I've been working professionally in IT for about 6 years now and the concept of 'working too little' has never come up from any of my managers. I have a strict personal policy of working the exact amount of hours discussed upon hiring, and never responding to calls or email outside of those hours. For example I worked at a Fortune 50 with a 37.5 hour workweek and always stuck to that. I even counted the time I spent at lunch. Issue never raised.
I am not saying cases exist where workers are asked to work more than their agreed hours. I killed myself in kitchens for a $25k salary before switching to tech. These cases are a problem.
My point is that this behavior is often self-imposed. People seem to feel a sense of importance when they overwork themselves. Simply stick to the number of hours you've agreed upon and tell your manager to discuss with their supervisor if they bring it up as a disciplinary issue. This all qualified by being in a position of demand as an engineer.
Point is, you'd be surprised with what you can 'get away with.'
For me it's not time per week worked that wears, but vacation time. Scheduling your life around the 2 or 3 weeks that US employers give is madness. When you do take the vacation, you're expected to be reachable by email.
But if you ask for more vacation when you're hired, you're told you're not high enough on some invisible seniority list despite all your previous years of experience working other places.
Don't forget, you have to use half of that vacation time to go to the dentist, doctor, car repair, visit your dying grandmother, funerals, taking care of kids while your wife is sick, etc... Yes, 2-3 weeks is total trash. Employers just view us as cogs in the wheel, not as human beings with human needs anymore. You get punished for having to take time to do personal things. It is completely maniacal.
I had to use 1 week of my 2 weeks PTO to go support my wife having a child in the hospital. It was complete BS. I was so angry at my boss, furiously angry that he would treat me and my family with such utter disrespect as to take away my hard-earned vacation time simply because my wife needed my support.
The level of punishment varies a lot by employer and role. I only worked for a very short time for a guy like that, who was, well, basically crazy and hated his wife and assumed everyone else hated their wives too.
On the other hand most employers are pretty chill WRT the G-Grand-Ops post if you answer your phone for emergency calls once in awhile, then going to the dentist once in awhile during the day is simply handwaved away. Home with a sick kid is handwaved away as "VPN working from home day".
Another interesting strategy if working outside "tech" is to work for an employer with a union, I'm not in the bargaining unit and I'm on salary and if my results and goal metrics are good there is literally no comment to make WRT car repair appointments or something. I'm not on the union timeclock, I have written defined long term goals and metrics, and where I'm sitting at precisely 3:35pm on Tuesday is definitely not one of them.
Obviously life is different in ops or hell desk which often has an abusive call center like atmosphere.
I know it's not PTO, but there are certain qualifying events that allow you to take extended leave from work without repercussion. It includes childbirth and medical conditions where a family member needs care. It's the Family Medical Leave Act[0]. The shitty part is that it's unpaid, so if you can't afford to take 1/2/3 month(s) of absence without pay, it's useless to you.
The FMLA also allows your employer to require you to use PTO before unpaid leave, so you don't have the option to save your PTO for an actual vacation after your medical leave.
I don't know about other states, but California provides up to 6 weeks of Paid Family Leave. "Benefit amounts range from $50 to $1,173 per week and represent about 55 percent of your previous weekly earnings (maximum reimbursement amount is $1,173 per week)."
In many states employment is "at will" for both parties (employee & employer). I suspect that companies/managers who refuse any work-from-home and require you to use PTO for those dental visits would find a way to terminate employees soon after they return from FMLA.
>and work at a location where the company employs 50 or more employees within 75 miles
Well, I work for a small MSP, so... unfortunately the government screwed me. Surprise, surprise. Either way, unpaid paternity leave is still ridiculous, no other country in the world does that that I'm aware of.
Let me play devils advocate. Having a kid is a choice isn't it? Why should someone get more time for their elective activities than someone else? Should smokers get extra breaks to smoke that others don't get?
Rather than paternity leave, why not more general leave for everyone?
Having a child is to society what eating food is to the individual.
You can choose not to eat food, but the individual will not last long.
You can choose not to have kids but the society won't last long.
It's in our interest to support the human part of humanity. We do that with breaks, meal breaks, sick time, vacation time, and other things. But it's also in our interest to benefit society, not just the individual. So we incentivize choices which are mandatory to the health and success of our society, such as creating the next generation to replace those aging out of the workforce.
It would be in the general interest of society if I took some time off to volunteer my efforts in aid to those in need in other countries (or maybe my own). Maybe I would rather do that than have kids. Should we create a special category of time off for that?
Some employers to have that. They're called sabbaticals.
My current employer also has a policy allowing a certain amount of unpaid time out of the office for charity projects that you'd like to participate in.
Indeed, and sabbaticals are not limited to taking leave for children. They are something entirely different from maternity or paternity leave. Something of that nature is what I am proposing.
There's no immediate need to go volunteer. That's an incentive that an employer might offer. Society does need to maintain some level of growth, though.
Now that you mention it, I'd like to take some time off to hit the gym and get into shape instead of having kids. Improving individuals improves society, and if everyone had this benefit, there might be less obesity.
Many workplaces do offer a wide variety of fitness related benefits. Free on-site gyms, fitness programs like walking or stretching offered on company time, memberships to nearby fitness facilities, etc.
Other cultures tackle it differently to. In Japan, organized stretching before work is commonplace.
However, it's very silly to compare procreation with fitness.
