Ruby on Rails Creator Supports After-Work Email Bans (signalvnoise.com)

An anonymous reader writes: David Heinemeier Hansson, the creator of Ruby on Rails, is applauding talk of an after-work e-mail ban, writing that "the ever-expanding expectations for when someone is available have gotten out of hand... Work emails are ticking in at all sorts of odd hours and plenty of businesses are dysfunctional enough to believe they have a right to have those answered, whatever the hour. That's unhealthy, possibly even exploitative... Same goes for forcing everyone to work in an open office. The research is mounting on all the ills that come from persistent noise and interruptions from that arrangement."

While acknowledging that his firm's project management tool Basecamp has a "perfect storm" of features that can send emails and texts after hours, Hansson points out that at least version 3 (released in 2015) shipped with a scheduling feature that will hold notifications during weekends and other specified off-work periods. "What we need before we can even dream of having something like the French response is a change in attitudes. Less celebration of workaholism, more #WorkCanWait. More recognition that stress from unrealistic and unhealthy expectations and work habits is actually a real hazard to health and sanity."

Comments

Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.

What is reasonable? Well, if it's an emergency of some sort, I call or text them, depending on the immediacy. (Emergency being defined as anywhere from "someone's sick, can you cover a shift?" to "something's on fire".)

Anything below emergency I typically email and expect to be done when convenient - typically the next work day. If the employee checks their email after hours or on weekends, it's up to them if they want to take care of it right then (if it's something they can do from home), but I never expect it.

We have business hours for a reason. As far as I'm concerned, if it's not something I'd do while outside work, why would I expect that from my employees?

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

it's up to them if they want to take care of it right then

Tomorrow is fine. No pressure. Hopefully Tom down the hall doesn't get to it first - I have to make the decision on that promotion tonight.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is if it becomes an expectation, by allowing employees to do it it sets off a competition between them, which is good for the employer, but bad for the employee who doesn't work extra hours. Someone will say its employees choice, but unless they are getting paid more for it, they could work the extra hours at their own business or another one and actually benefit from working more. So no, unpaid extra labour, even for salaried employee is not acceptable, it is bad for the employee, not the ideal situation for the economy, or worker happiness, and is a race to the bottom.

Emergencies are the exception Ofc.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

exactly - that typical talking out of both sides of their mouth. End of year review comes around - you did great, Tom did better - he kept answering and solving all those non-emergencies all weekend long. You only did it 47 weekends out of the year....

"Family first"....

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[JoeMerchant]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to make after hours work available to employees, if they're inclined to deal with it... as long as there is an acknowledgement of the after hours work and some compensation - if not overtime pay, then comp time during core hours.

To me core hours are those times when your professional colleagues should expect you to be available, responsive to questions. If you're doing significant after-hours work, then there should be significant on-call time during core hours when you're readily available, but not specifically working for the company to compensate.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

The problem is if it becomes an expectation, by allowing employees to do it it sets off a competition between them, which is good for the employer, but bad for the employee who doesn't work extra hours.

That depends on your point of view, I guess. Personally, I think businesses are better served by their employees thinking of themselves as a team rather than competitors. Competition breeds resentment, and an unwillingness to help others at the expense of yourself. I think employees who help each other with tasks, thus making up for each others weak points, makes the business stronger than the dog-eat-dog everyone for themselves mentality.

It also makes for a happier work environment, and happy employees are more productive employees (and less likely to become ex-employees when they find a slightly-better job opportunity).

Someone will say its employees choice, but unless they are getting paid more for it, they could work the extra hours at their own business or another one and actually benefit from working more. So no, unpaid extra labour, even for salaried employee is not acceptable, it is bad for the employee, not the ideal situation for the economy, or worker happiness, and is a race to the bottom.

Yes and no. I agree if it's something that will take any considerable amount time outside of work and take away from leisure time. If it's just a simple "forward this question to the correct parties" sort of thing, it'd probably take more mental effort to remember to do it the next day than to just do it now, and can lead to less-stressful work times the next day when the involved parties have already sent them back answers when they get in. And, as I said before, I don't expect people to be checking work email outside of regular hours, anyway - if they feel like getting a bit of a head start on a few emails so their next day is less hectic and stressful, that's not a bad thing. For me, it all comes down to stress management - if 15 minutes of "free" work leads to less stress overall, I'll do it every time. If not, I won't. Everyone's different, and I expect them to do what's best for them in situations like this.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

it's up to them if they want to take care of it right then

Tomorrow is fine. No pressure. Hopefully Tom down the hall doesn't get to it first - I have to make the decision on that promotion tonight.

If you're projecting that attitude to employees, than you're moving into the oppressive "not required but actually required" mentality, where nothing optional is really optional.

Any job like that is one that you don't need. It's all stress, little reward, and no loyalty. Quit and go somewhere better.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[silas_moeckel]

As a business owner my people do get calls etc etc outside of their normal work days. If they are on salary they take a comp day. If they are hourly I pay them 4 hours overtime (assuming the emergency takes less than 4 hours). This is not hard people.

In this the salaried guys get screwed a bit since on a work day they get nothing but they also get the benefits of salary, need to rush out to pick up sick kid at school, doctors appointments, hours are your own etc etc.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[pedz]

Emergencies are the exception Ofc.

The place I work, management is by crises only -- everything is an emergency. Dilbert cartoons only scratch the surface at the depth of insanity, inefficiency, and inhumanity.

But, of course, if ANY laws are enacted in the US, they will only step up their move to India, China, and now Vietnam. Thanks Obama.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but it is just wrong to expect employees to be available outside of scheduled work hours! My time off of work is MY time, and an employer has no right to expect me to use any of that time for their benefit! I have been taken to task because I wouldn't cover someone else's shift on my day(s) off. I replied that I make plans with family and friends on my days off, and (mostly) I refuse to change those plans. My time outside of scheduled work hours is MINE! Many employers have for many years expected an employee's job to be their entire life. Sorry, my job is not the only thing in my life, and employers have no right to expect me to work non-scheduled hours, especially if I am not paid! Even if I am paid, I have the right to refuse, and also the right to be informed of schedule changes during regular work hours.

One more thing, far too many employers these days consider employees to be an easily replaceable commodity, one which is owed nothing in the way of consideration or loyalty of any kind!

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[houghi]

As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.

This seems nice, but it isn't. You can ask people to come in when there is an emergency, but you can not expect them to do so.

The only way to expect it is to put it in writing and compensate people extra for it when it happens.

I personally tell my staff I expect them to NOT read any emails from home. I have even mocked some for doing so. (Did you think you make a promotion faster by reading emails at home, or are you unable to do your job in the time I assigned to you at the office?) One said the latter and then we looked into how he could do it. Turned out somebody tried to let him do their work. (think White Castle)

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so like an unpaid 911 operator. You expect them to be on call for an emergency, but if an emergency doesn't come then no pay.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[BlackHawk-666]

And it's because of bosses like you that I don't give work my home email, nor would I EVER check work emails from home. I don't get paid to do that. I wouldn't allow a boss to call me after work hours unless I was specifically contracted to provide after hours service and to be on call. If I'm on call, you're paying me for that service for every hour I'm on call. I promise not to masturbate at work during work hours, if you promise not to call me with business shit during my rest hours.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

Sorry, but it is just wrong to expect employees to be available outside of scheduled work hours! My time off of work is MY time, and an employer has no right to expect me to use any of that time for their benefit!

...and here we have the flip side to selfishly unreasonable attitudes of bosses.

I have been taken to task because I wouldn't cover someone else's shift on my day(s) off. I replied that I make plans with family and friends on my days off, and (mostly) I refuse to change those plans.

If you've got plans and can't cover, then that's your prerogative. Perhaps what you've been "taken to task" for is your attitude, though? They way you've stated it here sounds like you're being overly confrontational when a simple, "sorry, I have plans" would have sufficed.

It sounds like it's definitely possible you're that asshole who always expects other people to cover for them, while resenting anyone expecting the same in return. When someone is sick, there's almost never anyone who is happy to come in on their day off, but people do it to help out the other employees. If nobody does, the business is short-staffed for the day, and those who are there are the ones who are the worse for it. Covering shifts is not done so much for the benefit of the business as it is done for the benefit of your co-workers.

My time outside of scheduled work hours is MINE! Many employers have for many years expected an employee's job to be their entire life. Sorry, my job is not the only thing in my life

It sounds like you've had bad experiences with employers. It sounds like you need to find better places to work.
(Unless, of course, your bad attitude is leading you to believe everywhere is oppressing you, in which case what you need to change is yourself.)

