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If I had been paid for all the overtime I've put in I might well have a house as nice as my employer. That irks me if I think about it so I try not to think about it.
It's my fault but I do the extra work through necessity (like just about everyone else on codeproject) and because I have to pay the bills, however, I'm changing my job this September and going to work for a company where the hours are 35 per week. I will also be working flexitime so what I now call overtime will just be taken out of my weekly work requirement.
I think flexible working hours can be a partial answer to this problem of expecting IT bods to work till they drop. If one has to work out of hours because there's no other practical time to do something then knowing one can legitimately take the next morning off makes a big difference and goes a long way to removing stress caused by annoyance and others bad judgement.
Companies are run in a very immature way generally, with back biting, one upmanship, seeing who can squeeze the most out of their subordinates etc, and all these things at the cost of someone. That someone being more often than not you and me.
I would love to see the entire IT community simply refuse to do unpaid overtime. Unpaid work happens because of bad planning, bad targets, bad management and badly trained developers. All of these problems are curable!
Any company that makes no effort to be realistic when quoting for work is signing away your personal life and possibly your health too, and the bad news is that this happens all of the time. You know it. I know it. Are you someone who craves to keep up with developments but your company is stuck in the stone age? That's incredibly stressful and leads you to devalue your own worth and abilities. It also ties you into their draconian life style. Retrain, leave.
Yes the market is tough, but who trusts a company to deliver if they quoted a ridiculously short or cheap project cost? You and I know that they'll lose their developers like leaves blowing away in autumn, and a project that doesn't have consistent developers is either going to be an unmaintainable rats nest or simply fail.
It isn't rocket science, it's just a matter of you and I suffering the consequences of someone elses untruths.
Slavery is not dead, but how much of that "employer owns you body and soul" attitude are you willing to put up with?
Ah, we're all too professional to make waves, me included! So we just steadily migrate between jobs looking for the one that causes the least pain...
Maybe the answer is for us to start a database of "good" employers, with reasons why we think they are. If there was an award for a "Top Employer" that they could stick on their website, wouldn't that be a nice carrot? Mind you, they would be inundated with CVs!
Cheers all. Good luck.
Dave
Software Developer
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You must be happy because you get paid for your real work 
Many years ago I got paid for OT but this is past ... but we have a bonus system ... the disadvantage is that you have to wait more than a year to get your money for OT (OT up to 20 hours / month) 
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10 hours worked in a day minus 2 hours cruising CodeProject equals 8 hour workday...
So, if you don't hang out here you can go home on time! 
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I get paid straight overtime (same rate as regular time) or I have the option to bank overtime hours into my vacation time (1 hour overtime == 1 hour vacation time).
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I work for local goverment and we are not allowed to work any overtime unless is has been pre-approved. I just had my 6 month review and had a negative as I have had 15 to 30 minutes of overtime per week and that is too much!
I have been in the IT field for 26 years and this is the first place I have ever worked where there is no overtime.
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Doesn't that just suck? I mean, they don't mandate or budget OT BUT if you generally have more work than you can finish in an 8 hour work day, "They" bust your chops for OT or "They" bust your chops for not completing your work.
Having worked in IT all of my adult life, I can definitely say that some problems just take more time to solve, especially if there is any customer service (this could mean supporting co-workers) involved.
S.Nowlin
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I'm a Techwriter Monkey -- handy, just less useful than the Bathroom Monkey.
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We have so many projects in the queue and there is no way to get them all completed. Last I heard, there were 118 request submitted and I average getting two a month completed. Typical government standards.
However, I do not mind not working overtime as I get to spend a lot of time with my active kids (single dad raising three) and some time for myself. It's also easier scheduling for evening events (cub scout meetings) and not have to worry about work being a conflict.
I think I need to push for the typical goverment employees standards where one guy works on a pothole while the other six just watch. One programs and the other's just rest on their shovels on watch!
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Hey can you sign me up? I need a job where I can get paid decent, stay closer to home, and have some sort of life. - especially now that my child is out of the house and I can be single instead of a single parent.
S.Nowlin
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I'm a Techwriter Monkey -- handy, just less useful than the Bathroom Monkey.
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The pay is very low. However, the work is perfect. I get to use all the new technologies for development and we are always getting new hardware and the latest Microsoft software.
