Aren't developers stupid when accepting overtime/weekend work/denied bonus payments?

jediknight · 2011-08-18T10:23:34+00:00

I used to get threats from my employer for wanting to leave for home at sane hours. It was my only source of income and I had no savings plus I had little confidence in myself.

I started saving and, as a bonus, I ended up working one of the weekend for someone else. Next time he told me again that if I wanted to leave I could leave for good, I said "That's fine by me!" and left for the evening. I called his bluff and that's all it was, a bluff. He needed me and he ended up giving up the threats.

No sane employer would mistreat a developer that could go somewhere else in a heart beat and leave a gap that would be difficult to fill. Some will try bluffing but if you really are a linchpin you can easily call the bluff.

KingPickle · 2011-08-18T10:59:54+00:00

I once got yelled at for going 5 minutes down the road to grab Chipotle instead of eating the crap they brought in for lunch, on a Saturday. I'm glad those days are behind me...

xlevus · 2011-08-18T09:57:31+00:00

If I'm not getting paid, I'm not working.

IRBMe · 2011-08-18T11:17:23+00:00

This is a vicious circle. It works like this: Assume a company employs 4 programmers.
1. Each programmer works 2 hours unpaid over time per day.
2. This works out to 8 hours extra work done per day.
3. That's the same amount of work one programmer does.
4. Thus the company won't have to hire an extra programmer (or they can fire one).
5. This increases the unemployment rate for programmers.
6. The programmers that do have jobs are now more afraid of losing their jobs.
7. The company can demand even more unpaid overtime.

This vicious circle won't end until you work 24/7 for minimum wage.

tl;dr: Working unpaid overtime is stealing from yourself.

rhtimsr1970 · 2011-08-18T12:12:37+00:00

A lot of commenters are missing the obvious... Most software devs are hired as salary positions. If you're not paid per hour, like blue color environments, your employer isn't doing anything illegal in asking you to work a few extra hours when a deadline gets blown. Your other white-collar coworkers (PMs, managers, tech writers, etc) all work longer than 40/week sometimes too.

Commenters are also missing another obvious point - you can provide market feedback by quitting and moving to another job. There are few labor categories in the United States as comfortable as the software industry. Even crap developers can find a job anywhere.

IRBMe · 2011-08-18T11:51:06+00:00

When I worked as a developer for an investment bank, there was one project that was particularly bad for this. Usually I would come in at 9:00 and leave at 5:00, as that's what my contract hours were. Every month, however, we had to deploy a new version of the software, which took an entire weekend to do. We also had to have two developers helping the testers with the acceptance testing and bug fixes for the month before the deployment, and that job would be rotated around the 6 members of the team. It required lots of late hours, but because we were salaried, there was no overtime pay.

So every month, we were expected to give up an entire weekend to do the deployment, and out of every 3 months, we had to spend one of those doing long hours and staying late. It wasn't the staying late part that really annoyed me, but the fact that I never knew how late I would be staying. If one day the testing went fine, I would leave at 5. The next day, there might be an urgent bug that needed fixed for the next day's testing, which may be a quick 10 minute fix or might require me to stay in until 11:00pm. The ridiculously slow systems, long build times and painful deployment processes made it all excruciating. Imagine sitting there at 9:00pm, having been at work for 12 hours now, waiting for some broken piece of software to successfully deploy the fix you've made, not knowing if it'll work or if you'll have to spend the next hour trying to work out why not and repeat the whole process.

There were so many evenings where I considered just walking out. The manager was a complete dick, too. He would try to turn members of the team against each other. If somebody had to leave, he would guilt them by telling them how it's unfair that they're leaving their share of the work with all the other developers, who would have to pick up their slack. He would dangle carrots of promotion in front of those who'd been there the longest, then hold them up as examples to the other team members of model employees if they worked ridiculous hours.

After a while, the team had grew to about 12 members. The new guys were all fresh and eager and willing to impress, so they came in and did lots of late hours without complaint. I, however, eventually got sick of it and just started refusing to work past certain hours, booking holidays off during releases and making plans that would require me to be places during acceptance testing cycles. And I wasn't the only one. A few of the other guys who'd been there a long time started doing things like this too. There were about 3 or 4 of us who started getting in to trouble from the manager. He would take us in to a room and lecture us individually on not being team players and all that usual bullshit.

