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Hrm... the math seems fuzzy. You go home an hour earlier because you ate lunch at your desk? I've not been in too many software positions where you get to go

Hrm... the math seems fuzzy. You go home an hour earlier because you ate lunch at your desk? I've not been in too many software positions where you get to go home simply because you were in the building for 8 hours. ESPECIALLY not if you were the sort of person who wanted to take on managerial tasks (delegation/etc as identified by the OP).

johnward 13y ago
I don't know. There are plenty of software positions that are flexible so long as you get your work done. I'm a consultant so I need to bill a certain number of hours per day. Sometimes I can snack and bill and that helps me meet the requirements.
- mgkimsal 13y ago
  They why is the OP worrying about getting an extra hour back per day, and having to sacrifice a lunch break for that? Why not focus on working smarter for most of the day, and getting things done in 4-5 hours every day?
- exelius 13y ago
  Not if you want to get ahead. The guy working bare minimum 40 hour weeks isn't going to get fired so long as he stays productive... but he's obviously not putting in any effort to progress his career. There's nothing wrong with that; it's perfectly fine to value running with your dog or watching Netflix over working an extra hour; but the choices you make have unintended consequences. Like it or not, working involves politics, and a big part of politics is perception. I've worked as a consultant as well; and as a consultant you can never be the first person out the door because people who don't know your situation will still form opinions about you. Considering most consultants cost 2x-4x what a salaried employee does (at least nominally), you have to appear to be "better" than the average employee. Sometimes that means you stick around the client site and do work for other clients just to look busy. But it almost always means you don't leave early. The same goes for people who have ambitions of moving up in an organization.
  - rdtsc 13y ago
    You have been downvoted and I think unfairly. You are right in that people already have biases and prejudices and even though it perpetuates a wrong paradigm -- if you are consultant and try to make as much money as you can these perceptions (even though detrimental to the industry) matter. It should really be coming from the top and be part of the culture that hours spend huddled over a monitor != better or high quality/faster/less bugs products. But we are not there yet. So should one leave for another place, and find that culture (work for a startup?), or work with it, as in just pretend you work harder to get noticed better... So I am not defending the idea behind it, but your rationale for working with it. Think about this scenario. It is 8:30pm, manager/owner walks by and he sees group of developers huddled over a monitor screen. What is happening? Is this a good thing or not? Are they working extra hard and deserve +$5k bonus at the end of the year, or they picked a bad technology, made bad mistakes in the implementation, allowed untested code in production and now have to put out fires. I think the opinion on the above will be pretty divided, but, unfortunately, it will mostly be seen a good thing. This spreads and becomes part of the culture, and those that are productive and finish their work faster, whose code doesn't break in production leave at 5, and are seen as lazy by incompetent managers. That is very dangerous. The worst I have seen is people what seems like to me, intentionally allow bugs in production, things crash and burn. Then, they get to save the day with lots fanfare and visibility. That becomes a very dysfunctional environment from which one should try to escape as soon as possible.
    - exelius 13y ago
      Oh; I totally agree that working more hours is not better for the company. I think that a lot of organizations also realize this, especially in software development. A large part of my current job is fixing the types of dysfunctional environments that you describe by providing development managers insight into the quality of code/tests that individual developers commit. I'm acutely aware that your "rockstar" developers may in fact be your problem children; but it takes a lot of data and process to be able to prove that. My comment was really aimed more at the reality of the situation: when operating in a political environment (as every office is, like it or not), it's better to err on the side of being visible. Like I said; some people are perfectly content with maintaining the job they are currently in, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you have ambition to move up into management, simply writing good code isn't enough. You've gotta play the political game at some point or another, and the political game often happens late in the day after all the senior management are done with their meetings. This is doubly true for a consultant. An unfortunate reality of consulting is that when you're on short contracts -- as most consultants are -- you have to sell the next project while you're working on the current one. Being visible and physically present leads to the conversations that end in your client asking you to help them out with a problem. These are not "hard sell" tactics (I always hated those because it makes you come off as scummy and sales-ish); it's just making sure that you're in the right place at the right time and you're having the right conversations with the right people. This doesn't have to mean working yourself to death -- I usually leave around 5:30 and almost never stay in the office after 6:00, nor do I typically work more than 45 or 50 hours a week. Do I wish I could go home at 4:00 some days and not be negatively perceived? Yeah, I do. But that's not reality, at least not anywhere I've ever worked. If the social norm is 9:00am-5:00pm, you should probably be there during those hours because an 8 hour work day really isn't asking much. If the social norm is 8:00am-7:00pm, well, you should probably find a better job...
rdtsc 13y ago
That is pretty common as companies get larger policies such as "you paid to do a solid 8 hour work per day" are common. Some places don't have that, I know, some have more strict policies like "come in at 9 or leave at 5 or 6 or whatever". Some have core business hour that they expect it is reasonable to have meeting and expect people to be in "11 to 4" or something similar.

