Anyone who knows me personally or at work knows that I love to talk. It’s probably the only thing I can do very very well. Yet, it always bothered me that my personal blog (this one) has always been largely neglected and confined to short bursts of inspiration and content sharing. As usually happens, work and life took over. Not anymore.
This post comes courtesy of a link via Phil Sherry on twitter who shared a very interesting link from StackExchange titled “Should developers accept overtime/weekend work/denied bonus payments?“
This topic is very close to my heart since it is one of our fundamental tenets at hedgehog lab to treat developers as important assets. Given our entire company was built around the concept of getting together great developers and designers to produce simply brilliant work, I have always been against the imposed long hours and graft in agencies and a fair number of software companies. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I agree with a large part of the conversation in that post.
However, the top voted response on the discussion really annoyed me to the extent that I felt compelled to address and respond to it.
“Yes, developers think working long hours is a sign of machismo, it really is stupidity.”
I don’t think I have met a developer in all my years in the industry who thought long hours were somehow “the path to a thousand virgins”. This statement kicks off the very one-sided argument that long hours are essentially bad and everyone who works more than a 9 to 5 shift is basically doing it wrong.
There are tons of reasons why long hours are perfectly fine and working weekends is not a badge of shame.
Some of us LOVE what we do
Probably the most important reason developers work long hours is because they absolutely love what they do. They would rather miss out on a movie, a night out, or mundane television in order to learn that awesome new programming language or write something that they always wanted do.
One of the endearing memories I had from my younger days was the extremely late nights and long hours of programming. I was just introduced to the web and my fascination knew no bounds. As a self-taught programmer, I was obsessed about learning ever major programming language in those days. Staying up until 3am was small price to pay for pursuing something that you absolutely loved.
15 years later, I still love staying up late to read up on new technologies and tools. Admittedly, a majority of my time now is spent in sales and new business but it doesn’t stop me from sacrificing some down-time to catch up with the latest in technology. Not because I have been force to but because I WANT to.
Not every start-up is backed by tons of money in the bank
A lot of commentators in the above discussion had the opinion of “if your company is asking you to work longer, then they should really be hiring more people”. As someone who runs a boot-strapped company where money does not grow on trees, I can assure you that a lot of employers would love nothing more than to hire extra developers, give fair overtime and bonuses, and generally stick to fair working practices rather than tax existing staff.
However, the simple reality is that unless you are heavily funded start-up, the only way to deliver more work with limited resources is to encourage staff to put extra effort in.
I do take the point that you should not FORCE your developers to put in additional work outside their contracted hours but there are always exceptions that should apply.
Competition is a dangerous task master
The big problem in the tech industry and especially digital agencies is that long hours are the norm. For an agency to not enforce long hours is almost a competitive disadvantage in many circumstances.
As someone who runs an agency, I manage an average of 5 to 7 hours of sleep depending on times of the year and days. Yet, it is not unusual for some of my peers to work 18 to 20 hour days with less than 4 hours of sleep. The problem becomes worse as your seniority in the company increases.
The simple issue here is that your competitors are willing to put longer hours in to deliver work faster and cheaper than you. How do you respond to that? True that there are lot of other competitive advantages you can gain around skills, service, and strategy but in an industry that bills by the hour, more work equals more money.
None of this makes it right
Having argued for valid cases of longer hours, I have to agree ultimately with the broad points raised by people in the discussion. As I mature as a developer and as an entrepreneur, it is becoming increasingly evident to me that overworked developers are less productive developers. Sometimes, taking time off work actually helps developers broaden their horizons and increase output.
Employers in the tech industry should treat their staff as important assets and not as disposable “resources”.
I do not claim to know all the answers to some of the underlying issues behind the case for long hours but I know a good developer when I see one, and he definitely isn’t over-worked.
13 Reasons Why Software Is Not Free -
Lately it seems more and more evident that the general population expects software to be free or at the very least cheap. This is reinforced when companies like Apple, who make a tremendous income off of their hardware, the iTunes store, and many other revenue streams, heavily discount their…
VIDEO debate, cutting to the chase « jd/adobe -
I think we all know now who is “really” benefitting from Chrome dropping support for H.264 in the video tag.
Six years ago Wikipedia started with a radical idea. That’s true. I ain’t promising you nothing extra. I’m just giving you life and you’re giving me life. And I’m saying that men can live together without butchering one another.
Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you’re not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. ‘Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That’s just the way it is.
Dyin’ ain’t much of a living, boy.
Please consider a generous donation to the Wikimedia Foundation.
(Source: seoulbrother)
(Taken with instagram)
Some great business advice by Brendan Dawes. Brendan + Action (by marc.thiele)
Startup lessons learned from Warren Buffett | VentureBeat -
Everybody should read this.
The application linked to is featured BY Adobe on their CS5 page. Just read the testimonials and tell me technical issues are irrelevant!
(via r)
[video]
The Macalope Weekly: The Jerk Store -
Blaming Apple for all the evils in the world has become a trend today. Frankly, if you don’t like Apple, then please do us a favour and stop buying their products and enriching their 100 bazillion dollar cash chest.
Those of us who ARE interested in an evil overlord will keep paying our hard-earned cash to Apple.
“Instead of aping Microsoft, Google should take a page from Apple’s playbook. Sure, Steve Jobs is a control freak. But at least Apple remembers that computers were originally intended to make our lives easier—not provide us with ever-more-pointless chores.” — Google Buzz? More Like Buzz Kill - Techtonic Shifts Blog - Newsweek.com
Fantastic Wallpapers That Will Blow Your Desktop Away - Smashing Magazine -
Get some wallpaper love.
[video]