
Why it's OK to leave a tech job at 5 p.m. - edw519
http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/16/tech/web/cashmore-facebook-sandberg/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
======
doktrin
This country rapidly needs to regain its sanity when it comes to work/life
balance. While some of us employed in tech may have the luxury of giving the
middle finger to stigma, many employees in other sectors are not able to do
so.

What do you do when a 11-12 hour workday is expected upon penalty of being
marginalized and eventually let go? In particular, what do you do when you
don't have extremely in-demand skills, and cannot readily take the gamble on
being back in the market for a new job? This is a situation many of our peers
are in, and it deserves attention - if for no other reason than it 1) applies
to many tech jobs already and 2) will only become more of an issue if/when the
current tech job market contracts.

If this unfortunate workaholic-glamorization trend continues, we are setting
ourselves up for very unpleasant professional careers down the line.

~~~
dclowd9901
I honestly don't get it. I am almost skipping to my car after my day job so I
can go home and work on my personal projects. Why would anyone want to stick
around later to make someone else more money?

~~~
Gats
Because you don't want to be the asshole that did not put enough hour, and did
drive the project in a wall. Not that it was going anywhere else...

~~~
dclowd9901
If a project's success is hinging on its developers' willingness to lose
valuable personal time for it, those companies better start coughing up
equity.

~~~
lucian303
Or even better, they better start coughing up more $$$. As in substantially
more. I think software companies should hire full time but pay by the hour.
Overtime will disappear or be required rarely. Employees will be happier.

Of course, bad managers, to make themselves look good will assign 1 weeks
worth of work for every hour at first. Till they all lose their jobs.

------
ken
I'm kind of suspicious whenever I hear the phrase "work/life balance". It
strikes me as something that seeks to reinforce the industrial-revolution-era
idea that my (week)days should be broken into thirds: working (not fun but
pays bills), playing (fun but costs money), and sleeping.

Sure, that's definitely better than working 12 hour days, but is that really
the goal? It seems that most of the fun-loving and happy people I know,
regardless of their financial situation, don't operate in such a world.

A good friend and startup founder (who you might think would tend towards
free-market/libertarianism, since he works very hard and surely wants to be
compensated for it) asks me: we can feed and clothe and house everyone, so why
don't we? Why isn't work optional? People who work hard to make a dent in the
universe will anyway, and people who just mess around don't really get much
done at work anyway, so why keep up the charade? How many great ideas (or
works of art) are stuck in somebody's brain simply because they don't know how
to make that idea pay the rent?

I'm a programmer -- or at least, of all the things I've done in my life,
that's the one I've been paid the most money for. But personally, I hate that
it's always indoors and sedentary. It's unfortunate that society places so
much value on an activity that is arguably bad for my physical and mental
health. So why are virtually all programming jobs (ostensibly) full-time,
i.e., 40 hours? A programmer's salary is great, but why can't I work 20 hours
as a programmer, and 20 hours as a tree-planter, or teaching rock climbing to
high school kids, for maybe 55% of a programmer's salary? Out of all the
possible ways of dividing up my time, spending all daylight hours indoors
writing code is perhaps the worst I can imagine.

I know I don't have all the answers, but I think that after a decade of work,
I'm starting to know what questions to ask. If I find myself asking about
"work/life balance", I've already lost, because it means I'm admitting that
the "work" is something I know I won't love doing. Certainly some people have
no problem breaking their day up like this, but I can't, and I suspect I'm not
alone.

~~~
vacri
_People who work hard to make a dent in the universe will anyway, and people
who just mess around don't really get much done at work anyway, so why keep up
the charade?_

This is typical libertarian claptrap, from the Skilled White Male litany. The
only thing of value appears to be making a dent with your special skills, and
no consideration is given to the huge numbers of unskilled jobs required to
keep 'the universe' running.

The point is that society supports far more shitty retail jobs than universe-
denting programming jobs. Those shitty jobs need to be done, and it's hard to
excel in them. What kind of dent can a convenience store clerk make? They're
still necessary though - and for people in those jobs, work is not
particularly fun.

In terms of your hand-wringing about full-time programming work, there are all
sorts of ways you can work part-time in programming and part-time in something
else. That you can't see this shows you haven't really thought about the
problem seriously.

Hell, if you really are a 'denter' and have skills that are in demand, you
have a good chance of simply going up to your boss and saying that you only
want to work part-time now. Frequently they'll still want to keep you on for
your dentable skills.

