Comment by noxToken | Hacker News Reader

Comment by noxToken | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> For me I have learned that there comes a point when you need to work differently in order to protect your health and family well being. Big salaries are great, but when the price for that is massive amounts of overtime that takes you away from your family it just isn't worth it.

>...

>Family comes first, always.

I didn't learn this in the past 12 months, but a recent event has definitely reaffirmed this: stick to your 35-45 hours and leave. I start getting pretty useless as the day drags on. After a certain time, there is a sharp decline in my productivity. If I push through it, I just make mistakes that I have to fix later.

If you're not in a company that values your personal time[0], then start looking for another job. The burn out just isn't worth it. 6-figure salaries with equity and free breakfast/lunch/dinner just isn't worth it when you realize that your 50s will be filled with a distinct lack of motivation to ever leave the house.

[0]: I am with a company that values my personal time, but I voluntarily took on extra work to help another team meet a critical production deadline. I was compensated with quite a bit of extra time off in return. However, the stress and headache of being a duo that saved another team's ass (and possibly their jobs) and their constantly expressed anxiety was barely worth it. I actually snapped on one of those team members during this time period, and I said some things, within earshot of very many people, that definitely was not work place appropriate.

I've been seeing this trend for a few years, but it was only in the last year that I said to myself that enough was enough.

Over the last ten years it has gone from no overtime to "Can you do a wee bit of overtime?", then "You are working this weekend" to not even asking me and just expecting me to be in the office working late.

It came to a head last August when I was at a big-4 consultancy. The usual email about ordering dinner went around, that was code for we are all working late tonight. I said "Sorry, I don't need any I'm off home". Within a minute the project manager was at my desk saying "Well, we clearly have a problem and you need to fix it now." They were always so careful to not actually say the word overtime, it was all code such as asking us what we wanted for dinner or telling us that the security man would be locking up late and the like.

That was the point when I knew that I had to change things.

The worst thing was that I had told that company I could not work late as my wife worked evenings and we have kids. I got a note added to my contract acknowledging this, but they wouldn't honour it. They even went as far as suggesting that I hire a babysitter or ask my wife to give up her clients. They were oblivious to the fact that I would rather be with my children than earning €100k.

I should have done it sooner. About five years ago I was a company that claimed to be family friendly, but was anything but. During my annual review I was marked down for not "Giving Time to the Company" basically not doing overtime. I said that expecting me to give away my skills for free was unprofessional. I was told that I was unprofessional for even thinking that. That is when I should have taken the plunge to go it alone, but I held out hoping for a better employer.

> I said that expecting me to give away my skills for free was unprofessional. I was told that I was unprofessional for even thinking that.

Haha, what's this fallacy? I've seen a variation of it: "You're the one who is racist because you notice (and call out) racism."

That's what I love about the companies experimenting with 32 hour four day workweeks. It's not just the depth of the day time that's less productive, it's the depth of the week. Who is as productive on friday as they are on monday? And who isn't more productive on monday after a three day weekend?

I figure the cost of those 8 hours is really 10%, not 20%... and much of that 10% is bought back with the increased productivity brought on by long weekends. I would love to work that way.

Let’s try an experiment with companies trying it and others not trying it, measure both with something like gitprime, and see what the results are :-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com