised (with some delay). - Warning alerts are mostly for any errors being returned from background tasks, but these are only monitored during business hours.
      - perfect_wave 2y ago
        i dont see how that is separated from the underlying infra. If the network/server/some dependency goes down, the blackbox test will fail and you'll get paged.
        silisili 2y ago
        You can test for this. For example, we had routines that were called on repeated HTTP failures that would then get 5 or so of the top US websites. If those fail too, it moves from an application error to an infra one.
    - sgarland 2y ago
      If your endpoint is failing, it might be you. If everyone’s endpoint is failing, it’s almost certainly not you.
- latexr 2y ago
  Pretty sure your parent poster meant a small overall team. As in, the company is small enough that everyone knows who everyone else is and there’s little to no bureaucracy to reach the right person. Doesn’t seem like your case at all.
watwut 2y ago
Unless of course the "guilty" is not immediately apparent. If it happens frequently, the guilty is the process, team lead or whoever runs the things.
teeray 2y ago
> Whoever smelt it dealt it Until whoever dealt it just leaves the team. Then it’s everyone’s problem.
amrocha 2y ago
I joined a startup a couple years ago, and got handed a poisoned chalice. It was a project that was critical to the company, but that was not very reliable, and broke overnight very often, sometimes 3-4 days per week. I was the 4th dev on it. Everyone else who worked on it before had burned out and quit. The dev before me couldn’t tough it out another 2 weeks and quit before i joined. Eventually I burned out after a year and quit too. All this to say, that’s great when it works, but when it goes bad it’s real bad hahaha.
Flop7331 2y ago
There's also the call you get when the founder breaks something and blames the person who touched it before them.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

dukeyukey 2y ago

That's fine, but I'd be willing to. Always a chance I'm I'm far from a laptop or even signal, but if I'm having a quiet weekend and something comes up, some overtime sounds great.

KoolKat23 2y ago
I understand. Problem is this kind of thing is a race to the bottom. Because of the silly ways humans work (mostly due to imperfect information), I'd feel obliged and will agree to it, despite not wanting to (concerns I will automatically be perceived as a lesser employee). And then we're all working weekends.
- dukeyukey 2y ago
  This is one of those things that I can see happening, but also has never happened anywhere I've worked.
- Xylakant 2y ago
  A sufficiently large overtime/weekend bonus will prevent that easily. I've had quite a few conversations both internally and with customers that started with "we need that by monday" and went via "we can do that, but it will cost X extra" to "well, i guess wednesday is fine, too." Mandatory weekend work is an extremely rare occurence here, I can count all occurences in the last five years on one hand and still have fingers to spare.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - KoolKat23 2y ago
    It tends to be an issue with more "vulnerable" workers, ones with less leverage. Shift work, nurses and hospitality. Margins are ample to cover low wages.
    - Xylakant 2y ago

prmoustache 2y ago

Law again takes care of that, because the right to rest also exist. So if you are asked to work 1h during the weekend, you usually gain 2.5 to 3 hours of rest in exchange.