6 ms·

Overtime is Morphine

91 points by emiller829 13y ago

shailesh 13y ago
True story: a CMM Level 5 software organization had precisely the exact same issue. There was a PM, who would literally spend the entire day wasting time and start real work around 5 PM. Then work till late night. Once he advised me, "Always make sure that you send an e-mail, late at night to anybody in the organization, before you call it day." "Why?" To make it short, per his advise, the single most important thing about those e-mails, wasn't the contents, but just the timestamp.
- arethuza 13y ago
  You would think that PM would have learned about the feature that quite a few email systems have to send an email at a particular time! (e.g. Outlook has "Do not deliver before" option).
  - shailesh 13y ago
    :). The logs at physical security could not be faked: they used to have a pen and paper system; it was a little more than a decade ago.
    - vonmoltke 13y ago
      The last place I worked, 18 months ago, that required after-hours logs still used pen and paper. Plus, they left the log books out all the time, so it was easy when you signed in to see who else was coming in after hours, going back weeks sometimes.
- Argorak 13y ago
  You can get the same effect by coming early and making sure people notice that you were in ahead of them. When done correctly, you get the "behind the project"-bonus without overtime.
  - __--__ 13y ago
    I find that coming in early doesn't produce the same social effect as staying late. I'm still not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the perception of personal sacrifice? Coming in early doesn't impact your social schedule, while staying late says you're willing to sacrifice your evenings for the company. Coming in early just means you're willing to wake up earlier.
nawitus 13y ago
Simple solution (from the software engineer's perspective): demand overtime pay. If you are officially expected to work 40h/week for certain amount of money, but in practise you're "expected" to work 50h/week, then your real wage is actually 20% lower than what your contract says. And that is pretty similar to theft. It's time to start comparing wages instead of absolute income.
- deelowe 13y ago
  Most SWEs are salary. Overtime laws are different for salaried employees(depending on jurisdiction). A lot of times, you can demand overtime all you want and the employer can simply deny it, and most will. Typically, your only options are to switch employers or file a lawsuit.
  - kyllo 13y ago
    Then you go try to find a job where you're actually only expected to work 40 hours per week, and everyone goes home by 5:00. But then, you find that the salary offer is at least 20% lower than the place that worked you 50+ hours/week. High salaries come with high expectations. If you're getting paid a lot, expect to work a lot, too. If a good work/life balance were free, everyone would have it. It has a definite opportunity cost.
    - vonmoltke 13y ago
      All 11 years of my work experience thus far is in the defense industry, so keep that in mind as I state the following. I have yet to see an instance where salary scaled 1:1 with time put in. Where I used to work, the people that busted their asses for 50+ hours week in and week out, showing they were "team players", might get a 6% raise at review time instead of a 2% raise for a strict 8-5 engineer. They might also get a few thousand in extra bonuses, if their department has funding for them. After a while they might get to the point where they were making enough extra to justify the effort, but "a while" could be 10 years or more. Note that I am specifically avoiding any discussion of non-monetary considerations and that my analysis sounds rather mercenary. I am specifically trying to address the issue of engineers making more money for being expected to put in more effort. Discussion of the non-monetary considerations could be a lengthy tangent on its own.
keithhanson 13y ago
I like the article, and would love to apply, as "management" in my own company, effective measures to cure the pain instead of treat it. In fact, I generally try to do just that. But what this is basically suggesting is "locking out" your employer. While I agree that is absolutely what should happen, doing this without the leadership AND the developer in agreement about why sounds like disaster. I know it's likely impossible to capture all the work and discussion it takes to reshape a company's process in a blog post, but I feel like if I had a dependence on OT in my company (as the "patient"), and a lockout went into effect, I would be focusing on the lockout, not every other problem in the company that caused it (which as management, it's my job to figure those problems out). What is being suggested is basically arm twisting to get what you want :/ That never works when you cause more pain to the company than it's able to alleviate over time. They'll eventually get tired of the pain and move on to another drug unless you succeed in getting them to understand. I feel like better advice is to tell developers that they need to discuss this with their direct reports, boss, whomever, and talk about the problem and WHY you'll actually make the company better gains at sustainable pace. And by all means, point out and suggest ways for your boss to improve things. If after educating your "patient" the issue still persists, of course, twist away. But not everyone in this world needs these sorts of tactics to improve their workplace, and even in those workplaces, there are likely more successful ways to cure the pain, not just treat it.