~~~
ken
> This is typical libertarian claptrap, from the Skilled White Male litany.

Perhaps I was understanding or explaining it poorly, but my understanding is
that it's close to the _opposite_ of the "typical libertarian claptrap", which
I take to mean something close to "we need the concept of money (and a free
market) to _get_ people to work" (and consequently, if you don't work, you get
no money, and therefore none of the stuff you need). The position I was
talking about is very explicitly that, whether or not you work at all, you
deserve food/shelter/healthcare/education/etc.

The point was not _whether_ you can change the world with your work (I think
that'd more accurately be the "G. H. Hardy claptrap"!), but _why_ you do what
you do, or not, e.g., I know someone who works in a bookstore who would be
there even if salaries did not exist.

> shitty jobs need to be done

This statement has been the case for all of human history, and yet the
mechanism by which these jobs manage to get done has changed rather
drastically many times. Even assuming the current set of "shitty jobs" isn't
changing, I see no reason the mechanism couldn't change again.

> In terms of your hand-wringing about full-time programming work, there are
> all sorts of ways you can work part-time in programming and part-time in
> something else. That you can't see this shows you haven't really thought
> about the problem seriously.

You are welcome to accuse me of being stupid, or to point out that these
opportunities are incompatible with my other (unstated) requirements, but it's
not fair to claim that I've not thought about the problem seriously.

~~~
clarky07
I'm sorry but this is BS. You don't deserve food/shelter/healthcare/education
etc. You only deserve what you go out of your cave, kill, and bring back home.

Food, shelter, healthcare, and education are all things that require someone
else to do something to provide. Why should I have to go to work to pay for
your X that you think is a right so that you can sit on your couch or plant
trees and be happy. That's absurd. That bread you find at Kroger, somebody had
to work to make it appear in your cart.

~~~
JonWood
> That bread you find at Kroger, somebody had to work to make it appear in
> your cart.

In any community there is likely to be someone with a passion for something.
Whether that something is making bread, helping the sick, or teaching
children.

It's true that there are some jobs which people aren't naturally inclined to
do, but in the society being described I think that communities would become
smaller, and more cohesive. Some the of the jobs required to maintain a large
city no longer need to be done, and those that do still need doing become less
of a strain and can be distributed amongst people.

~~~
clarky07
we've tried utopian societies before. they have never worked. we've tried
socialism and it mostly doesn't work that well. communism looks great on paper
and it has been a failure. why do people still continue to believe this is the
way things should be?

------
mindcrime
What's funny - to me - is that I'm sitting here asking myself "why is this
even a story?" I do not work more than 8 hours a day, when working any sort of
$DAYJOB. I just don't... there's no good reason to, and I'm not going to do
it. My time belongs to me (or, more appropriately, to my startup) and the
opportunity cost of spending extra hours at "the office" is just way too high.

Now, if I were working for someone else's startup, or working on my startup
full-time, and had significant equity and working long hours had a direct
correlation between my chances of becoming independently wealthy, then sure.
In fact, I already work 60 or 70 (or more) hours a week, since I'm spending
almost all of my night and weekend hours on Fogbeam Labs as it is.

But, yeah... unless there's a compelling reason to work long days at a job
that is basically "just a salary", I refuse to do it. I don't really give a
shit what my coworkers, boss, or anyone else thinks about it.

~~~
jetti
It is news to where I work. When I interviewed I was told 40 to 45 hours a
week. I get here and was doing 40 hours and then told they need "more hours
out of us" and "it would be different if there wasn't a backup of work" (which
as far as I could tell there wasn't any, just one of the devs constantly
changing stuff).

