Ask Slashdot: Does Your Work Schedule Make You Unproductive? 311
debingjos writes "Management at my company seems to think that our developers can get extra work done if they work extra long days. However, as one of the devs in question, I don't agree. When I've been coding for eight hours, my pool of concentration is exhausted. Working overtime either fails to produce any extra code, or the quality of the code is very bad. What is the community's opinion on this? This can be broken out further into several questions: What are the maximum number of hours you can work in a day/week and still be reasonably productive? When you absolutely must work beyond that limit, what steps do you take to minimize degradation of quality? If you're able to structure your time differently from the typical 9-5 schedule, what method works best for you? Finally, how do you communicate the quality problems to management?"
You will never change them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You will never change them (Score:5, Insightful)
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from the sounds of it he doesn't actually need flex hours.
he needs a company with a management that understands working day being 8 hours..
12 hours would still be 12 hours no matter how "flex" it was!
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I agree but for one bit: It all depends on the individual, and what's going on at the time. A project that is interesting will keep me happily occupied for 12-14 hours straight (yet only feels like a couple of hours). A task that is exceedingly difficult will likely require a couple extra hours to solve (or reach a good stopping point) - just to avoid having to re-familiarize yourself with the problem all over again come the next day (or worse, waking up at 2:00 am to write down ideas and things your restle
Re:You will never change them (Score:4)
well yes.
but if the company expects you to do that every day then they're shafting your ass. at least if they're not paying triple the going rate for a developer in that locale.
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It's not easy to get another good job these days, so I suggest either having a mental breakdown due to stress and suing your boss or going Fight Club on them and getting paid to do nothing for the rest of your life.
Whatever you do, make sure your bosses know why you are going. Otherwise they will never learn.
Re:You will never change them (Score:4, Insightful)
They know they can find another desperate person off the street who will work 12 hours/day for a paycheck.
Sure you can grab someone else but as someone who has hired more than a few developer's I must say I've never seen anyone come up to speed in a dev job in under 3months. More often it's 6 months before they know enough to be useful.
Churning devs to find those desperate enough to put up with that sort of crap will hurt the company a lot more than it will hurt the individual devs. Tell the boss why you're leaving and tell all your co-workers too. They may not agree that the ship is sinking but they will remember your warning when it does.
Best is two shifts with some recovery time between (Score:5, Interesting)
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I much prefer to work from home, provided I have a dedicated work area/machines.
Ditto - I found that I was way more productive when there wasn't a stream of folks interrupting, ambient noises, etc. As long as everyone at home knows to leave you be unless the house is on fire, working at home is awesome for productivity.
OTOH, it does make things harder for you in regards to office politics and all the intangible bits that can make or break your career...
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If you're in a cube [imdb.com], someone will die.
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Agreed. I always insist upon a tetrahedron in my employment contract.
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Having worked in cubes and open spaces, I'll take my cube any day. Inadequate privacy to concentrate in is much better than no privacy.
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Noise canceling headphones work as long as you don't mind having to listen to music all your working day.
Sadly they don't stop people from talking to you.
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http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/shop_online/headphones/noise_cancelling_headphones/quietcomfort_3/index.jsp [bose.com]
Even without music they seemed to be able to almost completely cancel out background noise (though, again, sadly not people talking a few feet away). I would have bought them if I could justify spending over $300 on a pair of headphones right now. It was like ear pillows.
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I was whining about the price tag too. Finally I got one and it is the best ever investment (after a Kinesis keyboard and a quality trackpad) ... ....
I was going nuts over ambient noise at the office where I was abroad, plus being winter I had to have the heater on at the hotel.
I first got a "noise cancelling" Sony, that turned out a joke, then tested the Bose QC 15 at Best Buy with the airplane noise simulation
I had various fans at my home office before my Bitcoin miners went water cooled, and without them
Re: Best is two shifts with some recovery time bet (Score:2)
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White noise works well if you don't want music.
