The problem is market evolution though. The lowest-bounds on work is 8 hours in the U.S.. But market evolution has dictated that programmers commonly work upwards 10 hour days; more if they're in consulting.
No law, nor labor-side market evolution (i.e. labor union) has arisen to counter this trend, and so hence, the problem remains unbounded. Left unchecked, the hours will rise until another equilibrium is reached: that programmer scarcity rises (due to people quitting the industry) and so negotiating power increases sufficiently, or until boil-over occurs and violence arises -- which is exactly what happened circa 1886, when the Knights of Labor was formed in response to 12 hour/day, 6 day/week work schedules that were common then. People fought and died for the "40*r hour/week + hours * 1.5 * r" (where r = hourly rate) standard that people in blue-collar jobs have written into law.
Unfortunately for American white-collar labor, most of us are classified as "exempt" because we earn too much money, or because we are managers. Such people are still permitted to work as long as market conditions allow -- i.e., for as long as the employee is willing to take it up the ass from the employer.
The U.S. needs unionization and/or regulation -- for all work, from the lowest janitor to the CEO. Those are the only ways a peaceful equilibrium of time vs. money will be achieved.
Frankly, I would start by outlawing salaried pay; preferably worldwide (to prevent regulatory arbitrage), via U.N. human-rights declaration if necessary. Make all pay be on an hourly or per-project basis; require that compensation be dependent on a variable rate, not a fixed rate, since nearly all white-collar work contains enough unpredictability and uncertainty to make a fixed rate an unrealistic model of the behavior for which the worker is paid.
(I say all this as one who normally advocates libertarian economic solutions. But this is one problem the libertarians haven't seriously solved, and it's a more serious problem than most people seem to recognize or admit (and those who do recognize it do so because they are in a catch-22: they are working too much, and literally don't have time to speak-up about it).)
(Disclaimer: I do have a BSCS. But there is no way I could accomplish the things Carmack has. By the time he was my age, Carmack was working on Quake 3. *sigh*)
It's just normal capitalism in play, but most people didn't know the rules at the beginning, and now that large companies started to optimize by the rules, it's just not fun anymore.
Well said. I think the airline industry is a good example of this optimize-by-profit-rules theory. No more cost-included meals; now we pay for snack boxes. Cancellationas are increasingly-common. Customer service quality is (arguably) declining.
But your comment is self-contradicting. You end with the argument that companies cut quality because it's not in their profit motive (true). But you began by arguing "People want quality products that last, unless they are overpriced.".
If consumer demand wanted quality products, producers would supply it. The price of the product might be higher, but in theory, the price would maintain the same price:profit ratio as the lower-quality version, to account for the product's longer lifespan; a washing machine that costs $1,000 and lasts 5 years would cost $4,000 if it lasted 20 years. (Or, perhaps, the price would be greater to account for the uncertainties of longer timeframe, i.e., what might happen to the firm in the extra 15 years? So depending on the pricing model, there may be a price:profit ratio argument against longer product lifespans.)
But consumers aren't demanding that kind of quality. They'll usually take the lower-priced option. The existence and scale of Wal-Mart ought to be sufficient evidence of this.
So, I argue, your original thesis is wrong: people *don't* want quality products that last...... And IMO, we're all poorer for it, engaged in a race-to-the-bottom of product quality as bounded at relevant points in time by the ever-expanding tolerance levels of consumers...
At least that's true of American-made products. The Japanese still seem to give a damn about quality in its various aspects (reliability, design, final polish, energy efficiency, motion efficiency, etc.); I wish the Japanese would've "taken over" like so many Americans feared in the 1980s. We'd have less MBA-driven "designed to fail" engineering if that were the case.
You only have +5, Insightful. I wish I could mod you to +100, Thinking More Clearly Than Dozens of Slashdotters and the Majority of the American Project Managers.
Lots of people pay attention to features. Far fewer pay attention to reliability, unless it is truly abominable (e.g. Hyundai vehicles prior to ca. 1999, the Yugo, Windows 9x & ME, etc.).
Nonsense. I could not possibly stay employed in consulting if I could not get another job - one's marketability is the very *basis* of consulting. For my own happiness and career growth, I have voluntarily left jobs not long after earning promotions and pay-raises; I have never even been threatened with firing.
Moreover, my argument is broader than just me.
You are ignoring my central argument about the value of choice: that every job I have seen behaves the same way with regard to behaviors (long hours, corner-cutting, etc.) expected from IT resources.