Even if I am paid, I have the right to refuse, and also the right to be informed of schedule changes during regular work hours.

Which is not always possible. Unplanned issues and emergencies come up, and reasonably accommodating those situations should be expected.

One more thing, far too many employers these days consider employees to be an easily replaceable commodity, one which is owed nothing in the way of consideration or loyalty of any kind!

On the flip side, far too many employees think their employers are owed no consideration or loyalty of any kind. This lack of trust and resentment comes from both directions, and is a serious problem whichever direction it comes from.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.

This seems nice, but it isn't. You can ask people to come in when there is an emergency, but you can not expect them to do so.

Which, if you'd read my entire post, is pretty much what I said. I even explicitly stated such: "We have business hours for a reason."

Reasonableness is the point of my post - and everyone has different ideas of what is reasonable to them.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

And it's because of bosses like you that I don't give work my home email, nor would I EVER check work emails from home. I don't get paid to do that.

Since I said I never expect the email to be checked or responded to until the next work day, I'm not sure what your issue here is?

I wouldn't allow a boss to call me after work hours unless I was specifically contracted to provide after hours service and to be on call. [...] I promise not to masturbate at work during work hours, if you promise not to call me with business shit during my rest hours.

You "wouldn't allow" a boss to call you if an emergency came up? You equate being asked to cover someone's shift (a option you can accept or refuse as you wish) to be equivalent to masturbating at work?

I hate to tell you this, but you've got the exact shitty attitude of employees that mirror the attitudes of shitty bosses. You're completely self-centered and care only about yourself, and couldn't give a fuck about anyone else. Whether in a boss or a low-level employee, that attitude is precisely what makes a bad workplace.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

Oh, so like an unpaid 911 operator. You expect them to be on call for an emergency, but if an emergency doesn't come then no pay.

That ... is a bizarre interpretation of what I posted.
It also shows that you have no concept of what "emergency" meant in my post, or what "on call" means in a business setting. Or, frankly, how jobs and getting paid work.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[tomhath]

If your employees are threatened like that they won't be your employees for long.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[TheGratefulNet]

You're completely self-centered and care only about yourself, and couldn't give a fuck about anyone else

classic case of pot calling kettle black.

in today's corp world, this perfectly defines how a COMPANY acts. they are spoiled little fucking brats who have too much of a labor pool to pick from and think the world revolves around THEM.

I find it precious that you try to turn it around. in the history of the modern age, life has NEVER been as good for companies as it is right now. they have everything on a golden platter and they lord it over us, pretty much constantly.

I have no idea what your work life is like. maybe you are rich and you are a business owner. I suspect you are or you are of the R persuasion who thinks that all roads lead to 'business should have all the say'.

or maybe you're a republican shill trying to shift the argument in your party's direction.

but its clear as crystal; this is the golden era for corportism and if a company wants something, THEY GET IT. they get laws passed as created by their PACs and the economy is so bad that no one dares talk back to the employer.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[houstonbofh]

This ( and the responses ) are a perfect example of the lack of communication going on over this issue. "The Boss" said one thing, and "the employees" heard another. It looks like bosses need to be a lot more clear in what the expectations are. And how compensation will work for specifically defined "emergencies." Or, people get upset over potential abuses, because some bosses will abuse them.

FYI: My personal practice is that my response depends on the medium. If you e-mail or text me, I will get back to you at my convenience. If you need me right now, you need to call (or something else directly interactive) and know that I have answered.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Typical Liberal attitude.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Tesen]

Exactly! I left a job where that happen. (Names replaced to protect the guilty):

Boss: Fred, our search engines are showing high CPU load. Can you look?

Fred: I am at the park with my kid at the moment.

Boss: Can you head home?

Fred: Is Pete available (Pete golden boy).

Boss: Pete is grilling with his kids.

Fred: But Pete is home?

Boss: Pete is busy.

Fred: I am 20 minutes away from nearest computer to remote in with and if Pete is home...

Boss: Pete has family from out of town, you are just at the park...

Fred: sigh.

Boss (calls): So what did you find?

Fred: CPU pressure resolved by itself.

Boss: Can you review the logs?

Fred: Logs are copying to analysis box, it is going to take several hours, since they have not been rolled in a while.

Boss: Okay, call me when you have them reviewed.

Fred: Uhhh, that'll be tomorrow morning when I am in the office.

Boss: I expect your report first thing.

Fred: .... f you.

Yes, that happened. I got a lecture the next morning that I did not have the analysis done.

I left a year later; after being called while out camping... no issued work laptop, I had my personal with me, no real data reception. They expected me to drive 5 hours to get back to the office. I ended up putting my work contacts on auto-block when out with the family. I encouraged a support rotation, where people would be scheduled once every six weeks to be on support, but nope, they did not want to do that.

I found out after I left they did not want to do a support rotation, because Pete three months of the year had every weekend commitments away from home... yet, me wanting to head out camping with my family was to much. Yes, the commitments Pete had with religious in nature... mine was just you know, raising my family.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

You're completely self-centered and care only about yourself, and couldn't give a fuck about anyone else

classic case of pot calling kettle black.

Howso? I said, "be reasonable". The post I responded to pushed an unreasonably one-sided view, to the point where they equated being called outside of work for any reason with being allowed to masturbate at work.

in today's corp world, this perfectly defines how a COMPANY acts. they are spoiled little fucking brats who have too much of a labor pool to pick from and think the world revolves around THEM.

Often, yes. It's one of the reasons I started my own company - to avoid working for one like that.

I find it precious that you try to turn it around. in the history of the modern age, life has NEVER been as good for companies as it is right now.

I find it naive that you don't think bad employees exist. And life is not better for companies than ever. It's actually pretty awful for anything that isn't a MegaCorp.

I have no idea what your work life is like. maybe you are rich and you are a business owner. I suspect you are or you are of the R persuasion who thinks that all roads lead to 'business should have all the say'. or maybe you're a republican shill trying to shift the argument in your party's direction.

Pretty much off-base on everything except the "business owner" (I'm left of Democrat, pro-small business with some socialist leanings, and believe big businesses need to be stopped from bending politics to their whims).

Back to the underlying topic at hand: The thing I've come to realize being a business owner is that regardless of whether people are bosses or underlings, their underlying personalities will drive their interactions at work. Shitty bosses and shitty employees are both horrible to work with, have no cares about the welfare of their coworkers, and selfishly believe everything is about them. Good bosses and good employees are those who will spend reasonable efforts to make everyone else's lives easier in the hopes that goodwill will come back to them (or at least a happier work environment overall will make work less of a chore).

Back to the main topic at hand: Reasonableness. For me, being reasonable at work is treating everything as a two-way street. The expectations management have of employees should be equal to the expectations the employees have of management. A flexible attitude from management should have an equally flexible attitude from employees. If management is hard-assed about the rules, then I'd expect most employees to game the system back. Bad employees and bad bosses alike don't follow that attitude, and take everything they can, while giving as little as possible.

Tying this back to the main story, and giving an idea of where my sense of reasonableness lies, I'll leave you with an example of how I deal with the emails after work hours: If I email something to them outside of work hours, I figure they'll get to it when they have time. I don't expect that to be before the next time they work, but if it is, that's fine too. But then, I don't have a problem when my employees surf the internet or play games on their phones while things are slow and they need a little break. If they answered an email or two after hours instead of during the work day they're more likely to have that slow time to unwind a bit during the day. I find that to be a reasonable trade-off, and they do, too.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think someone will get promoted simply because they answer e-mails after hours, please... I'm single and I use to put in an extra 2-4hrs of work every day, in addition to still answering e-mails once I got home. I did this for 2 years. There was only 8 people on that team so it's not like my actions didn't stand out. Trust me, my employer couldn't of cared less and probably felt like I somehow 'owed him'. Now? Let's just say, without going into details, the tables have turned. I'm not the only one who felt undervalued and other people also started to 'take it easy'. Now they're offering all kinds of different incentives but as far as I'm concerned , that shit has sailed. My efforts. love and dedication for my job were ignored for the longest time so now I just do the bare minimum to get paid.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Covering shifts is not done so much for the benefit of the business as it is done for the benefit of your co-workers.

Bullshit. Sure, things can be more hectic for an employee if people can't come in, but if the business weren't harmed by not having the specified number of people there, I'm pretty sure you'd find out that having 4 people instead of 5 there is suddenly "correct staffing levels" instead of being "short-staffed".

