More On Why It Stinks To Work At Zynga

bdking writes "If a recent internal survey and reviews left on glassdoor.com are to be believed, working at social games company Zynga isn't much fun. Zynga's competitive, metrics-driven culture may be scaring away potential acquisitions and forcing out employees seeking better work-life balance and less stress."

Comments

Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[elrous0]

According to the article, PopCap turned down their offer and went with Electronic Arts instead, because they thought that working conditions would be better at EA. Yes, read that last part again: they would rather deal with the working conditions at EA than work for Zynga. That's pretty bad.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[firex726]

Anything on EA's conditions?
I haven't heard anything about the working conditions at EA aside from jokes.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Anonymous Coward]

And here I was going to ask if ex-EA people were running Zynga.
Are they?

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Tomato42]

That really says more than the whole article!

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Anonymous Coward]

The most visible citation is this: http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html

There's likely similar stories out there, with a little help from Google.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EA_Spouse

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[heinousjay]

2004. They've changed quite a bit since then, from what I understand.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Zarim]

This reminds me of something one of the teacher's assistants at my college had said. He'd done a paid internship at Zynga and the president at one point had said to the developers (it's been a few years so I'm paraphrasing) "You are not smart. Your ideas are not innovative. You're not here to make the next greatest thing, you're here to rip off what already works and tweak it so we can maximize profits."

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[crankyspice]

Anything on EA's conditions?
I haven't heard anything about the working conditions at EA aside from jokes.

I haven't seen much lately, but in 2004 it was alleged that EA sucked the soul (or at least any semblance of work-life balance) out of its employees... http://news.cnet.com/Electronic-Arts-faces-overtime-lawsuit/2100-1043_3-5450316.html

They settled a couple of years ago for millions, no word on whether conditions have improved. http://articles.latimes.com/2006/apr/26/business/fi-ea26

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Jackals]

lol, show me that machine, please! or show to that guys from modelo de carta which deserve more then me indeed...

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[93 Escort Wagon]

According to the article, PopCap turned down their offer and went with Electronic Arts instead, because they thought that working conditions would be better at EA.

Well, there was also the problem that, with Zynga, you're always last in line at the conference registration table - all the good swag is gone long before it's finally your turn.

Absoft wasn't interested in acquiring PopCap, so EA was the best they could do.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[PatDev]

The best part of the (sorta) linked article is that the author of EA Spouse now works for Zynga as Lead Systems Designer.

That poor couple just can't catch a break!

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[GameboyRMH]

The nightmarish working conditions at EA are legendary. Those "jokes" you've heard? Probably real-life anecdotes.

The game development industry as a whole is a shitty place to work though, EA is just widely known as the worst of the lot.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[wiedzmin]

Yeah, they laid off a good chunk of their employees and closed a bunch of offices since then.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[greenfruitsalad]

the wikipedia article uses her linkedin profile as a source. according to that, she no longer works at zynga.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Tharsman]

It is my understanding [based off pure guessing] that their working conditions have worked incredibly from a PR perspective, thanks to their new NDA and lawsuit weavers that employee families must sign when they are hired, get married, adopt kids or plainly have kids.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[mcgrew]

The game development industry as a whole is a shitty place to work though,

That's sad, I really hoped things would have gotten better by now. Back in the '90s-'00s I was so heavily into gaming that Charles Broussard and Warren Marshall were on a first name basis with me (I ran a popular Quake site). I talked with both gamers and game devs, and was always glad I didn't go into that business.

I'd hoped they might have matured some since then. I see they haven't.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Tharsman]

I just don’t get why they wanted to be acquired. They had a darn nice business there, making fun games and from all my understanding doing a darn good profit. Why pursue selling that off?

I understand if you are relaxing at a company picnic one day and being offered hundreds of millions of dollars and not being able to resist temptation. But from what I hear they actively pursued selling the business.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[turgid]

When you work in software development, like many other fields, there are times near a release (or whatever milestone) where you have to work a lot of overtime. It's simply a fact of life

Nonsense

If you have to do that, it's due to bad management i.e bad planning and a lack of "alignment" (*cough* - PHB speak) in the organisation.

Note that I didn't say "bad managers": they're only part of the problem.

Try a little bit of Scrum, Agile and Design for Lean Six Sigma.

If you can't handle 80 hour weeks

No one can honestly say that they can work 80 hours in a week. Sure, they may be physically present, but during at least 30-35 of those hours they will be producing next to nothing, and quite probably contributing more problems in terms of mistakes to the project due to fatigue.

You macho people need to get a healthy dose of reality.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[lgw]

If you're the founder and CEO of a company, what else can you do when you get tired of your job? Selling the business is often your only reasonable exit strategy when you just want to change jobs or retire. For smaller companies, it can be the only real paycheck the founder will ever get.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[s73v3r]

When you work in software development, like many other fields, there are times near a release (or whatever milestone) where you have to work a lot of overtime.

No, not true. Furthermore, in most other fields, if you end up working overtime, you're usually compensated for it. There is absolutely NO REASON WHATSOEVER why software engineers should not be compensated for excess overtime.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[DrXym]

Your chances of getting a six figure salary in a meat grinder like EA are quite low. Maybe it happens if your lead designer or some other notable on a premium game, not if you're some dogsbody slaving to design Barbie's petal dress for some stupid shovelware. And yes obviously there is a recognition that when a project comes to an end you might be expected to sprint to get the project done on time. That much is expected occasionally. The problem comes when sprint becomes the norm, when the company is simply fucking over its staff and making them work 60 hour weeks because it's promised absurdly tight deadlines that it can't meet any other way.

Look at Team Bondi as an example of how to run a team into the ground. The grind went on for years. People left because of the pressure and toxic atmosphere. The net result Bondi had a constant turnover of burned out angry staff and had to work the remainder even harder to make up for lost time. They were so deep in the red by the end that even when they released a product they got shut down. It does no one good to work in that kind of atmosphere. Not the games company and certainly not the employees. It's not the norm in any other form of software development and it really shouldn't be the norm for games development either.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Ubergrendle]

I manage a large operations department for a bank. Had chornic overtime issues, employee relations was involved. 60 hour work weeks were the norm.

I mandated that all projects (we did implementations as well as incident support) would not be allowed to budget more than 35 hours a week (5 hours for overhead/utilization) of effort. OT would have to be approved by me directly. All OT had to be paid for by the projects submitting the work.

6 months later, we had regular 40 hour work weeks for 95% of the staff. OT dropped. And the best part? I got the cream of the crop from other departments requesting to work for my shop... they wanted the work/life balance. Normal hours were suddenly a recruiting feature.

Chronic OT is always a sign of either ineffective people managers, or a broken corporate culture. Always.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[nschubach]

Scrum/Agile can also be as bad. My last job we had "Scrum meetings" and were confronted if we didn't get at least 6 hours of "work time" on any particular task per day. If we didn't log every single change we made in the issue software we were asked what we were doing during that time. They could have checked the commit logs to see what changes I made during that day, but that's apparently not in their report. Heaven forbid I have a slow day or a meeting that prevents me from logging my 6 hours of time.

At my current location, the management doesn't attend Scrum meetings and it's night and day as far as what is reported. People here actually work together, but there is talk of linking "issue time" to "billed time" and I can see that quickly devolving into a pissing contest as well.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[turgid]

Actually, I'm a software developer in a global organisation with 3600 permanent engineers plus contractors selling millions of products per quarter globally. I do C and C++ on Linux with TDD, shell scripting, Perl, Ruby... you name it. I've done a bit of scrum mastering myself and have been doing scrum for over 4 years.

If done properly, it works. And we always meet our deadlines, always, with the planned quality a feature set. I've never had to work more than 4 hours unplanned overtime in a week in all that time, and those occasions are only 3 or 4 times a year.

I've worked at mad 80-hour a week places before. They're a complete shambles, run by idiots who treat the engnieers like dirt. I'll not be going back.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[nschubach]

From what I'm told by a friend in the business, it's still common for devs to hop from studio to studio on loan or being laid off from one place to the next because they finished X project. What I hear is that it's a crap shoot if the studios will keep you after release.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[stickyboot]

Just because its standard doesn't excuse it from being abuse.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[LordSnooty]

Not just the CEOs, but thre venture capitalists as well. An exit strategy of "sell as soon as we are mature" was probably part of the pitch.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[mattack2]

The reason is because we're legally exempt employees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exempt_employee

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[BitZtream]

Probably fired her for poor work ethic.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[turgid]

Scrum/Agile can also be as bad. My last job we had "Scrum meetings" and were confronted if we didn't get at least 6 hours of "work time" on any particular task per day. If we didn't log every single change we made in the issue software we were asked what we were doing during that time. They could have checked the commit logs to see what changes I made during that day, but that's apparently not in their report. Heaven forbid I have a slow day or a meeting that prevents me from logging my 6 hours of time.

They were doing it badly wrong. This sounds like old-fashioned managers who didn't trust their staff to get on with the job.

Their report? What report? They don't need a "report." That's the whole point. The progress is visible for everyone to see on the story board and the burn-down chart. If they want more data (they're mad, but...) they shouldn't be wasting developer time to get it.

At my current location, the management doesn't attend Scrum meetings and it's night and day as far as what is reported. People here actually work together, but there is talk of linking "issue time" to "billed time" and I can see that quickly devolving into a pissing contest as well.

I'm not sure how "billed time" comes into it. I've just been sold (with 600 of my colleagues) to an Indian outsourcing company. The understanding at the moment is that everything we do is for the customer (including investigating issues) so it all gets billed. We'll see how that changes over the next few months, assuming I don't get downsized at the end of January when my project goes to India, or assuming that I don't escape before then to a better job :-)

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[royallthefourth]

There is absolutely NO REASON WHATSOEVER why software engineers should not be compensated for excess overtime.

Of course there is a reason: programmers haven't walked off the job and demanded to be compensated. A union of programmers would be unstoppable. You can't just hire a scab when the only people who know how the software works aren't willing to cooperate.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[jemmyw]

Scrum isn't a silver bullet to other problems, and logging time isn't part of the scrum methodology anyway.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[nschubach]

You need some metric for the burn-down chart. They chose hours.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[nschubach]

We fill out a time sheet that requires 40 hours a week or it takes from our Paid Time Off. On the sheet is project time (billed to client) and non-project time (requires explanation.) I'm not a fan of the system, and I've been billing my full 8 hours/day to the current project but I was told recently that they were looking at comparing that time to the issue tracker logged time. The company is growing, so I hope I can nudge that aspect away from the thought process. I'm not holding up my hopes since I'm one of the "new guys."

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Anonymous Coward]

Not accurate unless you're a contractor, and I think the best advice that I can possibly give as someone who's been in the game industry for over 6 years is to not be a contractor in the game industry. You don't get as many benefits, you're typically given less consideration than "real" employees, you barely get any equity (if at all), you don't get paid time off.

To be perfectly honest, EA has its shit together nowadays. Although a number of their releases are lukewarm at best, they've done a good job at keeping their noses clean for the past few years. Sadly, this just means that an altogether new Big Brother game publisher has taken their place: Activision.

All of those things that were written about EA about 6-7 years ago would now be more genuinely applied to Activision. At the top it's run entirely by business people and MBAs who are so ridiculously disconnected from the actual gaming market and gamers themselves that it would make your head spin. Guitar Hero was run into the ground by Activision's piss-poor management style, which is to squeeze a game for everything that it's worth and then have mass layoffs when gamers finally tire of having a given title stuffed down their throat. They did it with Tony Hawk, they've done it most recently with Guitar Hero, and as a former Activision employee, I can personally vouch for the fact that they are in the process of doing it with Call of Duty.

Zynga got its fame and money through the "too much, too young, too fast" mobile market, and it makes perfect sense to me that it would be a miserable place to work since I can almost guarantee that not a one of their employees could tell you why their games are popular. Ergo, the entire workday for the upper management is to run around like chickens with their heads cut off, trying desperately to maintain the status quo, let alone grow the company, and so they micro-manage everyone beneath them as they have nothing to do themselves. This is a sad story that has been told many times over the past 30 years or so in the game industry, only replace "mobile market" with whatever the latest burgeoning game market is that nobody at the top can understand but can be explained at length by anyone under 25.

Realistically speaking, as someone who in the past 6 years has worked for 3 different companies and founded the most recent, the best thing you can do if you want to get into the game industry is to either take a crack at the "indie" market if you're positive you have the marketing skills and the coding skills to actually realize your dream, or simply work for a medium-sized game company that is already owned by a publisher that isn't Activision. Stay away from huge studios like EA Tiburon (400+ employees), stay away from the medium-sized studios that are working on the latest edition of a "popular" franchise, because chances are within 5 years that franchise will be flagging and they'll be doing layoffs, and stay away from the tiny studios that just got started off the back of a single ridiculously-popular indie games. Following these criteria, there will still be hundreds of studios from which to choose - it's just a matter of choosing the one that makes games on which you'd like to work.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[D'Sphitz]

It is certainly possible to work 80 or even 100 hours a week and be productive. I have done it many times, the key is to have 1) a clear goal 2) an end in sight 3) pride and passion about what you're doing. It doesn't sound like the Zynga employees have any of that, expecting that level indefinitely is just asking for crashing morale and productivity.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Enderandrew]

The truth is somewhere in the middle. When everyone in the video game industry is used to 80 hour weeks (or worse) during crunch, then you've got a systemic issue or poor management. They haven't found a working business model where they can adequately staff and make budget. And given that consumers constantly expect more for less, and expect AAA titles to compete price wise with iPhone games. So management does need a better strategy for how their run their departments/businesses.

