Comment by throwaway914 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway914 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

I'm viewing software engineers like FAA pilots, where they must have a certain minimum amount of time between shifts so they can't [necessarily] be exhausted. But that's pertaining to long shifts. In softwareland I'm used to seeing folks who are poor at recognizing their own fatigue. I understand there are some that do not want time away, but I'd say considering the impact of our work it'd be important to mandate time away. Maybe that's reaching, but I'm looking at it from a safety aspect and the potential to do harm if you're not careful/cognizant due to long hours and extended months of work to beat deadlines. Depends on the area you're working in, I'm sure - but it's a ridiculous thing I'd love to be commonplace. Paid time away: 4 weeks minimum that you must exercise. Doesn't have to be contiguous.

You're saying your work doesn't have PTO accrual: There's another thing we should lobby for.

How many times has productivity doubled since the industrial revolution? I would love the tech world to stand still for a time so we can demand these things that seem ridiculous, because we've been succumbed to wage slavery. Even that sounds odd: Software wage slavery - puh-lease, right? Except few things have expanded the economy of several nations in the world like software, like tech. We should be much more demanding.

</harp>

And this is exactly why people fight with unions. It's not just they don't give benefits, they enable people who think they know better than oneself what one needs. In the USSR they had mandatory daily calisthenics for workers, so they would "stay healthy". With the current level of busybodies arrogance I won't be completely surprised if unions will do that too. Or ban parking lots so programmers "exercise" by biking to work, also a popular trope on HN etc. etc.

To get people on-board union organizers would need to come up with some real benefits that people would want from unions, not with what organizers themselves want.

>There's another thing we should lobby for.

Your mandatory 4 weeks off is mutually exclusive with PTO accrual, you do understand that?

I think very much you're an outlier. Rampant fatigue in the tech sector is a huge problem.

I do not see how mandatory 4 weeks off (paid) are mutually exclusive with PTO accrual. In my own corner, I've been elected to a board to represent other employees. Something we're lobbying for is a certain minimum of mandatory paid leave - as well as circumstances where being overworked would accrue additional time. Am I mixing up terms?

Something we're trying to cut down on is 7 days a week, 14-hour days. We've attacked this from a cost point of view if we can't get leadership to understand the humanitarian need. We're now putting it in policy that working lengthy hours will accrue paid (admin) leave. So the supervisor ultimately hurts themselves authorizing so much overtime. They will have to settle the books, and lose that person for their minimum and accrued time.

PTO accrual: you have a PTO balance, which you can spend as you wish and which is filled by a certain number of PTO hours each pay period.

Mandatory 4 weeks: you have to take 4 weeks off each year. You cannot spend your PTO as you wish.

In my case I don't have accrual, my PTO balance is reset every 1st of January, if I have any days left, they are "gone". I get the same balance of Jan 1st if I had 30 days of PTO on Dec 31st and if I had 0 days. It's not ideal but still is better than mandatory time off as I still have a choice to let the PTO "burn".

As far as me being an outlier I think you just get industry experience from reddit and have not worked much. Wherever I worked managers sent emails with dozens of names on the cc: regarding PTO balance reaching cap, there were always giant threads whenever HR posted about PTO cash out or cap change polices etc. If people starved for PTO that would not have been happening.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com