Re:Best is two shifts with some recovery time betw (Score:5, Insightful)
Pointless telephone calls and stupid 'do you have a minute' conversations waste about half of my day.
I'm with you on working outside office hours and ideally outside the office.
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Those developers in Bangalore must have it made!
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Those developers in Bangalore must have it made!
The only thing I've seen them make is a mess.
Re:Best is two shifts with some recovery time betw (Score:5, Insightful)
Working coders need to be left alone. Not because they are prima donnas, just because of the nature of their work and the mindset required for it.
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Good managers or team leads will make sure their coders are not distracted.
Yes, a good manager shields his team from the rest of the company.
Re:Best is two shifts with some recovery time betw (Score:5, Insightful)
Good point about distractions. Good managers or team leads will make sure their coders are not distracted. Someone mentioned phone calls and silly questions taking up half of their work day, but interruptions are worse than that: interrupting a coder who is in "flow" even for one minute can easily cost half an hour or more of that coder's productivity. Even worse: nudging a coder out of flow several times a day for an extended period of time will lead to severe fatigue and, when under pressure to deliver, a high risk of burnout. Working coders need to be left alone. Not because they are prima donnas, just because of the nature of their work and the mindset required for it.
Hamming, a famous programmer at Bell Labs talks about open-doors and closed-doors. The general consensus is that people with open-doors tend to be more successful than people with closed-doors.
It is very important to keep your ears to the ground and know what is going on in the workplace. Those "distractions" can sometimes be very important information that can save you hundreds of hours of works or advance your career. A "minute" talking to a person can reveal what a thousand words cannot.
I do get work done when I work late (Score:3)
In fact, I find that after the distractions of the office are gone, either because I am working at home or everybody has gone home, I can get a lot more done.
Re:I do get work done when I work late (Score:4, Interesting)
In fact, I find that after the distractions of the office are gone, either because I am working at home or everybody has gone home, I can get a lot more done.
Agreed. I'm the most productive when everyone else has gone home. But I pay for it by being dull and generally unresponsive the next morning. I'm thinking it's like the old proverb, you can't make a string longer by cutting off a piece and tying it to the other end.
I think what we're saying is that there are productive hours and hours that you're required to ... be there ... and they're not necessarily the same hours.
The collateral damage of staying late is that the company will start *expecting* you to stay late.....
Re:I do get work done when I work late (Score:4, Funny)
Unfortunately, the main question seems to imply everyone staying late, which negates the positive side of what you are describing.
Not totally. The slackers that cause 80% of the noise and distraction all go home at exactly 4:59 pm.
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Unfortunately, the main question seems to imply everyone staying late, which negates the positive side of what you are describing.
Not totally. The slackers that cause 80% of the noise and distraction all go home at exactly 4:59 pm.
That's bullshit. Those you are talking about hang out at work because that's their social life, and believe they're the best workers because they are on site the longest hours. The fact they drift through the day is irrelevant, their bosses merely see long hours and assume they're they productive ones. In fact, it's not even long hours, it's late hours. Those that get in early and are productive before these wasters get it are treated as you suggest. They leave on the dot despite being in 90 minutes before
Compressed Work Week perhaps? (Score:2)
Ever give a thought to a compressed work week of 4x10-hours instead of 5x8-hours? You could also try 3.5x12-hours (3x12 one week, 4x12 the next week) but that kind of schedule works better when you need 24/7 coverage.
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Ever give a thought to a compressed work week of 4x10-hours instead of 5x8-hours? You could also try 3.5x12-hours (3x12 one week, 4x12 the next week) but that kind of schedule works better when you need 24/7 coverage.
My impression is that companies argue (at least to themselves) why do I need to offer 4x10 when I'm already getting 5x10? I'd just be letting them take another day off.
I worked for a manager once that didn't believe that anyone who practiced WFH actually worked when they were at home. His position was, you must be visibly in your cube to be considered to be working. Or, an employee at all. One might argue that just being seen at one's desk doesn't necessarily mean one is working, but I didn't make that
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My impression is that companies argue (at least to themselves) why do I need to offer 4x10 when I'm already getting 5x10? I'd just be letting them take another day off.
