
Sustainable work-life balance with Personal SLA (2019) - _elergy_
https://evgenii.info/sla-1/
======
red_admiral
I like the Swiss approach to overtime.

1\. It can only be demanded for exceptional circumstances, with justification.
"Poor planning or lack of staff are insufficient." [1]

2\. It must be compensated with 25% extra salary, or extra holiday (if the
employee agrees). An employee cannot waive their right to this.

3\. Even then, there is a limit by law on the number of extra hours you can do
in a year, [2] says 170 hours per calendar year. Got a big crisis in January?
Employer had better start planning ahead so everyone's time budget isn't
exhausted by December.

4\. Like many countries, Switzerland has an exception for "management". So you
don't call your cleaner a "facility manager", the Swiss law specifies this as
"management AND earning at least CHF 120'000 a year". [3] For context,
according to expatica [4] the OECD calculated the Swiss average wage in 2017
as 62.3K.

I personally think the principle that you cannot be expected to work "all
hours that are necessary" unless you're paid around twice the average salary
is brilliant and gets rid of a lot of potential abuse of this rule.

[1] [https://www.legalexpatgeneva.com/employment-
law/contractual-...](https://www.legalexpatgeneva.com/employment-
law/contractual-statutory-overtime/) [2] [https://www.ch.ch/en/overtime-and-
extra-hours/](https://www.ch.ch/en/overtime-and-extra-hours/) [3]
[https://www.kmu.admin.ch/kmu/en/home/concrete-know-
how/perso...](https://www.kmu.admin.ch/kmu/en/home/concrete-know-
how/personnel/employment-law/recording-working-hours.html) [4]
[https://www.expatica.com/ch/working/employment-
law/switzerla...](https://www.expatica.com/ch/working/employment-
law/switzerland-minimum-wage-995110/)

~~~
esotericn
> I personally think the principle that you cannot be expected to work "all
> hours that are necessary" unless you're paid around twice the average salary
> is brilliant and gets rid of a lot of potential abuse of this rule.

You'd need to tweak the multiplier in different countries dependent on
inequality.

The median salary in the UK is around 29K GBP. I wouldn't say that 58K (70K
CHF) is a "should be expected to exist at all times" salary.

~~~
sweeneyrod
> The median salary in the UK is around 29K GBP. I wouldn't say that 58K (70K
> CHF) is a "should be expected to exist at all times" salary.

No, but if someone on £58k is expected to work unreasonable amounts of
overtime without sufficient compensation they probably won't suffer too much
if they decide to switch jobs.

~~~
esotericn
Eh. IMO, almost anyone with a full time job is in the same position, with few
exceptions everyone spends up to their means anyway.

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war1025
Can someone please enlighten me what the heck an SLA is? I skimmed through the
article and felt like he teased at providing a definition several times and
then never actually did.

~~~
PunksATawnyFill
I guess some people feel all "leet" by using abbreviations without (or before)
defining them and expecting everyone else to run around looking them up.

It's tired and lame.

~~~
maest
What does "leet" mean?

~~~
mettamage
I'm not the best to answer, but leet means "elite". There used to be a thing
called leetspeak.

Here you go:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet)

~~~
akoncius
which is ironic given OP's complaint about using unnecessary use of
abreviations :)

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lucasyvas
Having never read it, the part from Google's SRE book is amusing in the best
of ways - a perspective I had never considered in the way it was framed!

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darkerside
A better approach might be: make sure everything you do for work is
sustainable. When it's not, make sure you are letting beneficiaries know.
(e.g. Yes, we're working weekends for this release, but it's for X and Y
reason, and it won't happen regularly)

~~~
Ididntdothis
Once you start working weekends for a release it usually will become the norm.
You can deal with this by putting a price tag on overwork, e.g. two times
salary on weekends or comp time. Don’t give away things for free.

~~~
icelancer
If employees work on the weekends, just feed them + pay them a premium, and
give them an equivalent amount of days off later in the week/month.

It's pretty simple.

~~~
Ididntdothis
It should be simple but a lot of companies don't seem to understand that
principle and prefer free overtime.

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PunksATawnyFill
Don't use an abbreviation BEFORE defining it.

Come on. This is tiresome.

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xupybd
I need to get this down. Right now it's 8pm on a public holiday. I did a
little over 8 hours at work between 9 and 5:30. I'm still working...

(Running two long running tasks in the background so it's not high focus
stuff)