However, I question your claims of 3,600 engineers and never requiring unplanned overtime. It is impossible to plan for every single contingency. Things break and go wrong all the time in the universe. If you never, ever need unplanned overtime, then you must be severely overstaffed.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[91degrees]

I left the games industry because this long periods of 80 hour weeks were expected of us. I'm a freelance contractor earning more money and rarely doing more than 50 hours in a week. When I do extra hours then I charge for them.

Believe me, EA_Spouse's husband may have been working in one of the worst places but the basic problems are common throughout the industry. And the really bad thing - it doesn't work!

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Imagix]

That would appear to be a misinterpretation of what the scrum meetings are for. They're supposed to be for the team to communicate with each other. Plus ScrumMaster != Manager. The SM is supposed to be there to "defend" the team. That's why the SM should not be the Product Owner. It's in the PO's interest to extract as much work as possible from the team. The SM's interest is supposed to hold the PO at bay and allow the team to do their work with interruptions (which includes a PO breathing down their neck). Then at the end of the sprint you look to see if the stories committed to at the beginning of the sprint were completed at the end of the sprint. Adjust velocity as appropriate and start next sprint....

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[StikyPad]

Ha. Many professionals work 80 hour weeks at a minimum as a standard. Of course they're much better compensated than the typical software developer, so that might keep their motivation a bit higher.

Still, I've never had to work overtime to meet a deadline except in a rare event where a project was assigned at the last minute, so I agree that last minute overtime pushes are indicative of poor management, be it incompetence or willful malice (working employees beyond what is reasonable, knowing full well their workload is too high, to make your department or team look more productive than the other guy's).

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[dkleinsc]

A union of programmers would be unstoppable.

You're right that that's the correct solution. But it would have to be an international union in order to function, and would (like other unions have in the past) have to make extraordinary efforts to prevent scabs from coming in and breaking the union.

Plus there are a lot of programmers out there who hate unions for reasons which have nothing to do with enlightened self-interest.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Edzilla2000]

Yeah, she won that class action lawsuit against EA because their treatment of their employees was exemplary!

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[syousef]

Yeah, they laid off a good chunk of their employees and closed a bunch of offices since then.

I thought they banned having spouses.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[BitZtream]

Other than they tend to agree to it, allow it to happen, which are both pretty valid reasons.

Its also not like the job is actually hard. All stress is self induced, what I like to refer to as 'fake stress'. Yes, its real, but its all just due to your own issues, not actual environmental stress, its not actually stressful like jobs where lives are on the line.

Just because you got a desk job, doesn't mean you're any different than every other person who has to bust their ass to survive, sadly even working ridiculously long weeks, you still have it better than most everyone else in the nation.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[syousef]

The best part of the (sorta) linked article is that the author of EA Spouse now works for Zynga as Lead Systems Designer.
That poor couple just can't catch a break!

The "poor couple" are idiots. Why would you stay in the games industry after that experience? Get out! Or at the very least refuse to do the overtime and leave if they force you out. If you have a passion for games, get working on an indie game in your spare time - who cares how far you get....or you know spend some time actually playing games others make.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[wiedzmin]

Now that is hilarious. Irony? I think so.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[ArundelCastle]

The nightmarish working conditions at EA are legendary. Those "jokes" you've heard? Probably real-life anecdotes.

I find http://trenchescomic.com/ to be one of the best reads out there now. Not for the comics but for the anonymous stories.
Sure there's the potential people will start to exaggerate to make the story more interesting (who doesn't?) but I've heard enough anecdotally from the industry that truth is always stranger than fiction. And the earliest stories collected before the site was launched are nuts too. Sunshine is the best disinfectant. If it was honey and roses there wouldn't even be a debate.

If I do pursue the vidja games industry, it will definitely be from the commerce side. They'll call me the suit-with-a-heart-of-gold right up until John Riccitiello crushes my resolve. Then you soda-swilling fuckers are all fired after we ship. ;P

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[garyebickford]

In my somewhat-out-of-date experience, _well designed, planned and managed_ medium to large projects can often be more predictable than smaller ones, as the stochastic variation of the many small component projects (some run early, some run late) can average out.

Unfortunately there is also a body of evidence that the larger the project, the more likely it is to fail - as of the beginning of this century, at about $5 million the probability of failure was getting over 90%. I don't recall the definition of failure very well, but I think it was being so seriously over budget and behind schedule that the project got cancelled.

I ran one project where we got budget approved for six engineers and two years, for converting a multi-language, multi-platform system with several bleeding-edge components and (IIRC) 300,000 lines of code. And within a week the marketing team had promised delivery of a working system in two months to General Electric. Then our budget got cut to two people. This was essentially the final straw, and I left the company. I learned later that, with the connivance of the department at GE, the company delivered two non-working systems so the customer could sign off on delivery. Then they spent the two years hacking up a POS, not converting but merely porting things, smooshing things together and finally trying unsuccessfully to make it work. I think GE finally sued them.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[the eric conspiracy]

Mostly Vulture Capitalists sell as soon as they can get a good buzz going and the stock market is doing well enough to raise the capital.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[turgid]

However, I question your claims of 3,600 engineers and never requiring unplanned overtime.

I never said there wasn't ANY unplanned overtime. I've been lucky in that my team has been a pioneer of Scrum in the organisation. We do a lot of high-quality work on time and to budget with very few staff and very little unplanned overtime.

The rest of the organisation has had trouble with high defect rate (technical debt), slipping deadlines and high overtime. They've been gradually going to Scrum and Agile over the last 2-3 years and seeing vast improvements.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[shutdown -p now]

If you want the opportunity to make a six figure salary, you're going to have to be prepared to make some sacrifices.

I make a six figure salary without having to work 80 hours every week, now or at any point in the past. So do many other people I know, working at Microsoft, Google and Amazon.

Face it, you're just regurgitating the story that has been fed to employees so that they can be squeezed for a little while longer. Come to think of it, how many Zynga employees actually earn six figures?

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Grishnakh]

They were so deep in the red by the end that even when they released a product they got shut down. It does no one good to work in that kind of atmosphere. Not the games company and certainly not the employees.

I disagree. I'm sure the CEO got paid plenty of money before the company went under.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Y-Crate]

I thought they banned having spouses.

Yeah, that's in the updated EULA every employee has to click-through on their first day.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[mrbester]

We have burndown charts as well, only they aren't for management's eyes but the team so that we can see where _we_ have shortfall and adjust appropriately. We estimate pretty accurately and haven't missed our targets in months because we don't commit to work we can't complete before end of sprint and never allow new stories during a sprint unless there is spare capacity. Ever. Management knows this but is happy because we deliver what we promise. It's not rocket science.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[cain]

I think the "compensation" referred to in the OP is not overtime pay, but better benefits, higher salaries, bonuses, etc. i.e. if you work 80 hours a week, it'll be worth your while. If the OP did not mean that, then they should've.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[tompaulco]

You're not legally exempt just because they tell you that you are. Most people classified as exempt do not meet the requirements of the FLSA for an exempt employee.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[mattack2]

I can almost guarantee that not a one of their employees could tell you why their games are popular

Haven't there been previous articles describing how they micro-analyzed which specific things in the games users were doing, how often they clicked on them, etc.. i.e. figuring out exactly what kind of "rat pull the lever" behaviors were being successful.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Daetrin]

I worked at EA as a programmer from late 1999 to late 2001, or rather at a company that had been been bought by EA a year or two before i started working there and was gradually brought more and more under the EA umbrella during the entire time i was there.

I was one of eleven programmers on a millon+ unit game and its expansion. Only seven of us were actually working on the game full time, though admittedly we had the benefit(?) of a lot of legacy code from the previous game in the series.

I got paid considerably less than a six figure salary. I don't remember the exact number, but i believe i started out slightly below the median five figure salary and ended up slightly above the median five figure salary by the time i and a lot of other people were laid off, shortly after finishing the expansion.

I don't remember exactly which point we started working 80+ hour weeks, i might be able to dig up some old references in emails and such if i start checking, but i know it was for several months before the release of the main game and at least a month before the release of the expansion.

After getting laid off by EA i then went to work at another game company that wasn't as successful but had pretty much the same practices. After getting laid off by that company (again after finishing up two products in two years) i ended up getting a "boring" job working on business software. Except now i'm an hourly employee and i get paid more than i did in the games industry (though still not six figures) and i've been here for over five years without a single round of layoffs. On the two occasions where overtime has been required it was for _far_ less than 80 hours a week and and it was only for a week or two each time. And wonder of wonders, i got paid time and a half for that overtime! (Funny the correlation there, the company demands less overtime when it means paying me more.)

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Darinbob]

Agile is not a silver bullet. It works for some environments but is an awful mess in others. Not everything can be broken down into tiny two week sprints, sometimes you need real long term planning (long term meaning a year or more). Agile is probably ok if people don't get religious about it but it's just so common for people to follow it religiously, hire a _full_time_ Agile coach and do everything this wannabe tells them to, etc.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Darinbob]

And in Zynga working only 79 hours means they may claw back your options. When the economy is sour like it is now, "exempt" is a synonym for "able to be abused with impunity".

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Darinbob]

You just go overseas to hire scabs.

Seriously a lot of European countries have unions for engineers and when they're a part of a multinational company it can be a bit odd. There's not much really to prevent the company from just dumping them all except for a tiny threat that the EU might plan to hold session where they discuss the possibility of issuing a warning about holding talks about sanctions.

And some companies HAVE gone and dumped all their best engineers who were the only ones who knew how things worked and either outsourced or hired a lot of juniors to replace them. Of course this screwed up those companies but by now everyone should know that companies sometimes do stupid things. Now when it comes to Zynga they know there are lots of people naive enough to think that working in the games industry would be cool and exciting, lots of people who know Flash, etc.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[HornWumpus]

Billing 80 hours is not the same as working 80 hours. Especially for a landshark. With minimum billing increments, travel time and air-phones a shyster can bill an easy 5 billable hours/hour. 2 billable hours travel as has 2 clients issues in the same direction (e.g. east) plus 3 billable hours in 6 5 minute phone calls at .5 hour bill increment. At a 1 hour increment it gets real fun (for them).

A lawyer dies and goes to the pearly gates, being a shyster he knows he's going to have to do some fancy lawyering to get in. He starts by pleading that he died very young; he was only 34. St. Pete looks up from his book and says, 'that's funny, according to your billable hours you were 82.'

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Slavik81]

A lot of video game companies teeter on the edge of bankruptcy. Sometimes it isn't corporate greed, but a collective failure to develop products that can sell enough to pay the real costs of producing it.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[StikyPad]

Yeah, yeah, lawyers are shysters, but mine's still at the office from 8AM to 8PM every weekday and most weekends, plus I have his cell, so there's that. Also many doctors and small business owners regularly work 80+ hour weeks. My wife's co-workers in mortgage banking at one of the top 3 banks also pull loads of overtime, though my wife refuses to and takes a lot of flak for it, both from her boss and her co-workers.

And personally, I've worked two full time jobs at once before. Not fun at all, but I did what was necessary, though I quit the lower paying job the day my house sold. I'm not one of those people whose work is his life, but those people do exist, and they tend to spend every waking minute working.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[r0.ini]

This book supports many of you observations: Slack: Getting Past Burnout, Busywork, and the Myth of Total Efficiency , and many others. Every engineer working in the environment described above should invest on themselves and buy this book. It will open their eyes!

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[phantomfive]

in most other fields, if you end up working overtime, you're usually compensated for it. There is absolutely NO REASON WHATSOEVER why software engineers should not be compensated for excess overtime.

It's good because on days when things are going well, you can leave early and no one says anything. As long as you are getting your job done, you can work 7 or 6 hour days, or even 4 hour days, although I've not tried that regularly.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[luis_a_espinal]

That story was so overblown. When you work in software development, like many other fields, there are times near a release (or whatever milestone) where you have to work a lot of overtime.

Bull crap. Bull crap. Bull crap. The only time I worked more than 50 hours consistently was at a gig as an hourly paid consultant. In general, as an hourly paid consultant or salaried employee, a 50 hr week is the norm, give or take a few hours. Perhaps nearing 60 hours a week or two prior to a release. Being doing this for almost 17 years now, and I've never seen a requirement of working 80 hour weeks. The only time you do that is if you are a consultant in a "tiger team" specializing in very difficult niches or urgent problems, and only for a few weeks.

It's simply a fact of life, and if you don't like it, go teach 8th grade gym.

It is a simple fact of life that you don't know what you are talking about (or you have no control of your software development career, and are obligated to work long-ass hours.)

Not to mention she acted as if she represented the spouses of all EA developers, when in fact she represented herself and had some vague support from a few spouses on her husbands particular development team. EA's practices were totally in line with GAME industry standards,

There. Fixed that for you. And just because they were in line then, that didn't make them right then or now (I mean, the were legally forced to change, weren't day.) Being in line with "current" industry standards means squat (after all, slavery in the 1800's was in line with industry standards, and 12hr work days/7 days a week without workers comp was also in line with standards at the turn of the 20th century.)

which are in line with market realities and in line with the compensation package offered.