And that's when you describe to them the fact that they are exempt from paying you overtime, and part of that deal involves you working whenever you damn well feel like it. =)
Re:Compressed Work Week perhaps? (Score:5, Insightful)
I worked for a manager once that didn't believe that anyone who practiced WFH actually worked when they were at home. His position was, you must be visibly in your cube to be considered to be working.
Sounds like he was assuming other people would behave like him.
Marination (Score:5, Insightful)
Solving problems is like marinating meat. It takes time. If you rush it, you get a quick solution, but not the best. A quick solution might be acceptable for one meal, but not for future meals.
The "Eureka effect" isn't something new.
Re:Marination (Score:5, Insightful)
So many times I've been at work doing nothing because I didn't have a solution or at least I had a gut feeling that the approach I was taking wasn't a good one. A night's sleep and a hot shower next morning and ta-da! The solution is suddenly makes itself available.
8 is an entirely arbitrary number (Score:5, Insightful)
In creative endeavours like coding, an 8-hour day of actual work is never, ever 8 hours of successful coding, and often results in questionable code that I have to rewrite later because looking busy when you really need a bit of time away from the desk. I think that if I could get away from the desk more without being perceived as slacking off, I would actually get more done.
Get up, take a walk around the block, play a little guitar, or whatever suits your fancy. As long as it gets your mind off the present obstacle. Come back with a fresh perspective and a fresh mind.
It certainly does worlds of good for my own free-time projects, but at work? It seems more like people believe they are paying for time, and not for actual work done.
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I absolutely agree. When talking about the number of hours worked, for any creative process, you're almost certainly asking the wrong question.
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nice (Score:3)
I recommend a 4 hour work day with same pay as the standard 80 hour work week.
No i sort of jest. You have to figure a few things. Management isn't rated on how well the code is written or how productive the people they're managing are... well in the most cases where you have the upper management who are brain dead. What instead is how much they can push their employees to make them look like effective managers.
Let me give you a basic example. If i work 8 hours a day, and the work i have assigned will take 3 weeks but i only have 1 week to do it in, a good manager will convince you to work twice as fast but not meet the deadline and then complain that they don't have enough resources. A bad manager will say it can't be done to upper management. Guess who is rewarded? The guy who puts on the dog and pony show for the upper management showing they can rally the troops in doing extra whether or not they met their goal.
So back to the point. It doesn't matter how effective you are. It matters how much they can squeeze out of you. Change that mindset and you've won. Good luck though, i doubt you'll change anyone's mind.
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Depends on context for me (Score:2)
For me, it depends on the context of what I'm doing.
If I am doing something very complex, with many pieces that I have to keep in my head at once, I am much more productive if I stay with it and work late, even through the night.
But if I am doing mundane bs stuff, one hour is too long before I start becoming unproductive.
I have found multiple days of late hours will fry me if I do too many back to back. I need a night off somewhere in there or I wind up sitting in my chair just staring and doing nothing.
Can you get into the 'zone'? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a developer, once I'm in the 'zone' I can code until I'm practically asleep... Although if I was forced to code for X hours, I couldn't say if I could 'enter' that zone or not - my guess is I wouldn't considering I would probably be thinking more about how pissed I was.
Re:Can you get into the 'zone'? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I discovered that "the zone" isn't just something that happens randomly, you can get into it regularly and at a time of your choosing with some practice. You have to be well rested, well fed, free from stress and distractions, comfortable. In other words the biggest impediment is bad management.
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As a developer, once I'm in the 'zone' I can code until I'm practically asleep...
Yeah, imagine you were working for yourself and set your own hours, would you really believe yourself saying "Nope, put in eight hours today no way I could get anything more done." or not? At the expense of having a life, sure I could put in more hours.
my guess is I wouldn't considering I would probably be thinking more about how pissed I was.
