3 ms·

The hell it is! I'm 29, father of a 2.5 months boy. I work at a start up that is doing quite ok. I took 20 days paternity leave when my kid was born plus a we

by BSousa 14y ago

The hell it is! I'm 29, father of a 2.5 months boy. I work at a start up that is doing quite ok. I took 20 days paternity leave when my kid was born plus a week paid vacation. I'm taking an extra month paternity leave as well in a month. Another colleague (male) is having a baby on the 27th this month, he'll do exactly the same. I hardly work more than 40 hours a week (sometimes I get a call on Sunday to fix an important issue or something, but not regularly). I don't trade work hours (even if it includes pay) for time spent with my kid. I just don't. And you know what? I'm not shunned for it by my boss. Hell, during my wife's pregnancy, I had to take a lot of time off and work a part of it from home and he was actually proud I was putting my family first.

einhverfr 14y ago
If your son had been born during a death march would you have considered trying to push the leave around a bit so as not to further burden your colleagues? I have known men at financial services firms for example, who came in for a week during paternity leave to help out with a PCI audit, or took leave a week late because they were not replaceable quickly for an on-site visit with a consultant.
- InclinedPlane 14y ago
  If you are working at a company where death marches are the normal development process you've got a lot bigger problems than being able to find the time for paternity leave. Run, run away from that job as fast as you can. There are tons of companies out there, even startups, hiring devs who won't work them to death. I'm a bit disappointed that the state of this industry is still so immature. We've had all of these studies and all of this wisdom from experienced high-caliber devs on the best ways to go about developing software (and none of them include death marches) and yet here we are still bumbling around and fucking it up and folks like you have the audacity to call it not only normal but proper and expected.
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    I think there is a major reason why there are death marches. You promise stakeholders and customers that a product will be ready to ship by a certain date. These things are very easy to underestimate. So in the end you have lots of extra bugs to fix, and you have a huge amount of tension between releasing the (buggy) software on time, letting the delivery date slip, and putting in whatever it takes to release something of acceptable quality on time. Moreover pre-hyping releases is an incredibly easy way to get a lot of publicity for your product, so it is very common. So the fundamental issue is marketing, and everything cascades from there. But even if it isn't a normal part of development at your firm, if it happened because something major was discovered last minute and required a lot of work, would you have considered postponing your paternity leave? Compare this to biotech. Here you have elaborate licensing and safety studies (of dubious effectiveness these days) which occur between the initial product development and its release to market. If Novo Nordisk comes up with a new drug tomorrow, they can't even estimate a release date because of all the regulatory stuff that comes with it. So this slows the march to production down and prevents death marches. So I think the issue with death marches is that they happen, not as a function of or product development, but as a function of PR and marketing, which leads to pre-hyping a specified day of release, and if you let it slip too much, you lose out on all that built-up hype. So I am not saying they should be normal. I am saying they are systemic, and expected particularly in a start-up phase of a business.
- BSousa 14y ago
  No I wouldn't. I took all the time the law allowed me, and if I could have taken more, I would. During paternity leave I only 'worked' one and a half day. And it was a special case that had nothing to do with work per se. I was invited to be a guest lecturer at a prestigious university here so I talked with my wife and she spent the day with my kid for me to prepare for it and then half day while I did it. Only reason I did it was because I had already agreed to before hand (kid was born 2 weeks before expected) and it was a great opportunity for me. But if it was a week long affair, I would have cancelled it on the spot. I just don't care about money/career enough to miss important time with my son or help my wife out.
  - einhverfr 14y ago
    How would you respond, being the father of a 3 month old, to being asked by Marissa Mayer to put in a 130 hour week because it was really important? How do you think a mother would respond? Do you see a difference?
    - BSousa 14y ago
      I would tell her to F- off if it was in my legal right to take the time off. I know my wife would do the same. I still don't understand how people still think 130 hour week, or working through paternity/vacation time is acceptable. I could understand if it was their own company, but for someone else? Really? Do you care so much about money/work status/climbing up the work ladder that you would put your own personal life on hold? ps: maybe I'm a bit off the tech name world, but if it wasn't for HN I would have no idea who Marissa Mayer was, and to be honest, I'm sure in 5 days when it leaves HN I won't remember her name.
      - einhverfr 14y ago
        I meant, coming back from a 3 month leave, and having your first week be a mandatory 80 hr overtime week. Ok you've taken your time off. You are back now. You have a 3-month-old at home. You are expected to be here for 120 hours this week. take it or quit. I bet women are far more likely to quit.
- jchrisa 14y ago
  My version of that was taking an afternoon to edit the wiki from home one day when my first daughter was born. (I took a few weeks off, then worked from home for a few more weeks). And I'm a co-founder. People really do overwork themselves (myself included). The most important thing is to make sure you spend your time well. If that means sitting around for a week doing as little as possible, in between busting ass on the important stuff when it comes along, by all means it's more productive to chill out for a bit. Part of the reason I took so long away when my daughter was born, was to set an example in the company that we can be more productive if we treat ourselves well.

