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EA Games: The Human Story
An anonymous reader writes "An Electronic Arts employee spouse speaks out against company crunch time practices. From the post: "EA's bright and shiny new corporate trademark is "Challenge Everything." Where this applies is not exactly clear. Churning out one licensed football game after another doesn't sound like challenging much of anything to me; it sounds like a money farm. To any EA executive that happens to read this, I have a good challenge for you: how about safe and sane labor practices for the people on whose backs you walk for your millions?"
EA's bright and shiny new corporate trademark is "Challenge Everything." Where this applies is not exactly clear. Churning out one licensed football game after another doesn't sound like challenging much of anything to me; it sounds like a money farm. To any EA executive that happens to read this, I have a good challenge for you: how about safe and sane labor practices for the people on whose backs you walk for your millions?
I am retaining some anonymity here because I have no illusions about what the consequences would be for my family if I was explicit. However, I also feel no impetus to shy away from sharing our story, because I know that it is too common to stick out among those of the thousands of engineers, artists, and designers that EA employs.
Our adventures with Electronic Arts began less than a year ago. The small game studio that my partner worked for collapsed as a result of foul play on the part of a big publisher -- another common story. Electronic Arts offered a job, the salary was right and the benefits were good, so my SO took it. I remember that they asked him in one of the interviews: "how do you feel about working long hours?" It's just a part of the game industry -- few studios can avoid a crunch as deadlines loom, so we thought nothing of it. When asked for specifics about what "working long hours" meant, the interviewers coughed and glossed on to the next question; now we know why.
Within weeks production had accelerated into a 'mild' crunch: eight hours six days a week. Not bad. Months remained until any real crunch would start, and the team was told that this "pre-crunch" was to prevent a big crunch toward the end; at this point any other need for a crunch seemed unlikely, as the project was dead on schedule. I don't know how many of the developers bought EA's explanation for the extended hours; we were new and naive so we did. The producers even set a deadline; they gave a specific date for the end of the crunch, which was still months away from the title's shipping date, so it seemed safe. That date came and went. And went, and went. When the next news came it was not about a reprieve; it was another acceleration: twelve hours six days a week, 9am to 10pm.
Weeks passed. Again the producers had given a termination date on this crunch that again they failed. Throughout this period the project remained on schedule. The long hours started to take its toll on the team; people grew irritable and some started to get ill. People dropped out in droves for a couple of days at a time, but then the team seemed to reach equilibrium again and they plowed ahead. The managers stopped even talking about a day when the hours would go back to normal.
Now, it seems, is the "real" crunch, the one that the producers of this title so wisely prepared their team for by running them into the ground ahead of time. The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm -- seven days a week -- with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm). This averages out to an eighty-five hour work week. Complaints that these once more extended hours combined with the team's existing fatigue would result in a greater number of mistakes made and an even greater amount of wasted energy were ignored.
The stress is taking its toll. After a certain number of hours spent working the eyes start to lose focus; after a certain number of weeks with only one day off fatigue starts to accrue and accumulate exponentially. There is a reason why there are two days in a weekend -- bad things happen to one's physical, emotional, and mental health if these days are cut short. The team is rapidly beginning to introduce as many flaws as they are removing.
And the kicker: for the honor of this treatment EA salaried employees receive a) no overtime; b) no compensation time! ('comp' time is the equalization of time off for overtime -- any hours spent during a crunch accrue into days off a
Instead of working on Duke Nu^H^H^H^H-- Good Ol' George B chimed in the yesterday regarding this article and said "There's a lot of truth in there, especially when talking about large scale, corporate game development, which is most of it these days."
:(
Interesting
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Cause every programmer at one point or another wants to make video games. Don't like your job? Leave... there are 500 people that want to be in your place, anyway!
That's why most of the industry is young. Us 'older people' with families realize that they can't be in the gaming industry. I have a wife, kid, and another kid on the way. I'm not about to sacrifice my family so that I can work on video games. Sure, it was a dream of mine, but that's what the industry is about. Long hours, low pay, no pats on the back. If you don't like it, there is hundreds willing to take your spot.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Take your time, EA, and make a really good game. The people will buy it if it's quality.
Being as someone who is currently in the software industry but not in the game industry, I've heard many things about the "crunch time" policies of game makers, especially that of EA. Every time I'm in an interview, the first question I ask is the "crunch time" policy.
