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Tech Pros' Struggle For Work-Life Balance Continues (dice.com)
Nerval's Lobster writes: Work-life balance among technology professionals is very much in the news following a much-discussed New York Times article about workday conditions at Amazon. That piece painted a picture of a harsh workplace where employees literally cried at their desks. While more tech companies are publicly talking about the need for work-life balance, do the pressures of delivering revenues, profits, and products make much of that chatter mere lip-service? Or are companies actually doing their best to ensure their workers are treated like human beings with lives outside of work?
I'm too busy working to read this nonsense.
"do the pressures of delivering revenues, profits, and products make much of that chatter mere lip-service?"
Yes.
"Or are companies actually doing their best to ensure their workers are treated like human beings with lives outside of work?"
No.
Next.
I got rejected for amazon twice and may cry now because I only wish they would accept me and I hear about this now and I have sad that people don't appreciate what they and Jim Chen have.
Light red text in a bright red background is a terrible choice, but I se the moderators here marked your post as a troll for drying to complain about an ad.
to think about your employees well being. If someone has a meltdown, they're replaceable. Nobody is special. The innovators are the ones who founded the company and you're the chump that has to do the easy part of making stuff function. Anyone could do it but you qualified and made a good impression during the interview.
Now quit your whining, cash in your paycheck, and meet that deadline.
If the team leads and managers of projects have no life outside the company, they'll establish a no-life culture among their team. No one wants to be the first to exit at the end of the day.
I've had three employers: one Fortune 500 company and two 50 employee consulting companies. At the big company, I worked 50-60 hours/week in a high stress environment, but the work was exciting and I really enjoyed it.
At the two smaller companies, it is rare that I would work over 41 hours/week. I've never done it in 6 months at my current company. I think it is easier for small consulting companies to offer a balance like this because our clients won't pay for more than 40 hours/week except under exceptional circumstances, and our company does a great job being realistic about timelines so we almost always deliver on time.
You can find work-life balance, but you have to look for it and prioritize it in you job search. I would probably make 10-20% more had I stayed at the large company, but the relaxed hours are worth it to me.
I'll also note that this is in the Midwest, where all you tech people from the coasts complaining about not finding jobs should move.
Careful. Complaining about ads here will get you banned.
Just a friendly reminder that Nerval's Lobster is a Dice shill account, and posts articles for Dice.com. Oh, and that editors either refuse to, or are banned from, putting a disclaimer that Dice.com is owned by Dice Holdings, Inc., the parent company of Slashdot, as they once would when posting a link to "sister" sites prior to being purchased by Dice.
Not understanding a good UI is the mark of a Republican.
I wonder if someday "going Amazon" will be part of our vocabulary.
What is wrong with red text on top of a red background?
1) Hire new STEM worker, reset pay scale to minimum.
2) Drive worker to burnout in two years or so, worker leaves/commits suicide/has heart attack.
3) PROFIT!!
4) Start process again at 1)
Keeping employees around that expect periodic raises and sensible work-life balance will never increase profit margins in the short term. Only companies concerned about the long term and brain drain (and few are) will do anything to change this. Most just want billable hours.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Because Republicans don't pay attention to what they're doing.
As an I.T. support contractor for the last ten years, my contracts prohibits me from working overtime. I'm only allowed to work from Monday through Friday, during regular business hours. Which is fine with me.
Because red means warning, dumbass.
Go away troll.
You sound angry like you need a vacation.
"We need you to work bell to bell (12 hours) 7 days a week until further notice. If you don't then McDonalds is hiring." I did, but then it cost them over 3 million dollars in medical bills.
Unless you're running your own show you're being run at a profit.
Tech has low upward mobility and if you're smart enough to do it you're smart enough to do something else.
Do something else that pays real money, save a few hundred k, then go do whatever the hell you want.
I got off the tech treadmill a few years ago when I saw the writing on the wall. I work in investment finance now; I leverage my background as a EE routinely. I mop the floor with my colleagues on any metric. You can learn how to interact with people confidently. Fake it 'till you make it. It is a puzzle like any other.
