
Letter to a startup, from an employee - exhaustedworker
Dear startup employer,<p>It&#x27;s a workday, but I&#x27;m not at work. I&#x27;m pretending to work from home. Company policy says I should file for PTO, but I won&#x27;t. You&#x27;ll never know; I&#x27;ll feel guilty.<p>But I need this day. You took a lot from me. I didn&#x27;t hesitate for a second when I dropped all my weekend plans and rushed to fix what was broken. I worked all weekend, late into the night. I was there first thing Monday morning, and again on Tuesday. Then I stayed up all night Tuesday because it was release night.<p>I didn&#x27;t do any of this because you pay me to. I did it because I take pride in my work. Things were broken. I&#x27;m responsible for them.<p>Now I&#x27;m taking time to eat a meal. I&#x27;m having the day I should have had last weekend. I&#x27;m breathing. The stress is ebbing away. I&#x27;m recharging so I can do great work for you again tomorrow.<p>Startup employer, I need this day so I can be awesome for you. But you want to take this day from my PTO, and that&#x27;s just not right. You took my whole weekend. You took dinner with my spouse. You took a whole night of sleep and I came to the office anyway, because my coworkers depend on me. I&#x27;ll never complain about these things because I&#x27;m an internet engineer and this is my job. If it&#x27;s down, I&#x27;m up, no questions asked. In the morning we&#x27;ll do the post-mortem work to see how to make it better.<p>Startup employer, we need to talk about our vacation policy. I wish you&#x27;d read this article about Netflix: &lt;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hbr.org&#x2F;2014&#x2F;01&#x2F;how-netflix-reinvented-hr&#x2F;ar&#x2F;1&gt;. Please read it, because when I read it, I want to send them my resume. I love the idea that we can be honest and reasonable with each other about my time. I&#x27;m flexible for you. Why can&#x27;t you be flexible for me?<p>Startup employer, please stop tracking my PTO. There&#x27;s a lot of other things in that Netflix doc I&#x27;d like to talk to you about but let&#x27;s take this first baby step together.<p>We can do this. We&#x27;ll both be better for it.<p>-exhausted tech worker
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trcollinson
I see your point, I really do. It seems like there are management problems
within this particular startup. These problems happen everywhere,
unfortunately, if management and software best practices aren't in place. At a
particularly large ($100+ Billion gross revenue) company, we had the same
problem. The solution for me was to just break the management rules. If one of
my employees worked all night or all weekend, I told them to take the day, or
two, off. I broke the rules. I didn't report the time. I didn't fuss over the
PTO policy. I took care of my people and they took care of business and we all
won. I felt bad about having to break management rules in order to take care
of the very really humans that worked on the software, trying to keep their
quality of life in balance with the rules an organization keeps, and to keep
revenue high. Those bad feelings lead me to the next point I will make.

There are some software best practices that can solve a lot of these issues.
Years ago I began to espouse DevOps principles. Those principles keep people
from being there all weekend and all night. High levels of testing and high
levels of automation really do help and make a huge difference in quality of
life for engineers.

I can hear the objections now. "I am already working nights and weekends, how
can I add more to get tests and DevOps in place?" or "my company won't support
it!" or even "we have some of that..." Well, if you are up all night for a
release, if you are there on a weekend fixing something that is broken, if you
are constantly on call and exhausted, you don't have enough. Just do it one
step at a time and you will find that you will spend a lot less time fixing
things, being exhausted, and being frustrated, and a lot more time making new
features for your employer. It's a skill that moves to any environment and any
company.

Chin up friend, and good luck!

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dyeje
I think it's strange to point to that Netflix article as a better way to do
vacation. Unlimited vacation policies open up way more opportunity for
employee abuse.

~~~
pmiller2
I think you mean "abuse _of_ employees" rather than "employee abuse."

~~~
dyeje
That is indeed what I meant.

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suitless
Incredibly valuable point of view. Your frustration demonstrates how a PTO
policy can hurt an employer more than it protects.

I work on employee leave policies with companies, and we constantly struggle
to balance these needs. While companies have different needs, I think that all
companies need to listen to their employees.

If I may pick your brain, what would a reasonable policy look like at your
company?

I can gladly play the role of the worry wart employer and see if we could
flesh out a policy that would work.

~~~
debacle
Excess off hours time needs to be comped at at least 50%.

It's not hard, it's not complex, it's not unfair. If I work 16 hours on the
weekend I deserve at least 8 hours of additional PTO.

~~~
trcollinson
I have to disagree for a moment. I can understand why engineers get into a
mindset that this sort of arrangement might be fair, but honestly, how is this
fair at all? Most everyone is salary. Let's say, for ease of numbers, you are
salaried at $104,000. This breaks down to $50 an hour if you work 8 hours a
day, 5 days a week, for 52 weeks in a year. Let's also assume you have 10 PTO
days. In reality you work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 50 weeks a year.
You take two weeks off for vacation.

Now, let's image you are actually putting in 50 hours a week (not a bad
average for a startup) instead of 40. And let's say you are actually getting
comped 50% of those hours as PTO. According to this plan and math by week 44.5
of the year you have accumulated enough PTO to take the rest of the year off.
To put this into perspective you would be able to take off from the beginning
of November all the way to the New Year, and you'd probably still have a bit
of PTO roll over. I doubt that any company will go for this.