by BSousa 14y ago

einhverfr 14y ago

If your son had been born during a death march would you have considered trying to push the leave around a bit so as not to further burden your colleagues? I have known men at financial services firms for example, who came in for a week during paternity leave to help out with a PCI audit, or took leave a week late because they were not replaceable quickly for an on-site visit with a consultant.

InclinedPlane 14y ago
If you are working at a company where death marches are the normal development process you've got a lot bigger problems than being able to find the time for paternity leave. Run, run away from that job as fast as you can. There are tons of companies out there, even startups, hiring devs who won't work them to death. I'm a bit disappointed that the state of this industry is still so immature. We've had all of these studies and all of this wisdom from experienced high-caliber devs on the best ways to go about developing software (and none of them include death marches) and yet here we are still bumbling around and fucking it up and folks like you have the audacity to call it not only normal but proper and expected.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  I think there is a major reason why there are death marches. You promise stakeholders and customers that a product will be ready to ship by a certain date. These things are very easy to underestimate. So in the end you have lots of extra bugs to fix, and you have a huge amount of tension between releasing the (buggy) software on time, letting the delivery date slip, and putting in whatever it takes to release something of acceptable quality on time. Moreover pre-hyping releases is an incredibly easy way to get a lot of publicity for your product, so it is very common. So the fundamental issue is marketing, and everything cascades from there. But even if it isn't a normal part of development at your firm, if it happened because something major was discovered last minute and required a lot of work, would you have considered postponing your paternity leave? Compare this to biotech. Here you have elaborate licensing and safety studies (of dubious effectiveness these days) which occur between the initial product development and its release to market. If Novo Nordisk comes up with a new drug tomorrow, they can't even estimate a release date because of all the regulatory stuff that comes with it. So this slows the march to production down and prevents death marches. So I think the issue with death marches is that they happen, not as a function of or product development, but as a function of PR and marketing, which leads to pre-hyping a specified day of release, and if you let it slip too much, you lose out on all that built-up hype. So I am not saying they should be normal. I am saying they are systemic, and expected particularly in a start-up phase of a business.
BSousa 14y ago
No I wouldn't. I took all the time the law allowed me, and if I could have taken more, I would. During paternity leave I only 'worked' one and a half day. And it was a special case that had nothing to do with work per se. I was invited to be a guest lecturer at a prestigious university here so I talked with my wife and she spent the day with my kid for me to prepare for it and then half day while I did it. Only reason I did it was because I had already agreed to before hand (kid was born 2 weeks before expected) and it was a great opportunity for me. But if it was a week long affair, I would have cancelled it on the spot. I just don't care about money/career enough to miss important time with my son or help my wife out.
- einhverfr 14y ago
  How would you respond, being the father of a 3 month old, to being asked by Marissa Mayer to put in a 130 hour week because it was really important? How do you think a mother would respond? Do you see a difference?
  - BSousa 14y ago
    I would tell her to F- off if it was in my legal right to take the time off. I know my wife would do the same. I still don't understand how people still think 130 hour week, or working through paternity/vacation time is acceptable. I could understand if it was their own company, but for someone else? Really? Do you care so much about money/work status/climbing up the work ladder that you would put your own personal life on hold? ps: maybe I'm a bit off the tech name world, but if it wasn't for HN I would have no idea who Marissa Mayer was, and to be honest, I'm sure in 5 days when it leaves HN I won't remember her name.
    - einhverfr 14y ago
      I meant, coming back from a 3 month leave, and having your first week be a mandatory 80 hr overtime week. Ok you've taken your time off. You are back now. You have a 3-month-old at home. You are expected to be here for 120 hours this week. take it or quit. I bet women are far more likely to quit.
jchrisa 14y ago
My version of that was taking an afternoon to edit the wiki from home one day when my first daughter was born. (I took a few weeks off, then worked from home for a few more weeks). And I'm a co-founder. People really do overwork themselves (myself included). The most important thing is to make sure you spend your time well. If that means sitting around for a week doing as little as possible, in between busting ass on the important stuff when it comes along, by all means it's more productive to chill out for a bit. Part of the reason I took so long away when my daughter was born, was to set an example in the company that we can be more productive if we treat ourselves well.