I'd be thinking about all the overtime pay I'd be getting, 150% and if they went all out then 200%. Did I mention I don't live in the US?
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I've 'coded' for 16+ hours straight both 'on the clock' for a given company, and working on my own. It comes down to wanting to accomplish something or not, personally if I've come up with a funky way of doing something (code wise) I'll stick with it until it works or it doesn't.
If you don't live in the US, your getting ripped off in the first place - the majority of the US is "ONLY" about profit, not living in the US changes the ball game completely.
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I've been there, too, but I couldn't put my hand to my heart and swear that the stuff I produced after twelve hours was any good. I've never looked into it.
But lets assume for sake of argument that "being in the zone" produces top notch code, that you're just as productive after ten or twelve hours in the zone as you are after three or four. You can't *demand* that somebody be in the zone. You can't make it happen by chaining somebody to their workstation for ten hours. In fact, the best thing if you
Just a few hours in the morning... (Score:2)
I have found that I really only have a few good hours of high productivity (not a programmer now, but applies just the same to other work). This is usually in the morning and I find I can get a lot done if I don't have meetings and interruptions. The rest of the day I just schedule low engagement tasks.
Get rid of 40hr work week (Score:2, Insightful)
I am productive in "sessions", usually lasting about 1.5-2.5 hours. I usually have two sessions a day (morning, afternoon). The remaining time I browse the web (hello, Slashdot!), or go to meetings (does that count as "productive"?). I could easily produce the same amount of quality working 5 hour days, instead of 8 hour days. After 6 hours, I'm pretty much useless, other than answering silly questions.
On top of that, I am more productive than entire departments (because I automate those departments!).
Studies say (Score:4, Interesting)
6 hours max per 24...
My experience (Score:3, Interesting)
I one took a job for a company developing a Futures Trading system, and they pushed us hard (at least 12 hours a day, 6-7 days a week) in order to meet their imposed deadline.
We finally got the system to pass the entire test suite on a Sunday afternoon.
Monday morning, when I arrived at work, the outer office was full of boxes containing all of the personal belongings of the developers, along with the CFO, who was handing out pink slips.
Amazingly, they actually issued a press release boasting of how they had gotten rid of all of their expensive software developers since they were "done" with software development.
In 3 months, they were out of business.
Hope you fare better!
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Morality: software engineer must learn to say "Ha ha ha ha ha!
Oh, wait, you were serious?
BWAAAAAA Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!"
FTFY.
Life's more fun when you openly deride stupid, unreasonable assholes.
Flex hours is the way (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not the same thing but I work from home a couple days a week and it's great. I save a couple hours/week on the commute and get to spend some time working in a way that's best for me. And if after lunch I'm tired.. I go hit the couch for 20 mins of shut-eye. Wake up refreshed, far more productive, and in a better mood for when the kids and wife get home. WINNING.
Depends on how interesting the work is. (Score:2)
I can work about 30 minutes on really boring stuff before I want to start sabotaging the work so no one is ever tempted to try to get me to do that kind of work ever again, and I can work like 16 hours a day on something if I find it really interesting.
For my current job I am obligated to work 9 hours a day, and that seems pretty doable most of the time. I do however get a disproportionate amount of interesting work compared with other developers though.
12 Hours (Score:2)
I find 12 hour days 7 days a week are okay for a while. After about 6 weeks you start to burn out and need to get some down time. I used to work 20 hours a day for weeks at a time back in my 20's and 30's. Now that I'm 50 I can't pull that kind of schedule. It's kind of like you work, eat and sleep and nothing else. Life turns into a fog.
No job, no schedule, no worries (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm recently retired and loving it.
I'm currently building a kayak rack in my back yard without any deadlines.
Sometimes I just put down the tools and paddle off to check my crab pots.
At the start of every day I sit on my patio overlooking the water, drink my coffee and decide what (if anything) I will do for the rest of the day.
I wish I could have retired 40 years ago.