On the flip side of this equation you have worked approximately 10% more hours
than you have been paid for to accumulate that PTO. This reduces your
functional hourly rate by 10%. If you actually stopped working at week 44.5
and took all of your PTO that you have accumulated, you would still
functionally only make $45 an hour instead of $50.

This is completely unfair.

So what is the solution? Well, my solution has always been to work hourly
instead of salary. This changes the equation. If I am making $50 an hour and I
work 50 or 60 hours in a week, I don't feel so bad. My employer hardly ever
wants to have me work overtime. Isn't that interesting? They would rather the
overtime goes to salaried employees. That says something. However, when they
do need overtime, I don't feel bad, I am being paid. On the flip side, when I
want to take a day off or a vacation, I don't bill hours, and I don't get
paid. The employer usually thinks this is a great idea, and I just have to
budget for the ebbs and flows. This is fair.

Another option is work smarter (I do this whether I am salary or hourly). Test
everything so it doesn't break. Automate everything so it can be deployer,
scaled, or fixed as quickly as humanly possible. I work hard to put myself out
of work. Yet, I always have more work than I ever need.

~~~
debacle
> I doubt that any company will go for this.

That doesn't mean it's not fair.

On the flip side, no company will ever convert their salaried employees to
hourly unless forced to by the government. It's an abusive relationship that
they're being allowed to manipulate and it means nothing but good things for
them. Companies that have 100+ developers are different than those that have
teams of consultants, both in the depth and breadth of work that they're
doing.

I guess we both kind of miss the entire point, though. Nothing will change in
our industry without better worker organization.

~~~
suitless
The logic is true: whether or not a company will go for it does not
necessarily bear on fairness.

And I think that instead of .5 PTO for weekend hours worked, maybe consider
1.5x or 2x pay hourly to cover the premium for working instead of living. It
has to stop somewhere...

Part of worker organization is telling both the rational and emotional reasons
why it's better to have workers who can put down their work for more important
things, like family and life outside of work.

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damm
The problem is not PTO in my experience. It is being a Salaried worker
expected to have ownership in a project with very little backup (and being
expected) to work ridiculous amounts of hours with very little breaks or
personal time.

The fact that most companies who put you on a Salary will not give you Comp
Time for the overtime you work.

... Eventually you need to learn to respect yourself and your hours and stop
giving your startup employer your heart and soul while you live paycheck to
paycheck.

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joeblau
I used to do this; Putting in 80 hour weeks taking 1 day off every 10 days or
so -- worst time of my life. I wasn't going to the gym and I wasn't eating
well primarily because I had to eat out for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And
at the end of the day, the only thing I gained was knowledge. All of my work
is gone, our company is gone, the project was lost and the company that bought
our company is struggling.

Take your nights and weekends.

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bbcbasic
You people who do such long hours I really don't get you!

The standard 40 is more than enough for me, in-fact too much.

Ideally work 40 hours and then spend those other 20-40 hours on building
something for yourself, taking a second job, or just relaxing and enjoyment.

If this is the 'American' way then try emigrating to Europe!

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sudeepj
Slightly indirectly related to PTO .. Fortunately, I had a great manager with
whom I could talk freely on many subjects including this one. I had kind of
"rebelled" once about the work-life balance. He did say one which stuck with
me. There are cases where one might have to work extra: 1\. Your own screw up
(includes productivity) 2\. Screw up by other teams which affects your work
3\. Bad project management which includes unrealistic deadlines

The only thing that you can control is #1 by becoming more productive and more
automation.

The #2 is interesting because it is a 2-way street i.e. there will times that
someone else might have to work more because you or your team screwed up.

About #3 .. well there is nothing to be done Either endure or leave.

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gametimedudes
Startup or not, this is relevant to all jobs in IT. It's your job to educate
your employer that you aren't to be taken for granted. Good luck.

~~~
cauterized
At the same time, shouldn't this be self-evident? It's a bit depressing that
the vast majority of employers would _need_ to be educated about this.

~~~
solve
No, I'd say. The most self-evident thing to do is do whatever is best for
yourself in the short term. Any other behavior is increasingly harder to
gather... evidence for it being best.

It's a two-sided marketplace, each side having a big incentive to take the
maximum they can get.

~~~
cauterized
In a very short-sighted sense. You treat employees like this and you quickly
burn them out (decreasing medium and long term productivity) or create
turnover (wasting time recruiting, interviewing, ramping up, and occasionally
hiring someone who's wrong for the job).

Edited to add: and why does everyone think it's acceptable and even
commendable these days to be only out for yourself?

~~~
solve
Marketplaces are most ruthless and often immoral in their emergent behavior.

I'll definitely agree that the results are often bad.

I won't agree that anyone should ignore the reality of it though. Realize that
it is the most literal definition of a marketplace, and nothing is going to
change fundamental fact. Once one accepts that, he'll be much better grasp of
how to make it better.

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seekingcharlie
Why can't you talk to your Manager?

~~~
suitless
That's it. Communication!

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brianmcc
PTO?

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paulhauggis
This is why I started my own company. No matter how great the company, you
will always eventually be put in a situation where management or sales makes a
promise they can't deliver and you, the developer needs to suffer the
consequences.

Now, I will only put in all my nights and weekends if I am at least a 50%
owner in the company.

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x0ra
Pretty much the same idea here. Startup didn't mind me fixing bug at 3 am, but
wanted me at the office by 9 am. I left.

The worst part is probably the fact that I got a raise when I stopped caring
about the company altogether, and took 2 month for a 15 days job...