At the last interview I did for a game studio (which I, unfortunately, did not get the job for) they asked "Oh so you've heard the EA horror stories, haven't you"...Granted they were a much smaller developer for cell phone games and their crunch time wasn't nearly as long as the whole project, but apparently what EA is doing is more of the norm instead of the exception.
Which sometimes makes me rethink the whole notion I had when I was in elementary school saying "I wanna write video games when I grow up!" I enjoy living, and there's a point where you have to choose either to "live to work" or "work to live" - I prefer the latter.
I've come to accept perpetual crunch time, unpaid overtime, and no comp days as "industry standard."
I guess that makes me part of the problem. Reading this article woke me up a little... maybe I should be getting those things. I wonder how many programmers are in the situation of having little to no 'crunch time' and paid overtime and comp days? Especially paid overtime -- who gets that? Anyone?
A. Incompetant management. No new story here, and we've all suffered under it.
:)
B. Outsource the whiners to a country where, at least if they do whine, no one here will hear them. Also something many of us have lived through.
No, they aren't going to outsource management but thanks for the suggestion. In my experience, that's like throwing gasoline on a fire. You think the bastards in *this* country are greedy incompetants, wait till you see some of the lads and lasses Over There.
Simple solution? Don't do it. At one point in my career I was good enough at fomenting revolts that even the Indian and Russian contractors joined in. The key is to pick the part of the deathmarch where hanging management actually sounds like a reasonable solution. A few weeks of 12-hour days, seven days a week makes any way out welcome.
Rb
...would probably be something like this
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
AFAIK you cannot be forced to work overtime. Thus employees could have said no. If there we dismissed then that would be grounds for a law suit. EA may treat their employees poorly but it seems that the employees treat themselves just as poorly. Stand up for yourselves.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Call me lazy but working 80 hours of week while only getting paid for 40 is just stupid exploitation in my book.
Now I live in the EU where it's mostly against the law to make me work more than 40 hours a week without paying me for it. Of course I still work probably 50-60 hour weeks. Atleast it's my choise now and if I want to slow down I can.
--Smutt
The Information Revolution will be fought on the command line.
Further down TFA you would see that the 8 hour, 6 day weeks were only the beginning. Next came 12 hour, 6 day weeks. Finally, that was upped to 12 hour, 7 day weeks. Now, I work on a major software product team, and even in our worst hours/days before ship we didn't have to pull those kind of shifts. Maybe a weekend, maybe a long night, but never multiple 85 hour weeks. Please RTFA and then post.
"What we elect to call imagination is mere combination of things not heretofore combined." - Frank Norris
No, ninety hour weeks are NOT an inevitable consequence of working in this industry.
45-50 hours, maybe. But >80 hour workweeks are usually seen only at startups where if a major deadline is missed, the company fails. And in those cases, the people put up with it because there's usually more than just a wage involved--working long hours at a startup can make you millions in the end.
Established companies pushing their staff that hard is not only morally wrong, it's bad business. Sure, EA makes a lot of money, but how much more could they make if they didn't have such high turnover?
Here's a news flash: Humane labor practices != socialism. Jackass.
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
I was wondering, if EA is engaged in breaking the law, and nobody does anything about it and the government doesn't seem to care, should software engineers unionize?
Think about it, if there are the screen actors unions and contruction worker unions, why can't there be Software Engineer Unions?
Maybe then we can make sure to work 40-hour weeks with extra pay. Maybe then will Project Managers put on themselves realistic expectations, maybe then will CEOs learn that software making is a profession as valuable as business management.
I lived through something like this myself during the first internet boom. I worked over-100-hour weeks every week of the year. I still remember having spent two new year eves working. All I had was two weeks of vacation a year which I had to take in one-week instances, and having provided a two-month advance notice.
I was not paid overtime, weekends, or holidays. I did it because I was young, naive, and trully excited about what I was doing, but when I think back I was definitelly exploited along with my fellow co-workers.
In the end I started my own company and moved to a country with better work practices. Let's only hope that those still toiling for the further advance of computer science get a better deal soon. Uninioze and I'll go back and join you. I know what you're going thru, and I will do all I can to support you.
I've worked at 3 different game companies, including EA. EA is the absolute worst for crunch time. I, along with most of my team, worked every single day for 4 months straight, 80+ hours a week, and were told by management that we had it easy (other teams had had mandatory Saturdays for a whole year). After crunch time was done, I mentioned my concerns about the overtime to management. This led to my being placed on a probationary "get your act together" period, one step away from being fired. Knowing that life could be so much better, I quit.