The fat procreator still benefits the society far more than the slim non...procreator, because on a 100 year or 200 year scale, both are dead, and the society only contains the progeny of one of them.
Put it this way: would you rather have a phone that can be upgraded a ton but will eventually wear out and stop working, or have a phone which can be endlessly replaced such that it is always modern and working, even if it isn't top of the line?
We have a collective interest in supporting stable families that can raise children, whether you personally decide to have children or not, regardless of your values around parenthood, especially in the early weeks when the infant is cross-culturally identical for most intents and purposes. We have no similar collective interest in supporting smokers. In fact, we should be rewarding people who stop or who never picked up smoking in our health care system to continue that line of reasoning.
Having children is the choice that, if nobody were to make, would lead to humanity's literal extinction. For many it's also a natural biological drive, and nobody should be pressured about it one way or the other. Calling it an "elective" is stretching it even for devil's advocate.
Your position sucks, dude. Everyone should get more, not less. So yes, non smokers should be getting 'smoke' breaks that they can use for a walk, for example. And everyone will be happier.
I agree with you as well, even if your position isn't a popular one.
My employer has a strict 9 to 5 attendance policy (which I disagree with for a number of reasons), but one thing that really bugs me about it is that it applies to days when the roads are hard to navigate due to winter weather. Even if there's a state of emergency and the roads are "closed", we're expected to be here because our customers are all around the country, and they didn't have a snow storm, so we need to be here to support them.
Employees with children tend to get leniency in terms of coming in late on days like that, typically because they had to arrange alternative care for their kids with schools closed. But I have no kids, so if I get stuck behind a snow plow and end up getting to the office at 9:05 I'm probably going to get a lecture on how being late is me being disrespectful to the boss and the company.
I was thinking that things like parental leave and bereavement leave generally don't happen during the same era of your life. Why couldn't they fall into a more generalized category of leave?
Unless your parents were heavy smokers, and you are the youngest of many siblings, you're probably going to take parental leave for all your kids before taking bereavement leave for either parent. If you base the leave on some kind of verifiable qualifying event, the accounting would probably be satisfied by the company paying premiums to an insurer. So you could give people time off whenever they are likely to be very distracted from work.
It doesn't just have to be because a crying baby is making an ordinary sleep schedule impossible. Jury duty with sequestration could be distracting. A tornado or house fire might be a bit stressful. Having your car totaled might be worth a few days off to sort out the crisis during regular business hours.
I'm not really very personally invested in parental leave any more, now that I think maybe I won't have to change any more diapers until the first grandchild. But I can think of all kinds of hypothetical circumstances beyond my direct control that might cause me to take some PTO here and there, which can easily chisel away the amount of actual vacation I can take, until I'm down to maybe extending a 3-day [holiday] weekend into 5 consecutive days away from work, and then not getting sick for the next 3 months.
That's not the kind of leave that reverses burnout.
Alternately, maybe just flush the PTO experiment into the toilet of history, reinstitute sick leave and true vacation, and give people enough of each that they can absorb those life events that eventually happen to everyone.
> Alternately, maybe just flush the PTO experiment into the toilet of history, reinstitute sick leave and true vacation, and give people enough of each that they can absorb those life events that eventually happen to everyone.
This is what I propose, although you say it more eloquently. Rather than trying to carve out cases, why not offer x months of time off for every y unit of time? Those who want to spend that time with their kids can do that. Why should I remain chained to my desk because that's not what I want to do?
It sucks at college too. Get sick for a week? You missed a few lectures that you now need to get notes for from someone, maybe missed a test that you have to schedule a make-up for with your professor, probably missed a TA help session that makes the upcoming assignment comprehensible, etc. All that times the 3-6 classes you're taking, good luck ever getting caught up. You get more time off as a student, but it's not really as flexible.
So much of our society punishes you for illness, and it's sad.
I think about this all the time, haha. I think right now my ideal higher education solution would be somewhere where all of the resources you need are online and you can go at your own pace, so if you need to take time off it's no big deal. Then you have a central location where your fellow students and professors/TAs/experts/whatever are there to help you learn and answer questions, not to lecture to a huge room where 75% of the people are on their phones.
I finally have 5 weeks vacation after 21 years at the same place. Though my elementary school-age kids have 30 days off, not counting Xmas vacation. That's 30 days of teacher service, gov holidays (I don't get), etc.
So even 5 weeks does not allow us to actually go on a vacation.
When I hired on, I was told that using more than 3 days for sick leave would get you fired.
First, I live in the US. I get 5 days of paternity leave. I get 3 weeks of PTO separate from that. My company is considerate but there are definitely companies with better packages than mine. Look around if you're unhappy.
Second, from the perspective of the employer, why should he be punished and forced to pay for these things? He's paying you for your labor, that's the exchange that's been set up. He's not your patron and he hasn't pledged to care for you for the rest of your life. He gets no value when you are not working. What is he paying for, and on what basis should the government compel him to do that?
PTO is a perk, not a right. You are not entitled to your employer's money. That's not to say you shouldn't find an employer who will give that perk, but there's no reason the law should compel him to do so (other than the convenience of the employee).
> Scheduling your life around the 2 or 3 weeks that US employers give is madness. When you do take the vacation, you're expected to be reachable by email.
And, heaven forbid you want to do something like take 2 of those 3 weeks within the span of a month.
Seriously, our obsession with work in the US is completely absurd and I cannot understand it.