Being afraid of making things worse for your coworkers is the dirties trap a badly-run business can try to get you to fall into. It isn't your job to manage your peers' happiness, it is the business's. I don't think never coming in to cover shifts is the right answer, but trying to trick people into thinking things that the business wants of them are actually for the good of their peers is a big honking red flag.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he's right. By expecting them to answer in an emergency, you're still putting an availability requirement on them. In sane countries, you can't require that without pay.

My boss knows my mobile number and my personal email address. She's welcome to email or text me if there's info I need for first thing the next working day, but unless arranged in advance, I'm not available even for emergencies.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[ultranova]

As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.

What is reasonable?

Do you pay them extra for being on alert? If not, then expecting anything is unreasonable.

Well, if it's an emergency of some sort, I call or text them, depending on the immediacy. (Emergency being defined as anywhere from "someone's sick, can you cover a shift?" to "something's on fire".)

In other words, you shift the cost of preparing for emergencies from your business to your employees, thus making a higher profit at their expense. And are apparently proud of yourself.

And people wonder why people are getting disillusioned with capitalism.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Solandri]

This is precisely the problem in today's world - people who assume the other guy is out to exploit them. The vast majority of companies are small businesses, and they account for roughly as many employees as the big corporations. We're small enough that we interact day-to-day with our employees. I see them as people, and hopefully they see me as a person too, not some faceless "corporation".

When people see each other as people, they tend to empathize with them. This is what makes society work. Sometimes situations crop up out of our control, and our empathy for each other is what drives us to help - take on some of their burden to make things easier for them even though it costs us. Maybe (true story) an employee's kid forgot to take his lunch, so she has to drive to school to drop it off and will be 20 minutes late for work. Or maybe (also a true story) we're trying to find the right key for a certain door after hours, and the employee's keychain has 100 keys so we figure it'll be easier if we just call him and ask instead of try every single key. People help each other. It's what we do. It's what a functional society does.

The first sign that society is breaking down is when people stop viewing each other as people. This dehumanization is what allows you to mentally justify treating another person in a way you'd never think of treating a human being face to face. Look at some of the propaganda that's generated during wars. A lot of it shows the enemy as faceless or a caricature. That's so you won't think of the enemy as a person anymore - they're dehumanized - and you'll be more willing to do all sorts of things to them that you normally wouldn't do to another person (like kill them).

This dehumanization happens on one side of the employment equation when management views employees as faceless drones. But it also happens on the other side - when you view managers and owners as a faceless corporation. They're not drones or a corporation. They're all people. We're all people. Don't fall for the political propaganda dehumanizing other people. Everything you've learned about stereotypes and discrimination is still in play. Just because some corporate owners and managers don't treat their employees like people, doesn't justify stereotyping all businesses owners as doing the same thing. That's discrimination based on class or occupation. They're still a person, they individually deserve the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise with their own behavior.

If you don't give them the benefit of the doubt and treat them as less than a person from the moment you meet them just because they're a business owner, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy. The small business owner who's been trying to treat his employees right, eventually gets tired of his employees not giving a f*** about him because to them he's "the man", and decides to reciprocate by not giving a f*** about his employees. You've created the very thing you're arguing against - an exploitative corporation. And the devolution of society into hostile parties who won't treat each other as human beings is complete.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

Covering shifts is not done so much for the benefit of the business as it is done for the benefit of your co-workers.

Bullshit. Sure, things can be more hectic for an employee if people can't come in, but if the business weren't harmed by not having the specified number of people there, I'm pretty sure you'd find out that having 4 people instead of 5 there is suddenly "correct staffing levels" instead of being "short-staffed".

Untrue. Staffing levels are typically made for expected peak business requirements, and sanity levels of employees.

Let's use fast food restaurants as an example: If they decide they need 15 people for a shift, then odds are they "only really need" 12-13. But then what happens when you have a day with 15-20% higher customer levels? The customer gets worse service than expected, leading to less repeat business, leading to worse long-term sales, which is why they schedule in the extra employees. Additionally, there are various types of prep work that are scheduled in for those employees to do each day that can be put off until later in situations of peak customer turnout. There's also the employee sanity levels to account for: At that 12-13 staff level, the employees are stretched thinner, their stress levels run higher, and they're more likely to make mistakes. If those mistakes cause extra work, this quickly compounds the issue. While this may be acceptable in the short run, it's a nightmare long-term as the employees hate their jobs, the work environment turns toxic, and it starts to effect customer service.

With this built-in staffing buffer, a short-staffed business's employees can deal with it for a few days before their stress levels get high enough to really affect their work. So yes, covering for a coworker is more for the coworkers' benefits than it is for the business's, as the problems short-staffing causes are felt by the employees immediately, but not by the business unless it lasts for a long enough time.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Solandri]

Yeah, this can be a real problem. At my previous job I was reviewing employee promotions with the company president, and she mentioned that she liked that a certain employee was willing to come in during off-hours to handle an emergency which cropped up. I had to gently remind her that as laudable as that was, it was during off-hours so shouldn't be a factor. The correlation between an employee's willingness to help out the company and his actions isn't as strong during off-hours as it is during work hours. Other employees may have been just as willing to come in as he did, but couldn't because they'd already made plans for that evening, and maybe the only reason it was this employee who came in was because he happened to be free and bored that evening. During work hours everyone is supposed to be there, so you have the same basis for comparison. During off-work hours, you may be comparing the willingness to come into work of someone attending their kid's play at school, to someone flipping through channels on his TV unable to find anything interesting to watch.

(And if you're curious, we gave an immediate cash bonus to anyone coming in to work during an emergency off-hours at roughly 2x their hourly rate - basically treated it as double overtime.)

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like Utah and Mormonism. Pete was one of the chosen, you were not. That's why.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

No, he's right. By expecting them to answer in an emergency, you're still putting an availability requirement on them. In sane countries, you can't require that without pay.

You're confusing "getting a call a few times a year to see if you're available to help with something" with "being on call". There's a difference - in the first case, which is what I was talking about, it was something unexpected coming up and you being called to see if you can help deal with it. It's the type of emergency where it's last minute and as such you're free to refuse. The second case is being "on call" where emergencies come up often enough, due to the size or nature of the business, that it's expected something will happen more often than not. You're being paid to be on call because you don't have the option to refuse dealing with it.

My boss knows my mobile number and my personal email address. She's welcome to email or text me if there's info I need for first thing the next working day, but unless arranged in advance, I'm not available even for emergencies.

You do understand that emergencies, by their very nature, are not "arranged in advance", right?

Basically, your entire attitude is that unless your boss pays you to be on call 24/7/365 you'll just tell her to fuck off if she calls you for anything? That's a pretty selfish attitude to have. If you had some kind of emergency, would your boss tell you to go to hell? If so, fair play, I guess.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[ScentCone]

You sound very insecure about your ability to communicate your value and talent to the person you want to be writing checks to you. If you're worried that someone with extra time on their hands or different priorities is going to make you look bad, then you need to ask yourself why you look bad in the first place. It's not about weekend email responses.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[ScentCone]

far too many employers these days consider employees to be an easily replaceable commodity

Let me guess. If you were given an offer for a better job, you'd have no problem leaving your current job to go take it - because who wouldn't want a better job, right? But you think that the person who currently writes you a paycheck shouldn't have the same flexibility that you reserve for yourself, right? Yeah, I see.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

We have a rota of people who are on call and they are paid well for the privilege. I do not take part in this rota, so am not to be called. I'm not penalised for this, other than not getting on-call money.

I don't understand the American attitude to work. Why should you expect something and yet not pay for it? If you expect me to deal with an emergency, even once per year, that means I am on call.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[ScentCone]

So why don't you just start your own company, and make sure that whatever the employees want, you just do it? If they want triple the pay and 6 months vacation every year, and a contract that says they can never be fired no matter what, that's what you'll give them, right? I'm sure you'll be very successful running that business. A business owner should NEVER have the same flexibility that you expect for yourself, right? Right. It's not fair if someone else gets what YOU want.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.

What is reasonable?

Do you pay them extra for being on alert? If not, then expecting anything is unreasonable.

I expect basic human decency from them. I guess in your mind I should be paying extra for that? You must be lovely to work with.

Well, if it's an emergency of some sort, I call or text them, depending on the immediacy. (Emergency being defined as anywhere from "someone's sick, can you cover a shift?" to "something's on fire".)

