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Comment by vorpalhex | Hacker News Reader

> Out of 52 weekends, I didn’t work more than 30% of them.

Assuming you are working a standard Mon - Fri, the correct amount of weekends to be working is 0.

There is some tradeoff point if you make overtime and you need the money. If you are salaried, then just say no.

I occasionally get asked to work a late night or a weekend. It's never a real emergency - nobody is blocked, it isn't software that impacts live users, etc. It's just scheduling fails by some middle manager somewhere. My answer is always the same:

"Oh, sorry, I can't. Already scheduled."

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This is one of those reminders that most of the stuff you read on the internet is written by abnormal people. In this case, it's someone claiming they "only" work 30% of weekends and regularly go to 5am meetings explaining why you should have the abundant work-life balance they achieve.

I think you’re so right. It is an achievement than just a reward. I had to be disciplined to accommodate my sleep routine and be productive. The goal is not to think about work at all during “not the working hours” but how?.

exactly.

Manufacturing Consent applies to more than just mainstream news media.

I am sorry for not being clear. But with wfh, it changed. I haven’t done 5am calls before the pandemic wfh was in full flow. But I meant to mention that how I got used to it to be a team player for my transatlantic mates. But you’re right.

> This is one of those reminders that most of the stuff you read on the internet is written by abnormal people

This right here cannot be overstated. Internet blogs are not a uniformly distributed sampling of the population.

Thank you so much. You’re also just one of us. Welcome to the internet.

As a salaried worker I am perfectly fine working weekends as long as I get compensatory time off in exchange - days I can take off the following week(s) on top of my usual PTO allowances. If a team cannot promise me this I don't want to work for them.

Sometimes, weekend work with a team is some of the most engaging work one can perform in a salaried role. I have fond memories of the cycle of scrambling before a launch, the catharsis of the launch, and then the ensuing vacation.

The key thing is committing to the whole cycle - crunch is sometimes a necessary evil but must be followed by equal and opposite rest. Any group that doesn't respect this yin-yang is undeserving of your labor.

This is a great point! I think of uPtO as same!

I view working weekends as equal to working overtime. If I work a full week and then work into the weekend, I want more than equal PTO for the weekend time worked, or more pay than I would normally receive.

If looking at a potential employer I find out they expect weekend work and don't treat it like overtime, I assume they are bad employers and move on.

Absolutely. 5 days per week is already too much work. Anyone asking more of you has little to no concern for your personal well-being.

Sometimes there is a real reason for someone to work a weekend or off hours. In every reasonable place I've worked, this has been offset with some other free time. Work Saturday, but take off on Tuesday to make up for it. Or work a late night maintenance window, but take a quiet no meetings day the next day.

I agree with you! I hope to reduce this to 0%.

> "Oh, sorry, I can't. Already scheduled."

Typical pushback is a lecture about the importance of being a "team player" and pressure to cancel or reschedule things to make the boss look good.

That’s the feeling which pushes me.

So what?

"Sorry, no." Done. Either it's a shitty enough work environment that they'll fire you, in which case they would have gotten around to it any way, or it's not, and they won't, and nothing happens.

Why even be sorry

Because it's a colloquialism, and because despite that "No is a complete sentence" post from earlier this week (last week?), it often comes across across as rude, unnecessarily harsh, and over time will make people think of you as an asshole.

When I started working I had a boss pull this line. Then he didn't turn up cos he had a family thing that was more important.

This pushed three of us (out of 5) to quit in the next couple of months (after getting another job sorted).

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