So long and thanks for the fish.
Office Space (Score:5, Funny)
In my experience, yes (Score:4, Interesting)
One problem that IT folks often come across, especially with development jobs and especially at startups, is the expectation that long hours produce better results. Large companies also do this -- Google, Microsoft, etc. have on-site everything as a perk for employees, but also to keep them there for the maximum possible time. This works very well when you're just out of college -- you're used to working long hours to finish stuff, the dorm-like atmosphere is inviting, etc. But it really gets old when you're older, more established and have things outside of work like a marriage, family, etc.
Also, employers hate to add staff in IT roles because most of them see the entire function as a necessary evil. If you're in one of these places, you'll never get free of being called to fix stuff out of hours and working like crazy to put out fires. On top of that, many see themselves as "great places to work" and don't think that their workers feel any of this pain.
The one common myth throughout IT employment is that every place is like this. It isn't -- I happen to work for a place that allows flexible hours. And although we're lean in the staffing department and often have to work *a little* extra time, the workload isn't crushing. There are trade-offs, and people who work here know them. Pay isn't at the top of the range, the stuff we work on is typically not cutting edge (but not ancient either,) and the work our department does (systems integration) is very difficult if you don't have the right attitude/mindset/troubleshooting brain. In addition, those flexible hours get cashed in for marathon work sessions on very rare occasions. My company basically says "keep sane hours, make sure you're around for meetings, and we reserve the right to fly you halfway across the world if a disaster happens." I could get a job working myself to death for an investment bank or video game company, but I have a family at home now.
Seriously, not everywhere has a toxic culture. And yes, I'm aware that there are a lot of people who love working insane hours and have very little to do outside of work. That's why different companies have different work styles.
Used to (Score:5, Informative)
Entirely dependent on the project. If I was intensely interested, I could work much longer.
There is no 'absolutely must'. If you have a limit, it's a limit. It's unhealthy to push past that, people have died.
Four long days followed by three off.
Walk up, say "Hey....
nothing new... check out DeathMarch (Score:3)
Management at my company seems to think that our developers can get extra work done if they work extra long days.
Your management's "thinking" is nothing new.
*shrug*
What you're really asking is how to deal with your management.
So here, check out Death March by Yourdon. [amazon.com]
This will answer all your questions (as well as things you didn't think to ask), with more wisdom and insight than you're likely to find via "Ask Slashdot."
It will also give you some perspective to make informed decisions about your options.
The reviews on Amazon will tell you if this is a book for you.
This is so individualistic (Score:2)
In a perfect world managers would just tell their employees
Your job description and duties are those that an average person of your skills can do with a 40-hour workweek. You can set your own schedule and work as little or as much as you need to, just get the job done and be available for meetings on short notice during "core business hours." If you get bored, let me know, there is always more work to do.
There is no such thing as a perfect world.
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management (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, management is a largely evidence-free space. Research on all your questions, and a thousand more, exists. 99% of managers don't seem to know anything about management nor people. Not in the way anyone else knows anything about their profession. That's largely because few people actually study management, most are something else by profession and were promoted to management positions, and if you're lucky they got two weeks of training.
Your case is typical. Managers don't know about how people work, so they try to manage them like any other resource. But, as the excellent little book "Peopleware" put it: "Adding manpower to a late project makes it later."
If you want to have a good job - leave. A company with that kind of management is unlikely to change.
If you can't or don't want to, buy your manager that book, or some other. Send it to his private address, anonymously. You don't want to embarass him. He most likely knows that he needs help, but he would never admit it.
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Your case is typical. Managers don't know about how people work, so they try to manage them like any other resource. But, as the excellent little book "Peopleware" put it: "Adding manpower to a late project makes it later."
Umm I think they got that chapter and figured "Well if we can't add people, the people we already have must work more." At least that was the implication I got from the summary.