In other words, you shift the cost of preparing for emergencies from your business to your employees, thus making a higher profit at their expense.

In other words, you find asking someone if they want to pick up extra hours, and get paid for it, to deal with something unforeseen as me somehow making a higher profit off of them ... somehow? How's that work, exactly?

And are apparently proud of yourself.

Proud that I have a good enough relationship with my employees that I can call them up and ask them for help occasionally without them reacting like the self-important asshole you seem to be? Sure, I'll take that.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[AchilleTalon]

As a business owner, I don't believe I have any right to have any expectations after business hours, unless it was agreed upon on what is reasonable and what isn't and what compensation will be given if for any reason I am in the obligation to ask for something unreasonable. Why is that? Because the reverse also hold. If the employee is having personal matters that requires his/her immediate attention at the risk of not showing at work, these matters must also have been agreed upon, on what is reasonable and what isn't. If something is unreasonable, well, that's still possible if we agreed upon that before and decided on how the business will be compensated if such a thing happens. It's not only for the business, it is also for the other workers which may have to do extra work in absence of this employee.

There is many ways to work on this. You can set a pool of days per year an employee can pick in for personal reasons without urgency but requiring some kind of authorization and a pool of days per year you may ask an employee to work extra hours if he agrees to and/or provide extra compensation for these hours.

The key being everything must be in the compensation package for the employee with clear lines of conduct. An employee is not a shareholder, never forget that as a business owner. The only compensation an employee gets from the business is his/her compensation plan (salary, vacations, etc). If you expect the employee to behave like a shareholder, make him/her a shareholder.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[ultranova]

Sorry, but it is just wrong to expect employees to be available outside of scheduled work hours! My time off of work is MY time, and an employer has no right to expect me to use any of that time for their benefit!

...and here we have the flip side to selfishly unreasonable attitudes of bosses.

No, we don't. The flip side would be some jackass who leaves an hour early whenever he likes, or demands you pay more than you agreed. Someone simply sticking to the deal as written is neither selfish nor unreasonable, especially when they were the weaker party during its writing.

On the flip side, far too many employees think their employers are owed no consideration or loyalty of any kind. This lack of trust and resentment comes from both directions, and is a serious problem whichever direction it comes from.

In short, your human resources have learned to treat you as an income resource, so now it's suddenly a problem.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[jeremyp]

Yes, well your problem there is that you worked for a bunch of cunts.

No sane boss would pick the person who was 20 minutes from home over the one who was actually at home barbecuing to do the emergency work. If nothing else, it's an extra 20 minutes and that might mean the difference between "customer says we saved the day" and "customer just fired us".

Your bos was a fuckwit. Fortunately, most employers aren't that bad,

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

We have a rota of people who are on call and they are paid well for the privilege. I do not take part in this rota, so am not to be called. I'm not penalised for this, other than not getting on-call money.

You've got some misunderstanding over likelihood of actually being called, here. Places with someone on call expect to have to call someone often enough that they set up for that. Places without someone on call (like my business) typically have something happen only a few times a year at most.

Why should you expect something and yet not pay for it? If you expect me to deal with an emergency, even once per year, that means I am on call.

1) The only thing I expect is that you'll answer the phone and talk to me for a minute. After that it's up to you to decide if you can/will help out with the emergency. 2) I don't know why you think I'm implying you wouldn't get paid. 3) Being "on call" is something completely different, as that means helping when called is not optional.

I don't understand the American attitude to work.

Really, the way you have to look at what I'm talking about is this: Something unexpected came up (be it some actual emergency, or something more mundane like someone calling in sick). If you get called in this situation, you're being offered the option of picking up extra paid hours to help deal with it. It's your decision whether you take advantage of the extra available work or not.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd wear the magic underpants if it meant I special treatment at work!

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, you just wanted to rant there. You've got your own ideas and whatever, but let's just say that if you interviewed with me, I'd reject you. My employer gives me a ton of flexibility on when things get done. I return the favor by being flexible for them. It's give and take and we both try to be good to each other.

You seem to have a bad employer or something. Yeah, those suck. I've had those and in the end you have to fire them.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

How about your perspective as a liar, rather than a "business owner?"

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[supremebob]

"Emergency" as in the production web server is down, or "Emergency" like the boss needing a question answered ASAP on a Saturday afternoon because they have no social life?

I'm be willing to work OT to fix the former, but the latter can wait until Monday morning. Odds are they will find another ass kissing employee to answer the question by then, anyway.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

>As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.

You can either
1) Mention this in the contract, and arrange for pay with a reasonable markup.

What makes you think I didn't?

2) Go fuck yourself.

Lovely attitude.

You're the business owner, so you deal with emergencies, or plan for others (your employees) to handle them.

The plan is that if one comes up, whoever is best equipped to deal with it (often me) gets a phone call to see if they're available. If they're not, then it goes to the next person. Hence, "reasonably available".

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you expect me to never sleep, swim, surf, go diving, camping or any other phone free activity.

How much extra do you offer for being oncall for 6700 odd extra hours? Is it $0? It sounds like $0.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Oligonicella]

I expect my employees to [by] reasonably available, even after hours.

Unless you've stipulated this in your employer/ee contract and pay for the imposed time, you're not being reasonable.

Anything below emergency I typically email and expect to be done when convenient - typically the next work day.

Then send the email to their work mail address, otherwise you're just trying to get them to burn their own time to read it and then think about the solution.

We have business hours for a reason.

Which both actions mentioned indicate you try to get around.

As far as I'm concerned, if it's not something I'd do while outside work, why would I expect that from my employees?

Many business owners conflate how they view work related to the business they own to the work the employees do. They are not equivalent.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

In short, your human resources have learned to treat you as an income resource, so now it's suddenly a problem.

Nope. I get along with my employees just fine. If problems come up at work, they help deal with them. If they have problems come up (work or personal), I do what I can to fix or accommodate. I'm sorry you feel so jaded that you automatically assume the worst. I guess the difference is that I treat my employees like adults, and find that most of them act like it.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest, it still sounds like a problem with you. What's your business continuity plan look like, call up all your staff and hope someone picks up?

If your business has 24 hour operation such that you can have an out of hours emergency, you should have plans in place, and agreements with staff as to who you should call.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

Anything below emergency I typically email and expect to be done when convenient - typically the next work day.

Then send the email to their work mail address, otherwise you're just trying to get them to burn their own time to read it and then think about the solution.

I only ever use work email addresses. I find it odd that anyone would send work-related materials to a non-work address. Is this common elsewhere?

We have business hours for a reason.

Which both actions mentioned indicate you try to get around.

Your definition of "get around" is odd. Email sent to a work address that I don't care if they see until they work next is not "getting around" anything. Calling someone to cover someone else's shift is typically a same-day affair and cannot wait. And an emergency is also, by definition, time-sensitive, and you need to know immediately who is and is not available to help.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[AmiMoJo]

The only fair thing to do is either ban contact out of work hours or pay staff to be on call. It has to be explicit, it can't be an unwritten "expectation".

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if it's an emergency of some sort, I call or text them, depending on the immediacy.

And does the employee in question also consider it an "emergency"? If so, then fine. If not, then your emergency is not your employee's emergency. I had this arrangement with my current boss (and with my boss at the previous company), whereby if they thought that I would consider it an emergency, they could call me at any time. I never got a call, ever.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

So you expect me to never sleep, swim, surf, go diving, camping or any other phone free activity.

If you're not by your phone, you're not by your phone. WTF is wrong with you that you keep insisting on assumed unreasonableness? Do I have to make a post 15 pages long with all the reasons someone might not be able to answer their phone, or the times I'd consider calling, or what I'd call for? Or can you just go along with the spirit of what I've stated repeatedly about being reasonable?

Jesus, if you need this much babysitting to figure anything out, I'd bet you've never had a boss trust you enough to not have to spell everything out like this.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[The Rizz]

To be honest, it still sounds like a problem with you.

No, I'd say it's a problem with you making wild assumptions and assuming the worst of someone just because they're an employer instead an employee.

What's your business continuity plan look like, call up all your staff and hope someone picks up?

More or less. Nothing we do is going to be dire enough that the whole place falls apart if someone can't be reached. (Unless the whole place literally falls apart, but somehow I think that'd be more of a call to 911.) Worst case scenario we close down during normal business hours - not the end of the world. And yes, I trust whoever's in charge to make that decision.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think sucking dick downtown counts you as a "business owner."