johnward 13y ago

I don't know. There are plenty of software positions that are flexible so long as you get your work done. I'm a consultant so I need to bill a certain number of hours per day. Sometimes I can snack and bill and that helps me meet the requirements.

mgkimsal 13y ago
They why is the OP worrying about getting an extra hour back per day, and having to sacrifice a lunch break for that? Why not focus on working smarter for most of the day, and getting things done in 4-5 hours every day?
exelius 13y ago
Not if you want to get ahead. The guy working bare minimum 40 hour weeks isn't going to get fired so long as he stays productive... but he's obviously not putting in any effort to progress his career. There's nothing wrong with that; it's perfectly fine to value running with your dog or watching Netflix over working an extra hour; but the choices you make have unintended consequences. Like it or not, working involves politics, and a big part of politics is perception. I've worked as a consultant as well; and as a consultant you can never be the first person out the door because people who don't know your situation will still form opinions about you. Considering most consultants cost 2x-4x what a salaried employee does (at least nominally), you have to appear to be "better" than the average employee. Sometimes that means you stick around the client site and do work for other clients just to look busy. But it almost always means you don't leave early. The same goes for people who have ambitions of moving up in an organization.
- rdtsc 13y ago
  You have been downvoted and I think unfairly. You are right in that people already have biases and prejudices and even though it perpetuates a wrong paradigm -- if you are consultant and try to make as much money as you can these perceptions (even though detrimental to the industry) matter. It should really be coming from the top and be part of the culture that hours spend huddled over a monitor != better or high quality/faster/less bugs products. But we are not there yet. So should one leave for another place, and find that culture (work for a startup?), or work with it, as in just pretend you work harder to get noticed better... So I am not defending the idea behind it, but your rationale for working with it. Think about this scenario. It is 8:30pm, manager/owner walks by and he sees group of developers huddled over a monitor screen. What is happening? Is this a good thing or not? Are they working extra hard and deserve +$5k bonus at the end of the year, or they picked a bad technology, made bad mistakes in the implementation, allowed untested code in production and now have to put out fires. I think the opinion on the above will be pretty divided, but, unfortunately, it will mostly be seen a good thing. This spreads and becomes part of the culture, and those that are productive and finish their work faster, whose code doesn't break in production leave at 5, and are seen as lazy by incompetent managers. That is very dangerous. The worst I have seen is people what seems like to me, intentionally allow bugs in production, things crash and burn. Then, they get to save the day with lots fanfare and visibility. That becomes a very dysfunctional environment from which one should try to escape as soon as possible.
  - exelius 13y ago
    Oh; I totally agree that working more hours is not better for the company. I think that a lot of organizations also realize this, especially in software development. A large part of my current job is fixing the types of dysfunctional environments that you describe by providing development managers insight into the quality of code/tests that individual developers commit. I'm acutely aware that your "rockstar" developers may in fact be your problem children; but it takes a lot of data and process to be able to prove that. My comment was really aimed more at the reality of the situation: when operating in a political environment (as every office is, like it or not), it's better to err on the side of being visible. Like I said; some people are perfectly content with maintaining the job they are currently in, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if you have ambition to move up into management, simply writing good code isn't enough. You've gotta play the political game at some point or another, and the political game often happens late in the day after all the senior management are done with their meetings. This is doubly true for a consultant. An unfortunate reality of consulting is that when you're on short contracts -- as most consultants are -- you have to sell the next project while you're working on the current one. Being visible and physically present leads to the conversations that end in your client asking you to help them out with a problem. These are not "hard sell" tactics (I always hated those because it makes you come off as scummy and sales-ish); it's just making sure that you're in the right place at the right time and you're having the right conversations with the right people. This doesn't have to mean working yourself to death -- I usually leave around 5:30 and almost never stay in the office after 6:00, nor do I typically work more than 45 or 50 hours a week. Do I wish I could go home at 4:00 some days and not be negatively perceived? Yeah, I do. But that's not reality, at least not anywhere I've ever worked. If the social norm is 9:00am-5:00pm, you should probably be there during those hours because an 8 hour work day really isn't asking much. If the social norm is 8:00am-7:00pm, well, you should probably find a better job...

rdtsc 13y ago

That is pretty common as companies get larger policies such as "you paid to do a solid 8 hour work per day" are common. Some places don't have that, I know, some have more strict policies like "come in at 9 or leave at 5 or 6 or whatever". Some have core business hour that they expect it is reasonable to have meeting and expect people to be in "11 to 4" or something similar.