Conservative estimates will have me able to retire at 45 with a replacement income to cover base living costs in area of the country with FTTH and sane living costs. Then I can do what I want.
Don't believe the lies. Bail. Fuck 'em. Find another way to live. There is no other life. Do you want to spend it crying at a desk or searching Dice (ha!) for your next bullshit coding job?
You are an idiot. And stop replying to your own stupid posts
throughout all layers of a company are the main causes why work-life balance is so horrible.
Kids come right out of high school thinking they are the next Steve Jobs or are entitled to earn +150K because their are fresh and excited.
But the only way to make up for the lack of skills and experience is working long hours and hope you might just get lucky.
Einstein, Tesla (the real one), Edison and Franklin were innovators. Jobs, Zuckerberg, Musk and Schmidt are nothing more than lucky leeches that prey on the inanity and efforts of young people and pretend they came up with the whole solution themselves.
What the f*ck is that bullshit ? Who cares about "work/life balance" in a world where you know that as some point you always get downsized, and you have to scramble finding another job while your savings dwindle to zero.
Another piece of "muh feelings!" bullcrap to catter to the "women in STEM" affirmative action hires demographic ?
Wow, a dupe from months ago to generate more ad traffic for Dice by writing a news article on a previously covered story. Slow news day?
Reminds me of another story a few years ago about news agencies 'refreshing' articles by changing timestamps to get the stories picked up again by search engines and listed as new news.
If I'm hired to work days, which is all I will take, I work from the minute I start until the minute it's time to leave. I don't work for free. I'd rather be an hourly worker because they will not be so quick to take advantage of you. Currently I'm salaried, but my boss knows I'm 8-5, no nights, no weekends. I might work a special event if I get a comp day. My time is valuable, I'm in my 40s so I know how the game is played, and I do push back when pushed. I do my job, they like the results, so no one messes with me when it's time to find warm bodies to work odd events. My time at home is more valuable. I cannot hit the rewind button. The time I have with my children can never be given back to me.
One of the "core values" of my company is work/life balance but you wouldn't know it looking at the IT department.
Yes, companies sometimes push employees too hard. Lately in engineering though, you can punch the CEO in the face and he/she'll say "Sorry, please don't quit", with the current market. Obviously not true of all IT positions, but in engineering, it almost is.
So there's really no reason to screw over your work life balance, aside for maybe a pager rotation for emergencies (but the company should have a level 2 or 3 support to handle he common cases...I guess those guys work/life balance is fucked. Sorry)
Engineers however, are arrogant as fuck, and want to be at the top of the food chain, so a couple of them will willingly fuck over their work life balance. Then they'll get promoted for it (which is a problem with the company...but its hard to say no to someone who delivered twice as much for the same pay, even if he/she screwed over their life over it).
Then, people will feel they have to do this to compete. And thus, the New York Times Pseudo-Amazon is born.
Employers should not reward those people, and other engineers should NOT worship them. You don't need a union to make things reasonable, but please for god's sake, don't encourage your peers who do that shit.
When a story is first posted, it's in red. Now be good boys, and take your blood pressure meds.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
> worked 50-60 hours/week in a high stress environment
That doesn't sound very high stress. That still gives you plenty of time to do personal things. Comeback when you work Seattle "hundreds" for a few months.
I also live in the midwest. 40 hour weeks are the norm. I've only recently started to have to work weekends. About 2 hours on Saturday or Sunday, then I get a full day floating paid vacation time. I have to work another 2 hours next Saturday, so I'm taking a work day off before the Christmas holiday.
"Engineers however, are arrogant as fuck, and want to be at the top of the food chain, so a couple of them will willingly fuck over their work life balance"
To me, an engineer, I see management as being arrogant as fuck. They fuck the work life balance of their resources in order to put themselves at the top of the food chain...