On the other hand maybe you're unnaturally successful at it. Your personality is certainly on the right track.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Dcnjoe60]

As a business owner, I expect my employees to by reasonably available, even after hours.

Well the changes to the FLSA will take care of that for your non-exempt employees. If you want them to answer emails or phone calls or whatever outside of their normal 40 hour work week, you will need to pay them for it.

I'd suggest that before December 1st, you develop a company policy prohibiting non-exempt employees from checking emails or phone messages outside normal work hours. At least if you want to be in compliance with the FLSA. And if not, your attorney will be happy with the additional business he/she will be getting.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not going to cause an issue then don't harass them outside of business hours!

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that you're the one deciding what is reasonable, you're saying that you expect people to be available 24/7 in case in your subjective, something is an emergency. You honestly can't see why people are not willing to go down that path given how businesses act? Who would want to extend that level of trust on the off chance you're not trying to screw them over to save a few dollars?

I've missed several family celebrations recently on public holidays because I've been expected to fly out on those days (not emergencies). I thought, ok, I'll claim it as time in lieu. Nope, this was classed as "reasonable overtime". So, forgive us for being cynical.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is refreshing, most employers are much more exploitative. I just don't answer the phone or emails after hours.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[dave420]

Yes, you should be paying for it. You are their employer, and you are expecting them to do something on their own time. You are the one not being a decent human being - you are expecting to get their time for free. If their effort is worth something to your company, you should compensate them for it. If it's not worth something to your company, you shouldn't be asking them to do it.

Why do your employees have to exhibit basic human decency, but you don't have to?

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[antdude]

If they do work during their non-business hours, do they get OT? If not, then are they allowed to take time off to make up for it?

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[BlackHawk-666]

Since I said I never expect the email to be checked or responded to until the next work day, I'm not sure what your issue here is?

If there is no expectation of the email being attended to, then why are you posting it to the employee during outside of work hours. It's reasonable if you're working late or early and are taking care of your unattended business and posting it to the work email address. It's a whole other kettle of fish when you post it to my personal email at home. I don't check work emails from home, I never have and never will. Email by definition is work that can wait until it's attended to.

Work having the ability to just contact me at any time causes stress and devalues my free time. I've experienced it first hand from when I ran a business and customers thought it was fine to ring my home number at 9pm and ask for help. Thankfully, I found that billing them slowly stopped this from happening.

If I'm constantly on the clock, expected to take note of work emails and phone calls - or even if as you claim you just "hope" that I will - that places undue pressure on me. It's hard to relax, sink a few beers, whatever, if you're always wondering if that damn phone will ring and you need to try and sound sober and possibly drive somewhere...which you won't be able to do after only 2-3 beers.

Want to spend a romantic night out with your significant other? Sorry dear, I have to cancel plans, work has an emergency. No, it's not a real emergency, but the micro-managing panic stricken rule loving turd who manages me thinks it's important enough to cancel my plans for the evening.

You "wouldn't allow" a boss to call you if an emergency came up?

This is not an emergency. It never has been and it never will be. Call one of the other workers who are on-call for that shift. Maybe don't staff things so poorly that being a single person down is "an emergency". Besides, I don't do shift work - I am salaried, and like everyone else in my office it doesn't matter at all if we miss a few days here and there. Meetings can be rescheduled. Work will wait, deadlines should never be so tight that missing a single day is catastrophic.

You seem to be a passive-aggressive person who wants it both ways. You want to be casual and say "it's cool, just do it tomorrow" but then are still putting mental pressure on your workers to get it done in their own free time.

I have worked in IT for 30 years so I've seen my fair share of death marches, weekend work to practice deployments, after hours support for mission critical systems, etc. I watched one team spend six months on a death march that never seemed likely to end. They worked 6 days a week, 12+ hours each day and at the end still shipped a truly execrable product. Possibly because they were all so dog tired the whole time and couldn't think straight.

I protect both my team and my employer by not allowing such conditions to arise for my team members. I set realistic deadlines, tracked the project diligently and made sure they had their free time as uninterrupted as possible. We hit every deadline and shipped high quality products each time. Tired IT workers are crappy IT workers.

It's also about having agency in your own life. Work shouldn't be able to dictate all the terms of your life, both work and leisure. Do I need to leave my phone on during this play I'm watching in case work decides it needs me? Should I sit down and eat dinner first or am I meant to check the last emails from work first. Should I have already done that on the train / bus home like I see so many others do? Do I need to do that to compete, and if so, is that a competition I want to enter and have even a remote chance of winning?

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[BlackHawk-666]

Time to share a horror boss story.

A long time ago I worked for a small software company (4 employees). The sort of small heartfelt mom-pop sort of operation that is meant to be so great for the economy and the worker.

I had been working there about 6 months, most of that time was building a brand new multi-media system capable of playing back video off a laser disk and placing interactive text on the screen, taking user response and moving on based on that. I built it from scratch in c++ after learning the language especially for that reason (very early 90s).

We were approaching a deadline to ship the first edition of this software along with the training program it ran. There was no consultation on when the deadline should be, or project planning to even show if it was possible. It was an arbitrary date set by the customer, a man well known for requesting stupid release dates (I worked for him later). I had been putting in 10-12 hour days 6 days a week for a month or so and was tired having just got home from a 16 hour day as we were close to release date.

I had literally just sat down in my armchair and was about to eat dinner when the phone rang. It was the boss telling me he needed me back in work to finish the coding. I explained I'd already done 16 hours that day and was about to eat. He said if I didn't get back into work in an hour (it was 30 mins drive) then he "wasn't sure there would be a job there in the morning."

Threatening me is about the worst way to get me to co-operate, but I needed the money so I had little choice. I went back in after quickly wolfing down my dinner and got it that much closer to completion. To this day that code still has a comment along the lines of "// I am working for scrooge. It's Christmas eve and I've spent 16 hours at work already..."

Yeh...it was Christmas eve.

The story does have a happy ending for our hero though. the software shipped and I was allowed a couple of days off (my own time, I was paid by the hour >.) to recoup. When the person we were shipping the software to realised that my boss didn't actually do any of the work and he could be cut out of the loop - he offered me a chance to compete on the next contracts. I won those and that was the beginning of the next 8 years or so of me running a business for myself building multimedia software.

Obviously it would be unethical to use the same code, so I re-wrote it from scratch to work for Windows 3.1 and run off CDROMS. I employed 3-4 people for the next 8 years. I'm still friends with all those people to this day, because I provided them with a friendly, well managed and fun place to work and never called them late at night demanding they come in or be fired.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[BlackHawk-666]

More or less. Nothing we do is going to be dire enough that the whole place falls apart if someone can't be reached. (Unless the whole place literally falls apart, but somehow I think that'd be more of a call to 911.) Worst case scenario we close down during normal business hours - not the end of the world. And yes, I trust whoever's in charge to make that decision.

So even your "emergencies" aren't dire enough that not getting through to someone will cause a big issue. They're not even likely or dire enough for you to perform any form of contingency planning. It's on the scale of "I sure hope someone can deal with this now, if not, it's fine, it can wait till tomorrow." It really doesn't sound like anything you expect might go wrong is worth putting any of your own resources towards managing. If it's not worth it for you, why should you expect it to be worth it for your workers.

You know, I really don't mind if an employer calls me up a few times a year and asks something reasonable that is dealt with in a minute. For a good employer I will even walk over to my machine, remote in and try and sort it out if it's a really quick fix like rebooting a server. That's someone who I have already built up trust and rapport with - not just anyone, but an employer I have a good working relationship with.

If there is an expectation that perhaps 4+ times a year I will need to go into work, dropping whatever I am doing and deal with emergencies (it doesn't happen generally, I'm a developer) then I want it in the contract that I get TOIL or similar compensation for those hours. If not the written contract then a verbal agreement reached during the interview phase with the employer. I am always upfront about what expectations they can make on me, and what expectations I might have for them.

When 9/11 hit I was in Venice on holiday with my wife. I called the office immediately and discussed whether they needed me to fly back straight away to deal with any issues and fallout from it. Lucky it was fine for the next two days, so I didn't have to cut my holiday short, but I would have if it was needed because that was the very definition of an emergency (I worked in finance).

Don't place vague or poorly defined expectations on your employees and hope they will rise to the occasion. If you need people "on-call" then contract that with them, create a rota, make sure they know exactly which hours / days they are on-call for and compensate them for constant possible interruption to their lives.

