The article resonated with my experience as as software developer.
At my first place, a small outsourcing shop, employees were required to log daily activities so hours per day roughly fit to 8 and 40 per week. From the beginning and unlike most of coworkers, I measured my time precisely with https://github.com/Klaster1/timer-5 and soon understood that doing 8 hours per day doesn't happen much and often involves staying late, so instead I simply adjusted the reported numbers to look plausible. In four years, I only received positive feedback on my productivity. What was the management thinking, I have no idea, just like the article says, this was a farce all around.
When I changed the company, the habit to measure productivity stuck. Nowadays, I start working somewhere at 9 and finish at 18, and result is still the same - honest 8 hours of work activity per day happen at best once a month, the average week sums to 30-34 hours. Code-related activities never take more than 3-4 hours per day, that includes both coding and reviews. I get the impression that some of my colleagues might spend more time on the job, but low productivity was never a topic of my performance reviews, management seems content with what they get.
Perspective from the management side at a consulting place: We don't want or need you to log your time to the minute. It's counter-productive and a waste of time. It needs to just be representative and not dishonest (please read that sentence twice).
An hour long meeting booked, that ended up taking 45mins? It's an hour. It's the same reason we don't expect you to stop recording time when you to down the hall to make a coffee or take a bathroom break. The numbers only really makes sense at the aggregate level, and going to a higher level of detail is not reliable because of all the noise and different ways people measure their time.
My experience with timesheets is that they must add up to the hours you're paid for (full-time salaried work, not hourly consulting). That more-or-less guarantees that timesheets are made-up.
My first salaried job was as a salesman; we incurred expenses, which we could claim back. It was explained to us that the system was there to ensure that we weren't out-of-pocket; claims didn't have to actually be true, but you did have to have incurred the expense.
I fairly soon realised that this was a lie; the expenses system was really a salary-augmentation scheme, and you were expected to inflate your claims. Everyone was at it.
8 hours of sleep can undo less than 4 hours of problem-solving activity. Our large brains are already consuming too much body resources.
I have CO2 monitor, which I use to estimate is my brain working or not: when I'm working, CO2 level raises quickly above 1000ppm, so I need to ventilate my room often; when I'm idling, e.g. by playing a simple game, CO2 level is at about 740-790ppm without ventilation for whole day.
When I'm returning from work, I see at CO2 monitor that my head is still working. Yes, I'm able to «work» sustainable 4h per day only, but «work related activity» consumes my brain for whole day.
What happens if you have a peer that clocks 14 hours per day and work weekends too, for some reason? At our place they started comparing everyone to him. I work like at half his total speed. He often break things or have to redo things or are late to standup and don't really partake in conversations. We've all asked him to slow down and not burn out but he keeps going.
Speaking as a manager, I’d flag this dev as a concern. Very few people can work at this rate without one (or more) of three scenarios playing out:
1. They burn out and clock out mentally or leave altogether
2. They develop psychological issues and destroy their personal life, leading to an unbalanced and unsustainable situation
3. They expect something from the org in return, which normally the org can’t/won’t match (either in the way of product ownership or compensation or role).
Someone like that needs to be constrained. Keep them on the edge and eager to contribute but don’t let them free reign. If the situation and culture allow, try help out to fill the void in their personal life (I ordered one of our guys to leave early twice a week to spend time with his girlfriend because I knew his dedication to work is destroying his relationship. I sent couple of others to weekends in hotels with their SO after long sprints).
Often times people who work a lot are avoiding serious problems at home/family too, so even ordering someone to go home might be ordering them to go back to an abusive partner or something. I know more than one person who used “oh, my job takes so much of my time!” As a socially acceptable reason to avoid interacting with abusive people in their life.
At my first place, a small outsourcing shop, employees were required to log daily activities so hours per day roughly fit to 8 and 40 per week. From the beginning and unlike most of coworkers, I measured my time precisely with https://github.com/Klaster1/timer-5 and soon understood that doing 8 hours per day doesn't happen much and often involves staying late, so instead I simply adjusted the reported numbers to look plausible. In four years, I only received positive feedback on my productivity. What was the management thinking, I have no idea, just like the article says, this was a farce all around.
When I changed the company, the habit to measure productivity stuck. Nowadays, I start working somewhere at 9 and finish at 18, and result is still the same - honest 8 hours of work activity per day happen at best once a month, the average week sums to 30-34 hours. Code-related activities never take more than 3-4 hours per day, that includes both coding and reviews. I get the impression that some of my colleagues might spend more time on the job, but low productivity was never a topic of my performance reviews, management seems content with what they get.