It's not just engineers. I work in education and there are two of those people I can think of off the top of my head. Both of them gave tons of free time to the company to get promoted and now everyone else is held to their standard.
Already have my resume out.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
I'll also note that this is in the Midwest, where all you tech people from the coasts complaining about not finding jobs should move.
I think you're an H1-B Visa loving CEO of a midwest company looking to reduce your payroll expenses, because you've just invited a whole bunch of tech people to flood the midwest. If that were to happen, midwest tech wages would plummet.
If you're really who you claim to be in this posting, then you are actively sabotaging your ability to have a work/life balance.
Are they still working hard or were they just kissing ass?
My simple advice... whatever you choose to do... work hard in your early years and save lots of money so that later in life you have options. Life is all about choices and options.
My work-life balance was to work 70 hours a week for fourteenteen years then retire. YMMV. Work is for suckers.
I work for a company with about 250 employees, and it is rare that I work more than 45 hours a week. Our managers will tell people, "Go home, you've worked enough today," and when you go on vacation, "Don't check your mail or anything, you're on vacation, the rest of us are here and can handle any emergencies while you're gone."
My company has a TON of problems: Product owners make promises to clients we can't keep, our release process changes from product to product, logging is inadequate at best, requirements are often vague, and we have to deal with way too many terrible contractors from India, but unless there is a major emergency at least you won't be overworked.
Love sees no species.
It's communism! (Common foreground colour, common background colour, get it?)
should have a level 2 or 3 support to handle he common cases...I guess those guys work/life balance is fucked. Sorry.
Posting as AC. Work in one of those job roles. We get comped with vacation time proportional to the amount we work on weekends + extra pay. Even if nothing comes in we still get comped partially for the inconvenience of being on call. Still not a true win as the company should pay for extra staffing on weekends - but also not a total loss.
Net result: I usually end up with 1-2 extra weeks vacation per year.
Quote from TFA
If we can make sure projects are planned and time is allocated for the right tasks, we can really improve balance.
Good joke!
It is really easy to solve this problem. Hire more tech workers.
I use to work for a large auto insurance company. I was a level 4 Lead Systems Analyst. I won't say more than this one example where we had to sit at our desks at designated times and do a routine procedure within 15 minutes. No mistakes. No excuses. Any errors and you were going to hear the shit hit the fan. Don't get sick. No excuse. Don't have an emergency. There were no excuses. It was a bit humiliating at my level to be doing that work but since the pay was the best in town (everything else was outsourced) I stuck with it. No, it has been outsourced as well.
Life is GREAT now that I'm out of there.
I have worked in more than 5 companies over a few decades, and everywhere I can see the same nonsense. The day and night employees are the little gods created by the management to exploit the workers without proper compensation. In most private companies, especially in countries where the labour laws or their enforcement is lax, such manipulations are rampant. I also have to admit that I was one such a little god in the past and I regret it to my bone now. I dont know how many I screwed up!
It all starts with a fairy tale of success in other companies (Microsoft) or countries (Japan) where working hard is worshipped. Once the management expresses their favourings in one way or another few good for nothing !@@# heads jumps in to become the favourites without thinking of the cost to be paid by others. The management help them as much as possible ( in the pretext of helping the best working employee) to make sure that they are the stars in the team. Eventually with the support from management and the shit load of time on the job, they get farther than others. Eventually this guy gets promoted and anybody others who want the promotions, sacrifice like he did! Slowly and steadily the management makes this guy's efficiency as the norm in the team and everyone else has to toil away forgetting their family or personal life even to be in the team.
My vote also goes to discourage such guys from the beginning itself before it all goes south.
Nawh. He knows they won't move here, the salaries aren't as high as on the coasts. People on the coasts just look at the number, not the overall cost of living.
the only way to get ahead is to kill yourself. That's cause nobody trains, and if you want a new, better paying job you have to either get another degree (good luck while your working a full time job, in real life (tm) nobody does that unless their ftj is a cake walk) or get hands on experience. Nobody will hire to train or even to polish. They can just go crying to congress for more fully trained H1-Bs... So you work two jobs hoping to get the next one and hoping the raise you get makes up for the 20 years without raises that weren't eaten up by inflation.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That's not correct. The top story has white text on a green background for me, and the obvious farther down ads have light red text on a red background.