There are 3 devs (including me) and the other two keep putting in much more
than 40 hours whereas I strive for just 40. When I first started I tried for
more but then I realized that it didn't matter. There was no incentive for me.
It actually made me hate the job more and more.

~~~
mindcrime
_I get here and was doing 40 hours and then told they need "more hours out of
us" and "it would be different if there wasn't a backup of work" (which as far
as I could tell there wasn't any, just one of the devs constantly changing
stuff)._

Call me radical (and more than a little bit reckless) but I find the
appropriate response to that to be some combination of:

"Then hire more people"

and/or

"I quit"

Of course, I am single with no wife/kids/etc., and not a lot of
responsibilities except to myself, so I can afford to be a bit cavalier. I
understand that not everybody can, but in that case, I would use the situation
as motivation to go with the adage "If I can't _find_ the job I want, I'll
_create_ the job I want" and start a startup. Yeah, you wind up working even
more hours then, but - at least for me - it's justified because the goal is to
create a better situation for yourself in the end.

But again, I acknowledge that my path isn't for everybody and that everyone's
story and constraints are different. So please don't take this response as
being judgmental or anything. Just offering another perspective...

~~~
jetti
I agree with that and definitely want(ed) to do that but my situation wasn't
the best for that doing that: \- no CS degree and no professional dev
experience \- saving for a wedding that is happening this October \- quit a
job that paid decent (for an Economics major ;) ) to do this.

I'm planning to leave around my 1 year mark so I can find a better place to
work (oh did I mention they offer 0 days off for the first year, turns out it
is a much bigger deal than I thought it would be for me). So in my free time I
work on my blog, post some code and keep on taking my MS classes.

------
MattRogish
I believe strongly in a sustainable pace. Software development isn't like
brick-laying - you can't work more hours, past the breaking point, and expect
to get marginal returns. Sure, you'll get some sloppiness and "bugs" in
bricklaying, but likely nothing that can fundamentally ruin the project.

Software developers working too much lead to negative returns as they add more
bugs than they fix (or add features). And sleep-deprived coding has lead to
more architectural "bite us in the ass" problems than any slightly faster
feature output.

That's why I have a cap at ~40 hrs/week. Don't work any more or I'll get mad.

And I believe in the "Results Only Work Environment" (<http://www.gorowe.com>)
- there is no clock; folks "working late" or "coming in early" have nowhere to
hide. Only the people working at a sustainable pace and consistently
delivering high-quality, working software are rewarded.

And we're hiring: <http://fundinggates.com/jobs>

~~~
adrianhoward
_you can't work more hours, past the breaking point, and expect to get
marginal returns_

I find it a little depressing how difficult it can be to convince folk of this
though - both employers _and_ employees.

Once team I was brought in to help was working silly hours, and I could very
quickly see that it was having a terribly effect on productivity. You could
just look at the stories that were being worked on at 9pm on a Friday night
and guarantee that you'd be seeing them again the next week with a bug report
attached.

I managed to persuade everybody to start working more sensible hours. We
collected stone cold _facts_ from the history of the number of bug reports and
complaints + stories done that this was _more_ productive on every scale. And
yet..... push back from management (who were very invested in the "startup's
work 60 hours a week" mindset) _and_ some of the developers (who had become
locked into "hero developer" mode).

Even ignoring the ethical argument (not saying that you should) it's just more
_productive_ to work that way.

------
taf2
i used to be the one who would ask, "where is everyone we're a startup and
it's only 7:30pm?" I used to _freak out_ if I saw a line of code that was
_stupidly_ duplicated or just plain wrong.

It's been 3 startups, and 2 kids later that I realize just how wrong I was...
so far no great success - but moderate success, many lessons learned and
certainly people i've pushed away for truly silly reasons like perceived hours
spent behind the desk or strange lines of code written... reality is I now
spend fewer hours behind the desk although admittedly probably still far too
many to be sane... and definitely used to (and still do) write crazy lines of
code... I think it's a matter of perspective, age, prospects and who knows
probably other factors that'll influence our feelings about how many hours we
need to put in... after all, is it one critical bug fixed or 100s of lines of
new code written which matters more - is a mater of perspective, that one bug
fixed could make the difference between winning the big client or losing'em...
I think "hours spent behind the desk" is a silly measure of ones
productivity... a well rested mind after all makes far better decisions -
that's not to say we should be lazy, but that we need balance - plan and
simple.