Explain and/or exemplify why you find this is not the case, particularly in the context of the current job market (but any job market will do - the exceptions (dot-com startups) are not the rule).
It is not literal, dictionary-definitional "slavery", you are correct. It is not du jure slavery.
My use of the word was intentional (and I think fairly obvious) hyperbole in making the point that it is de facto slavery. What else would you call a plethora of job choices in which the final outcome is essentially identical (OT hours without OT pay)?
To analogize: if every apple in a basket is rotten, isn't it fair to say that although you have, technically, freedom-of-choice among the apples, your practical reality is a lack of choice within your choice set -- because all the choices give you the same foul taste and potentially upset stomach? I've found much the same is true of the job market.
Milton Friedman's ideology of choice (which I still believe is superior to lack of choice, even if I don't believe it's as powerful as that economist claimed) has a dependency on businesses behaving in significantly-different ways, such that changes arise out of shifts in the sands of market forces. But those changes don't arise, because they can't: doing business with other businesses requires conforming to certain norms of business. This is why most businesses have work hours between 8-6; why most businesses require business-casual dress; why most businesses value time-to-market and minimized budget over technical quality; and so-forth.
This is why the "get another job" argument fails. It's ideal in theory, but doesn't work in practice, because all the options are practically the same. Nor is starting my own business realistic, because the business environment -- the market -- again, requires conformance to a panoply of behaviors that would enforce a behavioral similarity on even my own firm.
I've considered that it's quite-possibly the business culture of my particular geography - I've noticed more-relaxed cultures in less-densely-populated areas, as well as along the U.S. coasts. And, my problem is exacerbated in part by the culture of my firm, where leadership originates from firms with a very strong, firm-before-the-individual ethic.
The FLSA requires that most employees in the United States be paid at least the Federal minimum wage for all hours worked and overtime pay at time and one-half the regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek.
However, Section 13(a)(1) and Section 13(a)(17) of the FLSA provide an exemption from both minimum wage and overtime pay for computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $455 per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour......
To qualify for the computer employee exemption, the following tests must be met:
* The employee must be compensated either on a salary or fee basis at a rate not less than $455 per week or, if compensated on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour;
* The employee must be employed as a computer systems analyst, computer programmer, software engineer or other similarly skilled worker in the computer field performing the duties described below;
* The employee's primary duty must consist of:
1. The application of systems analysis techniques and procedures, including consulting with users, to determine hardware, software or system functional specifications;
2. The design, development, documentation, analysis, creation, testing or modification of computer systems or programs, including prototypes, based on and related to user or system design specifications;
3. The design, documentation, testing, creation or modification of computer programs related to machine operating systems; or
4. A combination of the aforementioned duties, the performance of which requires the same level of skills.
Essentially, any system/network admin or programmer/developer/software engineer/tester earning at least $57,470/year ($27.63/hr * 40h/week * 52 weeks/year) qualifies for the exemption, and thus is not required to be paid for OT.
Hence, any such employee earning at least this much in a salaried is essentially a slave -- and if you work in the for-profit world as either in either of these general job roles, you will, if you're any good after your first 2 years out of school be earning this much or nearly this much. A couple more years' experience and you're beyond the income limit and into "computer-slave-exempt" status.
I graduated in the middle of this decade, have billed around 50 hours/week YTD as a salaried developer-consultant (not counting non-billed time keeping-abreast of the industry, etc.), and earn more than the limit above. Hence, I get to take the corporate pineapple up the ass until I start my own firm or do hourly contracting or find that mythical (and IME as a consultant for many different firms in different industries, it *is* mythical) 40 hour/week salaried developer job... (Given that we must internally track our time to within 15 minutes' accuracy, and I can (and have, for my own analysis) easily export this data, it'd be an open-and-shut case if the law were on my side.)
To vent a moment: The pay-rate distinction is irrational. Economically, time and money are fungible: hence, every second one is on the clock is time that that person should be paid-for -- regardless of income level, from the basement janitor on contract up to the CEO. In an economically-sane world, nobody's time would be free. Ever.
But businesses have bought the right from American politicians to rape their employees' personal lives for free labor. And there isn't a thing I or anybody else can do
I can't speak for other people, but -- I happened to experience exactly the scenario you describe just last weekend (was traveling for July 4).