US vacation times are nuts. Honestly I don't understand how people can cope with only total of few weeks of vacation per year for decades and additionally do over 40h per week constantly.
Hehe, a 'few weeks'. It's far more common to get 0 or 1 paid week if you don't have an office job, and even then you usually have to be with a company for at least 3 years to get more than 2 weeks, which is becoming less and less desirable if you want to advance in your career now that pensions are virtually extinct.
Unemployment is our only real vacation, and those who go through extended periods of that know it feels like anything but.
Software developers might have it better, although not always. Here in the midwest I have yet to interview anywhere that offered more than 2 weeks of vacation for a new hire.
Wow. That's low. Boston area e-commerce and we offer all employees (SWE or not) 19 days in year 1 and add a day per year of tenure until reaching 24 days. Add to this the 8-9 company holidays (too lazy to look it up) and a 4-week paid sabbatical every five years and you approach European levels of leave.
I think our sabbatical program isn't common, but the rest of the policy seems fairly standard for the area.
Edit: We also accrue sick time at some pace (maybe 5 per year that don't roll over; I honestly have no idea as I've never tracked nor taken a sick day (in the HR systems); of course, I've stayed home while sick when warranted) and have paid parental leave (6 weeks paid for primary and 2 weeks paid for secondary caregiver).
For a comparisson, in an SF based org with 2/3 remote engineers we have 14 regular holidays, most of which can be taken +- 2 weeks of official date, plus 5 days at the end of the year. Start with 12 days PTO (negotiable), 15 at 1 year, 20 at 5 years and 25 at 10 years. All employees acrue 9 sick days per year. Additionally can take 2 paid days off to volunteer at a non profit or educational institution. There is also a sabbatical program, but it's unpaid and for up to 2 months. This can be taken every 3 years. Parental leave is 12 weeks of 100% pay.
If taking all possible days, in the first year you have 42 days off, up to 55 by year 10
Software developers only have it better if they work for the government or one of the top firms that happens to have a laid back policy (e.g. Microsoft, instead of Amazon).
When in grade school my holidays were July and August.
Then in High School it was Mid June to August.
Then in university mid May to August.
Then I graduated and started to work: 2 weeks, yay![1]
[1] This is true for full time employment. One way to escape it is to work freelance contracts. I did this for years, and regularly gave myself a few months off between contracts.
I wonder what the effects on our society would be if we had a national three month summer holiday. No one in school, no one at work. Fascinating to think about!
Come to Paris in August, the whole city is on vacation!
Joke aside, it baffles me every time this comes up wrt. american workers. I have 5 weeks PTO and I'm the worst off from all of my friends: most have between 7-8 weeks, some even up to 9-11 weeks per annum. [and they're not even teachers] Of course you're also expected to take every last day.
Someone invented shifts. Imagine, you go on vacation for 3 months in summer, I go on vacation for 3 months in winter, next year we switch. Wouldn't that be awesome, eh?
I think the country would be a much healthier and happier place.
Health care expenses would go down a lot and I believe in many jobs productivity wouldn't suffer much either. I see so many people just going through the motions pretending to be busy.
If you're expected to be reachable then you aren't really on vacation. I simply tell them I'm going hiking in $NationalPark where phone service is not possible. If you let them know you are available then they will take advantage of it. If you let them know you are unavailable they'll plan for that.
> I simply tell them I'm going hiking in $NationalPark where phone service is not possible.
That's how I got married = "I was told that if you take one of the trails from the lodge over to a high overlook your phone will report signal for at least one carrier from down in the valley, but they're not sure if anyone's ever actually managed to make a call."
Sequoia might not be that isolated these days, but it was still a great choice.
I agree. I've worked at a number of big name tech companies and smaller companies, and I always unplug from work email when I'm on vacation. It's not an issue, you just have to do it. If it is an issue where you work, I encourge you to look for a new job. It's not universal.
I only choose to work at companies with unlimited vacation policies (yes I know it's not really unlimited). I don't understand how people can tolerate this whole notion of counting down how many days you have left for the year (unless it's 4+ weeks). Feels like being a prisoner.
I had a job with unlimited vacation once and it's such a strange and uncomfortable concept for me. Upon hiring, my boss told me to take as much vacation as I need/like, "but of course, you cannot go off on for example 4 months of vacation". So, apparently, the vacation is not really unlimited (as 4 months is above the limit) - the limit is merely undisclosed. This policy was one of the reasons I didn't stay in that company for long.
From what I've seen, its more of a culture thing than anything. I've never been explicitly told I'm not working enough, or that I need to work late, or anything like that. You just see your coworkers answering emails at all hours of the night, and working late, and in a constant state of crunch mode. A lot of this even seems self imposed, some people seem to get a thrill out of it, and seemingly brag about how much work their doing, or how late they work. Then they get additional praise for putting in the work. It's easy to get dragged in to this too. There's a sense of guilt that comes when you're only working your 40 hour week and everyone else around you is putting in 60 hour weeks constantly. You start to feel as if you can alleviate their suffering if you only put in an extra five or ten hours.
I meet up every week for beers with some long time friends. I seem to be the only one who works 40 hours, and I get chastised for it. Called lazy, good for nothing, etc., you name it. I don't care, I smile and sip my beer.
I tell them we'll see if their opinion changes upon life reflection while in their final hospital bed.
