Hacker News Reader

Comment by CalRobert | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, DINKs are hard to compete with professionally. Old boss used to loudly thank my colleague for doing tickets on the weekends, and too often people seem to assume I want to spend my weekend "brushing up" on some implementation detail for a project I don't care about. Even "why doesn't he come to after work drinks?" Is hard to answer with "because my spouse is _also_ an exhausted wreck at the end of the day and I already barely have any time for them, much less my real friends, much less you lot".

View on HN

That's terrible. I am a manager and actively discourage people from working late / weekends. I find it's not sustainable. People who do that, regardless of children status are much less predictable in their output. They go through peaks of productivity and then they crash. It also ends up happening that they work on the wrong thing because no one is around at night or weekends to answer basic questions that may unfortunately not be in the ticket. Some of our employees with highest productivity have kids. I think your story means you should look for a new job when it is possible for you.

> It also ends up happening that they work on the wrong thing because no one is around at night or weekends to answer basic questions that may unfortunately not be in the ticket.

I know the comment came from a good place and you meant well. The situation you describe of “developers working on the wrong thing” can and sometimes does happen, however, as a manager the effective way to handle those situations is to address the root cause. Is it because the task is too big, not enough details, is it too early in the project that the requirements haven’t really surfaced organically? You want your team to be autonomous, you want to empower your team to make mistakes and at the same time actively minimize the chance for mistakes by greasing “things” so people around you can be more effective.

There are few things as negative for a team performance as an insecure manager that needs to be making tactical decisions for the team as if developers were little kids.

I'm sorry, but I don't think that's what they were saying at all. To me, it sounded like they were saying that when a developer works alone at nights or on the weekend, they cannot ask other members of the team, or the person who originally filed the ticket, any questions. Thus, if the ticket is vague, or if they have a question about a part of the codebase they are less familiar with, they have to spend a lot of time trying to divine the answers themselves when they could just walk over or message their colleague for the answer on a normal work day. Spending three hours rederiving trivial knowledge that other members of your team already know (such as which package something is in, or the exact set of inputs that reliably reproduce a bug), IS spending time on the wrong things.

I agree that a manager shouldn't micromanage to the point that they believe developers cannot be productive without their manager physically present, but that is not what they were talking about. The comment isn't about the developer needing their manager's insight or guidance, but about the developer needing the expertise of the rest of the team, which they will not have access to at nights or on the weekend.

> To me, it sounded like they were saying that when a developer works alone at nights or on the weekend, they cannot ask other members of the team, or the person who originally filed the ticket, any questions.

I think in response to the OP, the user identified the "problem." I've worked places where the above was the norm, and other places where if ticket showed up in front of a developer and required additional clarification (from QA or other developers) this would be covered in detail during sprint retrospectives, with the intention of making sure that the team works hard to make sure that this never happens. It can blow estimates not only for the given task, but can have cascading effects as well.

That said, this might not be easily attainable or the best practice for all organizations, but I think I prefer better processes over evening and weekend work.

This is a very commendable default approach. Let me suggest that there are also people who just happen to be that way naturally.

I for example seem to almost need this kind of rhythm. Yes it is spiky and sometimes a bit chaotic. But also very intrinsically motivated, which can sometimes lead to high impact solutions.

A good way to deal with this tradeoff is writing more text and less code. Text which is off-base is much more valuable than code that does do wrong things or things in a wrong way.

But I have to say that I work alone or in small teams, which requires less technical coordination.

That's also part of a sick culture.

I've seen places where working on your free time and/or weekends would be totally frowned upon by managers, and the general culture around workers would be that working on weekends is giving up your time for free in an attempt to clib on the other's backs, so that wouldn't be very popular among your colleages.

I’ve somehow managed to work in this industry twenty years and never be pressured to work on weekends, except for occasional emergencies or exceptional releases, and I’ve never felt pressured to happy hour with anyone. In SF, no less. I’m also a single co-parent, from the time he was born.