Who cares what the community thinks? (Score:5, Informative)
This is a well-researched topic with hard data available. And it's pretty unambiguously and consistently the case that the hard data show that working extra hours results, not just in lower productivity per hour, but lower productivity overall. Which is why people who start pushing for extra hours can't seem to catch up -- they're making it worse rather than better.
Your managers are trying to find out just how much gasoline they have to pour on this fire to put it out, and I don't think you can reasonably expect them to get smarter.
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That is all true, but the days of "scientific management" are over, and research does not matter.
Managers believe that you achieve efficiency and greatness through gut feeling and tough talk and catchy slogans. They are not interested in learning otherwise, and 90% of them were never taught management, they just got promoted into it.
There are a few companies that will make sensible, evidence-based choices, but the only true fix is to work for yourself.
It isn't the hours worked it is the environment (Score:2, Interesting)
I work for myself, so no one tells me when to start or stop working. I rent an office and work offsite most of the time so I'm able to come and go as I need to. In some sense I'm the extreme example of someone who is free to work whenever, however, and sometimes whereever I want to. The only complication is that fact that a few of my clients end up schedule regular (very useless) meetings on status. Apart from that I tend to work normal hours - 9 AM to 6 PM. Then, if I have the energy and the appetite
Studies show 8 hour days are a limit (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked in hospital IT several years back. Hospitals routinely schedule doctors and nurses for 12 hour shifts 3 days a week.
While I was there a report was released that said that after extensive study of doctor and nurse patient care habits throughout their work day, they determined that the quality of patient care dropped sharply after 8 hours. During hours 9-12 the risk of being misdiagnosed (incompletely or inaccurately), administer incorrect medications (patient allergies or medication contraindications), administer incorrect dosages of medications, etc. The risks were almost double compared to the previous 8 hours. After hour 12 the risks got even worse. The study estimated that preventable accidents would fall over 75% by changing to four 8 hour days.
Unfortunately, the attitudes of doctors and nurses were that the quality of their patient care was just fine, and nobody wanted to give up the schedules that they currently had. The medical field has a culture of overworking yourself and working while tired, so they are highly resistant to change even in the face of such profound data revealing how destructive their behavior was to patient well-being.
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Is that better than 8 hours at one place followed by 8 hours at another place, and 6 hours sleep per day, for each of 5 days a week? Probably.
Yes, you are being unproductive (Score:2)
A few years ago I was on a very large project (over 1MLOC of C++ code in the end). The customer required us to be using and audited to at least SEI CMM level 3 (I think this is called something different now) and so we underwent putting in all the processes in place. We all predicted we'd hate all the formal process, but an interesting side effect is we got very good at sizing new features and the various other change requests we'd get, and the consequence of this was it was very rare we actually needed to
Non-Coders will Never Understand (Score:2)
I keep most of my coding for my own self-employed projects because I know that no manger would ever let me work how I want to. I can spend a week mulling over a problem, every waking and sleeping hour and the solution will come to me while I'm jogging or eating or on the can and it will take an hour of coding and twice that testing/debugging. It might only be ten lines of code but it will be something that gives me a glow inside of something being properly right.
My point is that coding is a creative process
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I did thinking on the throne today for my current project. Started coding. Hit an incompatibility in the script I'm calling. So back to thinking. Back to the throne.
You're doing things wrong! (Score:2)
Management doesn't want you to think. They just want you to code.
This isn't auto assembly (Score:2)
Coding is more like writing a book than building a car. There is little reason to enforce a schedule and central location on everyone.
In the end, it's all about your ability to deliver - that's what determines your worth, so it should be up to each individual to determine what works best for them, as far as schedule and location.
Cut full time down to 32 hours a week or less (Score:3)
Cut full time down to 32 hours a week or less.
Also there can be some dead / down time in jobs where you are just waiting for stuff to happen or others to sign off / work there end.
Also to many jobs have all of this face time BS as well.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
"Does Your Work Schedule Make You Unproductive?" - no but Slashdot and TheChive sure do
Oh come now! You're Slashdotting is counted toward Professional Development. Same as for when the execs slip out for an afternoon of golf.