Huh? He said he meets up for beers with his long-time friends. It's not his friends chastising him for this, it's his cow-orkers or managers. Sounds like he needs to look for a new job to me. The best thing to do in a case like this is to find a new job, and time your giving notice at the old job so that it's right in the middle of a big crunch. Of course, don't bother working very hard during this 2 weeks, if they even keep you around. If anyone complains, tell them they're lazy if they're not willing to pick up the slack for you leaving and work 20 hours a day. Assholes.
Ah sorry, perhaps I wasn't clear. It is my friends chastising me. It's all in good fun, but I do sense some bitterness/jealousy from it. I find the more time they spend at work, the more the conversation is steered towards it. Personally, I don't go for beers with friends to make small-talk about our work life, so I in turn can sometimes become the bitter one when they can't reciprocate with anything (that I find) interesting to talk about.
You might be getting trolled. As a guy who used comp time fairly and honestly, if I had to leave early the next day for car repair or I left early today to attend kids school conferences or a choir concert or if I know I'm gonna VPN in tomorrow because a kid is sick today, I'll crank things up a bit and reply to emails at 8pm or whatever to show off. I wonder how many of your "hard working" coworkers posting at night left at 2 for a dentists appointment that may or may not exist or have other similar scheming going on.
Back when I stayed at the office after normal hours, it was mostly because I didn't have decent heating and air conditioning at my apartment. Beyond that, it was also because my life outside of work was incredibly boring.
I could go home, watch TV, sweat, and listen for the mice getting into my ramen and oatmeal, or I could stay at work and maybe help do something cool that the CEO could sell to investors.
I pretty much stopped the instant I made a new friend in my new city. That person got me to buy a window AC unit, and keep restaurant reservations, and go to movie theaters, and move to an apartment with fewer freeloading rodents in it.
So you could probably also alleviate their suffering by giving them a reason to leave work at quitting time, and keeping them out long enough to discourage going back.
Nowadays, I only need about 75% of a half-baked, tissue-thin reason to not be at work, to want to leave the office early.
Haha, we have a guy here like that too, the Attendance Cop...he is always commenting "leaving early?" when I head out at 5:30 occasionally. He doesn't seem to notice he is always the last one to get here, minutes before stand-up at 10:00 AM.
I don't think it is a matter of getting away. I can not be productive (truly productive) for more than 4 hours a day. The rest is just overhead my employer pays to keep me on hand.
I guess in theory they could just pay me for those 4 hours as much as they'd pay me for the 8 hours but that's way too much sense for most folks.
The remaining time, in my experience, is to coordinate meetings with management.
Managers at my company have meetings almost all day. I, however, only have a few meetings per week. They can do meetings for 8 hours just fine, but I can't code for 8 hours. I could go home after 4 hours and be just as productive per week, but I'd miss potential meeting hours.
And naturally, they are the ones whom we have to cater to when this kind of divide comes up.
Totally. I only have about 4-6 of focused mental energy before I'm just taking up space and feeling sleepy or antsy. So these days I head home after six hours in the office. Honestly I hope to eventually get to the point here that if I need a break, change of pace, or am just "done" I can do what makes sense... Take a nap, work from home, whatever.
Ha, I'm the same way. 4-5 hours, I'd say. I was recently very upfront with my employer about this and I managed to finagle myself a deal where they're halving my salary and I'm going down to four hours per day. They said they would have never hired me part time like that but luckily for me they don't want to lose me. May be worth a shot if you don't mind making less money.
Couldn't agree more. At the beginning of my career, I used to do unpaid overtime because everyone did it, but that stopped after a year when I realized that I didn't have to do it in order to deliver my projects. It may have limited my growth at that company, but changing company every few years is a much better career plan salary-wise, at least until you get to a more senior position.
I have had startups expect more then the typical 40 hours a week, and yep, I burned out pretty fast. But that's an easy filter: don't work at an early stage startup.
Otherwise, it's amazing how little managers actually pay attention to their workers. You're right: you can totally get away with setting strict boundaries in most places, just set the tone early and be consistent and professional.
I make it a point of asking a few questions about hours and project management wherever I interview.
I had an interview once where I asked a manager of an established (10+ years old) company about hours. He expected all employees to put in more than 8 hours most days. I then asked about project scheduling. It seemed to me that there was no slack planned into the releases. Everyone was allocated 110% with no room for slippage.
That's what happens with weak overtime laws. The movie industry, which is unionized, has an established discipline of film scheduling. That's because overruns are very expensive. Software could have this, but doesn't.
It's a bit dangerous to use a job you'd not take under any circumstances as leverage though. It's just like making an alternative offer up. A bluff you might get called on.
You don't say "I'll walk if you don't meet my terms" if you really want the job. But simply mentioning you have another offer can improve the terms you'll get.
edit: Wow, I've gotten some negative responses and I'm not sure why. This isn't a "how can I exploit people" question, it's about making sure my interview process doesn't accidentally result in people that will be unhappy. It takes a lot to compete with incumbents and agreeing to work for a startup is the algebra of pros/cons.
> I have had startups expect more then the typical 40 hours a week, and yep, I burned out pretty fast.
I'm the head of an early stage startup and have a favor to ask: can you give me advice on how to detect someone with your 40-hours-or-I'll-be-unhappy mindset? I've never heard a candidate employee express anything close to "I'm in at 9AM and expect to be out by 5:30", even if shortly down the road, it becomes clear that they feel their work/life balance is being infringed upon.