Old people fall. Young people spring. Rich people summer and winter.
This story can almost be word for word swapped with a story about some guy working in the coal mines about 100 years ago. They were told if you don't like it, get a new job (but first pay us back the money that you owe us).
Consider the difference between this and the Telco and gas industries:
During the winter, there is a MAJOR crunch time for those industries. It's not uncommon for telco employees to work 84 hours a week for a couple months. Why do they do it? One, it's MAJOR bling in a time when it's needed. Two, they know it's going to end. When the weather calms down and warms up, they all take thier vacation time and can relax. The money saved up allows them to do stuff that they missed while getting systems back up or filling tanks.
Would they work under crunch time, all the time? HELL NO. Thier job can't be done on extreme exhaustion. Would they work like that without compensation? Maybe for once in a long time, not for a couple months at a time.
Why do they get compensated so well? Unions and management that understands that running an employee hard for a short period is cheaper than wasting them for 9 other months, but they must be compensated.
They don't like the long hours, but they do welcome it. I consider what most of the software industry does to be on par with factories in third world countries. After all, if a guy making clothes doesn't like working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, he can always get another job. Can't he?
If you think education is expensive, you should try ignorance -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard
People should unionize. Get something moving. Go on strike or something! Why do people keep up with such crap? Are we all just a bunch of sheep?
I worked in the game industry for a year and 1/2. In that time I worked on 3 projects, and was always in cruch. I averaged over 75 hours a week for that year and 1/2 period. Some weeks I spent over 120 hours in the office.
Bad management, unrealistic schedules, artificial deadlines, I've seen it all while deathmarching. And the end product was always rushed out the door before it was ready..... so it was junk. The company killed a lot of previosly sucessful franchises by pushing junk, in order to meet financial obligations. There were controlled by their debt, not by any desire to produce a quality game.
Thankfully the company I worked for is now bankrupt, and hopefully dead.
Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
If I could get EA CEO Larry Probst on the phone, there are a few things I would ask him. "What's your salary?"
According to Yahoo Finance it's a paultry $1.45 million. Course, with options he exercised about $23 million.
[Note: To anybody in a corporation, I highly recomend against looking up your CEO's salary. It's one of the most depressing things you could possibly do (my CEO makes in one hour what I make all year).]
I'm active in the mod community for Neverwinter Nights and achieved some measure of success (modules on gaming magazine CDs, module of the year, etc.). As a result, I had a number of job offers from various gaming companies.
Fortunately I have a very well paying job as a web application developer working for the healthcare industry. It's stable, my customers love me, and I feel like I'm making a real difference in people's lives. So while it was flattering, I turned them all down.
My father once told me that the secret to happiness was either trying to make money from your hobby or work a real job that lets you support your hobby. I've chosen the latter and I have no regrets.
Did you even read the post or just glean your idea from skimming it?
What upsets is that someone complains about unfair labor practices and you cry out quit, stand in an unemployment line and label them a socialist. Just because there are a hundred other people that would take that job doesn't make the management's practices right. We work in an educated country and salary slavery is just as wrong as outright slavery.
I've worked those kinds of hours and I can honestly tell you it sucks. I continued on because I enjoyed my work, but it soon extracted its toll on my health and my family life. When I saw what it was doing to me, I left for a better job for less money but I work normal hours and have a life.
So before you start labeling people and puking in the unemployment line, think; there is a human side to a business and these types of work practices reflect bad managment and not a rise in socialism.
Wrong. The Department of Labor enforces things like overtime laws. The problem is that it only works if you are not "exempt."
Typically, "Exempt" refers to "professions" such as lawyer, doctor, and engineer. It can also apply to "management." A software coder without the word "engineer" in their title might be able to be considered non-exempt. The only way to know for sure is to contact the department of labor: http://www.dol.gov/.
They may be a bit slow to answer their phones, but keep trying!
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Really. I'm a veteran of the coding wars, and yes, death marches are nothing new. The tactic of the perennially slipping deadline ("whoops, heh heh, crunch mode just got extended 2 weeks, sorry") is the telltale sign of incompetent software management. (My SO had a similar experience in the telecomm industry before the big crash.) A German shepherd could figure out what's happening to this organization.
The team involved has to revolt unanimously -- somewhere a manager needs to get seriously bitch-slapped with some slippage. I'm not talking about sabotage, mind you; let's stay professional, even though noone will ever die as a result of EA's bugs. But what about having an entire department or two calling in sick on the exact same day?
