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Part of my retirement plan is to file a suit against Microsoft to get back the accumulated five+ years I will have spent staring at an hourglass.
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke
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I see that wanting a better work life / home life balance is in the lead.
How could this be changed? Is it due to poor project management, poor estimation, poor management of expectation, all of the above?
There will always be those times when extra effort is required, but if this is continual then it indicates that something somewhere is broken.
I remember one of my previous managers being adamant that regular overtime was indicative of a poorly performing team.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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Dominic Burford wrote: egular overtime was indicative of a poorly performing team
I couldn't agree more. 
/ravi
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Your manager was correct. We had a head of IT-type guy who once said in a team meeting, "everybody raise your hand who works 40 hours/week", then "45", "50", until he was the only guy with his hand still up at 90.
Obviously proud of his effort, with the implication that "the rest of you aren't working hard enough."
I flat-out told him afterward that if he has to consistently work those kinds of hours, he's #$&#&($ doing it wrong. Either not setting reasonable expectations, or not understanding the problem to be solved.
I guess he kind of got off on the work, which is o.k. I'm glad there are people like that in the world, equally glad I'm not one of them.
Anyway, I chose work/life balance, because I have this notion of going part-time and working even less. There really should be a "nothing for me, thanks" option, for those fortunate enough where everything's going along just fine.
Or at least as well as could be reasonably expected.
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Getting the work / life balance matters more to me than salary and other benefits. I'd rather work for a company that offered me flexible working hours and a healthy work / life balance than a bigger paycheck.
At job interviews I always make it clear that I have family commitments and that they are important to me. I have no issue with working hard and putting in the extra hours when they are needed (which should be rare if the work is estimated and managed properly).
I've met people who put in those long hours only for them to either burn out or regret them later on. After all, while you're at work, you're not somewhere else that may be of equal importance.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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Dominic Burford wrote: regular overtime was indicative of a poorly performing team
It could be a poorly performing team. Or it could be scope creep, or unrealistic scope for team size or time frame, or poor planning and design. To me, there is only one common denominator:
Regular overtime is indicative of poorly performed project management.
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Member 10555735 wrote: Regular overtime is indicative of poorly performed project management.
But project management is only managing the expectation set out by the business, and that expectation is set by senior managers and directors. It would be unfair to blame everything on the project manager when perhaps they have been given the task of managing the unmanageable.
In a previous company I worked for the development team was asked to estimate how long it would take to migrate an existing web site written in classic ASP to ASP.NET. This was a long established site with integration into many other systems inc. payment systems etc (it was an ecommerce web site). The dev team took a day off-site so we could properly estimate the workload. We estimated it would take 9 months to complete. We then found out that the IT Director had already made a commitment to the client that they would have it in 4 months. We flat out said it couldn't be done, but the IT Director was adamant that we had to or we would lose the customer and a lot of business. We were pushed and cajoled to deliver the promised new web site. In the end the entire dev team left due to the pressure we were all put under. Only after the entire dev team left did the IT Director eventually get the push.
"There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult." - C.A.R. Hoare
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I agree. I suppose my response seemed directed only at project managers, which isn't what I intended. Your response more clearly conveys what I meant. At my current employment we run into the same problem on almost every project. We give time estimates just to find that unrealistic promises have already been made. Then during the process of fulfilling those demands (which often means lots of overtime), the customer is given too much freedom in requests causing scope creep. So when the product comes out later than the deadline (and more bug-riddled than we accept), we take the hit.
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A Joyous Season
of
The Conspicuous Consumption
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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My Mrs. to bring me a very attractive concubine.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Have you asked? Not that asking has brought it about for me, but at least the question is on the table.
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Welllllll, it went like this.
I used to suggest that she get an cute assistant to help around the house and stand in for her (or with her?) if she be feeling a bit tired.
Eventually, the Mrs. decided to relent and said the assistant idea was pretty good - she'll get a blond surfer type (thus cleverly turning the whole thing around on me).
So now I'm just quietly hoping for a wonderful (and horny) surprise.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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I wouldn't get rid of it altogether, but every year is a bit much.
Yo ho ho.
Regards,
Rob Philpott.
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Bah humbug to you too!
And I thought I was the only miserable old bugger here!
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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.. I would love to say, that I want a balance in my life. Most of the time I get irritated by people making fun of programmers by saying, "He has knowledge of programming but lacks life!". No, that's wrong. We have a life and we're constantly making it better as we're building up new platforms etc.
It just takes time. Yes, this Christmas I am wondering and willing to get a new languge to learn, that would be much tough and might need me to pull my hairs off. Not because I want to learn more, but because every other language that I try to learn is just the same, the concepts are same and the syntax is just a little bit different.
I want, a new platform to program on. I am hopefully going to get a student this Christmas to teach the programming to, this time it is my own brother!
Well, in the end it is a "Merry Christmas" to everybody from my side!  Remember everyone in your prayers and hours of joy.
Thanks,
The sh*t I complain about
It's like there ain't a cloud in the sky and it's raining out - Eminem
~! Firewall !~
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...and the spare time to make use of it
That would be nice - thanks Santa
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, to achieve other 11 things won't be that difficult.
"When you don't know what you're doing it's best to do it quickly"- SoMad
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/ravi
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I don't think I have to explain the title.
All I want for christmas is youuuu... (but that wasn't an option).
I ticked a payrise and/or promotion. Not getting it this christmas because I'm starting at a new company in januari, but it's something I ALWAYS want (don't we all?) so why not this year for christmas?
Now what I'm REALLY getting? I got a nice bonus at my current job. And I'll probably get some DVD's from my parents (I'm hoping the extended limited 3D blu-ray edition of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug) 
I don't want bacon, I know where to get CListCtrls, I wouldn't say no to Salma Hayek.
My blog[ ^]
public class SanderRossel : Lazy<Person>
{
public void DoWork()
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
}
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Sander Rossel wrote: I don't want bacon, I know where to get CListCtrls, I wouldn't say no to Salma Hayek
You forgot the Liquid Nitrogen and that's a punishable offence! 
And who's that lady you have mentioned in your post? Why am I feeling lucky to have never heard of her? 
Your time will come, if you let it be right.
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Christmas Survey and here I am with the same answer: a better machine - not just for the development, but for all other things. I actually buy a new machine "almost" each year, but surprisingly it appears to have been obsoleted much sooner than I anticipate.. 
And I was actually hoping for "Are you working this week?" survey though..
And who wants to know which survey is gonna be there next week?
Your time will come, if you let it be right.
modified 22-Dec-14 3:01am.
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I guess all most all the cp members already have all most all the things listed here, but the life balance.
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if i get a pay rise i can buy some of the mention gifts for myself.
Ravi Khoda
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