Comment by crossroadsguy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by crossroadsguy | Hacker News Reader

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Yeah. I was encouraged to take the lump-sum money my company paid (like most happily did - not taxed; amount equalling latest base iPhone cost) and get MDM installed on the personal phone so that we could access email and everything on that. Laptop was company issued anyway. I, and very few, chose company phone and I got a new SIM just for the company and set it up (they had to pay the SIM bill as well).

A nice side effect of that was I could clearly control when the phone won't even be on me and I had set that expectation - like treks, or short personal vacations, sleeping hours (yes!). I had championed the "follow the sun" policy in my company when it came to on-call rotation, but somehow some of my fellow country men/women colleagues took pride in "being available". Anyway, their time, their choice.

Later some of my colleagues were surprised when they couldn't install certain apps, couldn't do certain things and often used to wonder "does the company take screenshots of my phone?" because the permission was present :D

Exactly that.

I wasn't reachable by phone for company related stuff outside my regular working hours unless I had on-call-duty, which means it was working hours.

I don't get why people would be proud about not setting boundaries.

It really depends on where you want to steer your career. There's some roles, especially in management, where "working hours only" isn't really an option; if you aspire to one of those you've gotta convince people you'll do what's necessary.

Some people are in it for the challenge. Someone else's outage? Yeah I'll happily help diagnose it, analysing and figuring out where the issue is can teach you a lot of things.

For the record, this was never at night. Late in the evening, sure.

I do that as well, since I am my own business

Also sometimes (depending on the company) being seen to visibly chip in fighting fires can win you real credibility that you can put in the bank and then use later when you want to slightly slack off for a bit.

So it can actually make logical sense to do it occasionally even from a purely selfish perspective if it's half an hour on a random Tuesday evening and you aren't actually doing anything else important.

All depends if the company is actually going to be grateful or not though

This is relatable. Though I’d add that the company can’t be grateful, it’s just a machine. But the colleagues you’re helping out, they absolutely can be grateful, and will sing your praises, leading to positive things happening. In the right type of company.

Keep your ops people happy. Help them when you can, it's the fairest way i would say to not have to be on call. It also makes them feel like they're not on their own. You're all on the same team.

Not sure if upper management sees this stuff. For the number of times I've fixed other people's crap (or found the root cause, so they can just fix it) I don't think I got any recognition for that.

> somehow some of my fellow country men/women colleagues took pride in "being available"

I call that being exploitable.

Reap what you sow. The one's who follow US "availability culture" absolutely will get promoted faster than the euro-in-american clothing "I work to live not live to work" crowd.

Marxian style LTV analysis of the economy breaks down hardcore involving anything touching electrons. His analysis of the theory of alienation/exploitation is literally invalid in the era of computers, and exponentially so in the era of AI systems. It's not "exploitation" to be available in exchange for comically large amounts of money.

> His analysis of the theory of alienation/exploitation is literally invalid in the era of computers,

What?

Software development is the poster child for alienation, and LLMs turning your job into one where you manage an incredibly productive idiot turned all of that up to 11.

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