I work for a state-of-art library so there is a lot fun working here, plus we implement new technology all the time. Although it's the lowest salary I have had, the trade-off for creating new applications, the technology and the 40 hour work week are worth it (plus great benefits).
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I bet you still beat my paltry pay. I'm a Tech Writer III and get paid Tech Writer I salary. I can't move to a city that would support me - heck I can't even move to the city where I work...Gotta love America (and I do!).
S.Nowlin
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I'm a Techwriter Monkey -- handy, just less useful than the Bathroom Monkey.
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I just read one of your other posts: You have a 4 hour commute - WOW! - that is way too long. Mine is 20 minutes one way. What city do you work in?
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I work in Shreveport Louisiana and unfortunately it is 2 hours (as long as I follow the speed limit) from my house to my office. Just one way. Factor in morning traffic if I don't get off to an early start and that adds about 20 minutes. I generally have to be at work by 6 or 6:30 AM. And I'll get off around 5 to 5:30 PM. Evening traffic is worse - I think all the idiots are out and about by then. There have been times it took me an hour just get from one side of the city to the other all by interstate - so make the commute back 3 hours on those days. Blech. So I try and stay an extra hour after to avoid traffic and if work permits.
Current gas prices don't help. When I took this job, it wasn't so dire financially. Gas was fluctuating between 2.00 and 2.15
I've thought about getting a job closer to home which would mean a complete career change - but that would literally drop me to around 10.00 an hour and that's if I'm lucky..
S.Nowlin
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I'm a Techwriter Monkey -- handy, just less useful than the Bathroom Monkey.
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That kind of commute is a killer. One job I had was an hour, and I felt so wiped out when I got home, I had no energy or motivation to do anything around the house.
I have no idea you can do that commute every day without going bonkers.
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Yep been doing for going on 3 years now...and I am bonkers...desperately seeking another solution LOL.
S.Nowlin
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I'm a Techwriter Monkey -- handy, just less useful than the Bathroom Monkey.
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I hope you get some sort of travel compensation ![Rose | [Rose]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
Yusuf
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It's not worth it to me. If I worked somewhere and they started requiring OT (paid or not) I would quit. I realize I make less money than I would if I did work OT, but I'd rather be happy.
Basically, the time after 5pm is worth more to me then anyone I know of is willing to pay.
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Here, here! 
I agree but I can't be as strict. I mostly avoid OT but sometimes end up having to work it... But If I do, it is minimal.
Regards,
Frank
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I suppose if I had a life after 5 pm, I would feel the same way as you. As it stands 4 hours a day in my life is already wasted commuting, and I work an 11 hour day - four days a week, so, that really leaves me 7 hours left in a day to basically sleep. I might as well work an extra hour. That way I can have a guiltless 3 day weekend and little spending money. 
S.Nowlin
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I'm a Techwriter Monkey -- handy, just less useful than the Bathroom Monkey.
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You need to find a new job or move closer. 4 hours?!
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Well I don't have the resources to train for a new career that would pay remotely what I get paid now which would enable me to possibly move closer to home. It's the traditional catch 22 situation that keeps the lower middle class beat down :P.
And yes 4 hours...2 down and 2 back. Mostly 45 and 55 mph two lane highway.
S.Nowlin
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I'm a Techwriter Monkey -- handy, just less useful than the Bathroom Monkey.
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I don't have anything against OT, just I'm against working OT when I'm not getting paid for it. If I'm getting paid hourly I don't mind a couple of extra hours. (Never had a programming position that paid hourly.) However, when I'm on salary, I put in my 40 hours and call it a work week. I get the same amount of money if I work late or not, so I see no reason to work extra hours.
jgehman
Software Engineer
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This requires a great deal of concentration and effort, and - most important - try to get the code running as soon as possible. This sounds obvious?
Critical: Select your team, or the people you work with. If you can't, go military.
Do not work with posers, primadonnas or leeches. Cut them immediately and get them assigned to simpler and easy measurable tasks.
Sounds brutal? It's the contract, the project and your ass in line. (Cockroaches survive even to a nuclear hit, and oh boy, I've seen an innumerable count of such specimens. They simply don't care and wait for the moment to go home.)
Buy time (1): avoid "Preciousness"
I don't care about axioms (prototype before code etc.), diagrams, UML, Visio, Gantts, Excel, meetings (especially meetings!).