~~~
bryanl
How far you've come. I'm proud to see you write this.

~~~
taf2
haha, i'm still freakin crazy dude!

------
quanticle
_"But, let's forget about having family or being married for a minute. 5:30 as
an on average time for going home should be acceptable for everyone -- single
or not single ... family or no family -- assuming you don't come into the
office everyday at 11 a.m."_

Frankly, though, a lot of us _do_ come into the office at 11 a.m. (or
sometimes even later), and are happy with working later hours in exchange.

~~~
mhurron
At which point the article becomes more about working your 8 hour day and
leaving. I doubt your happy to work until 11pm or midnight for the privilege
of showing up at 11am.

~~~
scarmig
One advantage is that getting in at 11am usually means it's more difficult to
bully you into staying past when you should be leaving.

------
timsally
For an orthogonal perspective, see grellas (writing on another article):

 _Work-life balance is very important as well, a point the author emphasizes.
He seems to have made that choice later in life (as did I) and I commend him
for it. But, while I can exhort others too to strive for such balance, I will
not begrudge them the choice to work exceedingly hard (especially as they are
first developing in their careers) to achieve other "unbalanced" goals. People
do accomplish insanely great things by working insanely hard. If they choose
to do this in their work as employees, that is their privilege and, as long as
they are highly-skilled and highly compensated, I say more power to them if
they do it without the benefit of protective labor laws._

Complete comment: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3642433>.

~~~
pyre
I think that this is the operative statement:

    
    
      as long as they are highly-skilled and highly compensated

------
abyssknight
I do this, and occasionally I catch flak for it. I put in 8 hours, and that 8
hours happens to be fantastic -- regardless of how busy I look, what I work
on, or who I work with. The problem is that casual observers don't see that.
They only see the present.

Thankfully, my efforts were noticed despite my lack of unpaid overtime. I've
been promoted twice in the past three years, added to special panels and
events, and even been given assignments that just rock.