I was in a part of the country I'd never traveled-to before, and had to drive from the airport to a location in another state, 2 hours away. I used Google Maps + GPS on my phone to find my way; overall, it was about 6-7 changes in navigation (different streets, turns to make, etc.).
Returning over the same route 4 days later, I remembered most (though not all) of the route home by street names and numbers and their connections. Forgot a couple of the small side-streets, but the major route was quite clear. Maybe I have a memory for networks?
I do agree with the general premise though that our reliance on technology is displacing our cognitive skills. I'm sure I would've remembered the route better if I had to do the routing myself on paper... Too-often I hear math teachers say "don't compute or graph the equation yourself, let the calculator do it!" (or now, Wolfram Alpha, which does calculus for us - nice), or other people say "why memorize X when I can google it?" Admittedly, 10 years ago as a teenager, I said the latter. But I've long-since realized the value of maintaining sharp unaided mental skill (even while I dream of implants allowing direct brain-to-Google access:-) )...
You don't enjoy being referred-to as a "resource" (as all project managers do)? What, you're not a simple battery of developer/infrastructure potential waiting to be depleted and discarded? What kind of company-loyal foot-soldier are you??:P
Every upwardly-mobile manager dehumanizes their employees. It's assumed to be more "business-like".
Lots of green recruits that think they know everything but don't. Welcome to Software.
HR doesn't know that, and they're the people filtering the resumes. And recruiters, by-and-large, are idiots (I'm close friends with one who is not, and the stories I hear are incredible. Very few people in IT are as dumb as the average HR worker, and those who are don't last long.).
Commensurate with the quality of their work (where quality includes correctness, time to completion, and maintainability at least) since they have no Experience...
Of those, only time-to-completion matters. I've not seen a firm yet that cares about the other 2 factors, especially correctness. Management doesn't read code, therefore, code correctness is irrelevant. All that matters is whether you can meet deadlines and deliver a product that meets requirements. Business does I/O analysis, and lets the process in-between fall to "some smarty-pants techno-nerd".
Being a good manager requires staying up on the management skills, techniques, and tools.
Bah. The skills, techniques, and tools for management have changed little in a thousand years because good management fundamentally requires people skills, and people don't change. Management certainly does not change anywhere nearly as often as technology. Anyone can create a Gantt chart or work-breakdown structure. There's a reason MBA-degreed people are a commodity.
The business books you see at Borders? They all say the same things: cut costs, treat employees like the replaceable cattle they are (except for the really good ones), create pretty reports and presentations, and execute competently. There's a reason that business books are widely-considered lousy reading, even by their target audience...
...are simultaneously jumping for joy and laughing cynically, as the terms of the original START treaty were a distant goal from the current-state in 1998, when the original MGS game was released, and which informed us all of the sad state of nuclear weapons disarmament agreements.
What was it - some 26,000 nuclear warheads remained between the U.S. and Russia in 1998, whereas the START II treaty called for a maximum of 6,000 per nation? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I)
Not really. Large banks are subject to lots of regulation and tend to be paranoid about security (I know because I also used to work at a $LARGE_BANK).
Assuming similar behaviors among multiple actors within a common environment -- within a common industry -- is not unreasonable. Is it a logically-certain assumption? No; banks *could* behave differently. But are the behaviors *probably* similar? Yes (particularly in banking), and therefore it's reasonable.
Well, one way to free-up time is to move closer to work.
But, failing that: you're working 12 hours/day 4-5 days/week. You literally do not have free time. Why?
Because we Americans have let employers take advantage of us. We have let insane hours like these become the expectation; the norm. For the sake of our health and sanity, it must stop.
We need unions and/or increased labor regulation to end the long hours. Now.
Your job is particularly-bad, because it directly-interferes with the time during which thousands of years have ingrained a Circadian rhythm in your brain that tells your body it should be sleeping... which changes your metabolism's behavior. Your job is fucking with your ability to metabolise food, and you're probably gaining weight as a result. Especially since you likely don't have time to make healthy meals, and so you're likely dependent on fast-food, which in general is high in calories and grease and low on nutritional value (if you can get a salad or make it to Subway, that helps).
Americans need to stop this insane bullshit Puritanical work-ethic that says we must work all the time -- and often for no extra pay (how many of us are paid a salary for 40 hours/week, but work 60-80 hours/week? I do). We can thank the religious idiots -- many of whom are the laziest people in this nation -- for pushing this work ethic in churches, within families, in communities, etc..