I don't mean this in any negative way and I envy people that aren't boolean in or out, but people that would feel burned out on 5x10h days (+ sometimes a quick Sunday Slack session) aren't good fits _right now_ for my team. Reliable "I do my 40, put in good work, and I'll be here for years" people are _great_ for much later stage (post-IPO, for instance), but it would deeply bother me if I found out one of my workers was feeling burned out/demotivated.
Seriously just hire 5 people instead of 4. You have 125% right there and the fact that you aren't burning out people means you'll have less employee turnover. THAT's what costing you. Not people working 40h. You'll get better people for your money by being clear that even though it's a young, growing startup, work/life balance is valued. A single key person burnt out or unhappy will cost you more productivty than those extra nights and evenings ever could.
> It it would deeply bother me if I found out one of my workers was feeling burned
out/demotivated.
Then make sure people don't overwork. If something happens with a deploy that means people had to work late on thursday, then make sure they are compensated with time off.
> how to detect someone with your 40-hours-or-I'll-be-unhappy mindset
Yes. Here is how: if they aren't unhappy about working a lot then they are inexperienced. Another tell is if they have a family. In your situation, don't hire anyone with kids. Their kids will thank you. and those people don't want to work for you anyway.
The problem is you can't afford to make your company an evening pizza 27 year old bromance company because you likely can't cut out that much of the talent pool without it costing you.
Also: I don't mind people working a lot if compensated well. I could certainly have worked a ton of hours for a period of my life (before kids etc) but I would have been pretty annoyed had I accepted an offer at a company and later found out that the offer was for an expected 50h and not 40h. Don't have people come and waste time at your interview without knowing what the situation is.
There was a time in my life when I was willing to go through the entire interview process only to reject the offer demanding 45h work weeks. There was even a time when I would ask about hours per week up front and walk away from answers I didn't like.
Now, I'll say point blank that if you're telling your salaried employees to work more than an average of 40 hours a week, you're just an asshole. Even more so than if you're just saying those who would otherwise be skilled wage laborers are salaried exempt as a dodge around relevant labor laws.
The only people who should be living at the office are those with an actual, significant equity stake in the success of the company.
Here's how you detect 40h-or-unhappy. First, check to see if the person has a normal, cocaine-free, methamphetamine-free pulse rate. Then, pat them down and check their pockets for fully vested stock in your company. If you find the first, and not the second, that person will be unhappy working extra-long hours for your benefit.
Parent is absolutely correct. Paying fewer people to work longer hours will absolutely cost you more in the long run. Just hire another person.
Yep, this is right on the money. Very few people actually want to work more than 40. Most who I know would kill to work less, even if paid proportionally less.
That said, I always try to get a sense of expectations in interviews. I don't care if it makes me look like a clock watcher (I'm not). I ask about how the hiring manager works and if they expect their employees to adopt a similar schedule. Or I ask about what the work life balance is like. That kind of thing.
I work to live, not the other way around. I don't want to be just another person who works their ass off until 65 or 70 and then finally gets to retire, only to be dead within a year or two.
That's actually a lot easier said then done at an early stage startup for reasons of talent and compensation.
> The problem is you can't afford to make your company an evening pizza 27 year old bromance company because you likely can't cut out that much of the talent pool without it costing you.
Wow, wait? We're not a "bromance company" and I'm not even sure how to respond to this and I think it's vaguely insulting.
> Also: I don't mind people working a lot if compensated well.
We're very clear with compensation and living wage and actual equity is something we make sure is on the table.
> I could certainly have worked a ton of hours for a period of my life (before kids etc) but I would have been pretty annoyed had I accepted an offer at a company and later found out that the offer was for an expected 50h and not 40h. Don't have people come and waste time at your interview without knowing what the situation is.
This is really important to me and I make sure the candidate actually knows what he/she is getting into.
This is exactly why I wrote:
"I've never heard a candidate employee express anything close to "I'm in at 9AM and expect to be out by 5:30", even if shortly down the road, it becomes clear that they feel their work/life balance is being infringed upon."
The problem isn't that I'm trying to hustle people, it's that people tend to agree to situations they don't actually want when interviewing.
> Wow, wait? We're not a "bromance company" and I'm not even sure how to respond to this and I think it's vaguely insulting.
Sorry, no offense intended - I was reading between the lines. Basically if you expect people to be able to always stay after hours, then you are excluding pretty much everyone with a family for example.
It risks creating the typical monoculture of guys (yes unfortunately) between 25 and 35.
People have different ambitions and different needs. The time when I could stay at an office to 6PM is over. I might be willing to do it again in 15 years but now I'm expected to put dinner on the table at 6. A ton of people are in this situation, much too many to ignore even for a startup. They might not seem like a good fit for your phase of startup but I think that mode of thought is counterproductive. A varied set of people will be best. That also means you'll have people with different needs. Cater to those needs and be open with expectations.
Needing people to occasionally work more is normal. Even having an emergency meeting on a Sunday is normal. Just be clear with what the situation is, what is expected, and make sure that the plan is to never have 50h weeks or weekend meetings. The problem is having the "constant crunch time" culture.
> I've never heard a candidate employee express anything close to "I'm in at 9AM and expect to be out by 5:30"
Not sure I understood the problem here, was it that you would have preferred that to surface in the interview, but it didn't, which caused friction down the line when someone turned out to not want to work more than 40h weeks?
