
A firm that starts work at 9.06am - EwanToo
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37998577
======
ohwaitnvm
I used to work at Pivotal and have many friends still there. The 9:06 and
reasons here are correct.

The line "Then the firm's programmers hit their computers, with no other
meetings or distractions for the rest of the day," is absolute rubbish. Most
teams have at least an Iteration Planning Meeting and a Retrospective each
week, as well as generally a team-specific standup the majority of (if not
all) days. As well, there are of course manager 1 on 1s, the rare company
meeting, and ad-hoc meetings as a project sees fit. Sorry, I just had to
comment because the quoted line is absurd.

Edit: and the line about leaving work 6pm sharp is just as ridiculous. In the
consulting side it tends to be true that your workday is over at 6 PM, but
you're not going to get shoved into an elevator before you finish your commit
message at 6:01. The limit is there so you don't overwork and so that the
client companies know they can't push their consultants arbitrarily late.

~~~
donw
Also worked at Pivotal, and this is definitely true. The number of meetings
_is_ must lower than in other firms (in my experience), but meetings are still
a part of life.

Breakfast, though, is such an amazing operational hack that I'm surprised the
article didn't go into more detail.

Humans are very rhythmic creatures, and our circadian rhythms are moderated a
number of environmental factors -- the big two being sunlight, and food.

By having both breakfast and lunch happen at the same time each day, your body
adjusts to getting at least two meals on a regular schedule, which helps with
maintaining a constant energy level throughout the day.

On top of that, it makes it physiologically more difficult to be late to work.
Your body knows that a meal is coming up and you will tend to wake up on time.

And while, yeah, you don't leave at 6:01, it's pretty rare to see people at
the office after about 6:30. So, it's pretty easy to get to sleep at a
consistent time as well.

This is important enough that it's part of one of my conference talks: that a
regular cadence throughout the day, including set meal times, is a great way
to boost happiness, improve health, and more importantly, get more "quality
hours" out of the day.

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matthewrudy
I am quite surprised that the BBC ran this piece, which seems to be an advert
for Pivotal.

I guess this is just how PR works, but again, the BBC is supposed to be
neutral in promoting individual businesses.

~~~
jacques_chester
There have been a few articles like this, I presume we have PR folk shopping
us around to journos.

In some ways, the "gee whiz" and "look how quirky!" stuff is highlighted
because it's a novelty. That's how you get press: you do something different
in a way that can be understood by others. Cutting through to the essence of
anything takes time and practice, which a reporter doesn't have.

For example: is Google all about free food? Of course not. Is Valve entirely
their desks? No.

Individual practices aren't Pivotal. Individuals are.

------
tapan_k
I joined the software industry after getting tired of all the [sometimes
seemingly mindless] rigours of the construction industry that I worked for at
the time. I wanted freedom, such as work anywhere anytime. Now, the pendulum
has swung too far on the other side and I again long for some ritual that will
help me maintain sanity.

Reading this article convinces me that some ritual is still possible in the
tech industry and I feel like working for this company.

------
cyberferret
All Government departments in my city start at 08:00 and finish at 16:21 !! No
weirdness about the finishing time though - it is just so that the fortnightly
pay run ends on an even hourly number.

UPDATE: It seems that nearly all state and federal public services in
Australia have strange knock off times... [0]

[0] - [http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2014/06/industrial-action-
fo...](http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2014/06/industrial-action-for-being-
asked-to-work-9-to-5.html)

~~~
nisse72
> so that the fortnightly pay run ends on an even hourly number

How isn't that already the case with 10 x 8 hour days? or 8.5 etc?

Your linked article mentions another interesting idea: that an additional 9
minutes a day is more than 5 days a year.

I used to work for a medium sized company (~500 staff) that made us all work
10 extra minutes each day "off the clock", but then gave it back in the form
of a number of whole and half days throughout the year when the company would
be closed for business. Usually that meant that we'd get an extra day off
before a long weekend or bank holiday, an additional day before christmas,
that sort of thing. This was on top of 33 days of paid annual leave, so a
sweet deal.