It's the crudest form of organized labor, but it works. Just like the "blue flu" that hits US cities when the policemen's union protests conditions. And the larger and more critical the department involved, the better.
Yes, there is the risk of an en masse firing. On the other hand, if this article is true, what is there for the engineers to lose? Paychecks are nice, but health and sanity are rather nifty too.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Fuck That Place.
Seriously, it's a carrer choice.
I liked working as a field tech. Got to drive around, working on different people's problems. I loved helping people and getting to feel like a hero. I did not like the pay, or the, "Stay on site until it's done, but be here at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow" attitude. I quit after 1 year.
I liked working as a hosting admin. I dug servers, and working with the OS to do the developers bidding. I did NOT like getting paged constantly with servers issues that were beyond my control due to the crappy product. I quit after 2 years.
Now I am a programmer, and I currently like where I am. The whole time I have had a family to support, but I know if I am not happy at work, nobody is going to be happy at home. I bet the guy shoveling shit at the horsetrack doesn't like his job either, he should quit too. That's the great thing about America, you can just go get a new job. Sure you may have to give things up, but a job is all about choice.
You have to decide what is important to you. You will never be rich as a teacher, but be a teacher if it's what you love. You will never (I guess from this article) be rich as a game programmer, or have a life outside of work, but you get to do what you love. I play a lot of poker, and toyed with the idea of going pro, but after a very short try (kept my job, just played at the pro level for a few weeks), I really did not want to play poker.. at all! It became a job.. a job I wanted to quit.
So, pick a job you like. Some people LIKE having a job that is their life, some people like having a hobby that turns into a job. The whole of the job is equal to the sum of all it's parts.
Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise - William Shakespeare
I am a game programmer. And this story does not really tell me anything new about EA. The larger game developers really are little more then human meat factories as far as labour practices go.
From my standpoint, EA represents all that is bad about the game industry. They stamp out sequels with no originality. If EA puts out something new, its because they bought the company that made it. And they offer the worst possible hours. They probably pay very well, but your pretty much working 2 full time jobs for that cash.
However, pretty much every game developer I have met, except the rankest newbies to the industry, are fully aware of how EA operates. And EA is hardly the only offender. I have some co-workers who worked for Acclaim, and the same kind of hours were expected.
Death march hours suck. Employers who schedule a project expecting every one to work death march hours are retarded. I personally would never take a job from EA, or any company I view as a human meat factory, unless the alternative was unemployment.
But EA and the rest are the status quo in the game industry. For all the companys faults, EA does know how to be profitiable. Small game studios will not be able to thrive until they can get their game to market without the help of one of the big publishers. That wont happen until services like valves 'Steam' are viable.
Happily though, my job kicks ass. I probably could make more money at EA, but at my job, I dont have to work a Death march schedule. I suspect my company will do quite well for its self in the long run for it.
END COMMUNICATION
Get all your co-workers together and join a union, scehdule collective bargaining and make some realistic demands.
Making pleas on a personal level will get you no-bloody-where. (most) Companies and CEOs only understand force, and as a union you guys will have rights that you dont have as individual employees. Dont let these bastards get away with screwing you to line their pockets.
I'm in the EU. Most of this tale would be so blatantly illegal over here that an industrial tribunal would last all of about 3 minutes.
I have to admit video games are a great hook for the industry. The vast majority of good programmers I've known over the years were into gaming, and many got into the computer industry with dreams of writing games themselves.
One thing about learning to code those old systems is that you ran right on the metal with assembler or even machine code in some cases. Languages like C or C++ were just another way of expressing the same constructs a bit faster, allowing the experienced "metal coder" to turn out applications and tools that ran far better and faster than most people think reasonable.
With the never-ending crunch to support more users and data on shrinking hardware budgets, the hardcore techie still has work while the average programmer may take a couple years to find another job.
Of course the hardcore techie starts out being tough to manage, because what they really want to do often has little do do with the work that's actually to be done. But if you find a manager who can appease the hardcore techie while getting them to do the real work, you can end up with an extremely productive and cost-effective team -- especially if your "techies" have a knack for applying solutions from other problem spaces to the issues at hand.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Let me see if I understand this right. This anonymous woman is complaining that her husband is "working late at the office" too much?
I mean, just becasue she believes him doesn't mean we have to.
Why should the government tell me how many hours I can work?