Noooooooooooooo. The compensation packages weren't near what one would/should get for working that many hours. Sorry, for that, better to do hourly consulting.

If you want the opportunity to make a six figure salary, you're going to have to be prepared to make some sacrifices.

Those sacrifices do not involve working 80 hours a week. In fact, they don't even involve working more than 50 hours a week. You work more than that if you are stupid and inefficient, when you have to slave yourself to make that goal (as opposed to having a good specialty that you can charge a high price per hour and thus do that amount for less hours per week.)

If you can't handle 80 hour weeks for a few months when the time comes, well, as I alluded, my old junior high school is in desperate need of a gym teacher.

If you have to put up with 80 hour work weeks, it means that you have few career choices, and thus have no option but being someone's bitch. There are plenty of senior-level people working in software making a 6-figure salary without having to put that kind of hours per week. Seriously, you don't know what you are talking about.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[dgatwood]

The most I've ever worked was only about 80 hours, and I've only done that once or twice, and only for a week to get past a major crunch. If memory serves, I ended up taking a sick day afterwards in both cases. Even knowing that the end was in sight, with a clear goal, I was physically exhausted and ended up getting ill as a result. The human body just was not built to work 80 and 100 hour weeks.

Your body needs eight hours of sleep, plus time to travel back and forth to work, bathe, get settled down for bed, eat breakfast, etc. This means that you cannot realistically budget fewer than ten hours per day away from work. If you try, you'll likely cause serious and, in some cases, permanent damage to your employees' health. This only leaves 14 hours per day, or 98 hours per week as an absolute maximum that the human body can realistically endure over an extended period of time, even if you have no outside activities at all besides work—no family, no church, no hobbies. And psychologically, all work and no play isn't healthy even in the short term.

In general, above about 50 hours per week, productivity is flat, and it starts to taper off way before that. You can do more than that for very, very brief periods—a week, maybe two if you use enough caffeine and are really, really excited about what you're doing—but it simply is not sustainable in the long term, and this has been proven by countless studies. In short, anybody who works their employees for 80 hour weeks is a complete f**king idiot who should not be allowed to manage the animals in a local zoo, much less the employees in a major corporation.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[luis_a_espinal]

I suspect that you are a team leader and nothing more. It all looks simple when you have small straightforward projects. Run teams of several hundred while being responsible for cash flow and business and you might be more credible.

Nobody runs teams of several hundred. Well, no one except the micro manager types and Steve Jobs (RIP). The only people who tend to work quite a few hours in excess of 60/week are typically mid-level management (read software team leads). People below them do not (and do not have to) work that much in general. People above them do not either. Project leads, lead scientists and architects (who could be said to run hundred-strong teams via mid-level management proxy) tend not to work beyond 55 hours a week.

Obviously in time of crisis, or near product releases, the midnight oil is burn across the board, vertically and horizontally. But, with the exception of the chronically mismanaged, you do not, ever, make it more than 60/hr week. 80? That's just bullshit...

... and so also was your mentioning of hundred-strong teams. That was just posturing that betrayed a lack of knowledge on the subject.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[dgatwood]

Frankly, the thought of going to a doctor who works an 80 hour week scares the hell out of me. You can't possibly do your best work under those conditions. The problem is not that folks at computer game manufacturers are forced to work ridiculous hours. The problem is that there are any employees in the U.S. who because of their "exempt" status are allowed to work such unhealthy hours.

I'm okay with having an exemption to the forty hour cap for highly skilled workers, but there should be a 60 hour cap that applies for everyone, and a maximum of 50 hours average over the course of a year, above which the employers should start having to give comp days at a rate of one day per eight hours of additional work over the limit. Period.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[luis_a_espinal]

The truth is somewhere in the middle. When everyone in the video game industry is used to 80 hour weeks (or worse) during crunch, then you've got a systemic issue or poor management. They haven't found a working business model where they can adequately staff and make budget. And given that consumers constantly expect more for less, and expect AAA titles to compete price wise with iPhone games. So management does need a better strategy for how their run their departments/businesses.

However, I question your claims of 3,600 engineers and never requiring unplanned overtime. It is impossible to plan for every single contingency. Things break and go wrong all the time in the universe. If you never, ever need unplanned overtime, then you must be severely overstaffed.

Well, he did say this (which is different from what you were questioning):

I've never had to work more than 4 hours unplanned overtime in a week in all that time, and those occasions are only 3 or 4 times a year

Also, I'm not sure if he was referring about the OT or lack thereof for himself or for the total 3,600 engineers. Some projects, specially DOD-related, are somewhat over-staffed on purpose, following a rigid waterfall or waterfall/spiral hybrid model to ensure a uniform scheduling (and typically to charge more - sadly, and also because the requirements are incredibly fixed and non-volatile). Groups like that can churn out results at uniform intervals for years without requiring unplanned over time until it is time for integration (which is when shit hits the fan or they have to readjust to some changing doctrine/paradigm shift or whatever.)

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[pwizard2]

A union of programmers would be unstoppable. You can't just hire a scab when the only people who know how the software works aren't willing to cooperate.

A programmer's union is not the bargaining chip you think it is. 10-15 years ago, yeah, you would probably have management by the balls if you decided to form a union and strike. However, the world is different in a globalized economy... management would just farm the whole project out to India or China or bring in a few H1-Bs to finish it up.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a senior systems person and was exempt. We had a two person department and I ended up working 100 hour work weeks all the time. The junior person who was learning at the time and I spent quite a bit of time teaching him. He was married and couldn't work those kind of hours. What was really funny management didn't have a clue as things ran well and they decided that I wasn't needed as it ran too smoothly. So I was let go and the place fell apart after 2 months of not continually baby sitting it. No reports went out and the junior person got smothered and they had to hire two people to replace me. Then about 1 year later one of the other "groups" (actually 1 person) they guy up and died and they were put in even worse situation as the guy never told anyone what he did.
I felt sorry for the guy dying but laughed at the company and still do to this day 20 years later.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well any system can be bad when you have a bad manager. The fact they worry more about the hours worked instead of the tasks completed is a clear sign they didn't get what agile development is about.

The dude managing these so called scrums probably read something off the internet and pulled the rest out of his ass to make a terrible mess of a very simple process.

Unfortunately, the hardest part of implementing SCRUM in a new place is convincing management. Pulling their focus away from hours worked and towards tasks completed. If there is a need to log hours worked in some ancient corporate bean-counting system then a smart scrum master will just tell the team to make up the numbers, or have a data entry secretary take care of it.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[J-1000]

I'm glad you've been able to remove yourself from 80 hour weeks, but I would say 50 hour weeks are pretty bad too. The subject of 80 hour weeks comes up regularly on Slashdot, but I don't hear much discussion about the 40 hour week. Maybe 40 hours *is* the ideal amount of time for a "full time" work week, but what if it's not? What if 20 or 30 is better? No one ever talks about it. I guess they are afraid others will see them as lazy.

I can think of a few reasons to challenge the 40 hour rule. One, you're doing an unhealthy amount of sitting. Two, we already know people aren't doing 8 hours of work during an 8 hour day. Not even close, in most cases. Three, 8 hour days are usually out of sync with school schedules, for people who have kids (I don't, for the record). Shouldn't we at least talk about it? We know 80 hours destroys people. Why are we so quick to assume 40 is OK?

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[91degrees]

50 hours is a rare exception. 40 hours is the most I've worked in the last 6 months (Well, just over. I don't clock-watch). Maybe 40 hours *is* the ideal amount of time for a "full time" work week, but what if it's not? What if 20 or 30 is better?

I think you make a good point. I did have a contract that was based on a 37 hour week, with a short day on Friday, and just those 3 hours made a difference! I don't think I was any less productive.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[thejynxed]

Zynga and tons of other companies, like the mentioned Activision-Blizzard do such analysis.

Act-Blizz must have hated me. I was either flying around in circles in Northrend killing rare spawns or sitting idle in Stormwind doing absolutely nothing. I didn't do their stupid punch the monkey crap. I liked the "Plants vs Zombies" implementation, until I figured out how to never lose at it, I am quite sure they got nice click data out of me on that one, as well as some rather colorful chat logs.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[constpointertoconst]

Burn-down charts are supposed to measure time remaining, not time spent working. They are most useful for avoiding situations where you suddenly realize that the project is behind schedule, at least short term. They are also intended for the team as a whole, not individuals (emphasis on the team is one of the core principles of Agile).

If you're tracking time worked as part of scrum, you're (probably) doing it wrong.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[sdk4777]

The 40 hour work week was invented during the advent of the industrial revolution. It is, by all means, totally ridiculous in this age. Technology has grown exponentially and with it, productivity. But the essence of it is that enough isn't enough. There must be growth, due to the existence of interest. But demand doesn't grow like this, so, demand must be increased (lower quality products), and efficiency must be decreased (more unproductive work, eg satisfying systems, bureaucracy).

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[Tim C]

Your body needs eight hours of sleep

Not to disagree with your main point (as I actually completely agree with it), but different people need different amounts of sleep. I'm fine with 7, and can easily get by with 6 for a few days at a time. I've known people who need less than that, and others who are useless if they don't get 10.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[tomhudson]

I've worked at mad 80-hour a week places before. They're a complete shambles, run by idiots who treat the engnieers like dirt. I'll not be going back.

^^^^^ This ^^^^^

Sure, you can do a 16-hour, 24-hour, or even 36-hour day when you're "in the zone" and it absolutely has to be done because someone else (read: the boss) screwed up. But unfortunately, what *should* only happen once a year (at most) quickly becomes a weekly occurrence, because "after all, you did it before" ...

Let them pay for their own bad planning. It's the only way they'll learn (or be culled).

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[lgw]

Well, for a smaler company chances are it will pretty much cease to be without the drive provided by the guy running it. Unless you (or someone close to you) have tried it, you have know idea how much effort it takes, especially mental effort, to actually meet payroll twice a month. Hiring someone outside to take over as CEO is harder than selling the business, and often less rewarding.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[s73v3r]

Yes, I know the reason. Doesn't make it any less bullshit. My point still stands: There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why software engineers should not be compensated for excess overtime.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[s73v3r]

It's good because on days when things are going well, you can leave early and no one says anything.

Not really. Very few places allow this.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[gorzek]

Many people would rather take the sure thing (the big, one-off payday) than a long gamble (hoping you continue to get money from the business years into the future.)

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[phantomfive]

I've never had a problem.

Re:Pretty bad when EA seems more appealing

[dgatwood]

True. If memory serves, you need fewer hours the older you get, with young kids needing way more than eight hours, and adults needing an average of eight. That said, since most game developers who would work in this sort of sweatshop are probably straight out of college and don't know any better, eight is probably actually on the low side. Sure, they're used to pulling "all-nighters", and they try to act as if they're functional, but in reality, they're a lot more impaired than they let on. :-)

Also, IIRC, there were studies that show that people who claim to be "fine" on five or six hours of sleep are frequently mistaken (not that they aren't functional at that level, but that they are significantly impaired compared with their performance when they get more sleep). I can't remember the details, but eight hours, plus or minus about one, seems to be the sweet spot for most adults.

Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[Anonymous Coward]

Competitive my ass. It's a numbers game.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[alvinrod]

Metrics can be used for comparison, it's just that most of them aren't good for measuring performance and that when you incentivize people to produce large scores for certain metrics, they'll start to cook the books.

For example, lines of code per hour is an absolutely terrible metric to measure performance. It does not take into account the type of problem or how difficult it may be to engineer a solution for that problem. Also, once it becomes apparent that people rewarded for producing a larger number of LoC per hour, they'll start to produce more lines of code, whether they're necessary or not, often to the detriment of readability.

There's nothing wrong with measuring things like this, and many software development methodologies use metrics such as LoC to provide feedback for the project, but in no way should they be used to evaluate employees. Many of the attributes that make up a good employee cannot be quantified by simple metrics. Metrics are just another tool. Using them correctly is necessary to get anything meaningful out of them.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[Hentes]

Sadly, I still hear many otherwise intelligent people using lines of code from time to time.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[sribe]

There's nothing wrong with measuring things like this, and many software development methodologies use metrics such as LoC to provide feedback for the project, but in no way should they be used to evaluate employees.

Evaluating software developers is hard. So, just as companies would like to use software generating tools to de-skill the programming positions, they'd also like to use metrics to de-skill some of those pesky high-paid management positions. Both attempts to substitute automation for human skill work about equally well ;-)

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[Anonymous Coward]

It's best when you write -2000 lines of code during the day.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[Joce640k]

A good programmer can reduce the number of lines of code in a project.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[nine-times]

Metrics are one of those things that sometimes set me off. The main problem is, you have to know what you're measuring. You're measuring number of lines produced per hour? That's fine. But do you know what you're measuring? You're measuring the number of lines produced per hour. You aren't measuring the quality of the code or the productivity of the programmer. The number of lines that a programmer produced may have some relation to the programmer's overall productivity, or it may not, so you are *not* measuring overall productivity with that metric.