As long as companies keep rewarding employees for working longer and harder, then there is no set of policies or procedures that can prevent this from happening. Doesn't matter if it's family care leave, or vacation time, or what have you.
And I'm not sure how we fix it. While engineers in particular seem to believe a certain amount of objective coding "productivity" is all they need to advance, that metric provides diminishing returns above a certain seniority level without being able to also engineer human relationships. Influence and pull around how decisions get made inevitably begin to eclipse coding productivity in importance. And the higher you go, the more you need to influence people who are not themselves technical, and for whom face-to-face presence and time-intense relationship building becomes paramount.
Thus, those who are physically present or available at all hours, and are most responsive, will always, always have a natural advantage over those who don't. They will end up having a larger perceived human-side impact and thus be recognized and promoted more, because perception is everything. And it doesn't matter how much you rah-rah family leave policies or vacation time -- all that does is prevent people from being fired for taking it. It doesn't address the real soft pressure that's causing this problem in the first place.
You did 24.5 years worth of work in 14 and probably did a million dollars in damage to your cardiovascular/nervous system in the process. You didn't cheat, you just prefer to get the unpleasant part done as quickly as possible. Enjoy your ridiculous healthcare costs as you age.
Managerial failures usually end up playing the confidence game with geeks hoping they can solve the worlds problems.
The net result is people get burnt out and the system the manager builds fails. Often to the financial detriment of the organization.
Then the bank comes in, and the contractors come in (who the bank loans money to and has investments in), and it's game over. Parasite installed.
Contractors are great but they aren't looking out for you, they are looking to line their pockets. They hire very intelligent people to make the sounds managers in other companies want to hear, and build systems that appear to work. And that's IF they are good, because you can really make a failure run well with enough capital and goofballs running around on overtime putting out fires. People expect constant, nagging issues to be there to ensure their jobs. For years.
Helpdesk's primary responsibility is user education, followed by breakfix.
Administrations primary responsibility is requirements gathering, understanding the business and how it applies to technology.
Engineering is automating all the work to nothing.
And Management is about establishing a cycle between these disciplines.
Good engineers, software or systems, are red herrings these days at any pay rate because the market is so awash in scams, failed organizations, and failed infrastructure. There's too much investment capital and everyone just hires people in foreign countries to make junk.
If I'm putting in extra hours salary or hourly, I expect it to result in my further education. If it does not, I refuse. There's always a few weekends a year or afterhours work that needs done, if you can prepare on company time great, if not. Fuck it.
NOOOO! NO NO NO NO NO NO. The MidWest is AWFUL. It's filled with rednecks, guns, churches, pickup trucks, and so many other horrible things. Much better if you stay on the coasts. MUCH BETTER. You can thank me later.
Office boys don't know much about hard work. When I was a young bloke I worked the fishing boats in Bass Straight (the notorious stretch of water that separates Tasmania from mainland Australia). Pay was ok if the weather allowed you to get three trips into two weeks, but working conditions were brutal, 70+ hours straight with a 30min break every 5hrs, it was not unusual to have visual and auditory hallucinations toward the end of the trip due to lack of sleep.
That was 1980-81, long before I got a decent education, I now work for as a "senior software engineer" for a Japanese multi-national, 40hr week, 3 out of 5 days working from home, lots of autonomy, six figure pay pack, and a great deal of institutional respect for old farts with decades of experience.
Even if I wanted to go back to fishing boats my aged body would be unable to handle the conditions.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You have a good title, but the Junior Guys are continents away. so you get the menial, mind numbing tasks. Frustrated co-workers depart, and are replaced far far away... no.. that not attrition - am am comforted by my manager. Standards get changed every 2 months, and you do your best to stay compliane... but .. the task is given to a third party without those compliance / restrictions.