You sound like you think you don't need that, and maybe you don't - I don't know what your business is. At least you sound will to compensate people for when they do answer the calls.

I still think that allowing people or even vaguely imply it's a a good thing to deal with emails outside of business hours is a poor idea. There is always going to be some fool who thinks that slapping in another couple of hours per day is the way to promotion and this causes stress and pressure on the rest of the staff. People will start to check emails at times when they should be focused on family, friends and relaxation. It makes no sense to cause this stress in your employees personal life. Healthy relaxed people work much better, especially when there is a true balance between work and home and definite cut-off periods.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[whoda]

I'm sure you have no problem conducting personal phone calls, texting, personal emailing and maybe some Amazon while on the clock THEIR though. Even though that is THEIR time and THEIR money at that point.

Re:Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree to both sides of this. If it's an emergency I understand the employer who calls you outside office hours, and I'd be less than impressed by whoever was a dick about it all the time. But, I also expect them to realize that this is something they can't take for granted (people do have the right to a life outside work) and also that you should strive to make this be the exception. They should also give you exceptional compensation when they do this, since it is an exceptional (or should be) thing to ask of someone. Apart from that, it will serve to keep the employee happy, and to avoid this to become routine.

You know how much more the hours between 7 pm and 9 pm on a Saturday are worth to me compared to 1 pm to 3 pm on a Wednesday? Not 1.5, that's for sure. Nor, a thanks, slap on the back, for being one of the team, and no other show of appreciation. I think having next Friday off, to have a long weekend as compensation for ruining the family dinner/movie night/the boys night out/whatever would be more reasonable. Or pay for a day if I spend two hours, or something.

If it happens a few times a year (I mean, emergencies every second week or so means something is seriously wrong with your company and/or leadership) it's not a big investment. It's simply the right thing to do.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[synoge]

You are exactly right that the impedance to work "after hours" is driven by performance measures and promotion potential. Where I see a problem is that some employers come to expect around the clock availability then that just becomes part of the job. The proverbial goal post is always moving.

Re: Reasonable expectations.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I think businesses are better served by their employees thinking of themselves as a team rather than competitors"

The problem is that most organizations do not evaluate performance for TEAMS and even if they do there are always INDIVIDUAL performance evaluations. So while your sentiment is noble (if not cliché) it's right up there with unicorns and rainbows. Most organizations grade on a curve (i.e. Always Exceeds Expectations) are rare. So you have a rare resource in demand and the result will always be competition.

comment

[Anonymous Coward]

E-mail takes more effort than receiving a call, so a ban is understandable. And when it comes to receiving a call or text, if someone is on call or providing help, then that probably should be counted as 1.5x pay rounded up by the hour. Otherwise, hire more employees.

Re:comment

[The Rizz]

E-mail takes more effort than receiving a call, so a ban is understandable.

I find it absolutely the opposite. If you get an email, you can ignore it until later, think over your answer, etc. You can even type a reply, and then re-read it before you send it off to make sure it sounds like what you want to say. With a phone call, you're on the spot - you need to decide if you answer it now . If you answer it, you need to decide what to say now . If you say the wrong thing, you can't unsay it.

And when it comes to receiving a call or text, if someone is on call or providing help, then that probably should be counted as 1.5x pay rounded up by the hour. Otherwise, hire more employees.

Places with on-call employees typically have some kind of extra compensation in place to cover that. I've typically seen it as +$X/hr. while on-call (whether you actually answer any calls or not), plus overtime pay if you actually have to come in or spend significant phone time for any call.

Re:comment

[ruir]

Been there, done that. If being on-call means a miserable 200 Euros per month, I prefer not to be on call. In fact I do avoid any job adverts that specifically mention on-call or schedule rotation. Accounting to the hours I have worked outside normal hours, if that is wise or not, now it is a different talk; however I manage them myself, on my own time, with no pressure.

Re:comment

[GrumpySteen]

I find it absolutely the opposite. If you get an email, you can ignore it until later, think over your answer, etc. You can even type a reply, and then re-read it before you send it off to make sure it sounds like what you want to say. With a phone call, you're on the spot - you need to decide if you answer it now . If you answer it, you need to decide what to say now . If you say the wrong thing, you can't unsay it.

You've confused stress with effort. Typing up an answer, thinking about it, re-reading it, etc. is a lot more effort than just blurting out whatever answer you come up with first and being done with it.

Re:comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Been there, done that. If being on-call means a miserable 200 Euros per month, I prefer not to be on call.

Good grief! I prefer not being not on call too but actually am because reasons. But it's for more than 200EUR a week.

Re:comment

[The Rizz]

You've confused stress with effort.

You're confused if you don't think dealing with stress takes effort.
Stressful situations take mental effort to deal with, and further mental effort to de-stress afterwards.

Also, it's quite obvious you have no telephone anxiety. If you did, you'd never say using a phone takes no effort.

alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

An alternative could be a work when you want arrangement, doing 8 hours at once isn't usually the best way to work. I would love to do 4 hours in the morning, 4 hours at night for example. I think its better to let work pile up before you start :D

Though the 20 hour work week is even more desired #20hourweek2016

No easy solution

[Anonymous Coward]

I like to be able to decide if I'm working outside of work hours or not. I think that's my right. However, employees who choose not to be available can be punished for it. When you allow flexibility, it will be abused. My boss may not be happy with me because I said I'd be unreachable during Memorial Day weekend, and thus can't be called into work on Monday. I feel I should have the option to spend this weekend watching racing, drinking beer, and eating burgers. I want to be able to watch the Monaco Grand Prix and Indy 500 without worrying about checking for work-related emails. Yet there's a real chance I'll get one, which I won't read or answer until Tuesday. That should be my choice, but unfortunately employees who make that choice can be punished.

Re:No easy solution

[ruir]

You surely are joking. I have work related emails and I am not reading following them 100% of the time. My co-workers have my phone numbers and more importantly my chat account, in which I prefer to be contacted far more, as a phone call is much more intrusive and can and will annoy my wife.

Supports after-work e-mail ban...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yeah. Who the f*ck wouldn't? When I get home, the phone get turned off, the battery removed, and placed into a metal box.

If something happens that's soooo important, you can drive your ass down to my apartment and talk to me in person, like a normal human being. OK?

CAPTCHA: disturb my fucking peace.

Expectations and responsibilities

[JaredOfEuropa]

a scheduling feature that will hold notifications during weekends and other specified off-work periods.

Meh. I like having access to work email after hours. Taking a quick peek at my inbox early morning or Sunday evening helps me plan my day around any high priority stuff. At my previous client, emailing during free time was getting out of hand especially after their BYOD scheme was rolled out. Interestingly, no one held the expectation that emails would be read or replied to after hours, not even management, but even so they saw the potential issues early on. Rather than implement email blocks or other technical solutions, they went for a behavioural approach. First they posted instructions on how to "mute" email during weekends so the phone won't beep on every incoming mail (I have that setting on permanently). And they adopted a simple, effective policy, with management supporting and leading by example: "after hours, read, don't reply".

Open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

... work in an open office ...

The original point of an open office was to encourage a sense of community and accessibility. The increased noise was noticed immediately but for some reason, managers stuck with open offices. It was probably the first step towards surveillance of office staff.

Re:Open plan

[ruir]

Never understand open offices besides saving costs, never will. We have worked in the same room with people that was openly hostile for us, so sharing work is a myth. And if I need some urgent collaboration, I make some exercise leaving my office, and getting to a workmate office.

Re:Open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

... work in an open office ...

The original point of an open office was to encourage a sense of community and accessibility. The increased noise was noticed immediately but for some reason, managers stuck with open offices. It was probably the first step towards surveillance of office staff.

No,that's what you were told. Hell, I know so many people of all levels that have heard that line so many times they actually believe it. The are many who have never worked any other way, and don't know better. The only reason open floor plans were adopted (approved by the big boss), was lower cost. There is nothing worse for developers, yet it's repeated over and over due to the short sighted optics of capex $.

Re:Open plan

[Anonymous Coward]

The original point of an open office was to encourage a sense of community and accessibility.