1. So that 100 people can get 40 hour per week jobs rather than having 50 people work 80 hours per week.
2. So that other people don't end up supporting you on long term disability after your 80 hour work weeks lead to you having a stroke.
3. So that employers can't abuse people every time the job market is tight.
4. To make it more difficult for employers to engage in fraudulent practices of hiring salaried employees with the intention of working them far more hours than would reasonably be expected.
If you don't want to work those hours, then work for someone else!
When jobs are plentiful and working for "someone else" is an option, companies don't tend to behave that way.
I don't need some pointy-haired beuracrat telling me how to live my life.
How do you know that you don't? John Hinckley doesn't think that he belongs in a mental hospital, but that he believes that doesn't make it true.
There's always something they can be doing. If they've decided that a particular piece of a project is important enough that the employees should be there until 2am, then there is probably real work that the manager can be doing.
If there's nothing that's directly applicable to the project at hand, then the manager can be the guy that runs for takeout food and makes coffee.
When the Apollo capsule was being built by North American, there was only space inside for (at most) two guys to work. Climbing in and out through the hatch was time consuming and awkward. Further, the capsule was a very complicated piece of equipment and most of the assembly had to take place from the inside. Consequently, North American had a policy--if the guys in the capsule asked for anything, the nearest person was to run and get it for them. Doesn't matter if it's a company VP doing a tour on the shop floor. The assembly of the capsule was essential to the Apollo program and the success of the company, and if the guys working on the critical tasks said "jump"--no matter where they were on the org chart--anybody listening would say "how high?" Similarly, if something is important enough and time-critical enough for a software company to keep its coders at work for ninety hour weeks, management needs to be available to provide support at all hours for any purpose. If managers are unwilling to do so, then perhaps the project isn't quite the priority they say it is.
To be fair, if the employees want the manager to leave, then he should respect that. Also, if they're fixing something that's their own damn fault, then the manager probably isn't obligated to hang around for it. Otherwise, no excuses!
~Idarubicin
I've worked in the Video Games industry for just under 20 years (first game published in 1985). The last company I worked for expected 50-60 hour work weeks -- several people were fired from there for not working the mandatory extra 10-20 hours a week as "slackers". They scheduled me on one project where I had to convert 400,000 lines of assembler in 4 months. That's about 3,000 lines of code a day, converted and debugged. I managed to do it by working 100 hour weeks with 16-20 hour days for four months. My health was so bad at the end of the project I nearly had a liver failure from an infection that a healthy immune system would have easily fought off.
The company I currently work at had us working nights and weekends to finish projects and during crunch (the last project had an 8 month crunch!) many team members were working around 70-80 hours a week. Unfortunately, successes under crunches like these tell upper management that it's a good thing to work employees under heavy hours and a high workload situations.
Due to lobbied labor laws that prevent salaried software engineers from receiving overtime pay, the industry has taken this as a "pay a set fee, work'em as hard as you can" attitude. If they double the hours worked, they halve their perceived cost per man hour.
Not surprisingly, burn out rate and job-hopping are really high in the games industry. Too bad it's pretty much the same at nearly all video game companies that I know. Mandatory nights and weekends leave little personal time for any software developers -- especially commuters or employees with families.
Oh well, at least the team I'm on has a big enough title that when the royalties come in, we'll make a decent wage per hour, but if you're on a smaller title or working without royalties, you might make less per hour than a Walmart manager if you go into video games programming.
...it's all true.
I worked at EA Pacific (now part of EA LA) for 1.5 years as a lead programmer on Command & Conquer: Generals.
Those were, by far, the worst years of my professional life, and seriously damaged my mental health -- no joke. A year and a half later, I am still bitter.
EA expects outrageous working hours, on the order of 80-100 hour weeks, for months on end. If you desire to have absolutely, positively, no life whatsoever outside of work, and are willing to completely sacrifice your mental and physical health to be able to write games -- then by all means, go for it. (This is only partly a facetious comment, as I know people who are willing to make that sacrifice.)
