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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 o

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...
- korzun 13y ago
  "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." Compared to what? A guy that stays in the office 80 hours a week and barely hits the productivity level of 40 hour per week guy? There is nothing 'obvious' about that, I bet you would judge your engineers productivity by LOC too.
  - exelius 13y ago
    No; compared to the guy working 45 hours a week. You put in 40 hours for your employer doing your current job. He does the same but also puts in 5 hours of his own time learning how to do the next job he wants. Who's going to get the promotion assuming you both have equal production? (however you measure production, which certainly should not be lines of code)
    - johnward 13y ago
      I agree that in some situations that's true but not always. Like some of the others say, just because you put in more hours doesn't mean you provide more value to the company. This is different in a consulting role because you literally do have to work (bill) more hours to make more money. The more productive you are the less money you make per hour, so you raise rates. I'm not an independent consultant. If I bill 60 hours I get paid the same as if I bill 30 hours. There is very little incentive to work overtime. I rarely work overtime unless it's crucial. I'm doing fine in my career. I'm not going to grind out 80 hour weeks for a chance of maybe getting a 10k per year raise. You pull too many 80 hour weeks and you might as well be working fast food on a dollar per hour basis.

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...
korzun 13y ago
"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." Compared to what? A guy that stays in the office 80 hours a week and barely hits the productivity level of 40 hour per week guy? There is nothing 'obvious' about that, I bet you would judge your engineers productivity by LOC too.
- exelius 13y ago
  No; compared to the guy working 45 hours a week. You put in 40 hours for your employer doing your current job. He does the same but also puts in 5 hours of his own time learning how to do the next job he wants. Who's going to get the promotion assuming you both have equal production? (however you measure production, which certainly should not be lines of code)
  - johnward 13y ago
    I agree that in some situations that's true but not always. Like some of the others say, just because you put in more hours doesn't mean you provide more value to the company. This is different in a consulting role because you literally do have to work (bill) more hours to make more money. The more productive you are the less money you make per hour, so you raise rates. I'm not an independent consultant. If I bill 60 hours I get paid the same as if I bill 30 hours. There is very little incentive to work overtime. I rarely work overtime unless it's crucial. I'm doing fine in my career. I'm not going to grind out 80 hour weeks for a chance of maybe getting a 10k per year raise. You pull too many 80 hour weeks and you might as well be working fast food on a dollar per hour basis.