- emiller829 13y ago
  The suggestion isn't to introduce the lockout after the fact. In fact, what you're describing would be the exact thing that would happen in the metaphor -- acute withdrawal symptoms. The suggestion is to institute the lockout before dependency has a chance to develop.
  - shailesh 13y ago
    A preventive measure by the C-level management will yield results: a person working overtime, must take a documented approval from the PM. The incentive bonus for the PM must be negatively linked to the number of overtime hours spent by the team members.
  - 13y ago
thejosh 13y ago
Your website breaks the back button.
- emiller829 13y ago
  It does? I have had no issues with the back button. What are you seeing, exactly?
  - 300bps 13y ago
    Don't you love problem reports with absolutely no details whatsoever? I tested your site with Chrome 28.0.1500.72 m. The back button worked fine. I then tested your site with Internet Explorer 9.0.18 and the back button worked fine. I then tested your site with Firefox 22 and the back button worked fine.
  - thejosh 13y ago
    Sorry, was on Windows at the time (not on it now), with Chrome. Sorry for the vagueness!
- vrkr 13y ago
  No issue here on chrome!
epa 13y ago
Consider the industry you are going into before complaining about overtime. I am expected to work long over time hours on a regular (daily) basis during busy seasons without extra compensation and this is what I expected going in. Highly skilled individuals who have extensive training will be 'put to work' in order to derive the benefits of this training by their employer. You are willing to put up with this behavior because you believe that one day your training and experience will lead you to a very high paying job. Lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, the professionals, all understand that there is a necessary grind in order to prove your worth. If you are not cut out for it, there is always work as a desk clerk making above minimum wage working 9-430. Yes, some employers have very relax policies relating to getting work done. But who are the ones producing the highest quality innovative work? The people working hard on a daily basis.
- aspensmonster 13y ago
  >without extra compensation That right there is the crux of the issue. You don't work for free. Period. If it is expected that you'll be working long hours during busy seasons, then the initial salary offered should reflect that. If two people are getting paid the same salary but only one is expected to take overtime constantly, one of them is getting screwed.
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  What a disgusting post. "Pay your dues just like I did". Just because you chose to be exploited with the hope that you'll some day get compensated for it doesn't mean the model is right. And your quip about where the highest quality innovate work comes from is unproven and probably unprovable.
  - epa 13y ago
    Maybe the issue here is that I know 100% that the effort I put in now will lead me to success in the future.
    - flyinRyan 13y ago
      If you "know" that then you're wrong. Success isn't a guarantee even if you work hard. Ask Nikola Tesla.
esmale 13y ago
Unfortunately there is a long history of management viewing overtime as equivalent to a person's 'dedication' to the project. One of my college Computer Science professors, the one I liked and respected the most, worked at Novell for quite a while back in the day. Not sure if his entire 20+ year programming career was spent there before going back to school to get his PhD. In any event, at one point he was a team lead at Novell. He made sure to hire, train and develop the right kind of programmers for his team. The kind that write tests, solid code, and practice good engineering principles. To my memory, when he was telling us this story, the overtime he and his team worked was somewhere between minimal to non-existant. Their code was clean, well-tested, and worked. So at 5pm they would go home. There was another team that was always scrambling at the last minute, and clocking lots of overtime. When it came time for company/management recognition, which team received the accolades? The team that clocked all that overtime, because they MUST have been working harder to get things done than the other team. Right?
ExpiredLink 13y ago
Overtime makes sense from an employer's point of view. That's why the problem will persist for employees.
- comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
  If it really was a consistent win for the employers, then perhaps it is a non-issue in the larger sense -- employees just need to negotiate hours vs. compensation. Whatever. I think the deeper insight of TFA is that there may be short term gains for the employer, but the long term results are muddy or outright negative -- management becomes addicted to poor management habits that hurt the company health in myriad ways.

