I can't imagine working for a place that told me it was mandatory that I work 12 hours a day, seven days a week with no extra compensation. Ummm...go fuck yourself? Companies don't own their employees. Especially as a programmer, why would you put up with something so ridiculous? It's not that hard to find work doing development elsewhere.
Having interacted with people who've been at EA most / all of their careers, I can enumerate the following reasons why they stick around and put up with crazy overtime:
1. Glamour: being in the credits of a multi-million dollar game that millions of players will play worldwide is pretty cool.
2. Love for gaming: I have not met a single developer there who wasn't a regular gamer.
3. Love for sports: EA is the biggest developer of AAA sports titles out there. If, for example, you love gaming and basketball, can you think of a more enjoyable way to earn a living than being one of the developers on a AAA basketball title like NBA Live?
4. Guilt: This might come as a surprise to some but when you actually enjoy what you do so much and when 'reproing a bug' to you means playing through five minutes of the game with the debugger attached to your Xbox, you kind-of start feeling like you're cheating the organization for money. As a result, you start overcompensating by staying later and doing more work even when overtime is not mandated.
2. Love for gaming: "I love gaming, why would I leave?"
3. Love for sports: "I love sports, I enjoy it."
4. Guilt: "I feel like I'm cheating the company"
What a great list of selfish bull-crap. The woman in the article ended with how much it effects not just the person - but your family and the people who care about you. Sure, you have a handful of reasons to stay, but what about your kids who have grown up for the last 4 years without you? What about your wife that hasn't had a romantic, stressless dinner and a night out in 5 months? What about your parents, who never get to even talk to you on the phone anymore?
Staying for any other reason in an environment like that, whatever your interests are, is piggish, self-centered, and short sighted.
What makes you think your family would stick around for that? They don't get the glamor, they probably don't love gaming as much, sports is a hit or miss, and you'd have another thing coming if you really believed the "guilt" option.
This encompasses my point perfectly: you are acknowledging no one can tell you what to do, at blind disregard to consequences outside of yourself. This is the definition of self-centered.
"As long as I'm happy and my family puts up with it, its OK" is being a mediocre person. If you want to live that lifestyle, don't have a family. Otherwise, get your act together and behave like you actually want the responsibilities you've signed up for.
Having a family isn't based on "logic." What you do up until the point you get married or have kids is 100% your prerogative, and I agree with you on that. The minute you sign up for that extra life-stuff, you are changing your "logic." It becomes emotional, it becomes about others. Having a family and continuing to act like you don't is immature.
The down votes I'm receiving reflects the young nature of Hacker News and I accept that. Some of you will get married and have kids and eventually understand where I'm coming from, the rest of you may have wives like the OP.
We all know that the levels of overtime described in the EA Spouse post are both unproductive and unhealthy, so it's a case of sacrificing one's health, the quality of one's work, AND one's family FOR AN EXECUTIVE. NO ONE wins in that situation. NO ONE. The company loses, because morale is in the toilet and the code quality is crap. The employee loses because he's sitting in an office 12+ hours a day and doesn't have time or energy to stay healthy. The family loses because they're missing a parent.
On top of everything else, the customer loses because they end up with a buggy and non-innovative title implemented by people too burned out to enjoy or care about it.
(For a number of years, EA had a reputation for producing clones of its own products. It's hardly any wonder why.)
But the bigger point is that the kind of mindset you're espousing ("It's my life, I'll do whatever I want without regard for my family") doesn't really work.
As with most things, a balance is what's needed.
I suspect that enough people like this graduate every year that EA can maintain their high employee turnover indefinitely.
The games industry might be a bit on the extreme side of this, but I don't think it's limited to game programmers.
They don't spring the hours on you, they increase them gradually.
First its - well 45 hours a week isnt so bad. Then after a few weeks its 55, and eventually, you get to working 85 hour weeks and not really knowing how you got there.
Fine if you are a contractor, that is the way to work at those places.
There is an entire genre of aphorisms to tell our young turk. Let's see: the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. The clever hawk hides his claws. etc, etc.
Work diligently, but with sufficient deliberation to achieve the company's exacting quality standards. Document your steps religiously. Hammer out hundreds or thousands of pages of specification documents, since specs always resemble forward progress. Teach your junior employees, who might be ignorant in the way of the world, how things are actually done, and most particularly how they are actually done here. With due deliberation.
Now, of course, my company was totally different, because we would never slack off like that. But, you know, I've heard stories of how things are done at places I don't have near-feudal loyalty towards.
The context there is a US gov employee who has a huge tedious memo in her email. (It's an acceptable use policy on toilet paper use and the prohibited sharing of that precious resource.) We get treated to a long Stephenson treatise on how to properly handle such a memo (skim at a rate that suggests reading rather than skimming, go back occasionally at random intervals - as if rereading details, etc.). It's very well done.
Y.T.'s mom pulls up the new memo, checks the time, and starts reading
it. The estimated reading time is 15.62 minutes. Later, when Marietta does
her end-of-day statistical roundup, sitting in her private office at 9:00
P.M., she will see the name of each employee and next to it, the amount of
time spent reading this memo, and her reaction, based on the time spent,
will go something like this:
Less than 10 min. Time for an employee conference and possible attitude
counseling.
10-14 min. Keep an eye on this employee; may be developing
slipshod attitude.
14-15.61 min. Employee is an efficient worker, may sometimes miss
important details.
Exactly 15.62 min. Smartass. Needs attitude counseling.
15.63-16 min. Asswipe. Not to be trusted.
16-18 min. Employee is a methodical worker, may sometimes get hung
up on minor details.
More than 18 min. Check the security videotape, see just what this
employee was up to (e.g., possible unauthorized restroom break).
Y.T.'s mom decides to spend between fourteen and fifteen minutes
reading the memo. It's better for younger workers to spend too long, to show
that they're careful, not cocky. It's better for older workers to go a
little fast, to show good management potential. She's pushing forty. She
scans through the memo, hitting the Page Down button at reasonably regular
intervals, occasionally paging back up to pretend to reread some earlier
section. The computer is going to notice all this. It approves of rereading.
It's a small thing, but over a decade or so this stuff really shows up on
your work-habits summary.More like the frog in the pot principal.
I've been in a similar situation and didn't realise how badly it was destroying me until I was complaining one day to my SO and it suddenly dawned on me that this was not something I could continue doing.
I think this is partly because they feel specialized in what they are doing and their feeling of specialization sort of binds them to the game industry.
The other part being the glamour wisty is writing about.