~~~
cyberferret
My bad - It is not to make an even hour at the end of the fortnight. I asked a
public service friend of mine and he said because there was an odd number of
hours that our public servants had to work per fortnight (as the article I
posted also pointed out). I assume it all works out evenly over 365.25 days or
something? I've never worked in the public service, so cannot speak for their
methods.

------
UK-AL
I think this is bs. Everyone has their own unique sleep cycle. Different
people have different peaks.

Again another company running with Agile keyword, keeping all the stuff about
about control, and removing all the stuff about autonomy.

This basically treating programmers like infants, ignoring the fact there a
lot programmers have responsibilities around work like kids. Not everyone is a
22 yo developer.

~~~
jacques_chester
I work for Pivotal.

I understand why you could take that interpretation, but it's not the way the
place works at all.

If I need to leave early, I leave early. If I need to come late, I come late.
If I need to go out during the day, I go out during the day.

What I can't do during those hours is work.

~~~
UK-AL
Ok, why does the article say if you miss the Scrum meeting at 9:06, your
absence will be noted?

Will my absence be noted everyday, since I come in at 9:30 everyday?

~~~
jacques_chester
I don't see where in the article the "absence is noted". I come in late each
Friday because of a regular appointment. I tell my colleagues that I will be
in late because it seems like the courteous thing to do.

We're not a scrum shop. XP with Lean trimmings. Which we constantly tinker
with.

In the long run, the process is built on co-location and pairing. Of these,
we'll take pairing. Which only really works if everyone is present at the same
time: if you create and dissolve pairs as the number of engineers fluctuates,
then you create a really confusing fan-out/fan-in effect on the work in
flight.

I worked on a project where were spread across two timezones, which simulated
people coming at different times. We'd be 2 pairs, 4 pairs, then 2 pairs. It
was a carwreck.

~~~
UK-AL
Different article:

[http://uk.businessinsider.com/pivotal-906-am-breakfast-
meeti...](http://uk.businessinsider.com/pivotal-906-am-breakfast-
meeting-2016-6?r=US&IR=T)

"So Pivotal decided to employ both a stick and a carrot. The stick is a
mandatory morning meeting at 9 a.m., where your absence will likely be noted.
The carrot is the breakfast buffet, "sort of a prize to get in," Mee says."

~~~
jacques_chester
I don't agree with that characterisation, which gives a Taylorist vibe.

I've never noticed anyone marking a roll, punching a card or scanning the
room.

~~~
UK-AL
That's because it is. Placing meeting at 9 AM is manipulative way of putting
social pressure on people to get in at 9am without making it policy.

~~~
jacques_chester
In my case it's a very impressive act of manipulation, since I eat breakfast
at home before coming in.

I guess I don't see it your way. The word "manipulative" implies two things:
first, that I am a dupe. And second, that there is a malicious intent to trick
people into doing something against their interest.

I've been at Pivotal for three years. If the intent is malicious, then it's
been executed with such universal and flawless attention to detail across
every manager and director I've dealt with that I am simply unable to
distinguish it from honesty.

Given that it's indistinguishable, I'm just going to pretend I work for and
with honest people, no matter how perfect their conspiracy to be nice to me
might be.

------
vcool07
I dont understand why people hate meetings so much. Meetings are bad only if
you are mentally absent in it. If you "decide" to actively participate you can
soak in so much of knowledge in such short time. There was times at the
beginning of my career when I used to sneak into adhoc meetings of senior tech
guys in my team, and got away with quite a lot of info (including some odd
stares and "yes, you want anything"? as well !)

~~~
Matthias247
Meetings are ok if they have a clear agenda, a goal what should be decided in
the meeting and a small focused group of attendants. If all this is true
meetings can be very helpful to get some decisions or a better common
understanding for a project.