Stop the madness! If only Obama and his supporters had the balls...
A "a top investment bank which employs more than 10,000 developers worldwide"? There's a small handful of companies likely to fit this profile: MorganStanleySmithBarney (and other names this week?), Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Bank of Japan...
I've yet to find an employer that has ever given a damn about quality in practice (even while they may talk a good game about it), and it's making me hate my job as a developer-consultant. I hate the "time-before-quality" mentality I've invariably experienced in the financial and consulting industries. I will have to google more for your firm and hope they are hiring! (In this economy? A financial firm?? Ha!)
The weather sucks, the traffic sucks (especially when the weather particularly sucks), the business culture is truly and utterly insane (particularly the financial and trading industries that are so strong here), sales taxes are higher than anywhere in the nation (and there are taxes specifically on sodas - including diet sodas - and bottled water, and you need a license to do something as simple as wheel-around a hot-dog cart), apartments and owned housing is expensive almost anywhere within 45 min. of downtown (and where the exceptions exist, you wouldn't want to live there if you're white and/or earning a middle-class-or-higher income). Oh, and you can't own handguns (in abject spite of the Heller decision) and long-guns must be registered with the city and are subject to a variety of asinine rules that make a supposed "assault weapon" out of even many kinds of shotguns and rifles.
And if you think our state governor is corrupt, try Chicago's Mayor Daley - he's even worse, but better at hiding his crimes.
Don't take it as gospel, but as a framework for pickup -- and for social relationships in general (i.e. the advice works even in the business world) -- it's great.
Why did they work long hours? Against whom is the U.S. Army competing? The game, like its previous 2 incarnations, was to be free-as-in-beer.
And why is programmer psychosis so prevalent among game developers? Is it because so many developers (like me) got their start wanting to write games, hence strong competition for jobs as game developers?
Any time long hours are involved, you can be sure it is the result of one or more of at least 3 things:
* market competition forcing businesses to make promises that cannot be kept except by unreasonable behaviors, such as overtime * lousy project management (is there such thing as competent project management? Even at firms praised by clients for having "great" PMs, I've found PMs to be lousy) * developers with mental issues of sanity and pushback willpower
Fuck long hours - especially if they are unpaid (as is almost always the case. It is time for developers to fight-back against being taken advantage-of; we need to demonstrate that we are worthy of respect and reasonable lives too!
Tell that to my AT&T Fuze running WinMo 6.1, which spontaneously reboots at least once/day, and from which I send about 20 application exception reports to MSFT each week. Oh gee, "cprog.exe" or "device.exe" died again? Let me send that to Redmond and hope they have a project manager who gives a damn!
"Rock solid" my ass. I've had 3 WinMo phones; my next phone will be either an iPhone or Android-based. Windows Mobile is a steaming heap of shit....not that I would expect an executive of any non-trivially-sized firm to actually know anything about technology...
Wish I had mod points - this is one of the most-insightful thoughts about the relative values and uses of differing organizational structures I've ever read (and I've worked in organizations sized from less than 50 to over 15k employees)...
Is it a contentious theory? My understanding is that most economists view a given market as equilibrium-seeking (as you describe) -- not that markets are always and everywhere in a perfect state of equilibrium...
You believe you have an impact on government? Then you're numerically- and politically-naive, at best (so, I will guess you are a college student).
Voting is individually-irrational -- even if it is collectively the least-bad political option yet-devised (it beats dictatorship in its ability to deliver human freedom and modern societal outcomes).
Take a hypothetical voting population of 100 people - you are 1 of that 100. Assume 51% voter turnout.
Of the 51 people voting, assume 26 voted Republican, 24 voted Democrat, and your vote is not yet cast. What is your vote?
Answer: it doesn't matter. If you vote Democrat, you still lose: 26 (R) votes out-numbers 25 (D) votes -- Republicans win. And if you vote Republican (27 vs 24), the Republicans still win, but by a larger margin.
So, the election outcome is identical -- regardless of how, or even *whether*, you voted.
The logic is the same with any democratic election, only with much bigger numbers.
Thus, the only scenario in which your individual vote makes *any* difference is the practically-impossible tie-breaker case: e.g. voting population = 50, 25 vote (R), 24 vote (D), and you choose to vote (D) results in a tie, rather than a Democratic loss. (And we know from the 2000 how this case turns-out in U.S. Presidential elections, in practice: 9 unelected judges in the U.S. Supreme Court decide who becomes President, instead of you or the rest of the nation.)