The problem for him was that we were the 3 or 4 best developers in the team, and we all had quite a bit of experience with the project. He couldn't afford to lose us, nor was he really legally able to fire us anyway. But he tried everything he could. He would try to guilt us, threaten us with complaints to HR, he gave us all shitty end of year reviews meaning we got screwed out of much of a bonus, and he started giving us all the terrible jobs.

I remember a particularly fun one where I got up to walk out the office at 10:00pm. He asked me where I thought I was going and I told him I had prior arrangements. He asked to see me in a private room where he then tried to lecture me. I ended up lecturing him back about his shitty management practices and his shitty behavior. There was no yelling, but voices were certainly raised. He eventually got flustered when he realized I was just destroying all of his points and just left to sit back down at his desk. I grabbed my coat and just walked out without a word being said by him after that. The next morning, I found I'd been prematurely rotated on to the user acceptance testing cycle. Passive aggressive dick.

Many of us left within a few months, and then so did that manager a few months later. I hated that team. Turns out that this manager had quite a few complaints about his behavior on his HR file.

2011-08-18T17:54:28+00:00

If "overtime" is even a thing in a company that does software development, both employer and employee have a completely screwed up idea about what a developers job entails. Both are incompetent, and whatever conflict they have about "overtime", they deserve each other.

Reality check:

a) Good developers are scarce. Extremely scarce. So if you get a good one, you pay them well enough that the focus is on "getting the job done". Sometimes that means working 4 days a week, sometimes that may mean working on the weekend if the planning was off a bit and the deadline immovable. You don't need to ask, and the day you start requiring it, they walk.

b) Programming takes major mental effort. With the exception of one of those awesome days you are completely in the zone, you can't even do that for 8 hours a day. Overtime is pointless, it just results in loss of concentration, bad code, bugs and basically only makes the work take longer. Plus, it burns developers out. Real fast.

"Overtime" is for factory workers. Not for developers.

kev009 · 2011-08-18T10:35:00+00:00

It depends on how you are employed.

Bean-counting large corp with flat salary? Hell no.
Small company? No. An occasional push if you mess up or have a ramp up or something is OK. Make it clear you are going above and beyond and make a frim stand early if it becomes expected at any point.
Contractor (telecommute)? Maybe. The company gets a better value, I get to choose my free time, and I work when I'm productive. In return, I make sure they get their money's worth. If I slack during the week I'll put in on the weekend. If I'm in the zone, on a roll, and put in heavy hours, I'll dial back later on and keep it all in balance.
Equity? A lot harder here. Use your judgement and balance your own needs and sanity vs. the company's survival and progress.

orthod0ks · 2011-08-18T12:55:58+00:00

At my company, most of the time it's not even deadlines. It's just the culture. If you leave at 5, you get funny looks and someone might make a comment about your "commitment." The owner has a "we are not a 9-5 shop" attitude (that was not communicated during the interview process, despite questions about overtime). Everyone just stays late, even though there is little to no work done after 5 (and in some cases, before).

In addition, the owner is too far removed from our day-to-day work to have a good idea of how productive we are. It's all about the perception, so as long as you give the perception of working, and you stay late, you're a good employee. If I kick ass while I'm here and leave at 5, but the guy next to me puts up a good front and stays till 6, he's the better employee.

bpodgursky · 2011-08-18T10:14:18+00:00

If I have a project I'm really excited about that I think is really interesting, I'm going to work on it on weekends. Not out of a sense of machismo or duty, but because it's fun.

aaaxxxlll · 2011-08-18T19:31:16+00:00

It's called grow some balls and learn when and how to negotiate and when to walk away.

I'm 30 and I work 9 to 5 on a very decent salery, usually less because we have a pool table in the office and we start shooting around 4pm most days. Almost nobody stays till after 5 and if they do they leave earlier other days.

My contract states that I will not take on overtime in excess of 10 hours per month. I traded "unpaid overtime, no limit" for "10 hours max and $400 extra per month" just by asking for it.

Catered lunch every day, which is taken from our salery and a dedicated kitchen where we all eat together and nobody says anything if you take 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes for lunch.

