Whelp. Got my ass handed to me on that one. Good call using PPP metrics, bad call on me for not noticing.
I remember being interviewed for a programming position at a pharmacutical company, and the interviewer was saying, “Oh, it gets really hectic around here when we’re getting close to putting in a new release…we’ll sometimes work 12-14 hours days to get it done… I just want to see if you’re OK with that…”. As she was saying this, I was thinking the exact words that PoorYorick mentioned above.
I accepted a different job at a small company in which the boss/owner was much more reasonable. We were a software company selling a COBOL/CICS product to other companies. If a release wasn’t ready, the boss/owner would convince them that more time was needed, and there really was no problem. The programs we delivered were generally thoroughly reviewed, tested, and bug-free. Nobody was stressed out, and it was a good place to work.
However, when developing a new product using a much more complex technology (vb.net) that the boss/owner didn’t understand, all sense of sanity left the building. He made unreasonable promises, and insisted that any delivery date he conjured up must be met, no matter what. Thus, programmers responded by checking in their programs, not matter what. Guess what happened – programs had incomplete functionality, bugs proliferated, time was spent fixing programs, and everybody was miserable.
I decided to leave that sinking ship.
It sounds like the same destructive policies are in full force at Lightnin’s business.
Sometimes software industry practices are just insane.
I can accept “crunch mode”, where you have a hard ship date that you have to meet and just need to work overtime to meet the date. Except if you’re working massive overtime for MONTHS that’s not “crunch mode”, that’s “normal mode”.
You should only get a few weeks of massive overtime a year, if you’re always working massive overtime then your employer is an idiot. Late in a project it doesn’t usually make sense to bring in new people, they’ll take more time to train and get up to speed than they’ll be able to contribute. But that’s late, late, late in the project, the last month. The only reason companies do this is the employees put up with it.
The product I’m working on now has a strict no-non-emergency overtime policy. I work overtime maybe once a month, when there is an actual emergency. We never work overtime just because we’re behind schedule. I know that the only reason this policy exists is because we’re hourly employees (contractors) and they’ve finally realized that overtime costs more money, but it’s a good policy. Someone finally wised up and looked at the bottom line.
But if I was in a salaried position but expected to work 60 hours a week regularly when they originally claimed a typical 40 hour work week, I’d demand a 50% pay raise or quit. Assholes. If you knuckle under to the boss and work for no money he’s going to treat you worse and worse until you quit. I’m as pro-capitalism as anyone, and that means I don’t expect any favors from my boss, on the other hand if he wants favors from me he’s gonna have to pay me, I work for money.
The CWA (Communication Workers of America) try their best to organize the programmers, but no one is that interested.
I assume the robber baron line was a reference to a different thread that I have not read, but i thought this post bore repeating. If you’re being abused at work, leave. Period. If you don’t than you have no basis for complaining.
Programers are generally smart and educated, of course they don’t want to join a union.
This explains their typically fantastic working conditions, I suppose.
My husband works in a white-collar position in a blue-collar industry, and he’s on salary and expected to work 50+ hours a week, with mythical “time off in lieu” (mythical in that he never actually gets the time off in lieu). His raise this year was 5% which still puts him behind his industry standard. His company seems to be basing his salary and raises on a 40 hour work week which he never works. His company (one of the 50 best to work for in Canada - HAH!!!) does not value their workers, and is not willing to pay them industry standard salaries. He is indeed going to start looking for another job.
Having lived and worked on both sides of the pond, I have to say that I’m not sure I buy the “more efficient” position, either. Personally, I prefer the pace of working life there better than here and, even though I made less money, life in general–for me–was more enjoyable. I had much more time for friends and enjoying myself. Then again, I don’t require much disposable income. That said, my observations would support the idea that America, in general, is more industrious and efficient than Europe, in general. However, ten or less vacation days a year is ridiculous in a civilized country, IMHO.
Hmmm…I work for a top 50 best to work for company in Canada, too. I can’t imagine what the worst ones are like if they allow people to be treated like this in the best ones.
Rather non-sequitor to this thread, but since I’m ambling by…
I have friends retiring to Croatia from the SF Bay Area in the next 5-7 years :). Their family ( the husband was born in Croatia, though largely raised in the U.S. ) owns some land on a bucolic Adriatic island near fabulously scenic Dubrovnik. By and large it is apparently vastly cheaper ( a very few types of western consumer goods partially excepted ) than the Bay Area and with most all modern amenities available, including internet.
- Tamerlane
The first rule of software management: There is never enough time to do a job right, but there is always time to do it over.
I am amused to see that things haven’t changed a bit since I worked in the game industry 20 years ago. No where else are the Six Phases of Project Development more clearly demonstrated:
- Wild Enthusiasm
- Disillusionment
- Panic
- Search for the guilty
- Punish the innocent
- Reward the uninvolved.
Hmmm. Your six phases seem to be missing the initial phase that we noted:
- UNCRITICAL ACCEPTANCE
- WILD ENTHUSIASM
- DEJECTED DISILLUSIONMENT
- TOTAL CONFUSION
- SEARCH FOR THE GUILTY
- PUNISHMENT OF THE INNOCENT
- AWARDS AND ACCOLADES FOR THE UNINVOLVED
This is hardly a non sequitur. A claim was made that it is self-evident that life is better in the US than in Croatia. I also disagree with this claim,
I went on my honeymoon this year to one of those islands, Hvar. I fully intend to buy property there as soon as possible. I can get a ruined stone cottage for maybe E 40,000. I live in NYC. My yearly utility bills are more than this.
I would give up my white collar, professional, NYC income and consumption in a moment to live on Hvar with a modest income. The quality of life there is vastly superior to anything I have ever experienced anywhere else, regardless of my purchasing power.
To continue this hijack, I suspect one of the consequences of globalization will be this sort of relocation. I have a friend going into semi retirement in South East Asia. He can sell his Valley home for $1M+, buy a bigger nicer home there for less then $10k, and live quite comfortably with a lower cost of living. Internet connectivity makes it possible for him to do enough freelance work that he shouldn’t need to dip into his capital too much and enables him to keep in touch with all the people he cares about.
They’re on Sipan. Link to the one hotel with pics:
http://www.duprimorje.hr/hotelsipan_en.html
- Tamerlane
The worse ones are actually worse - we’ve both worked at them. The one where Jim got paid about half of his paycheques one year is definitely worse. It is a little disheartening to think about how friggin’ low the bar is in Canada for this company to be one of the best.
To continue the standard-of-living hijack, we have friends who were born and raised in Canada who were seriously considering emigrating to Africa. I know it’s dangerously close to heresy to say this, but for all its good points, Canada has a few major flaws, too. Come to think of it, most of them are related to Capitalism, in my opinion.
I’m a professional. “Exempt”. I consider an occasional extra hour or two here & there- and a little more during “crunch” time- to be part of the price I pay for being a Professional. OTOH, I have no problem with taking an extra hour for lunch or skipping out a little eraly when the work is light, either. I figure I work maybe an extra hour a week when it gets averaged out over the year. That’s Ok.
The whole Croatia thing is a hijack, dudes, whether or it it was mentioned offhand in passing. Try starting another thread, please.
In my opinion, most of the ills in Canada come from Socialism where everyone expects someone else to look after them which results in them spending their time bitching about things instead of doing something about it.
There are definitely places in Canada where the downside of Socialism is a problem, and places in Canada (ie Calgary) where the downside of Capitalism is a problem. I’d like to see some happy middle ground between the two, where big industry doesn’t chew people up and spit them out in its rampage towards more profit, and people have to take responsibility for their own lives and circumstances and put down the victim mentality.