Same goes for other metrics. Know what you're measuring. Don't rely too much on a metric to give you a value for something that it doesn't measure.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[vlm]

The only microscopically more intelligent metric of executable file length at the output of the optimizing compiler can also be successfully gamed... Let me write my own implementation of Quicksort, my own implementation of AES, etc.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. That's why I work in the US. No metric system here.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[greenfruitsalad]

reduce this:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
def Function: return 42

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[MozeeToby]

A good programmer taking over work from a bad one will almost always produce negative lines of code, it's part of what makes them a good programmer. That's why most metrics ask New Lines, Modified Lines, Deleted Lines for their estimates.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[tompaulco]

If my company paid me solely based on how many lines of code I can write in an hour, then I would spend half an hour writing a code generating program, and the rest of my career there justifying more hardware on which to run my program.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[JustOK]

LoC is lines of code? Damn, I thought it was Library of Congresses. I should slow down

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[DamonHD]

#!/bin/sh
echo 42

or just

echo 42

Maybe?

Rgds

Damon

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[isama]

def Function: return 42

then include documentation stating the user should start the program with the command /usr/bin/env python3 askquestion.py

easy!

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[mcgrew]

You're right (or at least, were back in the day when storage and memory and CPU speed were limited). When I was coding, I spent way more time optimizing my code than writing it. Writing huge, bloated programs is easy. Writing fast, tight code is much harder. Maybe that's why so few do so today.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[friedo]

#!/usr/bin/env perl
sub function { 42 }

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[blair1q]

e<Tab> 42

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[Weaselmancer]

If my company paid me solely based on how many lines of code I produce, I'd send them the count based on the intermediate assembler code produced in between my C code and the linker.

I did produce those lines, did I not?

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[mjr167]

I once hard coded a several thousand line table into a c array for performance reasons... I wrote a script to read the table and produce the code, but my LoC count was off the charts :P

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[BitZtream]

#!/usr/bin/env python3
exit(42)

Don't try to be witty and smart, you just aren't that old yet.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[BitZtream]

I meant to point out originally that your code doesn't actually do anything as well.

I assume you wanted the script to exit with exit code 42, but since you just define a function and never call it, your script effectively compiles to one big NOP, so any 0 byte file would be the same as what you posted from an effective stand point.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[JaredOfEuropa]

In my admittedly not all-encompassing experience, it's often the pesky high-paid middle managers who like to run the company by the numbers. I've had a few very large corporations as a client, and I found the upper management to be suprisingly level-headed (although rather stubborn as well, and not always that smart). They appreciate jacks of all trades and guys who can get things done. But middle managers hate that; they prefer 3 lumps of warm meat of type A B and C over one guy who can actually deliver something of value, as long as A, B and C cover the job description for positions A, B and C, and those positions are adequately descriped in the 700 page project document, and all due contracting and procurement processes have been followed. Middle managers are very good at managing resources... but they are very poor managers of people; there's a difference.

Running a company by the numbers is a middle manager's game, not something imposed by the executives. And often the executives are as much a prisoner of it as the peons; I have often heard their laments on the inability of the organisation to get anything done in a reasonable amount of time. Sergei Brin recently complained that Google is now too big and bureaucratic to be truly innovative; this is a sympton of the same ailment. Sadly, getting around middle management, eliminating it, or at least eliminating the risk-averse MBA shopkeeper mentality has proven to be very hard.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[Darinbob]

I've seen metrics for customer support and IT that include number of tickets closed as a metric. Having them reopened by a disgruntled customer because the problem wasn't solved means you get to close it again and get your metrics even higher. As soon as there are metrics people will work to maximize the metrics rather than maximize their productivity or increased revenue. Sort of the workplace equivalent to "teaching to the test".

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[Darinbob]

Trouble is a lot of managers or executives who don't understand what they're managing like to measure things. Metrics may be useless but they do give you something to measure.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[Darinbob]

In the US we measure productive in terms of gallons of code.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[Macgrrl]

Thus the challenge to design metrics that encourage positive behaviours. I currently work as an OLA administrator for a large IT support provider. We are in the process of reviewing our customer SLAs with a view to defining what OLAs we think will improve our customer satisfaction ratings.

I feel dirty just saying all that.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[Carewolf]

In my admittedly not all-encompassing experience, it's often the pesky high-paid middle managers who like to run the company by the numbers. I've had a few very large corporations as a client, and I found the upper management to be suprisingly level-headed (although rather stubborn as well, and not always that smart

It is a separation of responsibilities. It is the job of middle management to be the front line implementing the unpopular decisions coming down from above, and it is the responsibility of the upper management to look completely blameless for everything that goes wrong in the company.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[nine-times]

Yes, you're right, and that's actually sort of fine, so long as said manager doesn't use those metrics for actual decision-making.

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[gorzek]

Wish I had mod points for you.

A useful metric I've gone by over the years is defects per n hours (n=100 or 1000, depending on team size.) This is a good, long-term metric you can use to determine whether your software quality is getting better or worse, and then work to address those shortcomings. You can also track the bugs by severity, but it's essential that the people categorizing the issues not have a stake in the analysis of that categorization (conflict of interest.) Ten cosmetic bugs are less horrible than 10 critical bugs, obviously. You'd want your defects per hour to go down in the aggregate, and the average severity of those bugs to decline over time. If that's not happening, something is wrong with your development organization.

It amazes me how many companies don't even do this kind of analysis. They just have a constant merry-go-round of incoming bug reports and outgoing fixes, everyone is overwhelmed and overworked, and no one has any idea why things are so screwed up.

(My job usually involves coming in and fixing such broken processes.)

Re:Metrics are a synonym for Hell

[gorzek]

I've seen LoC metrics used as an excuse to take things that should be represented as data (file formats, etc.) turned into code just to boost the LoC stats. Unfortunately, this leads to code that's hideously difficult to maintain or extend. But hey, it's all about job security, right?

nice comments

[alphatel]

Companies display a big lack of management sklills when employees post things like:
*Stop asking if Mark is a good CEO on a company survey that people fill out over their company-issued computers. Everyone assumes it can be tracked.
* Expect to find yourself micromanaged by someone much less skilled than you, and who also has no skills in management.

Mod down. Goatse

[khasim]

see subject

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[Joce640k]

A dozen teenagers being exploited by an employer doesn't worry me much, it's normal for most industries.

I'm more worried that people are throwing away their lives playing crappy Zynga games. How much is *that* costing the economy?

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[Old97]

You are confusing socialism with totalitarianism. There are democratic socialist countries. I prefer a market economy myself and I agree that government control of the economy inherently limits the potential freedom of its citizens, but so do oligarchies and cartels. It is possible to have a market economy under an authoritarian regime as well. The combination of a representative government and a market economy has the greatest potential to maximize freedom, but that depends on so many conditions its almost theoretical.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[ackthpt]

A dozen teenagers being exploited by an employer doesn't worry me much, it's normal for most industries.

I'm more worried that people are throwing away their lives playing crappy Zynga games. How much is *that* costing the economy?

According to some gaming news Mark Turmell (NBA Jam) is there. Not quite a teenager anymore.

Quelle surprise

[Dogtanian]

I'm shocked, *shocked* that a job involving writing human Skinner boxes masquerading as games is less than spiritually satisfying.

I'm equally shocked that a company whose business revolves around getting money from people via human Skinner boxes masquerading as games might be a bunch of worthless dicks and not that much fun to work for.

Re:Quelle surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as I don't like Zynga at all, I'm going to have to ask you to explain how what they're doing is writing human Skinner boxes. Please do so in a way that does not include the output of the video game industry as a whole, or, in fact, the very concept of risk and reward, as an abstract Skinner box.

Note that no credit will be given for any answer that asserts microtransactions to be the primary differentiating factor. Demerits will be handed out if the answer asserts microtransactions to be inherently evil, as that is not the topic at hand.

Re:Quelle surprise

[Tyler Durden]

Sounds like you're a real hit at parties.

Re:Quelle surprise

[Colonel Korn]

As much as I don't like Zynga at all, I'm going to have to ask you to explain how what they're doing is writing human Skinner boxes. Please do so in a way that does not include the output of the video game industry as a whole, or, in fact, the very concept of risk and reward, as an abstract Skinner box.

Note that no credit will be given for any answer that asserts microtransactions to be the primary differentiating factor. Demerits will be handed out if the answer asserts microtransactions to be inherently evil, as that is not the topic at hand.

A great game (that is not a Skinner box) should have the player constantly facing new problems and asking, "How can I solve this? What tools have I got? What have I learned from previous challenges that I can apply here?" Portal is a good example of that kind of game. Some games involve insane amounts of repetition but also involve reasonable levels of new problems to solve (WoW might fit this category). Zynga games just have the insane repetition.

Re:Quelle surprise

[mcgrew]

Skinner boxes? Hardly. People wouldn't play if the games weren't fun. Just because you don't like them doesn't make them worthless.

Re:Quelle surprise

[oh-dark-thirty]

Actually, they only wrote ONE Skinner box. The unique UI that defines each "game" is the primary differentiating factor.

Re:Quelle surprise

[blair1q]

I thought you were going to be *shocked* to find that a company that writes skinner boxes is run as a skinner box.

Re:Quelle surprise

[Tyler Durden]

No. I just think the whole argument is stupid and pointless. And you're actually splitting hairs over it.

If you want to put so much intellectual effort into something why not choose something interesting and/or useful? I hear that whole P=NP thing is still unsolved.

Re:Quelle surprise

[Toonol]

Some do, some don't. Many great games have less plot then most Zynga games. What's the plot of QIX?

I don't think Zynga makes very good games, but the elitist snobbery of gamers against them is irritating. It's like more 'hardcore' videogamers are trying to redefine the definition of the entire media so as to exlude Zynga just because they don't like them.

Re:Quelle surprise

[Dogtanian]

I don't think Zynga makes very good games, but the elitist snobbery of gamers against them is irritating. It's like more 'hardcore' videogamers are trying to redefine the definition of the entire media so as to exlude Zynga just because they don't like them.

I was the OP, and you couldn't be more wrong if you think I'm a hardcore gamer (I'm barely even a casual gamer (*)), so if you think my viewpoint is an expression of elitism, you're very mistaken.

The essence of it is that such "games" don't have any real or significant skill component- they're essentially designed to tickle people's response/reward circuits in such a way that they will be willing to perform a certain behaviour.

This person already got quite a good part of it- though IMHO I don't even think that a "real" game needs to *necessarily* feature new problems to be valid- it might simply get more difficult in a way that requires progressively more skill.

A "game" that is *designed* so that you don't need any real skill to progress, just the willingness to keep pushing a particular combination of buttons (or whatever) or invest time and/or money isn't a real game.

Really, if you're interested in the answer, you should take a look at this recent Slashdot discussion and read at least some of the (rather long) associated story.

(*) As in, occasionally plays Tetris or Angry Birds. Bought a Nintendo DS for its "casual" approach and still hardly use it. Never paid more than £10 for a PC game (and no, I haven't pirated a game since the Amiga days). One new controller in the past 10 years (hardly used), etc.... I'm really just not into computer games any more.

Re:Quelle surprise

[LateArthurDent]

Skinner boxes? Hardly. People wouldn't play if the games weren't fun.

Uh...how is the fact that people find it fun mean that it's not a Skinner box? The reward is a big part of the Skinner box. The pigeon wouldn't peck the buttons if he didn't get food in return.

The question you need to ask yourself is why is it fun? If they're providing the reward in such a way that it conditions you to continually repeat the same task, that's a Skinner box. Making the game addictive is how they make their money, and from what I hear, Zynga games don't have an "ending." You just continue on accumulating more and more stuff.

Just because you don't like them doesn't make them worthless.

I'm with you on that one. If you like to play those games, by all means, play the game. I also think people have the right to smoke, but it doesn't mean the tobacco companies don't know their productive is unhealthy and addictive. It's possible to not mind that people like a product while still being able to criticize the company that makes the product. There's no logical contradiction here.

Re:Quelle surprise

[CCarrot]

As much as I don't like Zynga at all, I'm going to have to ask you to explain how what they're doing is writing human Skinner boxes. Please do so in a way that does not include the output of the video game industry as a whole, or, in fact, the very concept of risk and reward, as an abstract Skinner box.

Constant, 24/7 monitoring of the subject by external observers, so as to allow the observer to continually adjust the box to encourage more 'rewarding' (for the observer) conditioned responses by the subject. Even when the rats go back to their 'home' cages, the observers are watching and adding to their data sets, trying to tweak the box to get even more button pushes from more rats than last time...or selling the data to others in order to make more attractive buttons outside the box.

To be fair, they aren't the only ones to do this (XBoX Live, much?), but they are certainly getting it down to a science, and at least XBox Live can't follow me around using GPS technology...yet. :o)

Re:Quelle surprise

[Tyler Durden]

Absolutely. For arguments over video games it hovers just above zero. :P

Re:Quelle surprise

[snowgirl]

Zynga games just have the insane repetition.

This is crazy talk... obtw, could I friend you on Facebook, so that I could get another friend for Farmville? Oh, can you also water my crops for me?

Re:Quelle surprise

[UnknownSoldier]

> As much as I don't like Zynga at all, I'm going to have to ask you to explain how what they're doing is writing human Skinner boxes.