As the saying goes, "democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner." Democracy, in short, is mobocracy. Government *does* seek to abolish freedom, under any political party's guidance (Republican, Democrat, even Libertarian); it is always a question of "freedom for (and from) whom, and freedom in what form?"
Personally, I'm ambivalent about this continuous monitoring. It has great potential for bettering human health, but also great potential for abuse, not only by government, but criminals and businesses too...
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is market evolution though. The lowest-bounds on work is 8 hours in the U.S.. But market evolution has dictated that programmers commonly work upwards 10 hour days; more if they're in consulting.
No law, nor labor-side market evolution (i.e. labor union) has arisen to counter this trend, and so hence, the problem remains unbounded. Left unchecked, the hours will rise until another equilibrium is reached: that programmer scarcity rises (due to people quitting the industry) and so negotiating power increases sufficiently, or until boil-over occurs and violence arises -- which is exactly what happened circa 1886, when the Knights of Labor was formed in response to 12 hour/day, 6 day/week work schedules that were common then. People fought and died for the "40*r hour/week + hours * 1.5 * r" (where r = hourly rate) standard that people in blue-collar jobs have written into law.
Unfortunately for American white-collar labor, most of us are classified as "exempt" because we earn too much money, or because we are managers. Such people are still permitted to work as long as market conditions allow -- i.e., for as long as the employee is willing to take it up the ass from the employer.
The U.S. needs unionization and/or regulation -- for all work, from the lowest janitor to the CEO. Those are the only ways a peaceful equilibrium of time vs. money will be achieved.
Frankly, I would start by outlawing salaried pay; preferably worldwide (to prevent regulatory arbitrage), via U.N. human-rights declaration if necessary. Make all pay be on an hourly or per-project basis; require that compensation be dependent on a variable rate, not a fixed rate, since nearly all white-collar work contains enough unpredictability and uncertainty to make a fixed rate an unrealistic model of the behavior for which the worker is paid.
(I say all this as one who normally advocates libertarian economic solutions. But this is one problem the libertarians haven't seriously solved, and it's a more serious problem than most people seem to recognize or admit (and those who do recognize it do so because they are in a catch-22: they are working too much, and literally don't have time to speak-up about it).)
Not bad for a guy with no college degree!
(Disclaimer: I do have a BSCS. But there is no way I could accomplish the things Carmack has. By the time he was my age, Carmack was working on Quake 3. *sigh*)
Well said. I think the airline industry is a good example of this optimize-by-profit-rules theory. No more cost-included meals; now we pay for snack boxes. Cancellationas are increasingly-common. Customer service quality is (arguably) declining.
But your comment is self-contradicting. You end with the argument that companies cut quality because it's not in their profit motive (true). But you began by arguing "People want quality products that last, unless they are overpriced.".
If consumer demand wanted quality products, producers would supply it. The price of the product might be higher, but in theory, the price would maintain the same price:profit ratio as the lower-quality version, to account for the product's longer lifespan; a washing machine that costs $1,000 and lasts 5 years would cost $4,000 if it lasted 20 years. (Or, perhaps, the price would be greater to account for the uncertainties of longer timeframe, i.e., what might happen to the firm in the extra 15 years? So depending on the pricing model, there may be a price:profit ratio argument against longer product lifespans.)
But consumers aren't demanding that kind of quality. They'll usually take the lower-priced option. The existence and scale of Wal-Mart ought to be sufficient evidence of this.
So, I argue, your original thesis is wrong: people *don't* want quality products that last...... And IMO, we're all poorer for it, engaged in a race-to-the-bottom of product quality as bounded at relevant points in time by the ever-expanding tolerance levels of consumers...
At least that's true of American-made products. The Japanese still seem to give a damn about quality in its various aspects (reliability, design, final polish, energy efficiency, motion efficiency, etc.); I wish the Japanese would've "taken over" like so many Americans feared in the 1980s. We'd have less MBA-driven "designed to fail" engineering if that were the case.
You only have +5, Insightful. I wish I could mod you to +100, Thinking More Clearly Than Dozens of Slashdotters and the Majority of the American Project Managers.
Lots of people pay attention to features. Far fewer pay attention to reliability, unless it is truly abominable (e.g. Hyundai vehicles prior to ca. 1999, the Yugo, Windows 9x & ME, etc.).
