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Is there anything worse than a sanctimonious early-riser who thinks that work is more valuable because of the time of day that it occurred? And how much waste d

Is there anything worse than a sanctimonious early-riser who thinks that work is more valuable because of the time of day that it occurred? And how much waste do we all incur because of these indignant shits who insist that everyone must awaken simultaneously, get in our cars simultaneously, choke the streets and freeways simultaneously, line up at Starbucks simultaneously, arrive at our jobs simultaneously, etc. etc. etc. I dare anyone to try and design a worse system. A few of the worst early-risers I've worked with were the first ones to leave work, often crowing about how if others arrived as early as they did, then they too could race out to join them on the freeway, or at the nearest Hooters.

enraged_camel 14y ago
There is a lot of value in having everyone in the office at the same hours. It ensures that communication occurs in a timely manner. I work at a software company as a Sales Engineer, and part of my job is to answer questions clients may have. There is nothing more annoying than having to respond to the client's question with "I'm sorry, I was going to ask one of our developers but it seems they have gone home for the day." Note that this sometimes happens at 3pm, because the developer decided to come in at 5.30am and left at 2.30pm. Also note that similar things happened when I was working in tech support, and critical issues had to remain unresolved until the next day because the developer wanted to leave early and catch the swell for that day's surfing session. Bottom line is that there are a lot of fields (especially customer-centric ones) where the turnaround time for inquiries has to be extremely low. There are two ways to do this: 1. Give everyone Blackberry's that they must answer at all times 2. Have everyone come in at the same time It's one or the other. Pick one.
- doktrin 14y ago
  In my experience, customer facing professionals are often quite bad at gauging the actual importance of client concerns, and good at magnifying them. I certainly was. Scheduling adequate coverage is ultimately a concern for upper management. If they allowed "critical issues" to go unresolved on anything other than a rare occasion, the issues were probably not critical to begin with.
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    It's not necessarily only about the importance of the actual concern or question. In my experience, customers appreciate it a lot if you get back to them in a timely manner (~30 minutes), regardless of how trivial the issue or question is. It helps you build a reputation as a reliable businessperson, and further helps you build a good relationship with that customer.
    - doktrin 14y ago
      Of course customers like being acknowledged, but that's the responsibility of whoever is actually interfacing with said customer. IME, it's pretty unusual to need developer input just to adequately respond to a client. It's also quite unproductive to run around context-switching developers every time a minor issue arises. This is why I specifically mentioned that this is an upper management concern. Those in client facing roles often default to wishing to provide the best possible support to their customers at all times. It's a good instinct, but that doesn't mean it's always the pragmatic course of action.
      - enraged_camel 14y ago
        We try hard not to context-switch developers. For most issues, email is used, and that allows them to respond whenever they want - as long as it is within the same day. But if the issue has been outstanding for a day, then we resort to instant message. Context-switching does occur there, but that's the price one pays for leaving at 2pm the previous day when a lot of customers were still at the office working.
- chc 14y ago
  Eh, just because somebody is in the office doesn't mean he's available at a moment's notice. Couldn't the same argument be made against meetings? It can't be any less annoying having to say, "I'm sorry, I was going to ask one of our developers but it seems he's in a meeting." In fact, in either case, I'd say something like "I don't have a great answer myself, but I'm checking with the developer in charge of that feature and I'll have all the details for you by $TIME."
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    If they are in a meeting, they will most likely be out within the next 30-60 seconds, which is when they will see my email/IM and respond. If they are out for the day, that's at least a one-day delay.
- quotefoundslash 14y ago
  In my experience the kind of employer shortsighted enough to set such policies likes to pick both, and enforce ruthlessly.

enraged_camel 14y ago

There is a lot of value in having everyone in the office at the same hours. It ensures that communication occurs in a timely manner. I work at a software company as a Sales Engineer, and part of my job is to answer questions clients may have. There is nothing more annoying than having to respond to the client's question with "I'm sorry, I was going to ask one of our developers but it seems they have gone home for the day." Note that this sometimes happens at 3pm, because the developer decided to come in at 5.30am and left at 2.30pm. Also note that similar things happened when I was working in tech support, and critical issues had to remain unresolved until the next day because the developer wanted to leave early and catch the swell for that day's surfing session. Bottom line is that there are a lot of fields (especially customer-centric ones) where the turnaround time for inquiries has to be extremely low. There are two ways to do this: 1. Give everyone Blackberry's that they must answer at all times 2. Have everyone come in at the same time It's one or the other. Pick one.

doktrin 14y ago
In my experience, customer facing professionals are often quite bad at gauging the actual importance of client concerns, and good at magnifying them. I certainly was. Scheduling adequate coverage is ultimately a concern for upper management. If they allowed "critical issues" to go unresolved on anything other than a rare occasion, the issues were probably not critical to begin with.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  It's not necessarily only about the importance of the actual concern or question. In my experience, customers appreciate it a lot if you get back to them in a timely manner (~30 minutes), regardless of how trivial the issue or question is. It helps you build a reputation as a reliable businessperson, and further helps you build a good relationship with that customer.
  - doktrin 14y ago
    Of course customers like being acknowledged, but that's the responsibility of whoever is actually interfacing with said customer. IME, it's pretty unusual to need developer input just to adequately respond to a client. It's also quite unproductive to run around context-switching developers every time a minor issue arises. This is why I specifically mentioned that this is an upper management concern. Those in client facing roles often default to wishing to provide the best possible support to their customers at all times. It's a good instinct, but that doesn't mean it's always the pragmatic course of action.
    - enraged_camel 14y ago
      We try hard not to context-switch developers. For most issues, email is used, and that allows them to respond whenever they want - as long as it is within the same day. But if the issue has been outstanding for a day, then we resort to instant message. Context-switching does occur there, but that's the price one pays for leaving at 2pm the previous day when a lot of customers were still at the office working.
chc 14y ago
Eh, just because somebody is in the office doesn't mean he's available at a moment's notice. Couldn't the same argument be made against meetings? It can't be any less annoying having to say, "I'm sorry, I was going to ask one of our developers but it seems he's in a meeting." In fact, in either case, I'd say something like "I don't have a great answer myself, but I'm checking with the developer in charge of that feature and I'll have all the details for you by $TIME."
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  If they are in a meeting, they will most likely be out within the next 30-60 seconds, which is when they will see my email/IM and respond. If they are out for the day, that's at least a one-day delay.
quotefoundslash 14y ago
In my experience the kind of employer shortsighted enough to set such policies likes to pick both, and enforce ruthlessly.