91 points by emiller829 13y ago

True story: a CMM Level 5 software organization had precisely the exact same issue. There was a PM, who would literally spend the entire day wasting time and start real work around 5 PM. Then work till late night. Once he advised me, "Always make sure that you send an e-mail, late at night to anybody in the organization, before you call it day." "Why?" To make it short, per his advise, the single most important thing about those e-mails, wasn't the contents, but just the timestamp.

arethuza 13y ago
You would think that PM would have learned about the feature that quite a few email systems have to send an email at a particular time! (e.g. Outlook has "Do not deliver before" option).
- shailesh 13y ago
  :). The logs at physical security could not be faked: they used to have a pen and paper system; it was a little more than a decade ago.
  - vonmoltke 13y ago
    The last place I worked, 18 months ago, that required after-hours logs still used pen and paper. Plus, they left the log books out all the time, so it was easy when you signed in to see who else was coming in after hours, going back weeks sometimes.
Argorak 13y ago
You can get the same effect by coming early and making sure people notice that you were in ahead of them. When done correctly, you get the "behind the project"-bonus without overtime.
- __--__ 13y ago
  I find that coming in early doesn't produce the same social effect as staying late. I'm still not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the perception of personal sacrifice? Coming in early doesn't impact your social schedule, while staying late says you're willing to sacrifice your evenings for the company. Coming in early just means you're willing to wake up earlier.

nawitus 13y ago

Simple solution (from the software engineer's perspective): demand overtime pay. If you are officially expected to work 40h/week for certain amount of money, but in practise you're "expected" to work 50h/week, then your real wage is actually 20% lower than what your contract says. And that is pretty similar to theft. It's time to start comparing wages instead of absolute income.

deelowe 13y ago
Most SWEs are salary. Overtime laws are different for salaried employees(depending on jurisdiction). A lot of times, you can demand overtime all you want and the employer can simply deny it, and most will. Typically, your only options are to switch employers or file a lawsuit.
- kyllo 13y ago
  Then you go try to find a job where you're actually only expected to work 40 hours per week, and everyone goes home by 5:00. But then, you find that the salary offer is at least 20% lower than the place that worked you 50+ hours/week. High salaries come with high expectations. If you're getting paid a lot, expect to work a lot, too. If a good work/life balance were free, everyone would have it. It has a definite opportunity cost.
  - vonmoltke 13y ago
    All 11 years of my work experience thus far is in the defense industry, so keep that in mind as I state the following. I have yet to see an instance where salary scaled 1:1 with time put in. Where I used to work, the people that busted their asses for 50+ hours week in and week out, showing they were "team players", might get a 6% raise at review time instead of a 2% raise for a strict 8-5 engineer. They might also get a few thousand in extra bonuses, if their department has funding for them. After a while they might get to the point where they were making enough extra to justify the effort, but "a while" could be 10 years or more. Note that I am specifically avoiding any discussion of non-monetary considerations and that my analysis sounds rather mercenary. I am specifically trying to address the issue of engineers making more money for being expected to put in more effort. Discussion of the non-monetary considerations could be a lengthy tangent on its own.

keithhanson 13y ago

I like the article, and would love to apply, as "management" in my own company, effective measures to cure the pain instead of treat it. In fact, I generally try to do just that. But what this is basically suggesting is "locking out" your employer. While I agree that is absolutely what should happen, doing this without the leadership AND the developer in agreement about why sounds like disaster. I know it's likely impossible to capture all the work and discussion it takes to reshape a company's process in a blog post, but I feel like if I had a dependence on OT in my company (as the "patient"), and a lockout went into effect, I would be focusing on the lockout, not every other problem in the company that caused it (which as management, it's my job to figure those problems out). What is being suggested is basically arm twisting to get what you want :/ That never works when you cause more pain to the company than it's able to alleviate over time. They'll eventually get tired of the pain and move on to another drug unless you succeed in getting them to understand. I feel like better advice is to tell developers that they need to discuss this with their direct reports, boss, whomever, and talk about the problem and WHY you'll actually make the company better gains at sustainable pace. And by all means, point out and suggest ways for your boss to improve things. If after educating your "patient" the issue still persists, of course, twist away. But not everyone in this world needs these sorts of tactics to improve their workplace, and even in those workplaces, there are likely more successful ways to cure the pain, not just treat it.