These *maybe* were ok when all the code was in-house. Now you have to assemble 2-12 APIs in a working product. You barely have the time to understand them.
Remember: the customer will pay for the result, not for the artistic impression.
Buy time (2): Control meetings time. Avoid them if they are meaningless and a JIRA substitute.
Once a week may be fine, but a daily meeting is an insult to a professional coder. (Unless you want to have some 9-to-5-ers).
Fight hard to managers, and FROM THE DAY ONE tell them.
Get them to watch Al Pacino in Heat telling to the street guy "don't waste my motherfuckin' time". With the harsh voice (only Al Pacino can do that, but you can practice home).
Especially after a braindead meeting, nuke them.
Get the formula from the hat. 10 devs * 2 hours meeting = 20 hours = 2.5 man days. Or 8-10 bugs fixed. Or +2% missed because of this only meeting. (And who the f**k does something until 18.00 if the meeting ended on 17.00?). Take this, Mr. Manager.
Tell them the cost of their changes in the middle of the development process. It is really amazing how they like to hear themselves to attach .NET to everything they get out of their mouths. And this when deadline is on 2 weeks and half of the customers are already angry.
If they insist on creeping (or become rude and *boss*), shut up and start looking for a better job.
Buy time (3): "big happy family meetings"
Let's face it. What the hell can be the relation between one coworker and another? (Unless they were already long time friends before walking together into a company). I really don't care if a colleague wants to go to Tae-Bo, plays WoW or likes cappuccino. (Me, I like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, black coffee, I'm a heavy smoker, with a some sort of Taliban beard, I'm playing Starcraft with all races etc. Useful informations for public, right? I bet 99.092837676% of the readers barely can wait until they meet me. )
(These are real examples. One from an anti virus company, one from a "professional grade database tools" company. I quit them both (7 months and 8 months) and now I found another company where, if someone opens the mouth, he/she really have something to say.)
Purpose
GET THE JOB DONE.
(That's the second criteria of Joel Spolsky hire/no hire workflow[^]).
Why?
That's what the customer payed (or will pay) in the first place! If you go to a diner to have a coffee and a soda, you want a coffee and a soda, right? No frills, no curly ideas, no promotions, no two-for-a-price-of-one. You want what you ordered.
It's the same on software. You want the client to come back again? Respect him, his time, and what the customer wants.
How? Attitude
It doesn't matter if you're looking on 1-2 months before deadline.
Act like you're obsessed.
Act like the deadline is tonight.
Insult colleagues that interrupts you in the middle of debug if necessary, and even throw objects after them while you watch them running at suddenly amazing speed (Ok, don't do this. Although I can think of 712 multiple cases when probably such thing was completely justified).
Avoid mistakes: don't do code rewrite before you have a working version. Don't refactor, especially if time is critical, and always is. Don't even remove warnings. /W1 if necessary. Everything to reach the goal.
How? The algorithm
Seriously, nobody knows better than you, the developer, how much this is going to take.
1. Tackle the new/hard APIs and get a prototype running.
2. Fix the bugs.
3. Complete the UI interaction and remove hardcoded things.
4. See pt. 2.
5. i18n.
6. See pt. 4.
7. Remove obvious warnings. See pt. 6, 4 and 2.
8. Do the rebuild and final tests. Commit.
9. Ask a colleague to checkout/update and to the build again to avoid missed files etc.
Done.
10. After done, sit back, relax, try to tackle hard warnings, /W4 etc.
Warnings as errors? You're kidding, right? Office warning "result still unsigned", remember? Third-party libraries, external libraries where you see from the start the dreaded "class X passed as reference to X" etc. Countless. You may end up in even more dangerous adventures trying to get rid of such things.
Aftermath
Perhaps here and there there will be "yes, it's great, but we'd like ALSO this feature" etc.
The word ALSO completely changes everything. The customer/manager does not have any chance to yell/pick on you/be rude/invoke deal break/kamasutra etc.
You did the job. He owes you now, and is almost forced to treat you like a human being (if he/she is really good  ).
Kids, do not try this at work. But it works for me.
Nuclear launch detected
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What about updating a 24/7 live system during off-hours with bi-weekly updates?
Todd Smith
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What about it? It's still an 8 hrs/day job, I suppose. Even with 3 shifts.
Nuclear launch detected
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