I mean, this isn't necessarily a 'dual income' thing, this is a 'cares exclusively about work' thing.

I have no children. I like my job. I spend my free time doing things that aren't software development.

I theoretically could work outside of work hours, sure, if I were a boring person with no interests.

I think that most people who treat their jobs as their 'calling' and burn themselves out on them ruin the world for both themselves and the rest of us. Races to the bottom everywhere.

It doesn't bother me too much though, since ultimately the selection pressure is such that the brown-nosers end up being abused by their managers whilst the stubborn lot get promoted. YMMV.

Nowadays, I don't feel anymore like I need to compete professionally. I've got a decent savings account, half my house is paid off, my family is healthy, and work is interesting. Why would I need to compete with anyone?

Because they're bidding on the same house as you, and can push for slightly more cash at work, presumably. But it's amazing what a paid-off house does for your assertiveness at work.

I didn't think about that part of the competition, that's true.

This seems more in certain cultures than others - American and Japanese from my anecdotal experience. I worked with Europeans (French especially), they don’t seem to wear long hours as a badge of honor.

My American boss regularly feels proud that he puts in 12-14 hour days. In my opinion, that amount of hours makes sense if I am working on my own business or something that truly benefits humanity (like a vaccine for COVID-19 for example). It is hard to do good work more than 6-7 hours per day anyway and much harder to sustain it for long periods of time

Right. In large parts of Europe it's pretty much the opposite.

If you have a job that's ultimately pointless, then you want to work as little as possible so that you have time for leisure and/or useful work.

Indeed, it's why I emigrated.

Is your manager a DINK himself? I empathize, honestly. Don't question your life choices though :)

> Unfortunately, DINKs are hard to compete with professionally

Sure, but people with kids win at life.

Let the DINK make some extra money. You still have it better.

> people with kids win at life

That's a pretty insulting statement for those of us who can't have / don't want children.

It's not a competition. We've chosen different paths than you. Not worse, just different.

It definitely isn't a competition, because us parents clearly won ;-)

... That was dripping sarcasm. Please don't down vote.

Agreed... I remember a study on “do kids make you happier” and their conclusion was “kids make you happier if you want kids”.. people who didn’t want kids but had them or wanted kids but couldn’t have them were sadder, but people who didn’t want kids and didn’t have them were just as happy. Which I guess makes sense... people are happy when they get what they want!

If you're having kids you're striving for things that aren't happiness. Often trading exhaustion for purpose and meaning.

If you want kids and you have kids it certainly looks like you are striving for happiness.

Sure I could have rephrased it along the lines of "you have the invaluable blessing of children, and surely that's more important than a 15% pay rise?".

Yo, it's a joke, they literally have "won at <creating> life" ;).

I couldn't think of anything worse than having kids. Don't project your life choices onto others.

Although I appreciate the sentiment behind this very romantic comment and I understand that it is mostly addressed at kindred spirits who can relate in parenthood, I think that it's important to nuance the idea a tad bit. The world is already filled with too many people mindlessly following tradition. When in doubt about how to make themselves happier, they don't dig much before reverting to the status quo: having a kid. The promotion of the idea that we're realizing our purpose in life by procreating has undoubtedly caused a lot misery, as a substantial portion of those who experimented with parenthood failed to find what they hoped for and many children ended up suffering for it. Human beings are not just mere biological entities fulfilling some function of nature. We are blessed (or cursed) with complicated minds that make us appreciate a lot more to life than raising children.

My best friend since childhood has a kid and I can see that he lives an adventure of which he appreciate every second and I enjoy watching him live it. I don't have kids and I live different sorts of adventures and I can see that he lives them vicariously through me. It's pointless to try to make a tally. Figuring out what makes your mind "tick" the most is how you best "win at life".

Do you ever just tell them that? You will get no respect until you do, in no uncertain terms. Otherwise, you will be walked all over.

Fortunately I don't work there anymore.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com