SolemnDragon's Journal: Code Widow

Code Widow: One who is left alone in the evenings, to have dinner alone, or with the codewriter's other family, while said codewriter slaves away in the code mines for long hours at a time. The codewriter will arrive home fatigued and stressed, to grab a few scant hours' sleep before returning at break of day to the mines.

And yet, blinder's the one i feel sorry for. At least i never have to work late. Being unimportant does have its good sides.

unimportant??!?!?!?!

[TechnoLust]

If you weren't important, they wouldn't pay you to be there. Besides, who else is going to give the Scary Office Ladies their Doses of Reality?

Nonono

[nizo]

Codemonkeys are the ones who are unimportant, otherwise companies wouldn't treat them like slaves :-(

Seriously, if you valued your employees, wouldn't you do everything in your power to make sure a) they get to have a life outside of work and b) you don't grind them into the ground with insane (and often avoidable) deadlines? My last programming job is the one I blame for damn near burning me out on the entire computer field.

I feel for the blinderdude, I really do.

Re:

[FortKnox]

Honestly, I'm in a similar position as blinder. When you are an architect, its not usually the client who's pushing a deadline, but, rather, the architect that is putting in extra time to make sure everything is 100% correct and working before delivering it. When you are the architect/in charge of the app, your name is 'attached' to it, and you want it to shine...

Re:

[FortKnox]

I should also mention that the architect is putting in the extra time so the code monkeys underneath him/her don't have to put in extra time... cause architects value their code monkeys :)

Re:

[blinder]

actually the company i work for treats all of its employees rather well and we are very well compensated. in addition the hours i had to work are not the norm. the client we have is something a bit unusual. the extreme high visibility of the project dictated that we do everything in our power to meet the deadline we had to meet.

and, like what fk was talking about, since i am NOT a "code monkey" but the architect who was leading the team of developers, it was in my best interest for not just the client but f

Burnout

[johndiii]

Burnout is something to be careful of. It creeps up on you, too, so you're right there before you notice. I don't know how long this has been (and will be) going on, but extended hours result in a lower quality product and higher turnover in the organization.

The company that I'm working for now has tried hard not to make such demands, and they are changing their processes to avoid the necessity. It's a good example of a functional organization - they're not completely there, yet, but they know it and are

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[johndiii]

Just for your future employment knowledge, the "shouldn't be going on for too much longer" thing is frequently not true. Not to say that it is an outright lie, but managers saying it frequently should know better. And developers saying frequently forget that time is not as malleable as code. :-)

Our deadline was one of those big ones, too. We had a major upgrade, with significant new features, that had to be done before our major trade show in October. We brought it in on schedule with minimal overtime.

Re:

[SolemnDragon]

the employer hates that it's necessary, and is trying hard to make it not necessary so often. One reason it's necessary for blinder to be there is that he's now high enough up to have to put in the time to save his code monkeys' marriages from divorce-because-of-absence.

The client we're not discussing or speculating about, and the blinder likes it to be perfect but sees a need to be reasonable about it and at the moment EVERYONE over there is putting in the time.

There were other people still there when he l

Re:

[Talinom]

Yup. A friend of mine worked for a company that had him working 16-hour days for a year or more. They always said it was just going to be a little while longer. Eventually they signed a contract with a new client the immediately, gave themselves bonuses and declared bankruptcy.

K, my friend, said that he was relieved that he didn't have to finish cleaning up the code when he was laid off. He had a mortgage, car, wife and three little girls to take care of and he was happy to not be working. Yeah, it was t

Solution!

[GMontag]

6" spike heels (on you) should solve the problem. If immediate progress is not realized, add a brass pole.