sad to see this article degenerate into another "this guy only works 8-5 and watches the clock! he is not passionate about technology!" posts.
know what i'm not passionate about? working for free.
i don't know of any lawyers who meet with clients for an extra couple hours a day without charging because they're passionate about the law, or surgeons who don't bill for their work because they're just so gosh darn passionate about surgery. i also don't know of any construction workers who construct for free, because they're just so passionate about building great things used by thousands or millions of people.
not commenting on the quality of people discussed in the article, the real "get out of my industry" should be to the people who slave away in front of the computer, working for someone else, and expect no overtime or pay for their above-and-beyond efforts. they devalue the entire profession.
and tangentially, in my experience, it's the overzealous and over-passionate people who ruin the workplace by forcing bizarre methodologies and process on everyone (agile development, anyone?), attempting to coerce everyone into working overtime, and switching technology for the sake of switching. and in the end all i've seen out of those people is completely average results.
I agree. There was a time when I looked down on the people who didn't take work home with them, or who didn't work ridiculous hours.
Shame on me, I should not have. I've met many brilliant developers who put in their time during the day, go home, and have a huge disconnect between work and personal life. They don't have side projects, they don't (usually) take their work home with them, and they are great developers. Why shame them for not working overtime for the sake of it?
If you leave at 5pm after breaking something that you left unfixed, thats poor job performance and you should be reprimanded for that. If you leave at 5pm because you've put in a good day of work and aren't going to be much more useful past them, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I've really got no problem with staying past standard hours if there's a real issue that needs to be fixed. But invariably the real issue is an incompetent project manager.
What struck me about the article was how the author assumed that John (the 8-5 guy) would get a raise if he would only work longer hours. But it doesn't seem that John's employer told him that.
In my experience, if you've worked for a tech company for a number of years, and they haven't given you even a token raise in all that time, and they haven't explained why, or what you need to do to get a raise, then the issue is not your performance. It's that the company doesn't give raises.
If John is working for a company like that, then working 8-5 is perfectly rational. The company is sending the message that it doesn't care strongly about performance, so why assume greater performance will lead to greater pay?
Where I would criticize John is not looking for another job in the industry (and perhaps doing the night/weekend studying and projects that would help make that possible).
"If you don’t actually enjoy what you are doing, leave the industry and go get a different job."
This is a statement I can stand behind. No enjoyment = no drive to get better (usually) = stagnation and eventual irrelevance/incompetence.
There's a difference between enjoying your job and becoming so obsessed with it or afraid of losing it that you become a doormat - in that sense I totally agree with you.
I have, in fact, met a surgeon who is willing to give pretty generous discounts for patients who have trouble paying. I'm sure a big part of her motivation is wanting to help people in need. (Mathematically, there's not much difference between billing half your rate and billing your full rate but working twice as many hours, which is what makes this example relevant.)
There is a difference between working on company projects in your free time and working on an opensource or personal project, or occasionally reading a programming book.
Whilst the second is likely to provide benefits to your employer, your primary motivator is for personal gain.
While I agree with you about employees, I must point out that promoters of companies are the exception to this rule since this article is in the context of startups.
Once you own a part of the company (I don't mean tiny amounts like employee stock options, but are a full partner) then you damn well should work hard to create wealth. The founder of the company didn't bring you on board so you could work 40 hour weeks like any other employee while reserving the right to walk away a very wealthy person (to a far greater degree than a regular employee) should the business succeed.
[+] [-] unshift|15 years ago|reply
know what i'm not passionate about? working for free.
i don't know of any lawyers who meet with clients for an extra couple hours a day without charging because they're passionate about the law, or surgeons who don't bill for their work because they're just so gosh darn passionate about surgery. i also don't know of any construction workers who construct for free, because they're just so passionate about building great things used by thousands or millions of people.
not commenting on the quality of people discussed in the article, the real "get out of my industry" should be to the people who slave away in front of the computer, working for someone else, and expect no overtime or pay for their above-and-beyond efforts. they devalue the entire profession.
and tangentially, in my experience, it's the overzealous and over-passionate people who ruin the workplace by forcing bizarre methodologies and process on everyone (agile development, anyone?), attempting to coerce everyone into working overtime, and switching technology for the sake of switching. and in the end all i've seen out of those people is completely average results.
[+] [-] leftnode|15 years ago|reply
Shame on me, I should not have. I've met many brilliant developers who put in their time during the day, go home, and have a huge disconnect between work and personal life. They don't have side projects, they don't (usually) take their work home with them, and they are great developers. Why shame them for not working overtime for the sake of it?
If you leave at 5pm after breaking something that you left unfixed, thats poor job performance and you should be reprimanded for that. If you leave at 5pm because you've put in a good day of work and aren't going to be much more useful past them, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
[+] [-] ojbyrne|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtviewdave|15 years ago|reply
In my experience, if you've worked for a tech company for a number of years, and they haven't given you even a token raise in all that time, and they haven't explained why, or what you need to do to get a raise, then the issue is not your performance. It's that the company doesn't give raises.
If John is working for a company like that, then working 8-5 is perfectly rational. The company is sending the message that it doesn't care strongly about performance, so why assume greater performance will lead to greater pay?
Where I would criticize John is not looking for another job in the industry (and perhaps doing the night/weekend studying and projects that would help make that possible).
[+] [-] zdw|15 years ago|reply
This is a statement I can stand behind. No enjoyment = no drive to get better (usually) = stagnation and eventual irrelevance/incompetence.
There's a difference between enjoying your job and becoming so obsessed with it or afraid of losing it that you become a doormat - in that sense I totally agree with you.
[+] [-] philwelch|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deadmansshoes|15 years ago|reply
Whilst the second is likely to provide benefits to your employer, your primary motivator is for personal gain.
[+] [-] kaiwren|15 years ago|reply
Once you own a part of the company (I don't mean tiny amounts like employee stock options, but are a full partner) then you damn well should work hard to create wealth. The founder of the company didn't bring you on board so you could work 40 hour weeks like any other employee while reserving the right to walk away a very wealthy person (to a far greater degree than a regular employee) should the business succeed.