Training is on hold.. while the prospects of OJT is the only alternative.
Sales force focus selling disruptive technologies to Suits who expect things to go swimmingly when the glossy brochured, slick-sold half-baked products are setup by third parties with no responsibilites 6 seconds after the contract is over.
Ratio of worker bees to execs inverts and the inefficiencies that trickle down make real progress even less likely.
Add more ...
Nawh. He knows they won't move here, the salaries aren't as high as on the coasts. People on the coasts just look at the number, not the overall cost of living.
Does your software license cost less in Nowhere Idaho? How about your car, health insurance and kids college tuition? No? The F250 isn't sold for 75%off in Kansas vs Houston? So what is cheaper? Land, and... what exactly?
Sure, your housing may be cheap, but... you're not in an interesting city - which is fine if you don't like a city lifestyle, but otherwise its not a plus and you've already lost on every other material factor mentioned.
Granted, Houston's not an interesting city, but I'm not there either :D
Little boxes made of ticky-tacky.
(Yes, it's actually relevant. Google it.)
The most common type of colour-blindness happens to be the inability to comprehend red on white. And it's surprisingly common.
You'd have to be a complete moron not to override colour schemes locally when you have such limitations in you, but still.
It's all around push. Between my own goals, the goals of my startup, and the needs of our users, there is no way to slow down.
I prefer working and looking behind at my trail of achievements over raising another whiny brat (or fleet of them as is some of your cases).
You can attempt to shame me and my desire for getting things done, but in my eyes, you all are slow, dull, and not driven.
Do some math. Too many people and too many problems to solve. Maybe in a few generations, we can all look to slowing down, but for now, everyone needs to stop whining and get on-board; we have problems to solve, mouths to feed, and lives to enrich.
This is basically my experience, but after my fortune 500 experience the two consulting companies were 150+ (one was smaller when I started). 40 hours a week or more was expected - at least 80% billable -- but that was countered by higher pay, more WFH flexibility, and more widespread responsibilities.
Yes! There are no jobs too! And the women are vapid and slur like truckers. In fact they probably are truckers. The food is terrible. Everything smells like cows and there is nothing to do except listen to country music in our trucks out in the field after work. .>
You are so much better off and all the smart people are on the coast. Why would anyone but a complete idiot want to live anywhere else?
Yes. Stay on the coast.
Far away from here.
My context is widely different from a US-living IT worker: I live in Finland and am a post-doc researcher in a field related to chemistry. I work very close to exactly 40 hours/week, even though sometimes I could get away with less. It's just that I really enjoy what I do. But even so, I never let myself work more than 40 hrs/week because family.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Nawh. He knows they won't move here, the salaries aren't as high as on the coasts. People on the coasts just look at the number, not the overall cost of living.
Does your software license cost less in Nowhere Idaho? How about your car, health insurance and kids college tuition? No? The F250 isn't sold for 75%off in Kansas vs Houston? So what is cheaper? Land, and... what exactly?
Sure, your housing may be cheap, but... you're not in an interesting city - which is fine if you don't like a city lifestyle, but otherwise its not a plus and you've already lost on every other material factor mentioned.
Granted, Houston's not an interesting city, but I'm not there either :D
Land, rent, property taxes, many types of consumer goods, vehicles (lot easier to run a clunker with no emission laws), insurance are all cheaper.
I think you are underestimating the difference in property and rent. Around here, even the difference between college town and middle of nowhere is 900 - 1500 a month. That's a whole stinking mortgage out in the boonies, and then some. Where I live now in NYC would cost 3500 to 5000 per month to rent. I pay 870. Even if you assume cost of car vs walking in that, it's still outrageous to be in NYC.
If you're really who you claim to be in this posting, then you are actively sabotaging your ability to have a work/life balance.