> It risks creating the typical monoculture of guys (yes unfortunately) between 25 and 35.
Oh yeah, totally. My motivation for asking was to make sure we don't end up in a monoculture of people that stick around after being surprised by the startup grind. That won't work for our business as we _need_ a mix of people, backgrounds, interests to really make it work (opposed to say, a hft/fintech platform, where diversity of thought/life experience isn't crucial).
> A ton of people are in this situation, much too many to ignore even for a startup. They might not seem like a good fit for your phase of startup but I think that mode of thought is counterproductive.
Yeah, it's definitely hard. Funding is limited and early stage is about maximizing the value of capital and speed of validating assumptions, and unfortunately, that often means preclusive criteria for people that need to leave "on time" regularly. Not saying it's right, but that's the reality of most startups.
I want to actively combat the bias of just short circuiting to people that are 22-30 and probably without kids, which means being able to have the conversation of "hey, please don't say this expectation is fine if it's not" and knowing how to tell if someone says it's fine for the sake of getting an offer, but it's actually not.
> Needing people to occasionally work more is normal. Even having an emergency meeting on a Sunday is normal. Just be clear with what the situation is, what is expected, and make sure that the plan is to never have 50h weeks or weekend meetings. The problem is having the "constant crunch time" culture.
The first 5 you hire are basically hopping into constant crunch with you, which is why their equity should be the carrot to make the stick worthwhile.
I think I rubbed people the wrong way or reminded them of a negative employer, but a weekend meeting for us is a few lines on Slack that essentially serves the purpose of "hey, so I decompressed and reflected, and here's where I'm thinking for this week. is this reasonable?"
I don't call meetings without a purpose and I _definitely_ don't want this to be the norm after we grow.
> Not sure I understood the problem here, was it that you would have preferred that to surface in the interview, but it didn't, which caused friction down the line when someone turned out to not want to work more than 40h weeks?
This is exactly it. If a candidate expressed this, I would say "okay, thank you for your time, I hope you're available when we know we can respect this."
I think this has a bit to do with the song-and-dance ritualization of the hiring process. Employers and employees can both get caught up in saying things they think the other side wants to hear, and when one side presents a question that the other side receives as signalling--you may say "We expect you to work as long as necessary to meet deadlines, even if that's until 10pm or later" and they may hear the stock "Are you a hard worker"--they do what they always have done: signal back the appropriate response.
I think it's appropriate to be very explicit. Call out the issue. Tell them you aren't signalling. Tell them you really mean what you say, and that if they're going to get burned out from that, then your shop isn't the place for them.
I think based on your responses you have the right attitude.
> We expect you to work as long as necessary to meet deadlines, even if that's until 10pm or later"
I think the song-and-dance is very much the problem. Just be explicit. If you want a company that has 50h weeks as norm, then say that (It's insane though). But saying "we expect you to work as long as it takes to meet deadline" is terrible. I'd certainly agree to work more at crunch time - but when is crunch time? how often? The problem is the culture of permanent crunch time.
Be open as a candidate too. I might say
"I'm fine with working a 50h week when required, unless it is the norm. Is it usually OK to do a 30h week the week after such a week?"
The response to that might indicate whether the employer was hoping to see me there for permanent crunch time or not.
> Employers and employees can both get caught up in saying things they think the other side wants to hear.. I think it's appropriate to be very explicit. Call out the issue. Tell them you aren't signalling. Tell them you really mean what you say, and that if they're going to get burned out from that, then your shop isn't the place for them.
You nailed it. The problem is that even when being explicit in expectations, candidates will still try to get that offer, even if it's not the right fit at that time. It's really hard to tell if someone means it when they say "oh, that's fine." I think startups have a certain glamour that masks the reality and people see interviews as tests, not conversations.
Further, I'd love to keep that person in the pipeline -- employee happiness and feeling valued is huge for me, so if that person needs to come in at 10 because they need to drop a kid off at school, I can respect that, and hope he/she is available when we can accommodate it.
> I think based on your responses you have the right attitude.
> I'm the head of an early stage startup and have a favor to ask: can you give me advice on how to detect someone with your 40-hours-or-I'll-be-unhappy mindset?
-Anyone over the age of 25
-Anyone with a spouse or family or has normal non-work hobbies or interests
-Anyone with pre-existing health or stress issues
-Anyone who thinks that getting burned-out is a bad idea
How are you going to feel if the third time isn't the charm, and you're laying on your death bed thinking about all that work you were doing rather than spending time with your family. Work won't miss you, but your kids will.
It's interesting the assumptions you make about when I see my kids, how much I see my kids and how I balance that with a job I deeply enjoy. Also interesting to see the assumptions made about what kind of people are passionate enough to work more than 40 hours a week. My only point in commenting was to help people challenge their false assumptions. Trust me, I've stared death in the eye, and had a tube hanging out of me for weeks. I am at peace with my priorities - and I spend lots of quality time with my children, thanks for your concern.
I don't know why you're being sarcastic, but I actually wanted to make sure I don't bring someone on to be unhappy.
People over 25 can work more than 40 hours and not get burned out. I feel that you just want to make me out to be a bad guy, so I'm not sure it's worth writing a longer response.
These people who like to work as little as possible are called human beings. Sorry, but you have unreasonable expectations for your team.
Think about it. You are asking human beings to make personal sacrifices for no personal gain, but for the sole purpose of making your dream a reality.