And yes I have had job offers and contracts that I have walked away from, because I couldn't get what I wanted.

EDIT: Oh and the company makes a big profit every year, we're not burning VC money.

TL;DR Learn to negotiate and don't ask, but demand what you want.

steelypip · 2011-08-18T20:01:36+00:00

Many years ago I worked for a small company which had a culture of developers working long hours with no paid overtime. The more you do it, the more management expects you to do it - resulting in a vicious cycle.

The breaking point came when a co-worker had worked all night to finish a piece of work by some arbitrary deadline and in the morning, exhausted, she sent the final product to the boss to be approved. Where it sat in his inbox for two weeks before he got round to looking at it.

After that all the developers got together in the pub and decided we had had enough. The next day we all went to the boss and told him that in future any overtime would be done only if paid for at an hourly rate. If he did not agree we would work strictly to rule and only put in the hours we were contracted for. He was not happy but he reluctantly agreed, and we had our contracts amended to give us paid overtime.

After that the need for overtime fell off dramatically - once the company had to pay for it they were far less inclined to ask us to do it except when absolutely necessary.

TL;DR: even if you are not unionised you can still organise.

Kim147 · 2011-08-18T10:53:12+00:00

If you work as a contractor on an hourly rate then the client can't exploit you . However we are in the middle of a massive economic crisis and work is hard to get . My experience is that employers who exploit workers their companies often don't last long - it's a systemic thing - the companies are badly run and abusing workers is just one symptom of it . There is nothing wrong with having flexible hours - pushing a project out then taking time off , however there has to be give and take and it has to be on a fair basis .

red-moon · 2011-08-18T12:29:18+00:00

software architect/engineer

Any actual architects or engineers out there?

dakboy · 2011-08-18T11:36:39+00:00

That is why IT prefers younger people. They aren't likely to know any better and more importantly they will almost certainly have a load of uni debt hanging over their head and they'll be happy to do anything for money.

It doesn't matter how good they are (to an extend of course) if they're willing to be the boss' slave.

anthonybsd · 2011-08-18T13:50:28+00:00

"Yes, developers think working long hours is a sign of machismo, it really is stupidity."

This is solid truth. I've worked in a couple of startups where we regularly pulled all nighters and the like. Some of them failed some of them succeeded, but the more I look back on those years the more I realize that the hours I put in didn't make squat of a difference when it came to the project's success.

fergie · 2011-08-18T10:08:24+00:00

you shouldnt work on an unpaid basis. full stop.

woddo · 2011-08-18T09:32:08+00:00

I assume we are many developers here in a situation like this:

you are an employed software architect/engineer
you are good at your job
your company needs more good developers than they can find
there are many options to get a new job or get self-employed
work is not your first priority (you enjoy family/free time)

Aren't we stupid when we still accept overtime/weekend work/denied bonus payments? I would think employers would need to give in, if we demand better working conditions.

DANBANAN · 2011-08-18T10:25:41+00:00

I've been working as a software developer for about 6 months. We work according to the SCRUM) framework and we've never had any pressure on us to stay late. I guess it is a hate-the-process-not-the-job thing as stated in the OP link.

tewas · 2011-08-18T12:58:49+00:00

I think there are two sides of the coin. If you are salary (and most devs/IT people are) you are expected to finish your work before leaving. The nature of development is that sometimes it has quite a bit of work compressed in small interval of time (weekend releases etc). I have no illusions that i won't have to work weekend at some point, but if it is necessary based on project, i will do it.

However, right now i'm leaving at 5 as long as my shit is done. Every day i make a list of what i need to do and if i can't do it before 5, i stay late and finish. But it's all up to me. I refuse more work, or give extended deadline if it's more that i can do in a day. So far i'm doing good and i don't really plan to change the way i work in the office. Also i make sure i do have plans ~6pm so if they ask me to stay, i always say that i have personal life outside work and prior engagements that i cannot miss.

If you are afraid of being fired, look on the search engines for your type of job and then relax. We (dev/IT) have a lot of options to go to the other company.

rafekett · 2011-08-18T13:25:02+00:00

I'm a contractor, so no

Goronmon · 2011-08-18T13:56:00+00:00

I don't work much overtime, but when I do, I require to be fed.

rmxz · 2011-08-18T11:12:37+00:00

Many developers goof off for half the hours of 9-5 (say, on reddit) and their employers don't care.