It's kind of sad that you believe everyone is so viciously self-interested as you make out. Most people actually aren't and will happily do things for the greater good even if the eventual outcome is worse for themselves.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If what you're working on is not worth you dying for it, it's not really worth working on.
Sleep deprivation in a job ? Are you a Nork propaganda operative trying to badmouth capitalism or something ?
Well, I guess it is the truth. But why did you do this ???
Techies have great work life balance. They just won't get the job. So they have plenty of time to spend with their family. But no money to do so.
Sumpin's wrong with your setup then. For me, a brand new story is white text on a dark red border, after that, it's white on green, and black story text.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I have just the opposite experience. I moved from the Midwest to the cost (Seattle). The famous 'work ethic' of the midwest means that to get ahead I regularly worked 70+ hours per week. Sure, I got ahead, was paid REALLY well - but it cost me my first marriage and most of the friends of my youth. The good old boys club and women glass ceiling are very much alive and well in the Midwest. I have had several IT jobs from public, private, manufacturing, consulting, and even took public company private.... At the end of the day the truth is that if your name isn't over the door, you are a disposable commodity. You're a tool to be used for ownership profit. At one company literally, the CEO would say, 'well, that's nice, but what have you done for me today?'.
Most of those problems are not your fault. Having you go home early is to make sure you don't get stressed out due to poor efforts of others.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
let's do the math...
100% of the normal salary at 40 hours... that means you get paid 100/40 = 2.5% of that normal salary per hour
compared to 110% of that normal salary but at 50 hours... that means you get paid 110/50=2.2% of that normal salary per hour
compared to 120% of that normal salary but at 50 hours... that means you get paid 120/50=2.4% of that normal salary per hour
you're not getting paid less (per hour) at the small company, you're getting paid more
which means that the only way working 50-60 hours at the big company is a rational choice
is IF the 100% salary we're comparing to is not enough to make ends meet
At one company literally, the CEO would say, 'well, that's nice, but what have you done for me today?'.
http://www.businesscat.happyjar.com/comic/job-description/
So what is cheaper? Land, and... what exactly?
We don't need to go any further. The cost of your home is dependent on the price of the land. The cost of everything you purchase locally is dependent to some degree on the price of the land, including most of the things you mentioned.
a city lifestyle
One pays quite the premium for that lifestyle.
I earned 19 hours of PTO after working one year. They subtract PTO when I visit the doctor, but do not add PTO when I work nights and weekends performing database updates or testing web updates. Also my cheapskate employer requires all "managers" (those who get paid salary) to work every other Saturday for 5 hours, without earning PTO, to the tune of ~120 hours a year worth of essentially free labor.
Midwestern IT jobs are in shambles -- there's not many of them, and employers feel no desire to pay a competitive wage.
These so-called millennials are really getting on my nerves. They need to sit down, shut up, and start performing.
IT Pros sometimes have to work weekends or after hours. It's what we do. But many of the younger generations bitch and moan if they have to work after 5PM. Or heaven forbid, they are on call and get a call on the weekend.
The "Look at me, I'm important" generation is going to implode on their own narcissism. The few who do have a good work ethic will have no problem rising to the top. Their lazy, selfie taking peers will continue to live in their parents' basement wondering why the world passed them by.
Cripes, I hope Millennials' kids learn from their parent's mistakes.
You missed one...bars, more bars, corner bars, main street bars, country road taverns, small town pubs.
Engineers however, are arrogant as fuck, and want to be at the top of the food chain, so a couple of them will willingly fuck over their work life balance. Then they'll get promoted for it (which is a problem with the company...but its hard to say no to someone who delivered twice as much for the same pay, even if he/she screwed over their life over it).
I suppose I resemble that remark, probably including the arrogance, though I don't care about being at the top of the food chain. I just like what I do, and really feel it's important and makes the world a better place, so I sometimes work extra hours to get stuff done. On the other hand, I sometimes work a bit less, and I usually feel no compunction about dropping what I'm doing for a while for family-related activities, or to go out for a hike in the summer or skiing in the winter.