Let's add to that the complete moral bankruptcy of the production staff. I was recruited there by a former friend (emphasis on former) to help revive the C&C franchise.... former versions had been fun, tongue-in-cheek wargames, but outrageous in many ways and clearly divorced from reality. The new version kind of stumbled around for a while... until shortly after Sept 11 2001, when suddenly the game shifted to be all about middle-eastern terrorism. The game was later promoted with the tagline, "Leaders in the modern world need to have a command of words... words like "Scud Missile", "Carpet Bombing", etc." (I asked m management who hired the sociopaths for our ad campaign, but somehow they didn't listen to me.) Oh, and then there was the mission in the game where your objective was to play the terrorist side, and use their anthrax-spewing tanks to kill 200 civilians (!). (This mission had to be cut at the last minute after the European offices rejected it as being certain to get a "Mature" rating. Yes, I had tried pointing out the... unsavory... nature of the mission months earlier.)
As soon as the product shipped, I quit, as did most of the development team. (That is, the ones who weren't fired for refusing to work 80-hour weeks, or for insisting on taking Christmas off. No, I am not making this up.) In hindsight, I should have quit much earlier; I only stayed on because I wanted my name in the credits, in case I wanted to work on other games in the future (thinking it would be good on my resume). The joke is on me, as there's really no way I ever want to work in that industy again.
While I was there, Fortune magazine listed EA as one of their top companies to work for. This was a particularly bad joke to everyone in our office, except that it wasn't very funny. When the CEO of EA sent an email to everyone in the company stating how proud he was of this, I forwarded it to my wife, who responded directly to him, stating that he should be ashamed, as she had hardly seen me for months, and the working conditions were abysmal. He (or more likely, one of his minions) responded that "sacrifices were necessary" to make great games. Sheez.
Shortly after I left EA, I happened to meet someone who has just started at EA-Maxis. I tried to diplomatically warn him that things could get unpleasant, but he reassured me that he knew what he was doing. One year later, he contacted me asking if my current employer was looking for help, as he had to quit -- similar conditions had destroyed his life (and cost him a girlfriend, as well).
Take this for what you will, but I cannot emphasize strongly enough: EA is, perhaps, an acceptable place for crazed workaholics in upper management... but for any other position in the company, no, no, no, no no.....
My advice: if you don't agree with EA practices, dont buy any of their products. Hit them where it hurts, and if they lay people off, you're doing those workers a favor anyhow.
That's practical advise, in a sense, because if their "brand" turns sour (like Gator), then EA shareholders are in trouble.
The impracticallity is that most of the market are too young to care or be informed about labour practices.
If EA is really breaking the law, then a lawyer should approach any EA employees for the purporses of a class action suit. That would get their attention, and maybe there'd be some real change.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
This is (albeit dated) from the head of Cerner, a software company which makes hospital software.
m =FN&actio n=m&board=4686968&tid=cern&sid=4686968&mid=142 26
.....
Link:
http://finance.messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.m
-----Original Message-----
From: Patterson,Neal
To: DL_ALL_MANAGERS;
Subject: MANAGEMENT DIRECTIVE: Week #10_01: Fix it or changes will be made
Importance: High
To the KC_based managers:
I have gone over the top. I have been making this point for over one year.
We are getting less than 40 hours of work from a large number of our KC-based EMPLOYEES.
The parking lot is sparsely used at 8AM; likewise at 5PM. As managers -- you either do
not know what your EMPLOYEES are doing; or YOU do not CARE. You have created
expectations on the work effort which allowed this to happen inside Cerner, creating a
very unhealthy environment. In either case, you have a problem and you will fix it or
I will replace you.
NEVER in my career have I allowed a team which worked for me to think they had a 40 hour
job. I have allowed YOU to create a culture which is permitting this. NO LONGER.
At the end of next week, I am plan to implement the following:
1. Closing of Associate Center to EMPLOYEES from 7:30AM to 6:30PM.
2. Implementing a hiring freeze for all KC based positions. It will require Cabinet
approval to hire someone into a KC based team. I chair our Cabinet.
3. Implementing a time clock system, requiring EMPLOYEES to 'punch in' and 'punch out'
to work. Any unapproved absences will be charged to the EMPLOYEES vacation.
4. We passed a Stock Purchase Program, allowing for the EMPLOYEE to purchase Cerner
stock at a 15% discount, at Friday's BOD meeting. Hell will freeze over before this
CEO implements ANOTHER EMPLOYEE benefit in this Culture.
5. Implement a 5% reduction of staff in KC.
6. I am tabling the promotions until I am convinced that the ones being promoted are
the solution, not the problem. If you are the problem, pack you bags.
I think this parental type action SUCKS. However, what you are doing, as managers,
with this company makes me SICK. It makes sick to have to write this directive.
