But if it hadn't been my idea to do so, if it had just been expected of me to work uncompensated nights/weekends at no personal benefit? Hell no. I'm not a manager but I too would never ask someone to do this either.
If the answer is no, then that's a resounding no (for me, at least). I might love and adore my job (and the workplace), but no way in hell will it be allowed to impinge on my private/personal time: sleeping and "regular" work already essentially takes 2/3 of it (too much), and that doesn't even include the time for "context shifting" (mental and physical) between those and the remainder that is "(free) living".
And if (the hypothetical) you considers that to be "entitled", then so be it. Your life's mission is not my mission. I am there to do my work and do it conscientiously; anything more is asking too much.
This is a good take. Something that's perhaps overlooked: those rare occasions where you need to stay late to deliver are very memorable. Isn't it true that strong bonds are often built from intense experiences? I think those few times that you stay late earn you massive respect from those who stuck around, and builds a relationship beyond your career. Especially if it isn't even your responsibility specifically, maybe it's the team lead's ass on the line or a colleague's. It's like indirectly saying "hey I got your back on this, you can trust me I'm a team player -- we ride together we die together bad boys for life"
And the thing that works absolutely counter to this philosophy is the peer bonus system. It sounds great in principle but seems to incentivize people to continue bad practices that are clearly mostly overworking without proper post mortem on why such out of description help was even needed in the first place. When I was new I used to cherish peer bonuses but now I'm proud that no one in my team has gotten one in a year (because hopefully none of our systems needed such help anymore).
I think with people holed up in their homes doing the same thing, the experience is diminished somewhat.
Staying late, with the boss who is also working on the same project, to deliver for the customer, is quite different from staying late, to deliver for a deadline, because some team didn't make any decisions sooner, while the boss reminds you from far away that you should be grateful, and then sets things up so another avoidable crunch is inevitable.
Reminder that you're not actually trying to build strong bonds, you're trying to build software (or whatever). And said "strong bonds" won't stop the company from deciding your team is splitting, or your coworkers from leaving for promotions or other companies.
This is an incredibly important factor. It really matters to getting a team that gels and gets things done.
But here's the thing: That has to be a two-way street, or it won't work. The company needs to show responsibility towards their employees too. And that isn't yoga classes & cafeterias, that is basic respect, and a willingness to work with the employees, instead of seeing them as "resources".
This seems to be, as far as I can tell, an approach that's correlated with manager skills & inversely correlated with company size. I've done both manual & "white collar" work in small companies, and the ones where the leaders did right by their employees had employees who would go to great lengths for them.
I've done manual & "white collar" work in large companies, too. None of them had CEOs that cared that much. But some had managers who cared a lot, and were willing to bend rules if it meant doing the right thing - those teams excelled. The ones with the managers who didn't care about their people got teams who didn't care about their work.
And I know the kind of manager who's terribly upset about your 11am yoga class. Without fail, that yoga class was on your calendar, but they wanted the meeting when they wanted it, without a care about you. They could've done 1pm, they could've done 10am, but that would've inconvenienced them, and that's not in their playbooks.
I will never do this. I havent done this since I was very very young at my first job and i didn't know better. I couldn't think of anything sader or more depressing that giving away my own personal time for someone else.
I'm not going to work on the weekend. I've got much better things to do, like play video games or literally anything else, rather than go back to work and generate wealth for someone else for free.
> I couldn't think of anything sader or more depressing that giving away my own personal time for someone else.
You just described a job.
Whether you're giving your time away or getting paid for giving it up makes no difference to the fact you are parting with it in order to produce for someone else.
So when someone says there's "nothing sadder", I think they should remember that the time is being given up either way. Doing so for free amounts to gifting the time. Or, flipped on its head, not chasing after the money.
People have their own reasons for making gifts. Feeling good about themselves, making someone else feel good, …. You can have your own reasons for not caring that there is no financial benefit to working extra hours on something. Maybe you enjoy the work. Maybe you are learning something. Maybe you take pride in your work and going the extra mile is rewarding in and of itself.
Unlike GP, I don't judge people who sometimes work for "free", as long as they don't have to and are aware they don't have to.
I never ask my employees for overtime, never control their work hours. The typical work week that organically arises out of this is about 35 hours.
I would absolutely fire anyone who would close the laptop for the weekend and left a critical operation pending on Friday. It's about work ethics and personal responsibility of the outcome of personal work.
If the company thinks they have the right to my personal life because they pay me for 40 hours, then its slavery. Also, threatening me with firing because I refuse slavery is threatening my livelihood, and it's mafia mentality. If a manager thinks they have the right my personal time, I should have right to their personal time too. Traffic should go both way in a bridge.
I hire intelligent people, treat them as such, and expect intelligent behaviour in return. Part of the expectation is that everyone manages their own time responsibly. If they fail that management and have to work after hours, I do expect them to take the fall. There's no slavery and no mafia involved here; much to the contrary, it's a healthy work environment with historically excellent work/life balance.
Do you have this kind of system set up? If not, do you make it clear when you're hiring people that you're expecting them to occasionally do what is effectively uncompensated oncall on nights/weekends? That's the kind of thing you have to know going in in order to be able to compare like-for-like in competing offers.
There's a second level to this, which is the definition of an acceptable workload. That is company-cultural, and you'll have to take my word for it when I say it is acceptable. We have the position that in the long run it's best that people feel happy on the job, which requires workloads compatible with life outside the company.
The original quote was about "an interesting problem". I'm happy to spend some after hours time on technical problems if they're personally interesting to me. The fact that addressing it helps my employer and makes me look good in their eyes is just a nice little bonus.
If you want to build a car from scratch in your weekend or just chill out, that's an equally meaningful and respectable endeavour as well.