Honestly, I think you need to find people who find emotional shelter at work, so you could ask if there is any personal trauma they are trying to avoid.
> Honestly, I think you need to find people who find emotional shelter at work, so you could ask if there is any personal trauma they are trying to avoid.
This is actually great insight I've never heard before. When I threw myself into 18 hour days 7 days a week it absolutely was an attempt to avoid personal trauma.
Better than a drug addiction I suppose in that it got me places, but probably damaging in many of the same ways.
I'm considering what you say, but it doesn't ring true to my interpersonal experiences at all.
> Think about it. You are asking human beings to make personal sacrifices for no personal gain, but for the sole purpose of making your dream a reality.
My team has (real) equity and I like to believe they see the worth of the product. What attracted me to startups when I entered the game was the sense of ownership and agency in projects. That and work can/should come with a sense of reward.
> so you could ask if there is any personal trauma they are trying to avoid.
I think this would be somewhat inappropriate to ask "hey, so do you put in extra hours because you don't feel whole?". Everyone I work with knows they can come to me, even if he/she needs to take his/her house keys and to go to a second location to chat.
> You could also consider hiring hourly.
There's room for hourly consultants, but that hardly makes a team.
You may be an exceptional case. I do know people that are unreasonably driven, but it's always been for their own success.
> My team has (real) equity and I like to believe they see the worth of the product.
Hey, if you're 'paying' them for their time and they believe their equity is valuable, whether it is or not, sounds like everybody wins.
> What attracted me to startups when I entered the game was the sense of ownership and agency in projects. That and work can/should come with a sense of reward.
That to me sounds like someone who's been had by a capitalistic culture. Unless you're a winner, then good for you.
> My team has (real) equity and I like to believe they see the worth of the product.
You're paying your team in Bison Dollars: their compensation has value if and only if the world-domination scheme goes off without a hitch. But that's a big if. The value of the product won't be clear until it goes to market, but the value of the time they put in is lost forever irrespective of the market value of your finished product. Meanwhile, your team's landlords won't accept that equity as rent payment.
Unless they're a founder, the amount of equity you're giving them, no matter how much, is insufficient to ask someone to regularly work more than 40 hours a week.
Sorry man, it just doesn't work. People will do it, mostly young people. You can take advantage of that, but guess what, that makes you an asshole.
If my employees can't get their work done in 40 hours, then they aren't planning their work effectively. If, as a manager and a leader, I have a duty and a responsibility for the success of my team, then I must make them have a reasonable work/life balance.
I've known a ton of people happy to work until they were quickly burned out, but their output was usually a bunch of sound and fury representing nothing.
So does every other startup. Most of the time it either amounts to nothing, or is dilluted away.
"What attracted me to startups when I entered the game was the sense of ownership and agency in projects. That and work can/should come with a sense of reward."
Try this - start from the end: assume "40 hours or I'll be unhappy" is everybody, and consider realistically if your company IPO-ed and this person cashed in the options you'll give him, would the rest of his life be materially better, risk adjusted for that IPO ever becoming a reality, for every day of the week you make him unhappy as a fraction of the total days in a year?
So to paraphrase, you are asking HN: "How can I detect which workers are easiest to exploit?"
I don't know your exact situation, but extrapolating from experiences at early stage startups I worked at:
1) Hire more people. Instead of asking people to give 110%, hire 1.10⨉ the number of people.
2) Give employees the same stock (in the same class as the founders) not some second class options.
3) Get organized. A lot of crunch time occurs because tasks are not well defined, dependencies not identified etc... And write things down, that way you can read a document instead of bothering someone on vacation to ask a question.
Just let them know early on in clear terms: "This is an early stage startup, and we're very likely going to need everyone to work beyond traditional hours."
It really is that simple.
But you have to understand that some people don't honestly know if they want to work those kinds of hours until they do it. So you will have turnover because of burnout.
FYI, I did have prior experience in a startup. I thought it would be fun to do another one. I guess age just got me turned off to the bullshit. I was not excited to have to respond to silly questions like "what are some alternative ways of using gradle for automating builds" over the weekend. If we're working 60+ hour workweeks taking time off from dating to answer questions related to development process, not the core product direction, is not the sort of shit that's going to keep many people involved.
So, a lot of experienced people will probably be turned off by being asked to work a lot, because, hey, the older you get, the more of a life you probably have. You can probably tell by the amount of down votes you've received, the "we're going to need to work overtime" message is not an easy one to stomach. So, if you need experienced people, be prepared to spend big, and make sure they've got real autonomy. Someone who's been around the block is not going to care as much about your equity, and will lose confidence in you much faster as things don't take off.
>This isn't a "how can I exploit people" question, it's about making sure my interview process doesn't accidentally result in people that will be unhappy.
Have you considered that even those people that think they are game to work a lot will end up unhappy because of biology? We aren't made to put in 10 hour days with a Sunday slack session before getting back into it on Monday.
You mean doing nothing but chatting on Sunday for 30 mins if they don't have any conflicting plans? I bet most people would be fine with that for an otherwise great job. A quick chat that's not so quick and also involves doing work before or after it, not so much. So how honest are you being here?
Dead honest. I mean a quick async-okay-if-from-phone "hey, here's what I have lined up for this week, can you tell me if this is unreasonable from your perspective" exchange.