Nonsense. I could not possibly stay employed in consulting if I could not get another job - one's marketability is the very *basis* of consulting. For my own happiness and career growth, I have voluntarily left jobs not long after earning promotions and pay-raises; I have never even been threatened with firing.
Moreover, my argument is broader than just me.
You are ignoring my central argument about the value of choice: that every job I have seen behaves the same way with regard to behaviors (long hours, corner-cutting, etc.) expected from IT resources.
Explain and/or exemplify why you find this is not the case, particularly in the context of the current job market (but any job market will do - the exceptions (dot-com startups) are not the rule).
It is not literal, dictionary-definitional "slavery", you are correct. It is not du jure slavery.
My use of the word was intentional (and I think fairly obvious) hyperbole in making the point that it is de facto slavery. What else would you call a plethora of job choices in which the final outcome is essentially identical (OT hours without OT pay)?
To analogize: if every apple in a basket is rotten, isn't it fair to say that although you have, technically, freedom-of-choice among the apples, your practical reality is a lack of choice within your choice set -- because all the choices give you the same foul taste and potentially upset stomach? I've found much the same is true of the job market.
Milton Friedman's ideology of choice (which I still believe is superior to lack of choice, even if I don't believe it's as powerful as that economist claimed) has a dependency on businesses behaving in significantly-different ways, such that changes arise out of shifts in the sands of market forces. But those changes don't arise, because they can't: doing business with other businesses requires conforming to certain norms of business. This is why most businesses have work hours between 8-6; why most businesses require business-casual dress; why most businesses value time-to-market and minimized budget over technical quality; and so-forth.
This is why the "get another job" argument fails. It's ideal in theory, but doesn't work in practice, because all the options are practically the same. Nor is starting my own business realistic, because the business environment -- the market -- again, requires conformance to a panoply of behaviors that would enforce a behavioral similarity on even my own firm.
I've considered that it's quite-possibly the business culture of my particular geography - I've noticed more-relaxed cultures in less-densely-populated areas, as well as along the U.S. coasts. And, my problem is exacerbated in part by the culture of my firm, where leadership originates from firms with a very strong, firm-before-the-individual ethic.
Note, however:
Essentially, any system/network admin or programmer/developer/software engineer/tester earning at least $57,470/year ($27.63/hr * 40h/week * 52 weeks/year) qualifies for the exemption, and thus is not required to be paid for OT.
Hence, any such employee earning at least this much in a salaried is essentially a slave -- and if you work in the for-profit world as either in either of these general job roles, you will, if you're any good after your first 2 years out of school be earning this much or nearly this much. A couple more years' experience and you're beyond the income limit and into "computer-slave-exempt" status.
I graduated in the middle of this decade, have billed around 50 hours/week YTD as a salaried developer-consultant (not counting non-billed time keeping-abreast of the industry, etc.), and earn more than the limit above. Hence, I get to take the corporate pineapple up the ass until I start my own firm or do hourly contracting or find that mythical (and IME as a consultant for many different firms in different industries, it *is* mythical) 40 hour/week salaried developer job... (Given that we must internally track our time to within 15 minutes' accuracy, and I can (and have, for my own analysis) easily export this data, it'd be an open-and-shut case if the law were on my side.)
To vent a moment: The pay-rate distinction is irrational. Economically, time and money are fungible: hence, every second one is on the clock is time that that person should be paid-for -- regardless of income level, from the basement janitor on contract up to the CEO. In an economically-sane world, nobody's time would be free. Ever.
But businesses have bought the right from American politicians to rape their employees' personal lives for free labor. And there isn't a thing I or anybody else can do
I went to work today and noticed an unusual number of cops at some CTA stops' exits and entrances... Thought it was weird, now I know why!
I can't speak for other people, but -- I happened to experience exactly the scenario you describe just last weekend (was traveling for July 4).
I was in a part of the country I'd never traveled-to before, and had to drive from the airport to a location in another state, 2 hours away. I used Google Maps + GPS on my phone to find my way; overall, it was about 6-7 changes in navigation (different streets, turns to make, etc.).
Returning over the same route 4 days later, I remembered most (though not all) of the route home by street names and numbers and their connections. Forgot a couple of the small side-streets, but the major route was quite clear. Maybe I have a memory for networks?
