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Is there anything worse than a sanctimonious early-riser who thinks that work is more valuable because of the time of day that it occurred? And how much waste do we all incur because of these indignant shits who insist that everyone must awaken simultaneously, get in our cars simultaneously, choke the streets and freeways simultaneously, line up at Starbucks simultaneously, arrive at our jobs simultaneously, etc. etc. etc. I dare anyone to try and design a worse system. A few of the worst early-risers I've worked with were the first ones to leave work, often crowing about how if others arrived as early as they did, then they too could race out to join them on the freeway, or at the nearest Hooters.

There is a lot of value in having everyone in the office at the same hours. It ensures that communication occurs in a timely manner.

I work at a software company as a Sales Engineer, and part of my job is to answer questions clients may have. There is nothing more annoying than having to respond to the client's question with "I'm sorry, I was going to ask one of our developers but it seems they have gone home for the day." Note that this sometimes happens at 3pm, because the developer decided to come in at 5.30am and left at 2.30pm. Also note that similar things happened when I was working in tech support, and critical issues had to remain unresolved until the next day because the developer wanted to leave early and catch the swell for that day's surfing session.

Bottom line is that there are a lot of fields (especially customer-centric ones) where the turnaround time for inquiries has to be extremely low. There are two ways to do this:

1. Give everyone Blackberry's that they must answer at all times 2. Have everyone come in at the same time

It's one or the other. Pick one.

In my experience, customer facing professionals are often quite bad at gauging the actual importance of client concerns, and good at magnifying them. I certainly was.

Scheduling adequate coverage is ultimately a concern for upper management. If they allowed "critical issues" to go unresolved on anything other than a rare occasion, the issues were probably not critical to begin with.

It's not necessarily only about the importance of the actual concern or question.

In my experience, customers appreciate it a lot if you get back to them in a timely manner (~30 minutes), regardless of how trivial the issue or question is. It helps you build a reputation as a reliable businessperson, and further helps you build a good relationship with that customer.

Of course customers like being acknowledged, but that's the responsibility of whoever is actually interfacing with said customer. IME, it's pretty unusual to need developer input just to adequately respond to a client. It's also quite unproductive to run around context-switching developers every time a minor issue arises.

This is why I specifically mentioned that this is an upper management concern. Those in client facing roles often default to wishing to provide the best possible support to their customers at all times. It's a good instinct, but that doesn't mean it's always the pragmatic course of action.

We try hard not to context-switch developers. For most issues, email is used, and that allows them to respond whenever they want - as long as it is within the same day.

But if the issue has been outstanding for a day, then we resort to instant message. Context-switching does occur there, but that's the price one pays for leaving at 2pm the previous day when a lot of customers were still at the office working.

Eh, just because somebody is in the office doesn't mean he's available at a moment's notice. Couldn't the same argument be made against meetings? It can't be any less annoying having to say, "I'm sorry, I was going to ask one of our developers but it seems he's in a meeting."

In fact, in either case, I'd say something like "I don't have a great answer myself, but I'm checking with the developer in charge of that feature and I'll have all the details for you by $TIME."

If they are in a meeting, they will most likely be out within the next 30-60 seconds, which is when they will see my email/IM and respond. If they are out for the day, that's at least a one-day delay.

In my experience the kind of employer shortsighted enough to set such policies likes to pick both, and enforce ruthlessly.

They agreed to attend meetings when they accepted the job offer. If you aren't capable of doing what is deemed necessary for your job (whether its actually necessary or not is a separate question) then maybe you are in the wrong job.

Right, and you shouldn't feel guilty for choosing a job that suits you better.

Did the job offer say "must attend morning meetings"? Some job offers specify work hours and most don't.

If the person took a job offer knowing that there would be 7:00 meetings and then didn't show up, then I agree with you. Some job offers include hours so there are no surprises. Many trading firms start at 6:30, for example, and that's fine as long as both parties are clear about expectations ahead of time.

If the offer letter or contract specifies hours (rather than some flimsy, shifting-sands "please your boss" social expectation) then people should not commit if they can't meet the professed needs, I agree.

However, if we're talking about a typical job where hours are not specified before signing, then you are in the wrong and you should quit while you're behind.

> Did the job offer say "must attend morning meetings"? Some job offers specify work hours and most don't.

But there is implicit assumption in a job offer that meetings ought to be attended on time. Sometimes, meeting times are decided based on mutual convenience. Sometimes, they are dictated by your boss. Nothing wrong with that.

People can claim "implicit assumptions" all they want. Most rapists believe in an "implicit assumption" that the woman wants to have sex with them. That doesn't make it true.

I can't tell if you're trolling or serious, and I'm not sure I even want to know.

Well, you are the one who likened corporate bosses to rapists, so I cannot tell if you are trolling either.

No, I didn't. I was pointing out the ridiculous nature of "implicit assumptions" arguments that can be taken to all sorts of extremes.

You basically Godwinned the discussion, dude. Except you used rapists rather than Hitler. There are ways to make your point without resorting to ridiculous hyperboles.