Do you even _actually_ understand the difference between a Game and a Toy ?? Since you seem to be totally ignorant of the subject here is the "Cole's" notes of Fundamental Game Design:

A game _must_ have (in order to be a game):

* a winning (and by definition a losing state)

How do you "win" at Farmville or any of all the other shit they produce?

Please come back when you understand the difference between "hard wins" and "soft wins." It would behoove you to play L4D and WOW until you learn the difference. While you are at it, please study film, story-telling, and "closure."

Zynga's games are nothing more then sleezy game design because it is completely dis-respectful to the players's time. It is capitalism applied to game design -- how can we extract as much money out of the player in the shortest time possible while stringing them for a long as possible.

In fact, most "social games" are neither social nor games, they are:
a) anti-social
b) are toys (no way to win)

Micro-transactions are just the latest fad in how to be disrespectful to the gamer. The other is have two in-game economies where you can pour RMT in, but not OUT, but you can happily convert one economy to the second, one way of course.

The third way is to have a pseudo-RTS but force the player to wait minutes, hours, or DAYS just to apply "next turn." They've taken the worst of turn-based games and real-time strategy games and completely bastardized the marriage. Sid Meier's Civilization is one of the great games of all time, not because players are constantly "given interesting choices to make" (although that is part of the secret), but because it is _respectful_ to gamers -- the _players_ themselves control the game pace in a reasonable fashion. i.e. wait X turns. OK, next, next, next. Mini-goal accomplished.

So, yes, Zynga produces nothing shit, aka human skinner boxes. Please come back when you've actually studied game design Mr. Amateur
Clueless.

Re:Quelle surprise

[Rexdude]

Unfortunately, the masses vote with their wallets and clicks, which is how Zynga's made a pile of cash so far.

Re:Quelle surprise

[mcgrew]

Well, in that context every game is a skinner box, whether baseball, football, chess, checkers, tiddly winks, or Call of Duty. We should outlaw football? I think the NFL would object to that.

Zynga threatened to sue me

[Anonymous Coward]

for distributing some javascript that ran in greasemonkey which clicked buttons in their game. Fuck Zynga.

She works at Zynga

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically enough, that article mentions that "EA Spouse" aka. Erin Hoffman works at Zynga as the Lead Systems Designer.

It smells like

[bytesex]

a disgruntled employee.

Re:It smells like

[mcgrew]

If you don't treat your employees like shit, they won't be disgruntled.

Re:Indeed - GOATSE

[ericdewey]

Mod parent down, goatse link

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[roc97007]

> but that's only because most socialist nations can't afford to shoot everyone who doesn't meet their production metrics.

Well, yes, they eventually stabilize at that point, but it can be fairly hairy on the early, steep end of the curve.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[0123456]

You mean to suggest that if a socialist system (or any other for that matter) were used, stupid management would suddenly disappear?

Stalin's approach of shooting those who couldn't meet the required metrics at least ensured that management became smart enough to fiddle the metrics.

Good

[joss]

It *should* suck to work in that stupid place. If you're doing something that is a parasite on society to make a living at least at least you should have a miserable time doing it. Do something productive instead like, I dunno, deal heroin or something.

http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who-killed-videogames-a-ghost-story/chapter/2/

Re:Good

[Joce640k]

Mod up!

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they sure do deserve to suffer for the crime of making something you don't like. Because it is inherently immoral to not plan your career around what Slashdot poster joss approves of.

And yes, that IS literally exactly what you meant.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

While interesting, the article you linked doesn't actually say that these guys killed video games. All it really does is point out that the "games" they make aren't really games at all, and are instead just statistically driven money generation systems. They are terrible games, but it hasn't ruined all games. There really are great games being released. They are actually better than the games you played as a kid, even if you are clouded by nostalgia.

You're right that they make shitty products that they call 'games'. It's not fair to go all Chicken Little on the gaming industry.

Re:Good

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes, morality has to be put aside in order to put a spoonful of food in your mouth.

Re:Good

[kiwimate]

I hope and pray you're being facetiously ironic, but from the spittle-spraying angry tones of your posts I doubt it.

Some people get caught up in the supposed glamor of a scene. Some people have children to feed and will gladly take any job they can find. News flash - this is not an economy in which people are being inundated with amazing job offers that they can all afford to turn down.

And on the off-chance you're being serious, how do you live day to day in such a black and white world? Just because something doesn't meet my approval doesn't make it immoral by default.

To wrench back on topic, what got you so angry at Zynga in the first place? This reminds me of the recent story on Angry Birds and all the vitriol directed at that game. If it's a pleasant and diversionary exercise, what on earth do you care how people choose to spend their free time?

Re:Good

[joss]

> And on the off-chance you're being serious, how do you live day to day in such a black and white world? Just because something doesn't meet my approval doesn't make it immoral by default.

I am being serious. I'm overstating my case for effect but at heart I really mean it. My opinion doesn't matter but I'm entitled to have it and state it. Sure, lots of things don't meet with my approval without me considering them immoral, but some things I *do* consider immoral and the more innocuous seeming they are the more value there is in pointing out what's wrong with them.

The link in my first post is long winded but it does a good job of explaining the issue: Zynga's main revenue derives from the fact it has found a way to hack weaknesses in our built-in brain reward system. It's very consciously and cleverly manipulating people to get them addicted to their games because a few people end up spending $10,000 a year or so on them. There are millions of lesser victims who just end up wasting a vast amount of time doing something that's not even that fun without ever knowing why. They subvert friendships to spread their digital crack in devious ways etc etc. So, this to me is like an article explaining how low level crack dealers have an unpleasant time. I genuinely have more sympathy for crack dealers: they need the money too, their working conditions are nasty, their pay and prospects are terrible ,and their options are far more severely limited than a typical worker at Zynga. Crack is not great for society but society already knows this, there's no point in me to ranting about the evils of crack.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[Joce640k]

I'm betting:
a) He's not working 80 hour weeks
b) He leaves right after the IPO

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[squidflakes]

You're confusing socialism for The People's Republic of China and the scare stories about Russia in the 1980s as told by Americans to other Americans.

Places like Denmark, Finland, Sweden, France, and Germany are phenomenal when it comes to variety and choice in job.

Perhaps a bit of world travel and turning off Fox News would do you good.

Another data point

[swillden]

A friend from church mentioned to me a while ago that Zynga had been trying to recruit his son, a 16 year-old junior in high school. That really made me wonder about the company. The kid's smart, no doubt about it, and a decent coder (his code is functional, but not particularly clean or maintainable -- pretty typical for a bright novice), but I can really only think of one reason why a company would want to hire a 16 year-old, put him up in an apartment in NYC and make him write code full-time: To exploit his willingness to work insane hours for peanuts until he burns out.

If they really thought he was brilliant and a great long-term hire, they'd offer him an internship and help pay for his college education in exchange for some work now and a lot more work after he gets some CS knowledge to go along with his coding skills.

His parents refused to let him go... they didn't like the idea of turning a 16 year-old loose on his own in NYC, for some reason. I'm encouraging him to apply for a summer internship at Google. Most of those go to college students, but I think he's good enough to make the cut, and a summer internship will pay him well for a great learning opportunity without compromising his continuing formal education.

Re:Another data point

[sdguero]

How does Zynga even know this 16 year old exists? Is his resume on linked in or something?

Seems like the parents are pushing this kid kinda hard to begin with... Why would you even try and send a 16 year old into a program designed for college students?

Take a deep breath. Slow down. Relax.

Re:Another data point

[Zapotek]

How does Zynga even know this 16 year old exists? Is his resume on linked in or something? Seems like the parents are pushing this kid kinda hard to begin with... Why would you even try and send a 16 year old into a program designed for college students? Take a deep breath. Slow down. Relax.

Why should he?
I was that kid a few years ago and writing code was (and still is) genuine fun to me.
Admittedly, nowadays I'm not fond of working at mega-corps but if I could get a Google intern-ship at 16 that'd probably be the most fun and interesting period of my life.

(That may sound pathetic to some but pleasure is subjective...)

Re:Another data point

[LordLucless]

Seems like the parents are pushing this kid kinda hard to begin with

Huh? Why blame the parents - even if you think there is blame to push. The kid's 16 - that's plenty old enough for a bit of self-determination. Gifted kids particularly can push themselves - usually because they find the muck doled out at highschool boring. If the kid's smart, and driven - why not apply? He'll probably get knocked back, but even if he didn't, one summer of reality is likely to be a useful eye-opener, and do no real harm. Unlike accepting the Zynga contract,

Re:Another data point

[The Great Pretender]

I just went and check out some of the comments on Glassdoor and have to admit this one made me laugh-

"Cons: You'll work 8-18 hours per day 5-7 days per week"

I can't believe that someone would actually make you work 8 hours a day for 5 days a week!!! Now the upper end would suck, to be sure.

Re:Another data point

[sdguero]

So he's gifted now? Because the parent only said "the kid's smart."

I'm smart. So are a lot of the people on /. Should we all have taken accelerated schooling, away from our friends and peers? Should we all have been spared social interaction with people our same age that might not have appreciated our brilliance?

The chance this kid has overzealous parents seems FAR more likely than he is some sort of one in a million super genius.

Re:Another data point

[LordLucless]

I'm smart. So are a lot of the people on /. Should we all have taken accelerated schooling, away from our friends and peers?

If you were interested, yep

Should we all have been spared social interaction with people our same age that might not have appreciated our brilliance?

Yeah, because doing one summer internship at 16 removes all social interaction with his peers

The chance this kid has overzealous parents seems FAR more likely than he is some sort of one in a million super genius.

When your criteria for "super genius" consist of "isn't challenged by highschool computer classes", no, no it's not.

Re:Another data point

[shutdown -p now]

How does Zynga even know this 16 year old exists? Is his resume on linked in or something?

Maybe he hangs out on programming forums or StackOverflow?

(Yes, recruiters do visit those places, and do pick out more prominent contributors. I once got a job because a recruiter spotted my posts in comp.lang.c++.moderated and followed up on that.)

Re:Another data point

[Princeofcups]

A friend from church mentioned to me a while ago that Zynga had been trying to recruit his son, a 16 year-old junior in high school.

Your friend is full of shit. There are so many coders/developers/producers out there with experience looking for jobs at any salary, and Zynga is so inundated with resumes, that they can't parse through them all. I have one friend who quit Zynga over the stock option fiasco, and several others trying to get in. I guarantee that they are not scouting out high schools for talent.

Re:Another data point

[swillden]

A friend from church mentioned to me a while ago that Zynga had been trying to recruit his son, a 16 year-old junior in high school.

Your friend is full of shit. There are so many coders/developers/producers out there with experience looking for jobs at any salary, and Zynga is so inundated with resumes, that they can't parse through them all. I have one friend who quit Zynga over the stock option fiasco, and several others trying to get in. I guarantee that they are not scouting out high schools for talent.

Think what you will. I do know his son was pissed at him for refusing to let him take the job. So if my friend was lying, his son was in on it -- and neither of them really have any reason to lie about this.

Also, there may be a lot of experienced people out there looking for jobs, but experience isn't the same as ability. My experience (having been out looking for a job as recently as last year, before Google hired me), is that if you're talented you'll have your pick of options. I'm no rock star, and I had a half-dozen good offers to choose from. Take a really smart kid like my friend's son, and it doesn't surprise me at all that he's being scouted by companies who are less than ethical.

EA Is An Amazing Work Environment

[Anonymous Coward]

This crap reminds me of those people who parrot those stupid McDonalds Hot Coffee stories completely oblivious to the actual facts of the case.

Electronic Arts is an amazing place to work. The company is huge and has many studios and I have friends who have worked or do work at most of them over the past 15 years. If you don't mind the more corporate type of game company, EA is a dream job if you are someone that is important to game development: engineers and full-time artists.

If you are some low talent part-time artists brought on to do grunt work or some talent-less low level producer, yeah, you don't get treated very.

Shock.

Re:EA Is An Amazing Work Environment

[Rexdude]

Electronic Arts is an amazing place to work. The company is huge and has many studios and I have friends who have worked or do work at most of them over the past 15 years. If you don't mind the more corporate type of game company, EA is a dream job if you are someone that is important to game development: engineers and full-time artists.

As Wikipedia would say, [citation needed], dear anonymous EA shill.

Is anyone actually surprised?

[argmanah]

If putting out a good, clean product is nowhere in the requirements for your software, why would you compensate the people enough to retain people competent enough to put out a good, clean product? Do you remember that slacker in your CS/IT classes? You know who I'm talking about, the one who never did any of the work in group projects but took all of the credit when it was time to present it to the class. The one who has the same degree you do, but couldn't code his way out of a cardboard box. They need jobs too! Sorry, but the Tech world has been somewhat insulated from the recession, and finding a job in CS/IT isn't that hard right now. If you're stuck at Zynga, there might be a reason.

Re:Is anyone actually surprised?

[DanTheManMS]

Sorry, but the Tech world has been somewhat insulated from the recession, and finding a job in CS/IT isn't that hard right now. If you're stuck at Zynga, there might be a reason.

Here's an interesting thread from last week arguing the exact opposite: http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2541284&cid=38150514

Re:Is anyone actually surprised?