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
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Does code golf count too?
Only if you take three beers out with you. No more. No less.
and the number of counting shall be three...
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Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
1- Manage MILESTONES, not MINUTES ;-)
2- Quality problems are why there is a design spec and QA engineering. If these are too "old school" for your management and methodology, expect the beating to continue. That means code coverage and quality will be measured by your customers.
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Soon you will be spending hours in daily "progress meetings".
40 hours of meetings a week (Score:3)
I was once on a project that had 4 or 5 large companies working together to bid on a NASA RFP. At one point we had 40 hours a week of scheduled meetings. It was actually very liberating, because everybody recognized that there was no way anybody could do any work if we all went to all of them, so there was the 15 minute daily status meeting in the morning and then you could blow off anything where you weren't actually needed.
Manage Milestones not Minutes (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks for cutting through the clutter. I read through far too many comments arguing for this set of hours vs that set of hours. No one's family life is the same. No one's biorythms are the same. I've been a programmer, analyst, project manager, entrepreneur since the early 1980's and have learned that my teams performed best if their hours were self-managed. Even within the same individual I sometimes needed to work in small 50 minute increments and, at other times, in huge non-stop spurts with a satisfying 18 hour day.
These days, if I'm productive n hours, that's exactly how many hours I work. I'd make exceptions to this only to honor confirmed appointments and periodic team meetings.
Thanks, again, for a quality post!
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
old school management is a classic fail
Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
Good point. But everyone, and everyday is different. I've had inspired days when I worked 12 hours. My blood was up and concentration was good. I've had bad days when I caught up on email, admin, documenting, etc. no point in trying to code, nothing productive would result.
As a manager of a small dev team (and 'developer' myself more than 'manager'), I recognise this in my team and specifically have different kinds of work available depending on the 'mood' that the guys are in. Someone's having a great head-down-and-churn-out-awesome-code day, I'll let them go at it until they're done. Someone's having a blergh-can't-seem-to-even-handle-basic-refactoring day, they can maybe double-check some documentation, or read up on some new technology that might be useful to us, or something else.
I also recognise that some days the hearts and minds simply aren't in it at all. For this reason, we don't have fixed work hours - come in when you want, leave when you want, do your 38.5 hours per week (and if you do more, you can take it off later as time in lieu).
Yes, this can lead to delays on projects, but that's my job as the team manager to sort out. When I tell marketing/whoever about schedules, it's my job to take in to account that people in my team have good days and bad days. I'll build that in to my estimate (and therefore occasionally finish a bit earlier than 'scheduled', giving us time for a bit of spit-and-polish on some non-core parts; or help out on other projects that aren't looking so good).
Occasionally, I've had some difficult conversations with my management about why they saw my employees engaged in a network game instead of working, but again - it's my responsibility to take care of that and my superiors can't fault us on quality of output. My team of course are generally pretty happy with the work environment and I take that as a matter of pride being the one providing it to them.
Can't really compare truck drivers to tech jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
The risks are very different first off. If I crash my computer I don't usually kill anyone, if I crash my double trailer on the freeway there is a good chance that people die.
Second, the fatigue is very different between mental jobs and manual labor. I agree that for the most part humans shut down after 8 hours. That said, Tech jobs are quite a bit like being an artist. You find a groove, and you can make magic. I have done a couple of 20 hour days in the past because A) I really really enjoyed the project I was working on, and B) I was in a groove and everything was snapping together. The 20 hour days are extremely rare, but I doubt I'm the only one that's had a couple of those moments.
The thing is, if you find your groove and work a 12 hour day the bosses need to make sure you get compensated. A 40 hour week does not give much time to rest, and a 50 hour week leads to burn out rather quickly. If your boss does not allow comp time, get the hell out!
Many managers learn who the workers are and never comp, often pushing the workers harder and burning them out quicker. As long as they get their bonus they don't care about the staff they have left next quarter.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
lol
True. It really varies by the individual, amount of sleep, consecutive days of intensive work, etc.