I do agree with the general premise though that our reliance on technology is displacing our cognitive skills. I'm sure I would've remembered the route better if I had to do the routing myself on paper... Too-often I hear math teachers say "don't compute or graph the equation yourself, let the calculator do it!" (or now, Wolfram Alpha, which does calculus for us - nice), or other people say "why memorize X when I can google it?" Admittedly, 10 years ago as a teenager, I said the latter. But I've long-since realized the value of maintaining sharp unaided mental skill (even while I dream of implants allowing direct brain-to-Google access :-) )...
You don't enjoy being referred-to as a "resource" (as all project managers do)? What, you're not a simple battery of developer/infrastructure potential waiting to be depleted and discarded? What kind of company-loyal foot-soldier are you?? :P
Every upwardly-mobile manager dehumanizes their employees. It's assumed to be more "business-like".
HR doesn't know that, and they're the people filtering the resumes. And recruiters, by-and-large, are idiots (I'm close friends with one who is not, and the stories I hear are incredible. Very few people in IT are as dumb as the average HR worker, and those who are don't last long.).
Of those, only time-to-completion matters. I've not seen a firm yet that cares about the other 2 factors, especially correctness. Management doesn't read code, therefore, code correctness is irrelevant. All that matters is whether you can meet deadlines and deliver a product that meets requirements. Business does I/O analysis, and lets the process in-between fall to "some smarty-pants techno-nerd".
Agree on the other points though...
So you're a prostitute?
Bah. The skills, techniques, and tools for management have changed little in a thousand years because good management fundamentally requires people skills, and people don't change. Management certainly does not change anywhere nearly as often as technology. Anyone can create a Gantt chart or work-breakdown structure. There's a reason MBA-degreed people are a commodity.
The business books you see at Borders? They all say the same things: cut costs, treat employees like the replaceable cattle they are (except for the really good ones), create pretty reports and presentations, and execute competently. There's a reason that business books are widely-considered lousy reading, even by their target audience...
...are simultaneously jumping for joy and laughing cynically, as the terms of the original START treaty were a distant goal from the current-state in 1998, when the original MGS game was released, and which informed us all of the sad state of nuclear weapons disarmament agreements.
What was it - some 26,000 nuclear warheads remained between the U.S. and Russia in 1998, whereas the START II treaty called for a maximum of 6,000 per nation? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I)
Not really. Large banks are subject to lots of regulation and tend to be paranoid about security (I know because I also used to work at a $LARGE_BANK).
Assuming similar behaviors among multiple actors within a common environment -- within a common industry -- is not unreasonable. Is it a logically-certain assumption? No; banks *could* behave differently. But are the behaviors *probably* similar? Yes (particularly in banking), and therefore it's reasonable.
Well, one way to free-up time is to move closer to work.
But, failing that: you're working 12 hours/day 4-5 days/week. You literally do not have free time. Why?
Because we Americans have let employers take advantage of us. We have let insane hours like these become the expectation; the norm. For the sake of our health and sanity, it must stop.
We need unions and/or increased labor regulation to end the long hours. Now.
Your job is particularly-bad, because it directly-interferes with the time during which thousands of years have ingrained a Circadian rhythm in your brain that tells your body it should be sleeping... which changes your metabolism's behavior. Your job is fucking with your ability to metabolise food, and you're probably gaining weight as a result. Especially since you likely don't have time to make healthy meals, and so you're likely dependent on fast-food, which in general is high in calories and grease and low on nutritional value (if you can get a salad or make it to Subway, that helps).
Americans need to stop this insane bullshit Puritanical work-ethic that says we must work all the time -- and often for no extra pay (how many of us are paid a salary for 40 hours/week, but work 60-80 hours/week? I do). We can thank the religious idiots -- many of whom are the laziest people in this nation -- for pushing this work ethic in churches, within families, in communities, etc..
Stop the madness! If only Obama and his supporters had the balls...
If it doesn't exist, then we shall create it!
A "a top investment bank which employs more than 10,000 developers worldwide"? There's a small handful of companies likely to fit this profile: MorganStanleySmithBarney (and other names this week?), Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Bank of Japan...
I've yet to find an employer that has ever given a damn about quality in practice (even while they may talk a good game about it), and it's making me hate my job as a developer-consultant. I hate the "time-before-quality" mentality I've invariably experienced in the financial and consulting industries. I will have to google more for your firm and hope they are hiring! (In this economy? A financial firm?? Ha!)
Lived and worked here all my life... It sucks.