I'm posting mainly to make the point that work/life balance isn't some fixed thing that is demarcated by a specific number of hours per week. It's not the case that if you work one minute more than 40 hours in a week you've "screwed" your life. It's about your total quality of life. If you enjoy what you do for work, a few extra hours may be personally rewarding, completely unrelated to what your company or peers want from you. On the other hand, everyone needs time away, and family time will likely have a greater impact on your short- and long-term happiness.
Balance is a dynamic thing.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I've worked in the Midwest all my life, working 40-hour weeks. Well, there was that testing gig where I worked long hours, but it wasn't as intense as software development and I was getting paid hourly, and really needed the money. I minded long hours a lot less when the meter was still running.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Knock yourself out, 40 hours is what most people are paid for so anything more than that is just reducing your hourly rate.
My work-life balance was to work 70 hours a week for fourteenteen years then retire. YMMV. Work is for suckers.
When I was younger I preferred to work as little as possible and enjoy myself as much as possible.
Working's much easier when you get a bit older and more settled, there is no longer the opportunity or desire to be partying four or five days a week.
Who wants to retire at forty with no memories or experience of anything much except working?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
These kind of expectation only work for employees who are in high demand. Even then there is 'tension' in larger companies because 'tech' workers cannot reasonably be provided 'too many perks' that others don't get. For instance amazon has warehouse people, banks have tellers, supermarkets much of the same, that is even mentioning janitors , security, administrative assistances. Are these people less worthy? Don't they also contribute? So why should the IT staff be treated differently? Do you really expect that low wage low skill jobs will be provided with any kind of work life balance when weighed against the goals of the organization and profit? How about esp. when a company is having a hard time making a profit?
Investigation a little history of why we have labor laws might help in giving some perspective on the whole issue.
Although the deeper problem of motivation and investment are institutional and require institutional changes. For instance , why are people 'employed' rather then being considered to own a share of the company they work for? Why don't there salaries automatically fluctuate as a function of the profit the company makes? Surely in modern times it is possible to have a better formula for calculating reasonable compensation based on work output and profit as a partnership rather then as a owner who possesses and an employee who has no investment in the company. That is not intended to take anything away from a capitals economy , but only suggest that there may be other corporate models that could be more highly productive then top down.
That's just how working on a fishing boat is. You work like mad around the clock in brutal conditions for 3 months. Then you take home enough pay that you don't really need to work the next 9 months.
I've been looking into it as an alternative to IT. I am tired of being presumed to be a sexist and a racist because of the gender I was assigned at birth and the color of my skin. I am tired of having skills I've honed over 20 years being trivialized in the media, and I am sick of the disrespect and disinterest. I am sick of being a "wizard" who works "magic." It's not fucking magic. It's logic.
When I used to flip burgers, I got along with my co-workers fine and we respected each other well. These days it's either "you're so smart! I just don't get these computers" or "Why haven't you done this yet?! Are you illiterate?! What you needed to do is right here five forwards away from my change request!" I might just go back to flipping burgers, but I want something that pays a bit better. I look back on those burger flipping days, and I always think about how I didn't appreciate what I had. Being on my feet 9+ hours, running a grill with 20+ burgers from raw to almost done on my side and also keeping an eye on 2 chicken fryers, a chicken grill, a 4 fry baskets, I didn't need to do crap like dieting to control my weight. Hell, the guy running the other side of the grill didn't speak a word of English and I not a word of Spanish and in spite of that we were the only team the manager really trusted to get the place through the lunch rush. I was part of the team.
Now that I'm in IT, I'm just a sexist racist. I'm an asshole who makes everything "too technical" by pointing out where some request is self-contradictory and proposing an alternative that makes logical sense. I get blamed for bugs in closed-source software I had so say in purchasing that the vendor refuses to fix. I'm sick of it. I'm sure a fishing boat involves the same multitasking and is far more strenuous. I'm not sure commercial fishing is for me, but I think I'd like to try it at least once.