As a person with an executive function disorder it's much much easier for me to work for extended periods of time because I don't recognize the time passing. I'll go until I can't go anymore. That said it takes me a while to get into "code mode" so a schedule which is interrupted by meetings and other crap means a huge loss of productivity for me.
Re: (Score:3)
a schedule which is interrupted by meetings and other crap means a huge loss of productivity for me.
Dude - that's the case with anyone - developer or not. Well, the sales guys and such may find them helpful...
Meanwhile, something about those meetings (and especially the excess of them) brings up something: I find that a lack of good design is often covered-up by a mass of meetings. I get that some information can only be correlated/gathered by a meeting, but too many of them I think tends to just make a mess. If your organization is plagued with excess meetings (or individual scrums that drag on for hours
Re:Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is news to you, you must be new here...
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Ah! The irony is strong with this one!
Re: Really? (Score:5, Informative)
There are a lot of jokes about morning and night people, but studies show there is validity to this. I learned to work with this when teaching special ed and later, when I ran my own software company, where I did all the programming, I saw a dramatic illustration of some of those issues.
Morning people get up and are perky and ready to start. However, they're the ones who often need a nap in the afternoon and work well with an 8 hour day, but do not do well with marathon sessions. Night people do not start quickly. They wake up and need time to adjust to the world again and often are not ready to really focus until the afternoon. But they gain in strength and focus over time. They can often work marathon sessions, working all through the night and into the next morning.
I found that when I was coding and could work on my own schedule, I could get some work done in the afternoon and this is when I set things up, did simpler tasks, and caught up on things. But my real work hours started about 8:00 pm, when I could start focusing and I would often work through until sunrise or longer. 18 hour coding sessions were not unusual for me, but, of course, if I did a few in a row because I was working on something difficult, then I'd need several days to just recover. But I might be able to do 5 days straight of mega-sessions if needed. It's also worth noting this was in my 40s, not when I was some over-energetic teen or 20-something. In fact, in one month, when I was over 45, I did more all-nighters (with good code as a result) than I did in all my time in high school and college combined.
It does vary according to the person. Forcing night people to try to work in the morning will always be an issue for them and will not produce the good code they can produce. Forcing morning people who tend not to do well in marathons to stay for 10 hour days four times a week is just as bad.
Corporations don't understand these things, which is one reason I never wanted to be involved with any larger corporations. If you want coders to do their best work, you can't regiment them and dictate how they work. You need to let them find their style. Let them work on their own schedule. If they need music, let them have it. If they need silence, find a way to make quiet places available. Some need neat work spaces, others need chaos.
Re:Too Old (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Too Old (Score:4, Insightful)
When you can't do in 100+ hours / week what I can accomplish in 30, you're probably too young for the job. Step aside and let someone with some experience and perspective do the job that you obviously can't. Development productivity cannot be measured in hours, nor in lines of code.
Re:Too Old (Score:5, Insightful)
When you can't crank out 100+ hours/week at max capacity, you're too old for the job. Step aside and let us younger and more capable guys show you how it's done.
If you have to crank out 100+ hours a week on a regular basis you can't do your job.
Re:Too Old (Score:5, Insightful)
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When you can't crank out 100+ hours/week at max capacity, you're too old for the job. Step aside and let us younger and more capable guys show you how it's done.
If you have to crank out 100+ hours a week on a regular basis you can't do your job.
I used to work for someone who thought that spending less than 100 hours on the job was slacking off. She kept a mat in the closet to take naps on the floor so she didn't have to go home. What she actually did to keep busy during those 100+ hours, however, was instructive. She'd butt in on phone calls with clients. Clients respected her business skills, but privately begged us not to bring her in on routine matters. She'd spend hours re-arranging icons on the desktop or fiddling with the file managers. It w
Re: (Score:3)
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He isn't, but I'd be pretty surprised if you weren't.