There is this stigma around working 40 hours a week, and only 40 hours, that I
will never understand. If you don't need more 40 (or even less) to do your
job, what does it matter? The employer is getting what they asked for, and
often times more, and you're getting a paycheck. Its called ROWE: results
oriented work environment. Just a shame it hasn't caught on in the US.

~~~
roc
> _"They only see the present."_

That's a symptom of bad management. If they assume presence == productivity,
it will be just one of many flawed assumptions and bad practices that will
result in a pretty lousy workplace for knowledge workers.

------
Tycho
Did no one read the part of her interview where she said she started work
(sending emails so people would notice) at 5.30 _am_? And then would send
emails from home at like 9pm? Ie. she was working way more than 12 hours a
day, she just happened to leave the office at 5.30 when other bosses might be
scheduling meetings.

The 'story' is completely not what it's being made out to be.

------
stuff4ben
I've worked those longer hours on one startup, 10-11 hour days for several
weeks putting out fires. Never once did I get paid more or even a congrats for
the work. It was expected and quite frankly, I enjoyed it as a new hire. It
helped me get up to speed, built up some comradeship with the other devs/mgrs
there, and I had nothing better to do at home. But as the fires died down and
I became well-known for my work ethic, WHEN IT WAS NEEDED, I pulled back to 8
hour days on average. So as in many things in life, it's ok in moderation to
work longer hours, but I try not to make a habit of it.

Nowadays, I'm at a large enterprisey business and I may work 7 hours during
off times. But there was a point (oddly enough right when I started) where I
was putting in 10 hour days for a couple weeks. Now that I have kids, I really
do want to get home before they go to bed. Also helps that I have a 7 minute
commute.

------
RobertKohr
One of the joys of being a contractor is the complete lack of shame at leaving
at 5pm, and being happy when asked to work later (aka get more money).

As a salaried worker I was easily pulled into working late hours as it was the
status quo. In essence when you are salaried, you are owned, and will be
frequently asked to work late, work weekends, and work from home at night. As
a contractor, you will still get asked, but only when the reward for the
company is worth the cost. As a salaried worker, the only cost for the extra
time is your happiness, which isn't worth as much to them as you think.

The best jobs are ones where there is no expectation of hours though. This is
where you have a significant stake in the outcome, such as an early employee
or as an independent project. Where you are no longer getting paid for your
time, but only for results.

------
jack-r-abbit
My commute is no less than 1hr, so if I'm to be home for dinner with my family
I need to leave at 5 (5:30 tops). My boss is very understanding of that... in
the sense that he agreed to let me come in at 7am so I could leave at 5. Did I
mention my 1hr commute? You do the math. I'm gone 12hrs a day. And I still
feel like I need to sneak out as everyone else is likely to be there until 6
or 7. I hate that this seems "normal" and that I feel guilty for leaving at 5.
I do enjoy the couple hours of quiet time in the morning though.

------
lss456
I used to work at a developer job where it was taboo to leave before 5:30
(even if you came in at 8:30). Management often scheduled meetings (that
lasted at least an hour, sometimes more) at 5:30 on a Friday. If you wanted a
personal life there, you had to fight for it. And I did - I left the job :)

------
mhurron
Work/Life balance. It's not supposed to be a bullet point to hire people with
that is forgotten the moment they start working.

------
Limes102
When I was working for a company, I would get it an 8:15 and left at 17:00 on
the dot. When asked if I could stay to do something which I felt could wait
until the morning, I would say no and leave. I didn't get fired, instead I had
a life. Working is not everything, there are much more important things in
life.

------
dkrich
Completely unrelated, but why do stories having anything to do with Pete
Cashmore always include a photo of him looking seductively into the camera?
This one seems to be in some cool night club. As if knowing that the author
happens to be a rare attractive tech reporter adds some credibility to his
stories.

I do agree with the tenets of the story though. Working until 5pm should be
plenty long to call it a productive day if you don't spend your time yanking
off at the water cooler or gossiping with coworkers or even worse sitting in
pointless meetings.

I felt so adamantly about this at one point that I wrote a series of op-eds to
the New York Times trying to make the case that the single greatest way to
alleviate our dependence on foreign oil, lower pollution, mitigate the need
for mass-transit, and increase productivity was to give tax incentives to
employers who allow employees to work from home 1-2 days per week. Seems
surprising to me that more focus hasn't been put on this recently. Anyhow, the
stories were never run and now I'm really off topic.

------
mikezupan
I leave at 4pm.. but I get in at 7am. Generally I get a good 3-4 hours of
quiet work done before everyone else shows up.

------
jaysignorello
It might be OK in the company policy, but where it counts is co-worker and
manager opinion. I personally have found that coming into work at 7am and
working til 4pm just doesn't fly with other co-workers. They get the opinion
that I didn't have to work as much as everyone else. Productivity can be hard
to judge, so it's easy to revert back to time in the office.

I believe there was a study at Google that had similar results as what I
experienced as well.

------
alan_cx
I sell my skills for money. It is all I have, my skilled time. I exchange that
time for money. If my pay ends at 5.30, so does my time. No employer has ever
given me free money, so Im not about to give them my time for free.

The day the free cash is handed out is the day I dish out some free time.

~~~
platform
there are bonuses and promotions. Or another words 'discretionary'
compensation. Your formula above does not work in unless you work for a 0
discretionary compensation place.

Promotion paths are also important -- a position or title that is externally
recognized as 'achievement'. Is akin to a 'vetting/classification' that was
done for your talents. VCs look at that as well as anybody else.

So to summarise,discretionary compensation and promosition creates competitive
environment. That drives the stress, long hours,and success or failure within
a corporate career path.

------
JohnnyFlash
I work till 5pm. Have done for about 2 years now. Whats happened?