[snowgirl]

Do you remember that slacker in your CS/IT classes?

Remember them? Hell, I was one of them...

You know who I'm talking about, the one who never did any of the work in group projects but took all of the credit when it was time to present it to the class. The one who has the same degree you do, but couldn't code his way out of a cardboard box.

Oh wait, you mean those slackers. The "good" slackers were the ones that were too stupid to do the brute force work, and willingly spend 30 minutes to write something that will save themselves time later. I've often said that the best coders are the laziest people, because they make sure that when they do work, it's for a purpose.

Quiet Period

[schlesinm]

Amazing how much stories there are comparing Zynga and EA while Zynga is in the quiet period just before their IPO and are unable to comment. Judging from the number of ex-EA employees on the current Zynga roster, I expect that this is a EA sponsored hit piece.

Re:Morons and Thieves

[oh-dark-thirty]

In that memo, he certainly does come off as the typical buzzword-spouting CEO that's read one too many self-help books.

Time for a Union!

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for a Union!

multiple unauthorised charges or bad codeing

[Joe_Dragon]

bad code / bad interface design can lead to multiple charges.

Re:multiple unauthorised charges or bad codeing

[asdf7890]

bad code / bad interface design can lead to multiple charges.

That seems to be the case, and it serves to highlight some of the other points made against the company. Many of the customer service complaints I've heard stem from such situations not being accepted, and the customer either being ignored or being told it is their fault so no refund (virtual items are not returnable, even with receipt, it would seem).

Obviously some of the complaints should be taken with a side-order of salt as some people, particularly the those of the type that will shout in the most exaggerated manner online, refuse to accept fault and will make one hell of a noise until someone else fixes their mistake - but given everything else I hear about Zynga I'm inclined to believe that more of the complaints against them are true than aren't.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[ColdWetDog]

Perhaps a bit of world travel and turning off Fox News would do you good.

He's living in the Capitalist's Free Market paradise. He can't afford those sorts of things.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[s73v3r]

The difference is that in capitalism you have the choice of not working for such a company

And this is the largest problem with those that religiously worship capitalism. Whether or not you have the "choice" to work for this company is irrelevant; the fact of the matter is that this bullshit should not be allowed, period. When you start to allow companies to act like total assholes because "people have a choice," then if they get successful, then all the other companies will start to emulate that. Look at what happened with retirement plans: Most companies used to offer pensions, which were great for workers. Then a few removed them and went to the far shittier 401k plan. This was deemed acceptable because "you have the choice to work for a company that provides a pension." Fast forward a few years, and now it's almost impossible to find a company that offers pensions to it's employees, unless they are a union job. So don't give me that bullshit about "choice of working".

Glassdoor

[Anonymous Coward]

It's pretty funny, but Zynga has people trying to do damage control on Glassdoor, so I guess they know how bad things are.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[DamonHD]

You maybe haven't heard of Employment Tribunals then?

Rgds

Damon

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[s73v3r]

A dozen teenagers being exploited by an employer doesn't worry me much, it's normal for most industries.

And that's a fucking problem. The fact that people consider that "acceptable" is absolutely disgusting.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[Reservoir Penguin]

30% on government payroll, 20% on well-fare, 12% too disabled to work. These are stats for Norway, but similar to some of the countries quoted above. Phenomenal my ass, maybe if you greatest aspiration to live on well-fare. But for someone ambitious and determined America is still the place to be. And I'm saying it as a patriotic Russian with no great love for USA. This is the opinion shared by people as diverse as Linux (recently became a naturalized citizen) to president of SpaceX.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[squidflakes]

One thing I learned working for Germans is that they love to complain. There is a joke I heard while over there that when old Germans die and go to Heaven they complain about the lax admission requirements.

However, you even hint that you want to make changes to the social contract and you will find your political prospects in the toilet or in the welcoming arms of the NDP. (the Nazi party without the cool uniforms) This isn't to say that the taxes aren't high in Germany and the Scandinavian Socialist countries, but you certainly get what you pay for. At the same time, stories of Welfare Queens do well over there, even if the people telling them would be very hard pressed to actually find one.

Is metric-driven "work" the future, though?

[swb]

When everything can be measured and monitored, are we all looking at the future of work here? "Don't like it -- work elsewhere" -- when elsewhere may be nowhere?

Why can't all the work-obsessed zealots work for the same company, where they can drive each other batshit?

how much OT is from lack of staff?

[Joe_Dragon]

As some times people end doing the work load of 2-3 people?

Re:how much OT is from lack of staff?

[dkleinsc]

Chronic OT is always a sign of either ineffective people managers, or a broken corporate culture. Always.

As some times people end doing the work load of 2-3 people?

I think GP answered your question. If your company needs 10 people to do a job correctly, and has hired 4 to do it, the fact that those 4 have to work ridiculous hours to get the job done is not a problem with those 4 people.

Re:how much OT is from lack of staff?

[Anonymous Coward]

So don't do it. It is really that simple. Do not attempt to do the work of 2-3 people. Tell them what you can get done in 40 hours and ask if they want to adjust your priorities. But don't let them for a moment think that adding another task to your backlog of work happens for free.

You do have to complete all of the tasks you have already committed to doing. It is the responsible thing to do. You made the commitment and your boss has relayed those commitments to others. But don't dig the hole any deeper.

Here's the secret: if they don't have the staff to get everything done now, they are not going to fire you and make the situation worse for themselves. You just have to handle it in an extremely professional manner. That's where a lot of techies get themselves into trouble. They reach their breaking point and do something very unprofessional (they make a career-limiting move). Don't let that happen to you.

Re:how much OT is from lack of staff?

[Anonymous Coward]

ho much OT is from lack of staff?

As some times people end doing the work load of 2-3 people?

This is a management error.

If you permanently lack staff because your company/division/office can only be profitable with 60% of the staffing actually required, management has to realize that they are likely better off closing it.
If it is profitable at 100% staffing, but management want higher profits by running with 60% staffing, its management greed, and staff should consider walking out ASAP.

Re:how much OT is from lack of staff?

[Just Some Guy]

I think GP answered your question. If your company needs 10 people to do a job correctly, and has hired 4 to do it, the fact that those 4 have to work ridiculous hours to get the job done is not a problem with those 4 people.

I don't understand the economics of that, either. Is it really significantly cheaper to pay one person to work 80 hours than two people to work 40 each? Are the fixed expenses like insurance so great that it makes a huge difference, and that difference is large enough to offset the churn from burning out your experienced employees?

Re:how much OT is from lack of staff?

[Just Some Guy]

That makes sense. Thanks.

Re:how much OT is from lack of staff?

[djlowe]

how much OT is from lack of staff?

As some times people end doing the work load of 2-3 people?

That's just another sign of ineffectual management or broken corporate culture. If you're working for a company that makes you work overtime so that you can do the work of 2-3 people, then you're being abused.

Regards,

dj

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[squidflakes]

Funny enough, the only companies that I've dealt with that still offer pensions are either foreign owned (specifically European owned) or are public utilities and municipalities. (but pensions are going away as budgets get slashed in the name of "austerity")

But hey! Choice!

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[feepness]

I don't see any of the countries you listed here.

and I suspect...

[publiclurker]

that you are a pointy-haired who feels that blaming your workers for your inability to properly budget time and expenses is a viable business strategy.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[squidflakes]

Should those 12% that are too disabled to work be abandoned to the winter and the wolves? Should the government shut down just so those 30% can hold their heads high while they starve, thankful that they aren't doing something so terrible as working for a government?

The things shared in common by Linus Torvalds and the founder of SpaceX is that they were both already economically mobile and had the money to move to a different country. The US is a great place to be if you are wealthy, as there are very few items or services that are denied to someone with means. As a personal opinion, I believe that extends to the US legal and political system as well. If you are poor, either because you were born in to poverty or you ended up in poverty, your prospects are very limited.

This isn't to say that I don't love my country, I certainly do, but I love the country that offers a level playing field where someone who is bright and creative can succeed through a combination of innovation and hard work. What I don't love is the country we have become, where monied interests are given every opportunity, and the poor are left to eek out whatever existence they can.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[squidflakes]

You've got me there, as I'm sure that socialized medicine and other "socialist" things are limited to only those countries.

What flavor of agile

[publiclurker]

has an daily requirement of work? Every SCRUM I've worked with only cares that you finish your tasks at the end of the scrum. the number of hours you need to work to get there are not really anyone elses concern.

Re:Zynga , huh?

[Mick R]

I worked in a slaughter house for a while (maintenance crew) and after I left it took three months to get the stink out of my skin. Taking on anyone from Zynga would mean having to retrain them completely to get rid of all the bad habits they learned. It'd be easier and cheaper to just take on a fresh graduate and start from scratch. Since my first comment appears to have vanished I'll restate it: working for Zynga will make you unemployable. Their stink will stick to you like the smell from a slaughter house. THE 12 DAYS OF ZYNGA CHRISTMAS!!! 12 blank screens 11 locked up links 10 games not working 9 days of screaming 8 posts not posting 7 emails bitching 6 times refreshing 5 salty tears 4 gifts missing 3 broken mice 2 therapists and a programmer hanging from a treeeeee !!

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[feepness]

He said "socialist nations", not "nations with socialist elements". Even the U.S. has "socialist" elements.

Re:Whiners

[syousef]

This trend of workers demanding fun jobs with luxurious working conditions has got to stop! I don't pay you to be happy and like your job. I pay you to make me rich! Now quit whining and get to work!

You can't pay anyone anything because your pocket money isn't enough to share and your mother's basement is too small to set up an office.

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

And... this is part of what's wrong with healthcare in the US. You're probably working like that because all the other men in the medical fraternity got hazed even worse than you did.

Meanwhile, medical mistakes kill... how many people every year?

Meanwhile, the number of smart people who decide not to become MDs is... how many each year?

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[squidflakes]

That he did, and by letter you are correct. However, I interpreted "socialist nations" to mean nations that have predominantly socialist or otherwise left-leaning political parties in current or recent majorities and social welfare systems similar to equal to Scandinavian Welfare.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[janimal]

Hint: 12% of the working population is not actually disabled.

is this the same Activision that is ruining WOW?

[Cutting_Crew]

is this the reason wow has absolutely no flexibility anymore? Everything has been homogenized. We now have Mists of Pandera..and the game continues to be dumbed down beyond what previously was perceived as the ultimate bottom. Just wondering if you had any insight on that or has activision largely been on the outside when it comes to the blizzard side of things.

Re:That's it?

[syousef]

You work 12- hour days and you're complaining? I'm a resident physician and work 12 hours shifts everyday. Plus, I have to take call which translates into 30-hour shifts on occasion. My personal record is 32 hours awake in the hospital---and that's after Congress stepped in and created the work-hour limitations.

The medical industry is severly broken. You wouldn't let a truck driver operate his vehicle 12 hours straight, let alone 32. If he did and he had an accident he'd be imprisoned. Yet doctors do insane shifts. That is just plain ridiculous. You need to have your shifts limited to 8 hours in any 24 hour period and train a lot more doctors. The reason this isn't happening is your medical associations artificially limit supply of doctors to drive rates up for the elite specialists. Again ridiculous. How many people have died because a doctor has been too tired to do their job properly and has made a mistake. Do I dare ask you if you've ever made a fatal mistake due to fatigue, and how you live with it?

Just curious

[DragonHawk]

The essence of it is that such "games" don't have any real or significant skill component- they're essentially designed to tickle people's response/reward circuits in such a way that they will be willing to perform a certain behaviour.

I'm just curious, where does that leave games like, say, Minesweeper?

Re:Just curious

[Dogtanian]

I'm just curious, where does that leave games like, say, Minesweeper?

Just my personal view, but one could argue that, regardless of the theoretical nature of Minesweeper, for most humans, it still requires some thought and keeping track of things (i.e. skill at some level) to get it right, unlike many Skinneresque browser games.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[owlnation]

You're confusing socialism for The People's Republic of China and the scare stories about Russia in the 1980s as told by Americans to other Americans.

Places like Denmark, Finland, Sweden, France, and Germany are phenomenal when it comes to variety and choice in job.

Perhaps a bit of world travel and turning off Fox News would do you good.

You'd be well advised to take your own last bit of advice... of the countries you mention, only Denmark has a socialist government. France, Germany, Sweden and Finland have conservative right wing governments, although in the past they have had some (pretty bad) socialist ones.

As someone who has lived under socialist governments many times in several countries, my experience tells me that the only reason they are not totalitarian, is because they do not have enough of a parliamentary majority to railroad through totalitarian policies. Yes, most are not as bad as communist china nor the soviet states, however that's only because the people have, luckily, retained some degree of leverage.

In European countries where socialist parties have had large majorities, human rights and freedoms have been seriously curtailed -- e.g. in the UK between 1997 and 2009. The most surveiled country in the world, with no right to free speech, which has the most severe "equality" laws in the world.

Behind every socialist veneer, there beats a totalitarian heart. They are all about forcing people to do the "right" thing for the greater "good".

Re:That's it?

[Anonymous Coward]

As the SO of a resident I agree with you and sympathize with GP. The thing is that many med. students (later to become residents) are basically brainwashed. The attitude is that you WILL work every waking hour, or we'll find someone who will. And they're right.