On Sunday? Not happening. Ever. Weekends are off limits, particularly since having kids. Man, I hate meetings enough during the work week, and you wanna have one on the weekend? Even if it's short, or over the phone, or via email, or slack, or whatever, it's still a work intrusion. I personally think the weekend should be four days a week, and damn near sacred.
How has your career progress been in terms of promotions / raises? At my last job I was directly told that part of why my bonus amount was lowered was my attempt to self-limit my hours (which is a good part of why I left right after that review). They weren't thinking about it as a disciplinary issue, but it was clear that all the people who were doing well at the company were those who put in long hours, even if those hours didn't involve working.
Great question. I killed in my first few years at that Fortune 50, then stalled because I was on an unfit team and continually pressed my colleagues. Learned a lot from that, but I digress. I did some contracting where I worked ~50, because the pay was hourly. Now I have a great full-time spot making about double where I started out of college.
I'm glad you left and hope you found something better!
This is where a good company culture could make a difference. I have family, and I don't miss real life because someone decided to have a meeting at 7. No one stops me, but I know the people who always stay will progress further and faster, I only have my skill to rely on.
I respond after hours but that's only because we're a small outfit and it's just me and one other guy on-call. We cover each other as needed, and generally we only really "work" outside hours if something really goes to pot and needs intervention, otherwise it waits until business hours.
In the three years I've been here, I can count on one hand how many times I've actually needed to work off the clock, and our boss does appreciate the effort in direct financial ways.
Simply stick to the number of hours you've agreed upon
From my limited experience, the employment contracts for us salaried people state quite clearly that availability outside of the "office hours" is to be expected in the vague but neverending "emergencies", "company deadlines", "business needs", "results-oriented tasks", etc.
What you're describing - for salaried employees - exists only in government as far as I've seen.
Are you in the US? I've never been in a salaried role in a US tech company that has a contract. And as a salaried employee who has worked at a bunch of companies, I've always enforced a good work/life balance for myself, and I've done quite well.
Yes. The specific hours aren't in the contract; it specifies following your manager's policy dictate on that matter, with some form of the definitions I gave that justify contingencies.
It's amazing how many "emergencies" aren't emergencies. If I have plans I have plans. If there are loads of "emergencies" then that is the result of poor planning and management. Lots of managers I have worked with back off when I decline.
Having said that, not everyone is in a position to be strict about it. It needs to be put into law or hashed out during the hiring process.
>Point is, you'd be surprised with what you can 'get away with.'
Two problems with that.
1. You get away with x until you can't. Lots of people don't have easy lateral moves to other companies like techies do, so being told to stay late isn't anything they can fight.
2. Advancement is still a thing. If you're the guy clocking out at 4:30 but everyone else stays until 6, your boss will notice and that might hurt your chances of advancement regardless of how "good" you think your work is. Those guys staying to 6 are playing the long game to be noticed and get promoted and a raise. Sure maybe at age 25, making low-end money is great, then you want a kid and a decent home and now you're wondering why you can't get promoted.
>People seem to feel a sense of importance when they overwork themselves.
This goes against everything I've seen. People act a certain way because they feel presured to. Everyone is busy with their self-interest. We don't want to stay late or remote in at night. We do that because we more or less have to.
As someone who has worked in both hardcore and lax environments, I can guarantee you none of this is optional in a former. Getting into a latter took me 10 years. Good jobs where you're seen as a professional with a life outside work are sadly lacking.
Please keep in mind that not everyone cares about advancement.
I'm childfree, and I have zero interest in climbing the corporate ladder. I work so I can pay my rent and afford food, and that's about it. I'm just not a career-minded person.
All depends on the leadership. In some places, working 9-5 won't get you in trouble, but if you're not around to kibbitz with the management at 6, you're not going anywhere.
The place I work at seems to respect the work/life balance well. If I get in at 9:00, I'm one of the first people in. If I leave at 6:30, I'm just about the last person out. There are a few people who work odd hours, and people in management who work a lot extra, but I think it's mostly a matter of choice.
My boss works a lot of overtime, partly because he's stretched too thin, being a dev manager and responsible for coding being one of the few key people left who originally wrote (and still understands) much of the system, but I also think he likes it that way. He is always very clear that we are not expected to work extra hours under normal circumstances, and I don't believe he's ever actually asked me to work extra in the 2 years or so, I've worked for him (I have a few times, but very seldom.)
> I've been working professionally in IT for about 6 years now and the concept of 'working too little' has never come up from any of my managers
It wouldn't come back to you that directly. Sure, people don't get fired for doing the bare minimum. It takes the form of other people seeming more engaged with their jobs than you do, and the consequences you'd expect. There's a middle ground where you don't sacrifice quality of life but don't do the bare minimum.
Just this last week my boss strongly suggested I should stay far past forty because it'd look bad if only one team was going home on time. I've had several jobs where it was strongly implied I could work unpaid overtime or never get promoted.
I cannot put the blame on workers who have the fear of God put in them that, if they don't kill themselves for their job, they won't be able to provide for their families. This is a management failure, full stop.
I am not saying cases exist where workers are asked to work more than their agreed hours. I killed myself in kitchens for a $25k salary before switching to tech. These cases are a problem.
My point is that this behavior is often self-imposed. People seem to feel a sense of importance when they overwork themselves. Simply stick to the number of hours you've agreed upon and tell your manager to discuss with their supervisor if they bring it up as a disciplinary issue. This all qualified by being in a position of demand as an engineer.
Point is, you'd be surprised with what you can 'get away with.'