but only in certain professions - you try getting a builder/electrician/plumber to do unpaid overtime! why programmers are suckers for this is a bit of a mystery.
Where I live, programmers tend to be book smart and very arrogant about it.
Plenty of people from my college and department genuinely think they are smarter than everyone else.
This blinds them to the kind of street smarts required to understand even basic ideas of how to not get exploited, the utility of unions, power dynamics between employers and employees.
I’ve always said if you want to get a developer to do something, just question their intelligence. This works on way too may otherwise smart people.
It somewhat makes sense, many devs grew up smart and were told they were smart from a young age. You need to be to do the job. It becomes part of their identity and is a glaring blind spot for many.
I’ve worked with way too many devs that were so afraid of being wrong or had to prove they were right and were taken advantage of because of it.
Not sure how giving people motivation is exploitation. You still have to pay them to own what they built, otherwise you just motivated them to build something for themselves, either way it isn't exploitative.
If you say that a great teacher manipulates their students to do more overtime work is that exploitation just because we changed the words? Normally people would use the words "motivate" and "homework", but the meaning of the sentence is the same.
I'm getting paid by the hour, not by the task. As such, there is no point in "motivating" me to get more work done from my perspective, other than to manipulate me for your own benefit and replace me as soon as the overdrive's price needs to get paid.
If you could work without caring about pay but still get paid then that would be optimal, no? We are talking about that situation here, someone made people do work for non-monetary rewards but they still get paid, to me that seems like a good thing. I'd rather work because I want to than because I have to, call it manipulating or motivating I don't care, if they can make me forget the drudgery when doing it that is a good thing.
But apparently that makes me stupid, I don't see why that is dumb. Being manipulated to want to work is a good thing if you want the money.
Street smarts means you realize that the best payoff is to get a better job instead of trying to fix your current job. That level of street smarts is why many got into software to begin with.
If you could choose between starting a union or becoming a manager, then becoming a manager will almost always be a better payoff for your own time.
I admit this was a blindspot for me, and it was mostly a representation problem. simply put, all the examples I had were blue collar jobs, paying a cut of their lesser (but union inflated) salary to a union organization they had issues with.
I saw high profile futility. Union tried to negotiate something expensive, the company collapsed and laid off the entire town. People marching in a circle for 3 months in one city, against a multinational corporation that shouldn't really need to care. The people forming unions making demands that didn't seem ambitious enough.
I felt I was optimizing my salary, based on the current reality. But I've come to a different view, mostly that others in the working class are pitted against each other. Like, other workers are dismissive to highly compensated employees because of the numbers involved. But this is only beneficial to the executives, board and owners. I'm dismayed at how this sounds like a marxist handbook, instead of looking at how other developed nations do it. I've been inspired by codetermination in Germany, where the unions has like half of the board seats by law. Its like that perspective is completely missing in the US, in favor of false dilemmas trying to avoid marxist leanings.
I think more education on this topic is beneficial. People react to what they see.
> I'm dismayed at how this sounds like a marxist handbook, instead of looking at how other developed nations do it. I've been inspired by codetermination in Germany, where the unions has like half of the board seats by law.
Guess who's to thank for that German policy...it begins with an 'M' and ends with 'ists.'
Its nice to see compromise actually work amongst coalition parties competing amongst like 7 other parties with representation.
Even though that is not possible in the US, I think there is room for inspiration from a working system which can reach consensus. If there was more knowledge of that, plenty of people and representatives in the US would say "huh, that's actually a good idea". Worker board representation so to have influence on decisions that affect workers, not just the trendiest companies giving some shares out willy nilly.
I hate to break it to you, but the ruling class agreed to this compromise only after 2 world wars. The conflict to resolve was/is not between political parties, but rather between the working class and the ruling class. In this case, the ruling class upended the labor party during WW1, then were obliterated by the Soviet Union for doing a holocaust (WW2), which laid the conditions for the so-called compromise.
I guess I mind that it occurred that way because it was preventable and millions of innocent workers died as a result, but nonetheless it's history now.
The policy has been good for workers in Germany, and might be the best example of how universal material demands for (actual) worker power are extremely popular in practice. Not even the most conservative German politician would dare challenge the policy in public.
It is, nonetheless, unsustainable. Without the threat of the Soviet Union, pro-worker legislation is losing its necessity in legitimating the Western ruling class. Once its founding generation is gone in a few decades, the policy will dissolve along with them, short of a newfound radical workers movement throughout the EU.
Because the barrier to entry in programming is zero. Or near enough to it. Code on your free time, learn php on your free time. Suddenly you are WordPress developer.
Learning a trade can require very expensive tools, often time as an apprentice or journeyman, and learning at the very first stage of your career that your labor has value and you need to charge for that.