There is a concept of 'normal' and if your sleep cycle is so far out of 'normal' that it interferes with your ability to do 'normal' things, then it is your responsibility to determine if that will be a problem before you accept the job, not the employers. Even in the case of trading that you brought up, if starting at 6:30 is normal in that field, then the employer shouldn't need to bring up in the offer that they expect you to start at 6:30. If the employee is moving to a new field or to a place that has a different corporate culture, it should be their responsibility to find out what 'normal' is.

You opened yourself up here but I'm going to leave it as an exercise to the reader as to what the last three moves look like. I'll give a hint. The second of the three doesn't matter.

>>Did the job offer say "must attend morning meetings"? Some job offers specify work hours and most don't.

Well, the job offer also did not say "must wear a suit and tie everyday" or "must treat coworkers with courtesy" or any other implicit part of being a working professional in the corporate world.

I agree with your original post though.

Since when is wearing a suit and tie an implicit part of being a working professional?

I gave it as an example. The point is that there are many things you have to do everyday - some trivial, some not - that are not going to be spelled out in your offer letter. You can either do them, or find somewhere else to work.

No one likes waking up in the morning.

Not true at all. I may be completely backwards, but I LOVE waking up in the morning. The original article also seemed pretty sure that NOBODY likes to wake at 3am. Are you kidding me? Nothing makes me happier and sets a better mood for my day then when I voluntarily wake up at 3am, even if my day job starts 10am.

Having said that, I might have the condition outlined in the original post. I'm a severe over-sleeper, and I'll always sleep more in the morning if allowed to. It seems contradictory, but it's a matter of determination and discipline clashing. I have the determination to wake up early and feel wonderful for it. When I wake up before 7am, if I have slept enough, I wake up excited and energized. If I sleep until 8am or later, I feel miserable, and it snowballs from there on; I get frustrated with myself for having lost my productive morning and oversleep even more. Often this enter a vicious cycle of sleeping late and waking up later, and it's hard to break out of it. And even when I get a good habit going, it takes just a couple parties to shred my following week's schedule to pieces. I'm still hitting my mid-twenties. Productivity or my social life?

This. I, too, am a "morning person," but that doesn't mean I'm physically superior to anyone else. I agree with the sentiment of this comment above. If you have obligations, then be committed and fulfill them, especially if they're voluntary. But calling someone a "sissy" (which I feel is a derogatory, antiquated, and unnecessary term) just because it's difficult to wake up in the morning comes across as self-righteousness.

It's not really a rant about sleep habits. It's a rant about excuses and not meeting commitments.

I don't think so. It's a rant about people who don't want to do hard things. Go reread — the overall thrust is not "keep your promises," but rather "do hard things and don't complain about them." He says this pretty explicitly several times.

Sometimes people should complain when they have to do hard things.

Alan: My arbitrary function equality checker is taking a goddamn long time to write.

Barbara: That's because it's mathematically impossible.

Alan: Oh, thanks. I guess I won't put that feature in, then.

Frankly, it reads like a venomous, unconstructive rant that cloaked itself in "personal responsibility" cheerleading.

> However, I don't think he understands that most people end up in meetings they didn't voluntarily agree to attend.

So? A job is a contract between you and your employer. If you don't want to honor it, choose a different contract. If your boss wants you to come at a certain time, show up at that time or change the boss.

Those who show up for meetings on time are morally superior to those who don't because they can't control their sleep.

If your boss wants you to come at a certain time, show up at that time or change the boss.

You realize that in most firms, that also means (even if it's a large company and there's no point in it being that way) changing companies, right? And also that it takes about a month to do that, and that you'll usually be fired if you get found out for looking? And also that people who change companies "too often" get the "job hopper" label and get raped by closed-minded idiots who never grew out of thinking the way you do, right?

I am fucking sick of arguing about the real world with Internet "libertarians" who've not spent significant time in it. Go back to pretending to be a 16-year-old girl who's "soooo confused".

> am fucking sick of arguing about the real world with Internet "libertarians" who've not spent significant time in it.

I couldn't agree more with this statement. There's a certain blend of inexperience and privilege that pervades some discussions on HN, and it's unfortunate.

> If your boss wants you to come at a certain time, show up at that time or change the boss.

No, there is no moral obligation to silently put up with any mistreatment your boss dreams up. You are always free to negotiate — the counteroffer may be "you are not worth this trouble and you're fired," but hey, that's business. It's not a divine judgment from on high.

For example, my boss once asked me to come in an hour earlier than I had been. By the OP's thinking, I should have just said "Yessir!" Instead, I said, "That'll be massively inconvenient for me. What is it that's prompting this?" It turned out that she just had some extra work that needed doing by a certain time each day, so I came up with a more efficient way to get this work done that wouldn't require changing my schedule around. She ended up thanking me because I saved everyone time. TL;DR: I said no and came out looking better for it.

he said "No one likes waking up in the morning."

do you think he suffers from delayed sleep-phase disorder?