I hear there are even more women on fishing boats than women in IT. From what I've read, those women are just as capable as the men. That works for me.
Until geeks are ready to start acting like the professionals they claim to be and form a professional association like lawyers and doctors, you are always going to be under constant assault. Your skills will always be trivialized, and the SJWs won't stop until most of you have come under fire from an internet lynch mob. It's not even about the pay.
In the US, back in the old days, folks who worked on-call got a fixed amount for that time - I think 10% was common - and the on-call hours were fixed, and you were off call the rest of the time.
Oh, sorry, that was when unions were strong, and about 25% of the working population were in them.
But we're techies, we don't need unions, we *love* being on call 24x7x365.25 from work, and love dropping whatever we're doing to respond, and not getting anything more for all of this, and not having any off-time. We *adore* the egoboo of being told "whatever it takes", and gladden the hearts of management that we're such suckers, we live to work for their profits, rather than working to live for ourselves.
No, no, we don't need unions.
mark "there are two kinds of Republicans and
libertarians: millionaires, and suckers"
Uhh... I'll take retirement at forty. What, do they lock up retired persons and throw away the key where you live?
What about the strip clubs that let you get away with anything and the bourbon and the bbq?
Wait ... there are midwestern IT jobs ?? I dearly wanted to relocate to Indiana, but on monster it was the difference between 15 or so options in Indianapolis vs. 200 - 300 in RTP.
Not at all - it makes perfectly rational sense if the marginal benefit of an extra few dollars is greater than the marginal benefit of an extra hour of free time.
For example, if I'm saving for a deposit on a mortgaged house purchase then an extra 15% on my salary might be great even if it comes with a 25% increase in my working hours.
The plus side to a flat (or reasonably flat) salary is that your paycheck doesn't go down if the company is having a bad . The trade off for having a steady paycheck is that it's doesn't go up if the company is having a good .
Whichever way a company does it, you can always try to negotiate being paid the other way.
* bad unit_time
* good unit_time
The forum software ate them for some reason.
Have you tried not sending email after hours? What about blocking off time in you calendar, so you can do your work? Do you avoid working on the weekends?
Unless you change your habits, don't expect things to do better. Your move, please.
If you don't like what is going on, join the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers. It is not local to Washington, but rather it was born in Washington when Microsoft hired everybody as a consultant to take advantage of them.
And with all of our tech abilities, imagine we joined and helped this organization grow and protect our rights.
H1B's NEED APPLY, we are all one in this and the union was talking about how to attract even H1B's to join in.
http://washtech.org/
Fuck /. and ANY website that thinks intrusive-advertising is ok. Evolve your business model, stop being greedy or fuck off and die says this free-market consumer. If you can't survive when your advertisement lights go out then go cry a river, somewhere else.
Having to have most of one's food shipped in would be a real drag.
In 5+ years I've never experienced anything like this. Maybe you need to look at yourself and your position and figure out where the real problem is.
.... but do not often act upon it. They may honestly encourage to have folks not work long nights and weekends, giving employees a stern talk that do anyway. But next planning meeting the backlog to be tackled for upcoming release makes it quite evident that with the resources available the work cannot be done in the time available. And then add the 80/20 program to it where 20% of the time is intended to be used for being creative and innovative. That leads to employees being stressed, frustrated, angry and unmotivated dragging down productivity. The work will take the time it needs. If management wants to get stuff done quicker then make decisions faster and give employees better tools. It does not even need more people.
There is a programmers Union, it is called the Washington Tech Alliance - http://washtech.org/ - they lobby for things in our favor. And if you think unions are "bad", just wait until you see what your employer lobbies for...
just saying, I learned a long time ago, that if they aren't willing to give you a fair workday, they are also not willing to offer you fair wages. Go to Robert Half Technology and download their IT Professional Salary Guide, you will be beyond amazed at what salaries programmers make, and if you aren't making that money, it is time to go somewhere else.