[ufukbay]

I left a company with great work/life balance but rather average or even low salary after 2 1/2 years for a startup but after a month into the job they introduced those stupid stopwatch JIRA plugins to measure time spent on tickets plus time sheets.

I know not everyone can maybe afford to do this but this is something I'm never going to put up with and I left after only 3 months purely out of frustration without even having a new gig. (Was quite suprised to be approached immediately by a subsidiary of a well known online auction house, where I'm still working for 2 years now.)

If you don't have a family (wife + kids) be bold and don't put up with such inhuman conditions. Developers are high in demand and this is the time to use the opportunity.

[tostitos1979]

Kudos to you. If all developers acted this way, we'd have a lot less abuse.

I doubt any sane developer would come up with the idea of a stopwatch plugin on programming tasks. But I know some PMs who would. It is scary how being well-spoken and technically oblivious leads people to success in our industry.

[blowski]

No, asking people to log time is not abuse. Perhaps it's counter-productive (but even that's debatable as it depends on a lot of things). But it most definitely is not abuse.

Abuse is having the shit kicked out of you for answering back. Or being locked in a room for 48 hours without food or drink because you made a mistake. Or having your passport taken away and being forced to work for 18 hour days, 7 days per week, with no holiday and no pay.

All these things are happening in our world today, and equating them with programmers having to keep timesheets is ridiculous. It makes us sound like a bunch of spoiled babies who cry when we aren't allowed to play all day. So please use a different word than 'abuse' to describe something you prefer not to do at work.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

Well, maybe I'm insane, but I would.

One of the biggest problems with estimation (a frequent HN topic) is not knowing how long it took to do something. If you don't know how long it typically takes you to do a task, how the hell can you estimate how long it will take to do a variation of that task?

[blowski]

Are you really saying that having to record timesheets counts as 'inhuman conditions'? That's the way I read your comment, sorry if it's not what you meant. But if it is what you meant, then I urge you to read about modern human slavery, domestic servitude, sex trafficking, etc, and reconsider.

[Retric]

Something is not ok just because other things are worse.

[ufukbay]

@Retric: Exactly my thoughts. Amazing how you could express it in one short, concise sentence! :)