I can hire a programmer from anywhere in the world and often incredibly cheaply. I can't do that with a tradesman, they actually have to be local, often have more work than they can ever get done, and know that I can't outsource the construction project to someone 1,000 miles away.
I’ve done a fair bit of not-specifically-compensated overtime over my career.
In my 20s and early 30s, if I didn’t have anything going on socially or sports on a given evening, I was pretty likely going to write code (for enjoyment). Sometimes that was for me, but often it was for the company.
Doing what I enjoy is why I was a sucker in your estimation.
I mean, yes? You could have built side projects, contributed to open source, freelanced, etc. There are a ton of ways to do what you enjoy without allowing someone to profit off your unpaid labor.
yes, i certainly used the university that i worked for facilities when i was starting out, but only for my own projects (arguably bad, i might admit) - i never did or have done any work for my employers that i wasn't compensated for, and i can't imagine why anyone would.
It's like that in the USA, where I used to live. I live in Germany now, and I am a salaried employee. The law here doesn't generally allow any non-remunerated work beyond 10%-15%, and your daily work hour average over a 6 month period cannot exceed 8 hours. Anything above that, and they have to pay my hourly rate times a multiplier depending on how far over or if they are weekend/nighttime hours. I believe they're also required to pay for "on-call" hours, whether you are actually called in or not, at a lesser rate. All of this is statutory, not specific to my contract. Not surprisingly, I'm no longer on the pager duty rotation.
Your salary is rated on a basis of working a certain number of hours per week on average as that is a standard that most people in society run by - that number is otherwise meaningless.
Similar to how oil changes are rated between a driving distance or a change by date, or how your milk and bread has a sell by date. These numbers are guidelines that generally signal to people some amount of confidence in a product/service, but do not reflect the reality of use or worthiness.
Latelty we had a discusion about that too. There was a story from a hairdresser women who worked for 20 years and never git a raise in her salary. She worked for almost nothing. But I think person like this hairdresser are gulty too. Because they all work for this low salary, of course the boss would be stupid to pay more. All, every single person, who work overtime for free is kind of guilty.
Blue collar work has to be compensated with overtime. Many electricians/builders/plumbers are independent contractors, so they either get paid for job or by the hour or whatever, they make their own rules. Programming is considered white collar work for some reason, we are generally considered to be salaried employees, unless they are contracting.
Yes, but this form of gambling is a terrible thing to encourage implicitly. It's awful for society to ask people who have worked to attain a "normal" education, trying to apply to "normal" companies, to choose between life-harm and potential future compensation. For specialized cases like a silicon valley moonshot startup or whatever, fine. But this scenario, allowed to progress naturally, will work itself into more and more "normal" cases.
This is especially compounded by the two facts that it's not a zero-sum game, and software developers have a higher tendency to fall outside some of the social norms that normally serve as natural controls on this kind of scenario. I.e. if you can do your job for unusually long (because it's not physical labor, and/or you enjoy doing it both as a job and a hobby), and you don't have many other obligations (you don't have kids, or you can afford childcare; or you don't have a wife, or you have a wife who doesn't mind you spending little time together; or you can afford to order prepared food often or don't have a cultural/personal bias against it), what happens is the people with these properties work more hours, causing the market to adapt and pressure the other people in the same field. In other fields, this doesn't happen in enough numbers to cause this problem.
In my experience, I agree: not everyone can put in the same kind of extra effort. And in areas where people are replaceable cogs, this can really hurt some people.
But in knowledge work, if things are hitting the wall and there is pressure to extra-contribute but you are not in a position to put in extra time, you can still respond in a way that visibly shows your commitment.
Express to your management & team your concern about the need for extra commitments and ask-for/suggest ways you can realign your work to prioritize what is most important to the situation.
Nothing makes up for limited additional capacity more than demonstrating that despite your constraints, you are all in to help everyone around you succeed.
Again, this may not work as a low level cog where management isn’t invested in the individuals that work for them. But in other cases, people do appreciate demonstrations of commitment even if you cannot contribute more on some dimensions.
It’s just important to explicitly and visibly show your flexibility and willingness to incorporate others suggestions, on all the dimensions you can adapt.
The few companies I've worked at, by 5 years the company either has sold up and everyone was replaced / let go, maybe a select few get to stay out of dozens - the vast majority lose out and were exploited or the company goes on a hiring spree and there aren't pay raises or bonuses because company growth is valued over employee satisfaction.
Feels like you're talking about the exception rather than the rule or perhaps the tech industry 10+ years ago but certainly not today.
Alright. Two guys working in a great company. One had the attitude of "no uncomped OT" and leaves at 5. The other guy works till 7.