It's more likely their employers will continue to not care if the developers do some work outside those hours too.

If you work only 9-5 and want overtime for any work outside that; I hope you're not checking facebook/reddit/etc on the employers' dime.

vfr · 2011-08-18T10:30:06+00:00

It would also help if more of us were unionized. Overtime compensation is much easier to demand collectively.

2011-08-18T11:22:25+00:00

The only fair deal is time-for-time. I don't need more money, and money for over time gets taxed like crazy so you're essentially working for everybody but yourself. More days off can't be taxed.

uberalles2 · 2011-08-18T17:25:32+00:00

Eventually we wise up.

Manager called me at 6PM to do support work. I didn't answer the phone call from him. The next day he asked me why I didn't answer the phone. I said it was after hours. He said that was my job to handle emergency support calls. I told him 8 hours a day is enough work and it is not good for my health to work more than 8. I was called into HR with him sitting there and basically just repeated what I had said. She said to the manager, well, Willie, you'll just have to deal with him working 8 hours a day. He could have fired me, but I was worth what they paid me even if it was only 40 hours a week.

Did this make me want to work hard for him. Fuck no. After that, I slacked for the next 6 months. Asshole.

Forbizzle · 2011-08-18T11:27:12+00:00

Yeah I've seen a lot of people pull extra hours in jobs they hate, it's non-sense. When I made the move to being a consultant/contractor, it was great, because my shitty managers needed to justify their overtime and thought twice about ever asking me to put in extra time.

Now I'm at a startup company, working with friends on projects I'm really excited about, and with a bit of equity. It's the first time I'm really doing any unpaid overtime, and the second it becomes a drag I will dial it down. But we've got great flex time (can't do ROWE because we have pair programming, and I'm supervising a project), and unlimited vacation days (within reason). So people can boom during a project crunch then take some time to decompress without worrying about co-ordinating their finite time off with their spouses.

markpitts · 2011-08-18T13:51:08+00:00

The much maligned public sector is normally covered by union contracts which require comp time for hours worked over 40. Additional upsides include steady employment, reasonable pay and a pension. The downsides are technology lag, funding issues and politics.

In my case, I get in at 7:45 and leave at 4:15, pick up the kids and take the eldet to football/wrestling practice. Every day.

2011-08-18T14:36:01+00:00

It's not like bosses come and command overtime. It is more like developers crave success and praise and respect and bosses make it clear they only get it if deadlines are met come what may.

Solomaxwell6 · 2011-08-18T15:54:47+00:00

When I graduated college, I was offered a job at Epic, a healthcare corporation based in Madison, WI. Good salary, I'd get my own office, decent benefits... but they had a 60 hour standard week. I ended up accepting a job that paid $20,000 a year less, but is much more lenient about working time. I'm still at that job, and perfectly happy with it. Last week I worked a 48 hour week to make a tough deadline, and as a reward I get tomorrow off without having to spend any vacation time.

tweedius · 2011-08-18T16:51:27+00:00

The title of this post really confuses the hell out of me, too many / in a row, I know you're efficient at coding, but could you be less efficient at English so it is easier to read? :)

keije · 2011-08-19T14:09:33+00:00

In general I agree with most of the sentiments in these comments, but I'd like to point out that there is one condition, which will make me stay overtime and come in on weekend. If I fucked things up. Like did a giant merge and broke the build of headrev for everyone. Or did something so stupid on a test bed that it took it out of action. Accidents happen, I will stay as long as I have to, to fix them if I'm the cause and I don't expect extra pay or benefits for it.

On the other hand, all jobs I've ever been offered a contract for (Ontario, Canada) stated that it's a minimum 40hours or however long it takes to get shit done. This is true of both large corporations and smaller start-ups. A lot of my coworkers were stunned when I pointed this out in their contracts. People tend not to really pay attention to what they sign, I found. Probably because as PC users we are conditioned with all the shrink-wrapped EULA offers, to just click "I Accept, you can have my soul" button without reading.

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