It's not just supply and demand though. It's a culture problem. Sort of like an extended period of hazing for every wannabe doctor. I'm almost ok with the hours required in the game industry because those programmers can easily choose to do another programming job that's less insane. The hours of doctors kill folks though.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[shutdown -p now]

Stalin also had some fondness for doing things like personally visiting factories and testing out equipment and such or observing the output, flashmob style - especially right before and during WW2. Fiddling metrics didn't help with that - not that it prevented people from gambling.

And Yet

[Greyfox]

Notch coded Minecraft on his one, presumably with a frozen burrito hanging out his mouth the whole time like a cigar, and presumably in his underwear, and went on to make FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS. Maybe ya'all Zynga and EA employees with a remotely unique idea would be better off going it alone with some comfortable undies and a comfortable java development environment. Just sayin'.

Hmm maybe tonight I'll construct a giant Notch statue in Minecraft, in his undies, at a computer terminal, with a frozen burrito hanging out his mouth like a cigar...

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[Jappus]

Actually, you're quite confused about two very, very different terms here -- which might be understandable as European political systems are impressively more complex and varied than the "Two Parties - plus various nutjobs" system that seems prevalent in the United States (from a European point of view).

You have to understand the fundamental difference between socialist -- which is the political system that Karl Marx described as the dictatorship of the masses to break the hold of the few over production -- and social democrat, which realizes that dictatorships are bad, but also that having more should mean that you can also do more for those that have less.

Further more, there are conservative central parties -- that mostly believe that social responsibility is a worthwhile goal, but should flow from moral responsibility and incentives instead of direct governmental pressure. Then there are right-wing conservatives, that are mostly like the central conservative parties as far as their social approach is concerned, but put more pressure on morals, up to reaching semi-tacit demands for more socio-moral homogeneity. In themselves, these conservative parties are not actually economically more conservative. At best, they are more open towards working WITH big companies to reach a particular goal instead of AGAINST them.

But mostly, the economic outlook depends more on whether you adhere to the more liberal wing of your chosen political stream, or the more social/rightist (as in rights of the people, not right as in right vs left).

In Europe (and especially Germany from which I hail), you can be a liberal conservative, a social democrat, a liberal, a conservative, a green, a leftist, a socialist, a communist, a liberal-economist, a rights-liberal, a rights-conservative, an extreme leftist (note: != socialist or communist), a green, a leftist green, a liberal green, a conservative green, a liberal social democrat with ecological interests (a.k.a. green); and so on. Ohh, and you can of course be a neo-fascist, if that's to your liking.

And the best: Depending on where you live in Europe, all these streams (except for maybe the neo-fascists and extreme leftists) are represented by parties that have between 10-25% of the popular vote with actual voices in the respective parliaments -- and sometimes governments.

Compared to the US-System, Europe is a melting pot of political ideals, where you can be in a conservative party which collectively tries to keep Nuclear Reactors running while allowing gay marriage, wanting minimum wage, and trying to introduce religious lessons in school. The same applies to leftists, liberals, greens, etc. to the same degree.

Isn't having a (non-exclusively) plurality vote system great?

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[Darinbob]

Most Swedes and Finns I met didn't complain about their taxes at all despite them also being high. US has a very low tax rate and we complain about taxes quite a lot. So complaints I think are based on perceived value of your tax "investment".

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[HornWumpus]

You can't not have a market economy no matter how hard you try.

You can make the market insanely inefficient if you try too hard.

That said _some_ products (e.g. a virus encoding African sleeping sickness' surface chemistry genes, nuclear weapons over 25 kilotons) and services (e.g. wet work) are best left illegal.

All this and nobody complained about the obvious

[gearloos]

All this and nobody complained about the obvious: Having to get your hands dirty working that plow and driving the tractor all day, getting up with the chickens, not to mention shoveling S#!T all day to clean up after the animals.. Farm Work Is Tough! No wonder they don't like working there!!

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[Reservoir Penguin]

You heart is certainly at the right place, but you are very naive. As someone has already replied, unless Norwegians suffer from abnormal rate of accidents or are massively affected by a disabling illness I'm not aware off the 12% are not actually too disabled to work.

When I wrote the original reply I was fully aware that Norway is somewhat of an outlier case because such nonsense is only possible in a country with 5 million people and a shitload of gas and oil. But it's still a very relevant use case because Norway shares it's hybrid economic system and left wing political ideology with the rest of the Western Europe and is a perfect example of what social democratic wellfare capitalism will degenerate too given a chance. I The great anarchist theoreticians of early 20th century wrote that working is natural and when the pressure to work or die goes away people will turn to whatever creative occupation they are best suited for. Unfortunately it is not true.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[Old97]

You are confusing a market with a market economy. "Market economy" is a term used in the field of economics. It actually means something fairly specific though it applies a broad range of economies with widely varying degrees of government involvement. The term "market" refers to the relative importance of the market, i.e. the private sector versus government in controlling investments. Its a more useful description than "capitalist" or "capitalism". By your logic one would argue that all economies are are capitalist because you must have capital in order to have an economy.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[JoeMerchant]

stories of Welfare Queens do well over there, even if the people telling them would be very hard pressed to actually find one.

They are all too easy to find in the U.S. of A. I think the thing that is right with Euro welfare / wrong with US welfare is that US welfare kind of kicks you while you are down, we are so politically concerned with people getting something "they don't deserve" that people get habituated into poverty because they really can't get themselves out - sure, some have kids that get scholarships, some work their way up to the top, and hey, some win the lottery, but the system here seems to work to keep most of the poor, poor. I suppose somebody has to work at McDonalds and keep the cost of fries down to 0.99.

Zynga games

[bonezed]

I like the concept of their games, it's just a pity they suck so bad in actual use. So slow and clunky

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[tigersha]

> It is possible to have a market economy under an authoritarian regime as well.

Taiwan and South Korea in the 80s. Seems to have worked very well for them.

Also, to some extent, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and modern pseudo-communist China.

But it still does not excuse the totalitarianism.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[snowgirl]

And the best: Depending on where you live in Europe, all these streams (except for maybe the neo-fascists and extreme leftists) are represented by parties that have between 10-25% of the popular vote with actual voices in the respective parliaments -- and sometimes governments.

I think this is at least in part a reflection of the election process. Distributing seats according to percentage of voters voting in that manner means a more diverse process. When the only option is "win a seat" or "lose a seat", then it's heavily biased towards false dichotomy. I mean, you need 50%+1 of the votes cast to win, so you have to align yourself such that you can pick up that many of the votes.

In Germany, if your party receives only 10% of the votes, then you still get seats. In the US? That means you don't win any seats at all. The Green party of the US is the closest third-party candidate available, and they have gotten around 5% or so of the votes. In the US government, using German election rules, that would mean 5 senate seats, and around 21 seats in the House of Rep. That's a perfectly reasonable amount of representation!

Of course, the US will never let this happen, because our states are supposed to be independent "nationlettes" (Ländchen) and zOMG, pooling all of the election results together and selecting national representatives as a representation of the national populace, rather than individual states is far too collectivist for the US. In fact, it's a very modern system, and I think makes more sense... but then the US is based on 200-year old traditions that just don't work as well anymore. *shock* Things have really changed in the last 200-years, and we have a lot better view of how to run a government now. (That doesn't mean that all the ideas are better, it just means we have more information.)

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[blackest_k]

In European countries where socialist parties have had large majorities, human rights and freedoms have been seriously curtailed -- e.g. in the UK between 1997 and 2009. The most surveiled country in the world, with no right to free speech, which has the most severe "equality" laws in the world.

I regret to inform you the previous years were worse ,much worse times to live in the UK for a good number of people and human rights and freedoms were being curtailed left right and centre. Where the only option to sitting on your arse on the dole slowly starving was the employment training scheme or extra tenner as it was widely known. Of course being on ET meant you disappeared off the dole queue figures. It was a crappy time to live in the UK for millions when the Conservative Government finally got the boot, millions gained hope after years of despair.

It was the Labour government which introduced the minimum wage which at least gave hope that if you could get a job it would be enough to live on with some quality of life. It wasn't a utopian paradise but it was an improvement compared to conservative rule. Labour wasn't perfect and they made poorer decisions as the years went by.

The conservatives are back in power now with a minority government supported by the lib-dems (who have reneged on their policies and betrayed their supporters) and things are getting tougher and peoples quality of life is going down hill.

I've done the best thing for me i've emigrated and my brother and his family have too. You only get one life, you have to make the best of it you can. Both of us have a quality of life now that far exceeds what we would have if we stayed in the UK.

   

Re:That's it?

[luminousone11]

"The reason this isn't happening is your medical associations artificially limit supply of doctors to drive rates up for the elite specialists." Complete BULLSHIT. What limits the supply of qualified doctors is the difficultly of the education and the cost of that education. It takes 8+ years of college, 2 years of residency, $250,000 to $400,000 dollars of student debt. All for a career that forces you into a specialist field if they plan to make any money what so ever as private insurance plays endless insufferable games, 20% of their customers never pay, and the consistent low profit side of the business(medicaid/medicare) that represents 70% of their business could easily be turned unprofitable by right wing loony's cutting the programs at any time.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[Builder]

I didn't realise that they were giving citizenship to operating systems now.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[circletimessquare]

you forgot to mention the part where the elected representatives spend all their time jockeying for coalition government positioning, and sublimating and abandoning all of their self-stated principles to do so

not to get you wrong, there are plenty of positives to more than two parties. but also still plenty of downsides. there are also positives to the two party system. the point is, contrasting european and american political systems shows positives and negatives to both, not simply only positives to the european system

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[gnud]

What are your sources for those numbers? They don't seem completely off, but it would be nice to know what year they were from, etc.

Those 20% include several lumped-together categories. 20% were on different kinds of welfare in 2010, but that includes the disabled (not sure what year your 12% is from, though - hard without sources...), a special early retirement program, and welfare directed to getting people back into work.

Also, note that close to all teachers - from kindergarten up to and including university, most doctors and most nurses are employed by the government in Norway and other Scandinavian countries.

Fair 'nuff. Thanks for the reply. (N/T)

[DragonHawk]

Fair 'nuff. Thanks for the reply.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[HornWumpus]

Market economy is not the same as capitalist economy.

An underground market economy is still a market economy. It doesn't have to exist in isolation though.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[UnknownSoldier]

I think the gist you were getting at was:

The best thing about America? Capitalism.
The worst thing about America? Capitalism.

Sorry you got modded down; people would [almost] always rather shoot the messenger then actually listen to the message. :-/

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[s73v3r]

So basically you're trying to justify how shitty 401ks are by saying it's better for the company? Fuck the company. I don't give a rat's ass about the company. I care about me.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[s73v3r]

That's just a completely load of horse shit that you're trying to pass off as to why this should be acceptable. And it doesn't work.

Night of the Living Sock Puppets

[luis_a_espinal]

I think you either need to talk to more people or get more experience yourself before pretending

Because obviously my work experience is limited, and I've never worked with small tech start ups, nor IT/Enterprise Computing nor with defense contractors, or with any type of company, small or large for that matter. I have no clue on how to run a business, I have never been an hourly paid contractor in at-risk projects with aggressive schedules, and have no experience giving or receiving orders.

It's like... you know me, and you can attest as verifiable fact that I need to get more experience on the subject I had. You implied so, you said so, so you have to be right, right, right? Yes, si, pretty please, with a cherry on top?

you know more about this topic than the above poster

Who, the anonymous coward with no listed credentials? Or you somehow knows who this AC is and you can vouch for his experience? Or is that actually you, now acting like a sad sock puppet?

or a very large number of the readers.

Whom? How many? For someone (you == AC) claiming a lot of experience, I would have expected a more verifiable and quantifiable antecedent to substantiate your appeal to authority. Thanks for trying.

Now that is a stupid insult - grow up a bit

[dbIII]

Yes, I have had a similar experience on several occassions, know others that have had similar experiences and I'm sure many other reader here have too because there are a lot of places in a wide range of industries where a lot of unpaid overtime is expected. I've even seen it done to clerical staff in a telecommunications company for no good reason - a two week "billing crunch" that extended to three weeks and then continuously until the company crashed and burned. I've done it myself, mostly during plant shutdowns which are probably are more time critical and "at-risk" than anything you will ever see in your life - but also later in IT although to a lesser extent than others.
And what's this "sock puppet" shit? Why would I post the above AC if I have a login with decent karma? That's a very stupid accusation you are making there as well as being insulting.

an hourly paid contractor in at-risk projects with aggressive schedules

I've seen barely graduated children in that role which is yet another reason why you always need enough staff to know what the contractors are up to. That makes me think you are probably just inexperienced instead of a blatant liar. The implication that everyone can set their own hours irrespective of external pressures is incredibly naive. Even when you are the boss there can be compelling reasons to work long hours and get something done. Obviously it's not ideal and if it's happening a lot there are nowhere near enough staff - but some places work that way for prolonged periods even if you want to pretend that never happens.

Re:Now that is a stupid insult - grow up a bit

[luis_a_espinal]

Yes, I have had a similar experience on several occassions, know others that have had similar experiences and I'm sure many other reader here have too

"I'm sure" is not a quantifiable statement. It is subjective. It is an opinion, an artifact of emotion that you are evoking simply to build your argument. Nothing more.

because there are a lot of places in a wide range of industries where a lot of unpaid overtime is expected.