emiller829 13y ago
The suggestion isn't to introduce the lockout after the fact. In fact, what you're describing would be the exact thing that would happen in the metaphor -- acute withdrawal symptoms. The suggestion is to institute the lockout before dependency has a chance to develop.
- shailesh 13y ago
  A preventive measure by the C-level management will yield results: a person working overtime, must take a documented approval from the PM. The incentive bonus for the PM must be negatively linked to the number of overtime hours spent by the team members.
- 13y ago

thejosh 13y ago

Your website breaks the back button.

emiller829 13y ago
It does? I have had no issues with the back button. What are you seeing, exactly?
- 300bps 13y ago
  Don't you love problem reports with absolutely no details whatsoever? I tested your site with Chrome 28.0.1500.72 m. The back button worked fine. I then tested your site with Internet Explorer 9.0.18 and the back button worked fine. I then tested your site with Firefox 22 and the back button worked fine.
- thejosh 13y ago
  Sorry, was on Windows at the time (not on it now), with Chrome. Sorry for the vagueness!
vrkr 13y ago
No issue here on chrome!

epa 13y ago

Consider the industry you are going into before complaining about overtime. I am expected to work long over time hours on a regular (daily) basis during busy seasons without extra compensation and this is what I expected going in. Highly skilled individuals who have extensive training will be 'put to work' in order to derive the benefits of this training by their employer. You are willing to put up with this behavior because you believe that one day your training and experience will lead you to a very high paying job. Lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, the professionals, all understand that there is a necessary grind in order to prove your worth. If you are not cut out for it, there is always work as a desk clerk making above minimum wage working 9-430. Yes, some employers have very relax policies relating to getting work done. But who are the ones producing the highest quality innovative work? The people working hard on a daily basis.

aspensmonster 13y ago
>without extra compensation That right there is the crux of the issue. You don't work for free. Period. If it is expected that you'll be working long hours during busy seasons, then the initial salary offered should reflect that. If two people are getting paid the same salary but only one is expected to take overtime constantly, one of them is getting screwed.
flyinRyan 13y ago
What a disgusting post. "Pay your dues just like I did". Just because you chose to be exploited with the hope that you'll some day get compensated for it doesn't mean the model is right. And your quip about where the highest quality innovate work comes from is unproven and probably unprovable.
- epa 13y ago
  Maybe the issue here is that I know 100% that the effort I put in now will lead me to success in the future.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    If you "know" that then you're wrong. Success isn't a guarantee even if you work hard. Ask Nikola Tesla.

esmale 13y ago

Unfortunately there is a long history of management viewing overtime as equivalent to a person's 'dedication' to the project. One of my college Computer Science professors, the one I liked and respected the most, worked at Novell for quite a while back in the day. Not sure if his entire 20+ year programming career was spent there before going back to school to get his PhD. In any event, at one point he was a team lead at Novell. He made sure to hire, train and develop the right kind of programmers for his team. The kind that write tests, solid code, and practice good engineering principles. To my memory, when he was telling us this story, the overtime he and his team worked was somewhere between minimal to non-existant. Their code was clean, well-tested, and worked. So at 5pm they would go home. There was another team that was always scrambling at the last minute, and clocking lots of overtime. When it came time for company/management recognition, which team received the accolades? The team that clocked all that overtime, because they MUST have been working harder to get things done than the other team. Right?

ExpiredLink 13y ago

Overtime makes sense from an employer's point of view. That's why the problem will persist for employees.

comrade_ogilvy 13y ago
If it really was a consistent win for the employers, then perhaps it is a non-issue in the larger sense -- employees just need to negotiate hours vs. compensation. Whatever. I think the deeper insight of TFA is that there may be short term gains for the employer, but the long term results are muddy or outright negative -- management becomes addicted to poor management habits that hurt the company health in myriad ways.