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Our boss keeps mentioning that the company is good to people who put in long hours and work weekends. We're all salary and there's no extra money on the table; just references to bonuses.

I'm sure when I'm 75 and in hospital with pneumonia, the last thing going through my head will be, "Man, I wished I had worked more hours on that backend for the app for that fast food company that gives the world diabetes."

The company can't give me summer back. It can't give me a 30C day in the middle of the winter. Even asking employees to work long hours and on weekends constantly is a sign of poor management, poor planning and the inability to value people's individual time.

Comments
  • 2
    I'm going to toss in a term I heard somewhere that I'm trying to popularise around the office: "Vacation Oriented Design." Basically, design your application in such a way that you can take a good vacation from time to time.

    Of course, a lot of that is in the realm of human resources. But even as a lowly dev, you can often spot when you're creating something that will end up giving you more work in the long-term.

    If anyone here has any clout in their office, I would recommend spreading the concept around. It's good for your companies Bus Score, and ultimately leads to happier employees.
  • 3
    Personally, I'd never take a job that doesn't pay over time. I love being a dev but I refuse to let work consume my soul
  • 4
    My company:

    Why have really urgent deadline. We will pay double if someone is free and want to work on weekend.

    In last year it happened only once and nobody was pushing us to do this :)
  • 3
    @ArcaneEye it's how many people can get hit by a bus on the way to work, before your company is in trouble.

    For instance if only one guy knows how to deploy to prod, then your Bus Score is 1
  • 3
    If they start asking you to work on weekends, flee as far as you can! It really mess your brain to not have days off
  • 1
    @Gnonpi absolutely. Fixing something one-off and vital (like prod going down) is one thing, but if you're just working on tickets, then you're on real trouble. Run for the hills!
  • 0
    @QAgMire have you tried walking them through a thought experiment? Like, imagine you're in the hospital, and a show stopping bug has been discovered: what can they do, other than wait for you?

    Although if they're paying you below the market rate, it's more likely that you'll just quit on them the moment a fair offer of employment comes your way. :p

    Though bus score isn't really about compensation - it's about spreading risk. But if they're not paying you fairly, it's unlikely they would have the wherewithal to protect themselves in other areas as well.

    @ArcaneEye now I'm imagining a roof with only one tile - analogy works even better.
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