Don't buy into what the bosses say; think about why they are doing it. Everybody knew that it wasn't going to encourage a sense of community or accessibility and that everyone would immediately put on headphones and tune out. It was, and is, designed to make it harder to screw around during work hours. Watching cat videos? Well, everyone knows it. It doesn't matter that you are doing so on your lunch break or that few minutes when your lazy coworkers are on a "smoke break". You were screwing around at work. That's the point of open offices. It always has been. At our work a couple of years ago management moved most of my group from our private and double offices to cubicles in a different building. They said the same crap about everyone being in one place, better collaboration, yada, yada. In the end, when one of the big bosses retired a month later she confirmed that yep, it was all about the lower rent since there was less floor space used. Collaboration and all was just the smokescreen. Open offices are for both making sure you aren't screwing around and also to use less floor space. End of story.

Re:Open plan

[houstonbofh]

I am very unproductive in an open office and I will say so. Quite a few times I have leveraged that into working from home. :) They get less office space and less cost, and I get to work in my slippers. Win, win!

Re:Open plan

[TheGratefulNet]

open office is there for a few reasons.

first, its not there for YOU, the employee. lets get that straight and understood right off.

its there for management. they want to SEE who is doing what. yes, they are idiots; management in the US are mostly folks who can't do real work and are force to 'move up' so they become managers. in the US, in software, most manages (and workers) are indian and asian and they are used to being packed like sardines in a can. amercians are used to space and having personal space around you; europeans and especially asians don't have that cultural aspect. they are fine sitting right on top of each other, its how things were 'back home'.

management saves space since you can cram-pack more sla^H^H^Hworkers in the same amount of space.

you can SEE if they are there on time or if they are reading net.news or something. god forbid you have to check personal email or something while out in the open office environment. privacy is stripped from you. this is a message that you are a serf, you are powerless, we'll humiliate you if we want and you have nothing you can say or do about it but leave (and its quite a widespread collusion in the industry that anywhere you go, all the fucking stupid HR droids out there have bought into this madness, so you can't just change companies to avoid it. at least in the bay area).

they save money on furniture. minor savings; the bigger savings is fitting more people in the same space. 'lotsa warm bodies in seats' is mostly what ceo's want. they have zero clue; most of them. if they had to live life as we do, they'd not put up with it and yet we are forced to. yes, forced since its now industry wide (few exceptions).

mostly, though, its the statement being sent, indirectly to the employees, that you are OURS TO CONTROL and every day you walk into an 'open office' that was modeled from the early 1900's sweat shops (the main reason why unions came into existence, btw) you are reminded that you are owned and can be 'sold' if you are not a compliant little puppy dog.

some day, some really pissed off person is going to all ape-nuts on the HR folks due to being degraded like this. we are creating homegrown 'terrorists' in this way; I really do believe that if we keep going in this direction we'll have people so stressed out and feeling there's nothing left to do but take revenge. and you know, we won't learn from it and fix this problem; what we'll do is enact even MORE stricter laws since, well, 'more laws always fixes problems'.

we need unions back. we need unions for software and hardware and stem folks. I wonder how much more abuse we, as emploees, are expected to take and how much more bending over we'll do before it bubbles over and the whole thing collapses.

Re:Open plan

[Hognoxious]

It was, and is, designed to make it harder to screw around during work hours. Watching cat videos? Well, everyone knows it.

Open plan offices were around long before Pootube was even thought of. How old are you, 12?

Re:Open plan

[ruir]

I am European....For creating homegrown terrorists we already have TV...

Maybe after tenure

[Theovon]

As an assistant professor, my job is on the line. If I don’t publish enough and bring in enough external funding, I’m gone at year 6. In theory, 5 years (the period over which I’m evaluated) should be enough to get out three top-tier venue papers, but other responsibilities make that a challenge. On top of that, aside from teaching, I set my own schedule, which means that sleeping in (which the kids won’t let me do) and working late are technically my own choices.

Don’t take this as a complaint. If I didn’t want the challenge, I wouldn’t have gotten into it. All I’m saying is that much like an entrepreneur or a freelancer, I don’t really have a 9 to 5 job where this kind of “work can wait” concept even applies.

email? Easy for me

[TheCarp]

You know what happens when I get an email? Nothing. Not till I open my email and look.

Email is asynchronous communications. Email that expects 24 hour response is stupid on the senders part. You want fast response, use the right channel, or at least give me a heads up in the right channel.

You can send me 1000 emails all night long, wont disturb me one bit.

Re:email? Easy for me

[The Rizz]

You know what happens when I get an email? Nothing. Not till I open my email and look.

Email is asynchronous communications. Email that expects 24 hour response is stupid on the senders part. You want fast response, use the right channel, or at least give me a heads up in the right channel.

This is exactly my view of it - if you email me, I'll get to it when I get to it. Don't expect me to be sitting next to my computer waiting for you.

However, I expect this is more directed towards those who have email on their phones and alerts set to chime every time they get an email. (Which, with the volume of junk mail I receive every day, makes me question the sanity of anyone who would do this.)

Re:email? Easy for me

[houstonbofh]

However, I expect this is more directed towards those who have email on their phones and alerts set to chime every time they get an email. (Which, with the volume of junk mail I receive every day, makes me question the sanity of anyone who would do this.)

You can turn this off, or schedule it to only alert during working hours. If you do not, that is both your choice, and your problem.

Re:email? Easy for me

[Anonymous Coward]

You want fast response, use the right channel, or at least give me a heads up in the right channel.

While I agree that this is generally true, it works the opposite for me. I spend a lot of time in places where there's no cell reception or I can't pick up- subbasements, labs in the center of buildings, airplanes, meetings where I can't talk on the phone, cleanrooms where I can't pull out a phone, and even my house is in a cell shadow. And if the phone rings and you're not in my contacts list I'm probably not picking up, even if I can tell it's from inside the company. Email tends to be about the fastest way to get ahold of me-- if you email during anything vaguely like working hours you'll probably get a reply quickly. If you call you won't get ahold of me unless you already let me know by email in advance, and if you leave a voicemail it might be a few days before you hear back. If you text I'll usually reply by email.

After work Skype/WhatsApp/Telegram/Hangouts?

[aglider]

We need better definition, though.

No need to ban it

[wonkey_monkey]

Jeez, just let people decide if they want to check their work emails. Is no-one an adult any more?

It doesn't even sound like the French thing is really much of a "ban" anyway. It's more a recommendation that companies draw up rules on when people should/shouldn't be expected to check/answer work emails.

Make it an outright ban and how is someone who works a different shift supposed to leave me a message?

Just make it so companies can't expect people to deal with work emails (or punish them for failing to do so) outside of work hours unless formally agreed.

Re:No need to ban it

[houstonbofh]

Jeez, just let people decide if they want to check their work emails. Is no-one an adult any more?

Nope. Or at least is seems that way more and more each day. (Please protect me from the big, bad world!)

Re:No need to ban it

[Anonymous Coward]

Why have minimum wage? Let the people decide if they want to work for a dollar an hour.

Re:No need to ban it

[Anonymous Coward]

Because if it's a ban then there won't be all the kiss-asses doing everything at home anyways.

Every company has an on-call emergency system for in case of emergencies. If they want an employee to be available at home, then they are on-call and they get paid for it. If it's normal work email, then it can wait until it's work time.

Re:No need to ban it

[ultranova]

Make it an outright ban and how is someone who works a different shift supposed to leave me a message?

They send the email during their shift, it goes to your mailbox and waits there, and you read it when you come to work?

Re:No need to ban it

[AmiMoJo]

It's good that the French are requiring the expectation to be made explicit.

Phones too

[AndyCanfield]

So Hansson doesn't have any on his employees' phone numbers, because he could call them after hours? I would refuse to work for a boss that dumb. My e-mail sent to my boss this Sunday was "What day can I take the server computer to my house?" I assumed he would read it Monday morning.

I'm lucky my company strikes a pretty good balance

[Anonymous Coward]

We have an on-call rotation. If you're on-call then you're expected to check email a couple of times on the evening and weekend. If you're not on-call the on-call person might still call you if you're a subject matter expert and they need your help, but the expectation is they'll call you, not that you'll be checking email all the time. Most team member still check email off hours even when not on-call because on the other hand our management is pretty chill about not making us use PTO hours for appointments, kids' school events, etc. In short, we're treated like adults and so we act like it.

Re: Dear Everyone Else:

[Anonymous Coward]

So you make work your life for nothing other than to gain "things"

You have no life, wife, friends, or time for actually living, only time for work

That doesn't sound at all like you are successful at life, more a sad lonely failure at it.