At the end of the year guy 2 gets an extra 40k comp raise vs guy 1. In 5 years that's a 200k difference.
So by avoiding "uncomped OT" guy 1 fucked himself out of a ton of comp.
OBVIOUSLY this depends on the company and there's no guarantees. I've been lucky enough to work on companies that were like this and this every man for himself short term thinking was poison.
it certainly does. i have worked for several investment banks as a contractor, and i can assure you they do not much care how many hours you put in. if you wanted a big bonus (as a contractor, i obviously didn't get one) you had to produce value to the bank. and sitting at your desk until 7pm simply does not do that - actually it costs them money; you probably have no idea what the costs of air conditioning are in the city of london.
also, how much does that 2 hours per day, per year, over 5 years add up to?
The fact that it even occured to you to think that I am talking about sitting pointlessly for 2 hours vs creating value means we are coming at this from different directions.
I guess another way to say it - find a place that rewards you for value, and produce exceptional value.
We get the math, what is less plausible is 40k raise every year for five years while remaining on the same team doing the same job. Few jobs pay $200,000 at all, very very few pay so well that two people with the same role could be $200k apart. It's not impossible, of course, but that would be an extremely rare situation.
200k is the starting developer comp at a FAANG. As you rise in level, 200k becomes the comp range within a level (eg take a look at levels.fyi range for a Google L6 SWE). Same in finance.
Agree that these jobs are few in the grand scheme of things but there are hundreds of thousands of people for whom this type of comp is reality.
People can start at the same level out of school and then make MULTIPLES of that comp depending on what they do.
If this doesn't apply to you, it doesn't apply to you. I am just pointing out that bailing because "this hour of overtime is not compensated" can be very nearsighted depending on your situation.
Specifically, I am talking about someone I know who had this attitude in a company that very clearly rewarded value generation. He did "ok" since it was a great company but he literally had the situation I am describing where others were making 200k more than him 5 years later.
Guy 2 sold more of his time and compromised his health and personal life by working 50+ hour weeks. He probably also made more mistakes than guy 1 because he wasn't well rested. Nobody got screwed out of comp but their manager who values bums on seats.
An extra 2 hours of work per day, assuming 260 work days per year, comes out to 520 hours. Over 5 years that adds up to 2600 hours of extra work.
If you get a $200k bonus after putting in those extra hours, you effectively earned $77/hr or $160k/year for your time. That's basically a 0-3 YOE tech job on top of your regular job.
Is it really a good deal, especially considering how much experienced developers make annually and the long-term effects of working 10 hours per day?
The way I see it, companies know that there will always be people who would sacrifice quality of life for money, and adjust compensation for that. This wouldn't be a problem if only a few companies do this. But when every company does this, it results in forcing everyone to just keep working long hours in order to stay afloat.
At a basic level, sure. But if you're going to be so literal, you'd agree that a company should withhold any compensation when you're on vacation, or when you're out sick, or if you take a long lunch, right?
I don't understand how you're getting from a simple objection to the semantics of the word "dodging" as a description of "not working overtime for free", all the way to the implication that it's hypocritical to have that objection and also accept the concept of paid vacations, sick leaves, or lunch breaks.
(edit -- this comment is only directed towards salaried, exempt employees, I thought that was implied)
It's not the word "dodging," it's the rest of the comment: "if you won't pay me for my work, i'm not going to do the work!"
Don't know where you've worked, but the people who strictly abide by this concept are the worst types of coworkers. "it's 5:01, I refuse to respond to an email," "that's out of my scope," "I need 3 signatures before I can process this request" etc. These people belong at the DMV (for non-Americans, that's Division of Motor Vehicles), not at a dynamic company.
I just think that people who live by the attitude above and take everything so literally should be consistent: "I'm not going to do the work (I'm on vacation, I called in sick)..." "ok, cool, but don't expect us to pay you while not doing work." Of course, such a scenario doesn't exist, nobody would work (or should) for a company that didn't offer paid vacation/sick days -- nor am I endorsing one. But real companies do require effective teamwork to succeed, and the types of people who find every excuse to NOT cooperate should be purged before they turn the company into a cliche of bureaucracy and frustrate the hell out of the effective employees.
...and the concept of "exempt employee" -- one who is salaried, and does not receive compensation for working overtime -- is also regulated, legal, and well-accepted.
There is a bit of a difference between an employee who accepts a salaried position and the benefits and responsibilities thereof, and asking or demanding an hourly employee work off the clock for free.
A) There's labor rights that give you vacation and PTO, or at the very least contractual obligations
B) Hourly workers don't get docked over long lunches?
it's not dodging! if you won't pay me for my work, i'm not going to do the work!