1) I haven't burned out 2) I have retained good relationships with my family
and friends 3) I enjoy evenings out

Previously I worked all hours. If my partner had let me I would have brought
the computer to bed and typed into the night. I burned out and jeopardised my
relationship.

I get that there are times when you need to work longer. When you have a
deadline or something really needs to be done. However.. if this is every day
for a long period of time then you are probably doing something wrong.

------
Garbage
I hear people repeatedly saying "work-life balance". Work and Life are not
different things. Everything is life. If you don't have life, you can't work.
It's as simple as that.

------
richieb
You need to watch this:

<http://thewebivore.com/go-the-fuck-home-my-ignite-talk>

------
rs98101
Been a software engineer for 15 years now. I've always worked 40 hour weeks,
about once a year I work a 60 hour week. I've probably made more money than my
peers on average, plus I've had a life outside of work. I've always been
baffled why employees put up with 50+ hour work weeks.

------
ruswick
I think everyone is complaining a bit too much. I'm trying to find an
internship, (read "begging companies to let me work over 40 hours a week for
them free of charge.") and have had absolutely no luck.

You're making a living, right? So what's a few extra hours per day?

~~~
groby_b
That's time I don't spend seeing my partner. That's time my health
deteriorates because working excessive hours is unhealthy. That's time I
slowly lose friends because I never see them.

There's no point in making a living without having a life.

~~~
ruswick
Well, that ultimately comes down to preference. I would rather have a job than
extra time to spend in my personal life.

~~~
groby_b
Well, yes. Having a job definitely takes precedence over time off from a job.
But working grueling hours will only work so long for you - trust me on that.
Been there, done that, got the entire t-shirt collection.

What I regret most about being willing to do this though is that I made life
difficult for fellow engineers. Everybody who unquestioningly puts in long
days makes it harder for somebody else to actually keep decent hours. (And
you'll want to go there at some point - see above)

There are plenty of places that have good work hours, and most places that
don't have crappy engineering practices on top of everything else. So if you
want to do your future self a huge favor, don't sell yourself via "I can work
insane amounts of time". What you'll get for that - if you'll get anything -
is a crappy job at most likely a crappy place that you'll quickly come to
hate.

Sell your skills instead. Or, if you actually love working 16-hour days,
strike out on your own. At least then you're not working to line somebody
else's pocket.

------
WalterSear
"Let them eat cake," she said.

~~~
AznHisoka
cake is a lie

------
paulhauggis
This is why it's important to have a secondary source of income (most likely a
business) and money in the bank. If I'm required to work past 5 for too long
(once in awhile, it's fine), I find work elsewhere.

It's worked pretty well so far.

~~~
bmj
Yeah, the balance aspect is pretty key on both sides. I generally put in 7-8
hours in the office, plus perhaps an hour or so in the morning before the rest
of my family is awake (though I may not always work this hour). I've been with
the same employer for over five years, and there have been times that I've
been asked to work a bit extra (though, typically, I've been able to leave at
5, and work later in the evening, after the kids are in bed). And, of course,
there have been times I've been given a great deal of flexibility in my work
schedule to accommodate emergencies.

Of course, this isn't typical, perhaps even in tech, and I feel rather
fortunate to have this situation.

------
Craiggybear
I leave at 4.30 pm. I get in at 8.00 am, so I figure eight hours is enough --
any longer than that is pointless because I'm too tired. I have a three/four
hour commute on top of this and have to be up at 5.15 am. I get back home
around 6.45-7-45 pm, so, fuck it, my day is long enough.

I've got a life, my own internal dialogue and other interests. Life's short
enough as it is.

~~~
DannoHung
Why on earth do you commute so long? Is that really the best option for you?

~~~
cheddarmint
I had a point early in my career where I accepted a 5 hour daily commute
(round trip) in order to accomplish the more important goal of finding
meaningful work in my field in the region I wanted to live in. Definitely sub-
optimal, locally, but things worked out for the best in the end. I _did_ gain
25 lbs or so in 10 months of doing this. Luckily, it sounds like the poster is
only doing this temporarily.