Enjoy the future of telling your nurse (lacking loved ones and grandkids) all about how awesome your life was, sold away to companies long out of business and people long forgotten or dead, about your amazing accomplishments you're under NDA not to talk about :P

I won't do it

[whoozwah]

I just flat out refuse to do work outside the office. I don't answer calls. I don't check email. I am contracted to do 40 hours of IT work for my company per week. I will not do any more. I quite enjoy leaving work at work and will continue to do so. Consequently I quite enjoy DOING work AT work because that's the only time I do it. If it becomes an issue and I lose my job over it, oh well. I will get another job.

let them eat cake!

[ooloorie]

We split our time between Chicago, Malibu, and Marbella.

I think early business success has gone to Hansson's head, and he now thinks that as a wealthy, jet-setting CEO, he has the answers to everything. His views are the equivalent of "let them eat cake!"

Re: Dear Everyone Else:

[Anonymous Coward]

So you make work your life for nothing other than to gain "things"

Some of us work hard because we like what we are doing.

That doesn't sound at all like you are successful at life, more a sad lonely failure at it.

Look who we are talking about: the recommendations of a rich jet-setter with homes in Malibu, Chicago, and Spain, who races expensive sports cars and puts seductive pictures of his wife on his home page. Who exactly is the more superficial person here?

Thanks, but I'll put my life and my legacy up against Hansson's any day.

Re: Dear Everyone Else:

[houstonbofh]

So you make work your life for nothing other than to gain "things"

Some of us work hard because we like what we are doing.

This right here! If you love what you do, it is not really "work" in the sense that McBurger flipper is. Personally, I get to play with really cool toys and do interesting things, and they also give me money! Way cool!

Re: Dear Everyone Else:

[TheGratefulNet]

you are young. I can tell.

and you are a corp's wet dream. good little WORKER BEE.

"pick up that can, citizen."

Re: Dear Everyone Else:

[houstonbofh]

you are young. I can tell.

and you are a corp's wet dream. good little WORKER BEE.

"pick up that can, citizen."

Hahahaha! Nope. :) I am now well into that age were people say you can not get a job in IT anymore. (And yet still do easily)

And yes, I am a dream, because by the time the contract with me they have burned a lot of time and money on a project and still do not have what they need. So they cough up my bill rate, and are often surprised by how fast I finish, and how much less they spent then they thought.

My grandfather used to say "You can make excuses or you can make money, but you have to choose one." :) I prefer money.

Re: Dear Everyone Else:

[Moridineas]

I've read a few of your posts just now and the bitterness and despair really makes me cringe--Sounds like you've been burned by some bad companies. I personally can't relate (my work experiences are very different), and I don't work in tech. Care to share any details about the types of job you've experienced? Tech, IT, etc?

No need for new laws to allow quitting

[mi]

Quit and go somewhere better.

This has always been an option in a free country.

What TFA talks about is making the country a little less free and "protect" employees from these emails.

Re: No need for new laws to allow quitting

[Anonymous Coward]

"Quit and go somewhere better"

There are a lot of reasons why that advice is fairly useless in practice for a lot of people.

Family, needing certain benefits, local job market, moving costs, temporary unemployment, job security vs happiness.

Re:No need for new laws to allow quitting

[Anonymous Coward]

s/free country/free labour market/g

Of course for everyone that isn't richt the laber market is a captive market, not a free market (as they are forced to participate in it)

Depending on your locale and education background the labour market _might_ still be a competitive market where you have meaningfull choices about what job you except, but even that is increasingly untrue for an increasing percentage of the population.

Given the above some governement (or union) counterweight to the imbalance in power between the average employee and the average employer is ... necessary, lest that powerimbalance is abused.

Re:Dear Everyone Else:

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Successful People,

You're right, it does turn out that responding quickly to communication at any hour is the best way to trick incompetent management into valuing you even though you have no idea how to do your job.

The evidence is clear at this point: working long hours and never taking a day off is actually terrible for productivity. It hurts focus, causes health problems, impairs sleep, and does a whole slew of things that cause your 80 hour work week to not produce anything more than my 40 hour work week does, on average, especially at any sort of skilled work.

We all know you're just sitting in your office watching netflix instead of doing it at home like the rest of us so you can try to prove to your employer that you're a bro. Congratulations on that working for you, and congratulations on your inevitable promotion so you can gauge people below you on the only thing you're capable of understanding about doing your job: the number of hours worked. Hopefully there don't get to be too many people like you in middle management at your organization, or else when the downsizing comes, you might have to try to go find another organization where you can hide your lack of value.

Sincerely,
People Who Are Actually Good At Their Jobs

stupid peasants

[Anonymous Coward]

eat a dick and die

slaves

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

Is this a work email address?

[Solandri]

I thought the whole point of giving employees work email addresses was to keep it separate from their personal email. If someone working different hours comes across a problem which only the employee who's off can handle, then I full expect them to send it to their work email address, instead of having to set a reminder to themselves that they have to email the guy the next time he's at work. Work email is like a filing inbox. You're not expecting to handle all the papers in your inbox immediately, just get to them as you can.

If something urgent crops up, you go talk to the person face to face or call him. Those are immediate remedies. If it's something that can be handled later, just email it to them. They can handle it when they come into work the next day and read their email. There's no expectation for an employee to be checking their work email during off-hours.

If we're talking about a person email address, then yeah work stuff has no business going there unless it's like a "there will be no more company tomorrow if we don't fix this tonight" kind of emergency.

Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then, if someone is responsible for the network being up, and claims not to have seen a monitoring email detailing a problem, they should have issues being fired the next day.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

should have no issues even

time for a union

[Joe_Dragon]

That seems like the only way to put as hole bosses in there place or at the very least say no with no risk of your job.

Re: time for a union

[Anonymous Coward]

very least say no with no risk of your job

BWAAAHAAHAA. Your job will go to India.

I think it depends on the type of job you have

[Ambassador Kosh]

I know chemical engineers that where called in to the plant for an actual emergency. It could be anything from a failure that will endanger the surrounding area or something like a piece of equipment is going to fail and they need to do everything they can to shut it down safely. I have even know engineers that where called in to try and save equipment that was worth tens of millions of dollars.

One thing in common with all of those is that in all those cases I haves seen companies more than make up for it afterwards and that the requests are not idle requests. Something on a website not working right is inconvenient and can be fixed the next day. A chemical plant that is about to release deadly gas into the water, air etc is an emergency.

For most jobs I support legally limiting the types of contact you have with work since employers often abuse that. For other types of jobs I really see no way that you can make it off limits to contact people after work. If you are a production engineer at a chemical plant then you have specialized knowledge and may be one of a very small number of people capable of preventing a catastrophe. At the same time you should only be called if it is an actual emergency.

Re:I think it depends on the type of job you have

[dave420]

That wouldn't change, except the company would have to formally agree with the employer that they would be working out of hours, and the compensation the employee receives for being available. This is just to protect people who don't have such protection and are still required to respond to emails on their own time.

Re:I think it depends on the type of job you have

[Ambassador Kosh]

I would bet it is already part of existing contracts for engineers that this kind of thing applies to and part of why most are paid so much in the first place.

I've already banned them.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've already banned them. If work can't bother to hire staff for 24 hr coverage then so be it, I'm not a slave. I simply do not check my work E-Mail regularly after work hours. If I happen to catch something when I'm bored, so be it, maybe I'll do something.

Not that simple though

[Shados]

If you ban "after work" email, you also prevent me from having flexible hours. It's pretty common that I'll just take a random day for giggles, then make it up on a Saturday, or at night.

Sure, I can just take an actual day off and not make it up (and I do!), but I'll be less likely to do it when I need it if I can't just make up for it.

Re:Not that simple though

[dave420]

You can still arrange that with your employer. Nothing changes for you.

Perfect storm of features

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF? Does it make sense to anyone?

Personal Stuff on employers time

[whoda]

But tell people they can't text or make phone calls of a personal nature while on the employer's clock and they go hysterical.

in other words ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... "I'm too lazy to decide for myself that I shouldn't be working when I've decided not to work, so I need a computer to tell me."

Don't want to read email? DON'T READ IT!

Don't want to respond? Don't feel pressure to respond! Email != Phone. It's asynchronous ... for a web dude, this guy seems to have forgotten some basic facts.

Don't want your device dinging every time you receive an email? DON'T CONFIGURE IT THAT WAY!

Re: Dear Everyone Else:

[Anonymous Coward]

Your virtue signaling and veneer of concerned compassion sicken me.

Re: Dear Everyone Else:

[Moridineas]

Virtue signaling? I'm not sure you know what that means. I want some dirt!!