I know I am painting with a broad brush and the majority of the KC based associates are
hard working, committed to Cerner success and committed to transforming health care. I
know the parking lot is not a great measurement for 'effort'. I know that 'results' is
what counts, not 'effort'. But I am through with the debate.
We have a big vision. It will require a big effort. Too many in KC are not making the
effort.
I want to hear from you. If you think I am wrong with any of this, please state your
case. If you have some ideas on how to fix this problem, let me hear those. I am very
curious how you think we got here. If you know team members who are the problem, let me
know. Please include (copy) Kynda in all of your replies.
I STRONGLY suggest that you call some 7AM, 6PM and Saturday AM team meetings with the
EMPLOYEES who work directly for you. Discuss this serious issue with your team. I
suggest that you call your first meeting -- tonight. Something is going to change.
I am giving you two weeks to fix this. My measurement will be the parking lot: it
should be substantially full at 7:30 AM and 6:30 PM. The pizza man should show up at
7:30 PM to feed the starving teams working late. The lot should be half full on
Saturday mornings. We have a lot of work to do. If you do not have enough to keep your
teams busy, let me know immediately.
Folks this is a management problem, not an EMPLOYEE problem. Congratulations, you are
management. You have the responsibility for our EMPLOYEES. I will hold you
accountable. You have allowed this to get to this state. You have two weeks. Tick,
tock.
Neal
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Cerner Corporation www.cerner.com
2800 Rockcreek Parkway; Kansas City, Missouri 64117
Having worked in the games industry for 6 years, I see a bigger issue being presented. Yes, some people read the EA Spouse open letter as a series of complaints, but having been in the industry myself, she is totally valid and 100% correct.
The attrocity of the situation is not that people have to work hard, but that the companies make no regrets and little compensation for scheduling them to work ridiculously long hours.
During my time at LucasArts, it was painfully obvious that the company created schedules that were totally impossible and would require the employees to work more than a reasonable work week.
On top of that, little, if any, comp time was ever provided, and the tools we worked with were so painfully antiquated that even upgrading them to current technologies would have brought the work week into more reasonable lengths.
The real issue is that LucasArts and EA are not the only ones who treat their employees and perma-temps this way. And it is downright disgraceful, evil, and illegal.
Saying that people should simply quit and go elsewhere is not dealing the problem of employee abuses.
Myself, I left LEC and have built my own business, but the past 4 years of that have been extremely difficult, given the economic situation.
Jory
Boo hoo. You have a hard job, and would kill to work in the game industry. Okay, jackass, I've worked in the game industry, I've put in 100 hours in a week in shops that have mandatory 80 hour weeks, and here's a newsflash for you: IT DOESN'T WORK! The lead programmer on one of the projects at our company was asked, "How goes the battle?" He said "The battle is lost." Turns out the coders were so damn brain fried that they were adding two more bugs for every one they fixed. Finally, senior management stepped in and ordered everyone to take a week off, and capped hours at 60 per week. Once they did that, they were able to pull it out of the toilet.
It's kind of exciting, in a fucked up, macho, Russian roulette kind of way. It's the camraderie of the battlefield, sometimes complete with a body count. Have you ever worked 100 hours a week, and wondered why your heart is beating 120 beats per minute--when you're sitting down? Extreme exhaustion does that to you. Hell, I was in really good shape at the time. Good thing, or I'd probably be dead. The problem is that it can take as much as 4 hours after work to calm down enough to sleep, so if your job is leaving you 8 hours to sleep, you may only get 4, and eventually, that will kill you. One of my coworkers told me about a company he was at--one of the coders called in sick and never came back. They found him dead on his couch. The smell was pretty bad. His immune system was so depressed that a minor cold turned into galloping pneumonia, and he was dead before he knew how sick he was. Too many hours, too little sleep, too much stress. And none of this is really necessary. I can't count the studies that show that extended crunch time is actually less productive that normal hours.
A lot of people would kill for that job--until they saw what it was doing to them. If they didn't catch on soon enough, they might die for the job. Too many people think that working in a game company is all fun and games. Apparently you're one of them. EA exploits that misperception to rope people into a sweat shop. So do most of the other big game companies. Of course, the people demanding these hours never put them in themselves. They work 9 to 5, if that, take days off when they feel like it, and you'll never see them in on a weekend.
This industry is insane, and it's because of companies like EA, who do their best to screw anyone they come in contact with. There are damn few decent shops to work in anymore. When I leave this job, I'll probably never go back to game development (though I've said that before.) And if you think that working in the games industry is the ideal job, you probably have no fucking idea what you're talking about.