Nice strawman. That is not what I argued against. My contention is the claim that suggest working 80hr a week per months on end to make a 6-figure salary. That is ridiculous and not true. I'd suggest you go re-read what I posted, and if you think that was not the theme of my post, simply quote the specific passage you have a problem with so that we can deliberate on it.

I've even seen it done to clerical staff in a telecommunications company for no good reason - a two week "billing crunch" that extended to three weeks and then continuously until the company crashed and burned. I've done it myself, mostly during plant shutdowns which are probably are more time critical and "at-risk" than anything you will ever see in your life - but also later in IT although to a lesser extent than others.

So it sounds then that we have similar work experience. And yet, I fail to see how you can actually agree with what the AC posted, re-quoting the specific passages I have an issue with and which I made very clear (in particular with the lines in bold):

... stuff... It's simply a fact of life, and if you don't like it, go teach 8th grade gym

... stuff... EA's practices were totally in line with industry standards, which are in line with market realities and in line with the compensation package offered

...stuff... If you want the opportunity to make a six figure salary, you're going to have to be prepared to make some sacrifices.

... stuff... If you can't handle 80 hour weeks for a few months when the time comes, well, as I alluded, my old junior high school is in desperate need of a gym teacher.

There is a lot of unsubstantiated bravado in this. The 80hr/week contention is just ridiculous. The last time I ever worked 80hr a week was with a defense contractor, for three weeks during integration, unpaid. And that was fine because, yes, as you said, it is expected. But that someone were to tell me that I have to do that for months, I wouldn't. Even if paid over time. The only time you would ever do that is at the start of your career, when you are accumulating experience, and hopefully, OT. Or perhaps when it is the rare chance to work in some really cool shit that you know in your guts it will position well in your career for the next decade.

You do not need that to make a 6-figure salary. No, you don't. Period. And that's my contention, and it is a provable one. Moreover, and going back to the 80hr/week measure. It cannot be sustained for months on end, not without having a deterioration in performance. There are psychological, physical, emotional, and organizational/administrative limitations to that. When you start seeing people clocking over 60 hours consistently week after week, I can guarantee you you can find a lot of idle time being burned out.

Yes, we work more than 40 hours a week. Yes, we are expected to work in the vicinity of 50. No, the moment you go beyond a threshold (which you reach before you hit 80hrs) - not for a week or two, even a month, but for months on end - either you find it un-productivity and burn-out, or you find someone is milking the time sheets.

And what's this "sock puppet" shit? Why would I post the above AC if I have a login with decent karma?

I have no clue, nor I care about your karma. I just found extremely stupid to

Less than 12 hours a day = 80 hours remember

[dbIII]

It is equally insulting to suggest my lack of experience when you have nothing but a post to render judgment on me

If you post something as naive as what I replied to it is a very clear indication that you either have led a very sheltered existence or are lying to pretend that you have. It appears you are using that as an excuse to call me names. Pathetic.

I don't pretend. I avoid. I assess.

For fuck sake not everything is about you. That is a very childish way to look at the issue when it is being discussed in absolute terms and when you are using it to support a generalisation. While it's a horrible way to run any organisation there are a lot of places where people work long hours. Why are you pretending otherwise?

It has served me well since the dot-com crash

If you are actually that old you've been going around with your eyes shut or are being dishonest in just some patheic game of arguing with a complete stranger. Let's give up on the bullshit and discuss something real instead.

Re:Less than 12 hours a day = 80 hours remember

[luis_a_espinal]

It is equally insulting to suggest my lack of experience when you have nothing but a post to render judgment on me

If you post something as naive

Naive to you, in your eyes, subjectively.

as what I replied to it is a very clear indication that you either have led a very sheltered existence or are lying to pretend that you have. It appears you are using that as an excuse to call me names. Pathetic.

I'm calling you names? Can we take a look at your own posts to compare?

I don't pretend. I avoid. I assess.

For fuck sake not everything is about you.

Never said it was. I'm telling you my response to this (note the text in bold):

Obviously it's not ideal and if it's happening a lot there are nowhere near enough staff - but some places work that way for prolonged periods even if you want to pretend that never happens.

So if I'm telling that I don't pretend, I have to tell you why that is not the case. And that will inevitably involve things that *I* do (which involves I/me/mine unless I invent some type of language that doesn't have conjugation of the first person). But if I do that, then you turn it around accusing me of making it be all about me. Nice red herring+strawman, btw.

That is a very childish way to look at the issue when it is being discussed in absolute terms

Absolute terms? Absolute terms like needing to work 80hrs constantly to make a 6-figure salary, that EA's practices at the time were in line with industry standards, the very arguments that started my disagreement?

and when you are using it to support a generalisation.

Which is no different from you, using your own experiences and observations to generalize about the state of affairs in the software development industry.

While it's a horrible way to run any organisation there are a lot of places where people work long hours.

And where did I say that this is not the case? Focus on this question, and don't post an answer unless you quote the exact text of mine that contradicts or is mutually exclusive to that which you point. Yeah, people work long hours, the number of hours being inversely proportional, primarily, to the control one has in one's career, barring certain circumstances (financial emergencies, etc.) It is not something I denied, and I'm asking you again to quote me precisely where the hell I've said otherwise.

By your own admission, it is a horrible way to run organizations, but then it begs the question. Are all companies dysfunctional like that? Answer is no, not all companies are like that.

So that begs the next question: are there companies that do good, challenging work while operating differently from that dysfunctional model. Answer is yes, yes there are.

Which brings the next question: what do you do in your career to 1) maximize you work with the later type of companies and projects, on your terms, while increasing your salary and your experience, while 2) minimize exposure to the former?

Do you do anything at all, anything methodical? Or do you simply pick up the soap? It doesn't have to be the constant struggle of 60+hrs a week, let alone 80hr, to make a 6-figure salary. It is if you let it be.

Whether you believe what I'm saying is real, or just bull shit, that's up to you man.

Why are you pretending otherwise?

Again, quote me where I did such thing. Reading comprehension man, reading comprehension.

It has served me well since the dot-com crash

If you are actually that old you've been going around with your eyes shut or are being dishonest

I'm old? That suggests me then your age, and by proxy, your expo

Re:Less than 12 hours a day = 80 hours remember

[luis_a_espinal]

I know I said I'd leave you to win by last man standing, but goddamit, you are an obstinate with your red herrings.

To sum up, your attitude of pretending something is not happening because it doesn't happen where you are sitting is the thing that disgusted me enough to write everything above. I must say I was truly astonished to see you cry "bullshit" about working conditions that nearly every adult would be aware of.

And once again, you display either a lack of reading comprehension, or you are simply being obstinate. This is what I argue against: That the AC stated that work 80hrs constantly is a must to make a 6-figure salary. And this is what I argued for: the amount of hours you work is a direct reflection on how you control your career.

Never have I said that there are appalling working conditions, or that a lot of people in software and IT put 60 hours or more a week consistently (and who blindly think that is how must be and that no other alternatives exist.)

I have asked like four times already to quote the text I wrote where I deny the existence of those working conditions. Four times already I've asked, and four times already you have not done so. Four times I've asked to quote (a simple copy/paste action) the things I wrote that supposedly said that you said I said (forgive the play of words.). And as of yet, nothing from you.

All you have is a red herring, attacking a claim I never made, and a position I never espoused. And if you have to recur again and again to the same red herring, then that means you never had a valid argument to begin with.

So, if you are going to reply to this, are you going to quote the text I supposedly wrote where I deny the existence of the work conditions you describe? Or are you still going to go in circles with a red herring hanging around your neck?

Anyways, be my guess working 12 hours a day, 5 days a week (or a work week extending weekends) to make 60 hours a week, or 13.33 hours 5 days a week (or 11hrs 6 days a week) to make 80, on a regular basis or as an mandatory way to ear a 6-figure salary. Enjoy your career development, a bright future awaits you.

Re:Less than 12 hours a day = 80 hours remember

[dbIII]

I have asked like four times already to quote the text I wrote where I deny the existence of those working conditions

Sorry I missed that among the insults, bullshit and the self-aggrandisement if it was there at all, besides, you can't honestly deny your words above.
Your original post stands with lines such as "I've never seen a requirement of working 80 hour weeks" and "If you have to put up with 80 hour work weeks, it means that you have few career choices, and thus have no option but being someone's bitch.". The reality is that few get to choose their own destiny, some people get stuck doing long hours, and some (such as in the mining industry) choose it deliberately in exchange for other benefits. Postgraduate students do it, Medical registrars do it, other doctors new to a practice do it, some software developers do it. You really haven't been paying attention to what is around you.
I'm getting more and more convinced that you are barely in the workforce in a job requiring little education with lines like your final paragraph (and things like "highly paid consultant" - if you think you are too well paid then you are out of your depth or just making that up to impress people). Where did you get the idea that I am doing what you say I am now? You are exhibiting some very poor reading comprehension skills.

Re:Less than 12 hours a day = 80 hours remember

[luis_a_espinal]

I have asked like four times already to quote the text I wrote where I deny the existence of those working conditions

Sorry I missed that among the insults, bullshit and the self-aggrandisement if it was there at all, besides, you can't honestly deny your words above. Your original post stands with lines such as "I've never seen a requirement of working 80 hour weeks"

No. There is not a single post I made in this thread that says that. That is a line you made. I ask you again, to post the exact text I typed that says or implies such a thing.

and "If you have to put up with 80 hour work weeks, it means that you have few career choices, and thus have no option but being someone's bitch.".

But it is true. If you are willing or are forced to work so many hours a week for months (we are not talking about a week here and there, but as a norm), "you are being someone's bitch", an expression that expresses several meanings in the vernacular.

When you work that many hours, weeks, months on end, your health, physical and emotional, deteriorates, your family life (if you have any) deteriorates, your career deteriorates because now you are preoccupied with the constant deliverables to be completed with insane schedule demands (leaving no time or energy to cultivate your skills outside of work, which is a must for cultivating one's career.)

Moreover, and which makes "being someone's bitch" a very apt expression, the number of excess hours that you are asked/forced to work on a regular basis is inversely proportional to the quality of work and management that you are subjected to. Bad management (systemic and systematic) and abuse go in tandem with excessive over time mandated on a regular basis.

So if we are clear that, in general, this is a dysfunctional and unhealthy software-related work behavior, why would one put up with it? Mostly a person would do so because he/she has no that many alternatives (for whatever reasons.) If a person had alternatives, would he/she made the switch, no? Or would that person still stay at such noxious environment on his/her own free will despite having better alternatives?

And if such a person does not have that many alternatives, doesn't that mean then that the control he/she has in his/her career is limited (for internal or external factors or whatever the case may be)? Or are you disagreeing that there is no relation between these two?

The reality is that few get to choose their own destiny, some people get stuck doing long hours, and some (such as in the mining industry) choose it deliberately in exchange for other benefits.

We are not talking mining industry, or anything other than software for that matter. My comment is specific for software development. Of course there are other lines of jobs in which you have no choice (I used to flip burgers at McDonalds once when I first came to this country, so I know.) And in mining, the rewards are sufficient to compensate for the hard labor (which does not include working excessive O/T on a regular basis.

But I repeat, this discussion is not about work in general, but about software development (and the work conditions related to that) specifically. And you have your choices, your options, all of them depending on how you develop your career.

Simply put, work conditions in general (as in outside of software-related industries) are not a topic that I ever discussed here. Bringing it up is a nice straw man, though.

Postgraduate students do it, Medical registrars do it, other doctors new to a practice do it,

True dat. Those fields, however, are not what is being discussed here.

some software developers do it.

This is a fact I'm not denying (despite you

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[Reservoir Penguin]

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dn.no%2Ftrygd_i_norge%2Farticle1837921.ece FACTS: A sick country: Unemployed: 77,100 On rehabilitation or rehabilitation: 105,000 AFP: 48,500 Disability: 341,400 Total labor force in Norway: 2.62 million Percentage of Norwegians working-age benefits: 22% (not including cash benefits, child support, etc.) Percentage of Norwegians who are disabled: 13% Percentage of Norwegians who are unemployed: 3% Total payments to disability in 2008: 56.53 billion

Insulting AND dishonest

[dbIII]

No. There is not a single post I made in this thread that says that.

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2548044&cid=38198304

After such an incredibly blatant lie that insults the intellegence of everybody here I am not going to bother to read the remainder of your suprisingly long reply to a very simple question.

Re:Insulting AND dishonest

[luis_a_espinal]

I stand corrected, I did wrote that. I meant to write this:

Being doing this for almost 17 years now, and I've never seen a requirement of working 80 hour weeks continuously

And if you look at the theme across my post, that one of my points I make. Now, whether you believe this explanation I'm giving you, that's up to you considering that you do not address any of the others points made in my last post. To each its own.

Re:Ah, capitalism.

[HornWumpus]

Ah, a teenager that hasn't learned anything yet.

If the teenagers are accepting the job without coercion it is acceptable. Sucks to have no skills, working shit jobs is how they learn. Someone with no skills will find no job in your imaginary world.