The weather sucks, the traffic sucks (especially when the weather particularly sucks), the business culture is truly and utterly insane (particularly the financial and trading industries that are so strong here), sales taxes are higher than anywhere in the nation (and there are taxes specifically on sodas - including diet sodas - and bottled water, and you need a license to do something as simple as wheel-around a hot-dog cart), apartments and owned housing is expensive almost anywhere within 45 min. of downtown (and where the exceptions exist, you wouldn't want to live there if you're white and/or earning a middle-class-or-higher income). Oh, and you can't own handguns (in abject spite of the Heller decision) and long-guns must be registered with the city and are subject to a variety of asinine rules that make a supposed "assault weapon" out of even many kinds of shotguns and rifles.
And if you think our state governor is corrupt, try Chicago's Mayor Daley - he's even worse, but better at hiding his crimes.
This book changed my life (somewhat) for the better. It's all about how to pick up women.
Don't take it as gospel, but as a framework for pickup -- and for social relationships in general (i.e. the advice works even in the business world) -- it's great.
Why did they work long hours? Against whom is the U.S. Army competing? The game, like its previous 2 incarnations, was to be free-as-in-beer.
And why is programmer psychosis so prevalent among game developers? Is it because so many developers (like me) got their start wanting to write games, hence strong competition for jobs as game developers?
Any time long hours are involved, you can be sure it is the result of one or more of at least 3 things:
* market competition forcing businesses to make promises that cannot be kept except by unreasonable behaviors, such as overtime
* lousy project management (is there such thing as competent project management? Even at firms praised by clients for having "great" PMs, I've found PMs to be lousy)
* developers with mental issues of sanity and pushback willpower
Fuck long hours - especially if they are unpaid (as is almost always the case. It is time for developers to fight-back against being taken advantage-of; we need to demonstrate that we are worthy of respect and reasonable lives too!
Tell that to my AT&T Fuze running WinMo 6.1, which spontaneously reboots at least once/day, and from which I send about 20 application exception reports to MSFT each week. Oh gee, "cprog.exe" or "device.exe" died again? Let me send that to Redmond and hope they have a project manager who gives a damn!
"Rock solid" my ass. I've had 3 WinMo phones; my next phone will be either an iPhone or Android-based. Windows Mobile is a steaming heap of shit. ...not that I would expect an executive of any non-trivially-sized firm to actually know anything about technology...
Wish I had mod points - this is one of the most-insightful thoughts about the relative values and uses of differing organizational structures I've ever read (and I've worked in organizations sized from less than 50 to over 15k employees)...
Is it a contentious theory? My understanding is that most economists view a given market as equilibrium-seeking (as you describe) -- not that markets are always and everywhere in a perfect state of equilibrium...
You believe you have an impact on government? Then you're numerically- and politically-naive, at best (so, I will guess you are a college student).
Voting is individually-irrational -- even if it is collectively the least-bad political option yet-devised (it beats dictatorship in its ability to deliver human freedom and modern societal outcomes).
Take a hypothetical voting population of 100 people - you are 1 of that 100. Assume 51% voter turnout.
Of the 51 people voting, assume 26 voted Republican, 24 voted Democrat, and your vote is not yet cast. What is your vote?
Answer: it doesn't matter. If you vote Democrat, you still lose: 26 (R) votes out-numbers 25 (D) votes -- Republicans win. And if you vote Republican (27 vs 24), the Republicans still win, but by a larger margin.
So, the election outcome is identical -- regardless of how, or even *whether*, you voted.
The logic is the same with any democratic election, only with much bigger numbers.
Thus, the only scenario in which your individual vote makes *any* difference is the practically-impossible tie-breaker case: e.g. voting population = 50, 25 vote (R), 24 vote (D), and you choose to vote (D) results in a tie, rather than a Democratic loss. (And we know from the 2000 how this case turns-out in U.S. Presidential elections, in practice: 9 unelected judges in the U.S. Supreme Court decide who becomes President, instead of you or the rest of the nation.)
As the saying goes, "democracy is 2 wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner." Democracy, in short, is mobocracy. Government *does* seek to abolish freedom, under any political party's guidance (Republican, Democrat, even Libertarian); it is always a question of "freedom for (and from) whom, and freedom in what form?"
Personally, I'm ambivalent about this continuous monitoring. It has great potential for bettering human health, but also great potential for abuse, not only by government, but criminals and businesses too...