First of all these hours are insane, voluntary or not. This practice ensures the end product is going to be utter crap, that everyone will leave if they can and that precious experience will go down the drain, ensuring that future products will be crap too. Now EA is also getting bad press.
This is terrible management practice.
Second of all I'm a bit sad of the "stop whingeing" reactions and general lack of empathy in this forum. There are reasons why there are labor laws and why they should be applied. In this instance EA is exposing itself to consumer backlash and possible lawsuits, hardly something smart. This reeks of 19th century mining company practices.
People shouldn't be forced to work long hours for extended periods of time, period. Some people might choose to do it if they are able and have the motivation in return for appreciable benefits, but to *force* people to work in this fashion for nothing invites very real negative effects such as poor health, divorces, possible violence, accidents in and out of the office, etc, all of which have costs for the entire society associated with them.
We know corporations have no morals and don't care about the above. This is precisely why labor laws exist and must be enforced.
Some people are capable of working longer hours and, gasp, actually ENJOY that.
You are gasping because you can't believe what you are saying? Me neither. Seriously though, several people I know thought the same when they started their careers. Some got burnt out, some got sick and some quit in time. The human body/mind has its limits, the limits may vary, but 10 to 12 hours a day, five to six days a week is more than most can take for extended periods of time. You might be the exception, but then another problem will arise. Management will start using your long hours as an example for everyone to follow, which will hurt your coworkers not capable of the same.
The government has no right to tell anyone how long they may work.
So you say. I do not agree, and most goverments won't either. Using ideology for fact doesn't make it fact.
You want to work less? Fine, you do that.
I already do. I work 30 to 40 hours a week at times I see fit and make a decent living.
But let others who wish to work longer do so.
I am not in power to let people do this or do that, but I can argue against practices that I think is disadvantegous for society at large.
If working longer hours is hurting a company, then the free market will fix things by making that company less productive.
So you say. My guess is if working long hours is hurting a company, the company will solve it by letting the people hurt by the policy go when they can't cope with the workload any more. Replacing with new personel as they see fit. If they are working in a "glamorous" field like computer games, there is no shortage of willing fools. Again, it's a matter of ideology. I don't think "the free market" is a magic silver bullet.
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
By now, we've all read that cathartic LiveJournal entry (or the reposting here on slashdot) by an angry EA widow who has had her husband, her family life, and her own career co-opted by the hellish product development environment that has become the norm at Electronic Arts. Most of us in the business know, right down deep in our ulcers and migraines, exactly what she's talking about. Too many of us have been caught in "normal" development cycles that require overtime as a matter of course; and have been at the mercy of abusive managers who ratcheted us up to several months of 13-hour-a-day/7-day work weeks. Perversely, these managers always claim that this is what's required to make the schedule - and (the mendacity of this part is always breathtaking) to prevent our work hours from expanding even more in the future.
i ves/2004/11/11/643#more-643
These stories are nothing new to me. I spent my 20s living them - and my 30s figuring out how to avoid ever doing that again.
Let me begin by establishing my bona fides. I've been building software for more than 20 years. Fifteen of those years were in the games business; half of those years were spent at EA's Bay Area offices as an external developer and an employee. I've held just about every technical position from tool programmer to director of engineering. As a programmer I've worked by myself and on teams of almost a hundred engineers. As a manager at a Fortune 100 company (Adobe) and elsewhere, I ran teams of up to 25 people, working on up to five projects at once. I've managed multi-million dollar art-intensive games, single developers, and core technology teams responsible to as many as eight clients (all with different requirements and all on different shipping schedules). Over the course of my career, I've been "in charge" (i.e. the senior engineering or project manager) on more than a half-dozen published titles, and held up the technical direction or project management end on over two dozen more.
In all that time, for all those titles, no project I was in charge of has ever missed its ship date or overshot its budget.
Yet I absolutely refuse to work the kind of death march hours ea_spouse describes. And I have never, ever asked or allowed my employees to do so.
Her story - and others that have been shared in the industry-wide conversation that her post provoked - make it clear that EA's management believes, as a matter of institutional principle, that only way to make money at games software is to create tight schedules, and the only way to make a tight schedule is to work your employees harder.
Decades of software engineering research and best practices - and my own experience - prove conclusively that this belief is complete bullshit.
Read the rest at: http://enginesofmischief.com/blogs/ramblings/arch