However often meetings are called in without a real goal - just for the sake
of having a meeting. Or a large group of people is invited which don't
necessarily contribute to the outcome. If any of those are true the meetings
can feel like a giant waste of time for the participants. If people feel they
are in a waste-of-time meeting they start working on other things in it, e.g.
replying to email, .... This makes the attendant group even less focused and
the decreases the outcome even more. These kind of meetings often happened to
me in bigger projects in corporate environments, where there were weekly
meetings scheduled for almost everything.

~~~
vcool07
I'm in a lead role now, and I tried my best to do away with meetings keeping
in line the general resentment for meetings among the devs. But, I often see
that it's counter productive for the team as a whole in the long run. Without
meetings, cross functional discussions screeched to an almost halt, most guys
would get deep into their silos not caring about the big picture etc etc.
Also, it was a huge pain keeping track of open tickets/tasks as most fail to
update progress on a regular basis. In short, I feel, having periodical
meetings is far better in the long run for the health of the team as a whole,
at-least in practice.

------
raverbashing
And free Kool-Aid in the kitchen apparently, apart from breakfast

Whenever I read some piece about this company advertising its "qualities" I
can't help but to turn my eyes

And don't get me wrong, agile is great, pair programming is great, free
breakfast sign me up

The real question is what do you lose when you put the process before the
people. (Oh wait I remember reading something about this somewhere)

~~~
jacques_chester
I work for Pivotal. The koolaid is unexpectedly delicious.

I've never worked for an employer that cared more about me as an individual.

------
singingfish
How does that work for me? I like to start at 7:30am. By 9:06 my productivity
is starting to peak for the day. Yes, I knock off early too.

~~~
Nadya
I imagine there can be exceptions. The rules are meant for productivity - if
someone is more productive on a slightly different schedule I imagine they'd
be for it, assuming their actual motivations are honest with their claims.

I'm the only one at my company who comes in several hours before opening
hours. I also leave several hours before closing. I made a personal request
for this and my company obliged.

Ironically, I'm writing this nearing midnight on a Sunday...from work.

E:

@ezl

I'm pretty sure the point of the parent's question was an implied: "If I was
an employee there, how would this work for [people like] me?"

~~~
jacalata
I'm pretty sure ezl's answer implied "it wouldn't, and so you shouldn't work
there"

------
katpas
This approach assumes people don't know how they work best so imposes a
structure on them that limits the hours worked, makes sure people are fed etc.

I would have thought developers are more likely to have put a lot of thought
into how they're most productive. It's a bit patronising imposing something
different on people who feel they've figured it out.

~~~
jacques_chester
I work for Pivotal.

It's not really an imposition.

Many engineers like flexible hours and prefer to work for companies who like
that.

Since we pair full time, it's not practical to have flexible start or finish
times.

If anything, the "imposition" is committing to pair programming. Many folk
don't like it, or don't like the idea of it, and never apply.

~~~
UK-AL
I think imposing pair programming 100% is a bit weird. I find pair programming
is excellent for some tasks. For simple tasks it's a hindrance.

~~~
jacques_chester
There are some tasks where soloing is unambiguously better (reading docs
springs to mind) or where pairing confers very little advantage (writing a
large draft).

Lots of people don't like the idea of pairing by default.

I was skeptical about its utility, except as a way to learn.

But these days I find that I don't want to solo if I can help it. On days when
I'm soloing I have to use more ritalin to manage my ADHD than on days when I'm
pairing.

~~~
barrkel
I find I have no time to think when I'm pairing. I tend to build experimental
abstractions and chop and change them quickly to best fit with the problem,
and vocalising what I'm trying to do slows me down 10x - not just is it
tedious to explain the bigger picture I have in my mind about the change I'm
performing, but while vocalising I don't have time to think further.

And when I'm not at the keyboard, the slowness of my pair and the inelegance
of their code - it's hard to formulate the right nudges or wait for their cogs
to spin and realise the issues with their approach.

I'd love to work with better programmers, but they're hard to find.

~~~
jacques_chester
Pairing is a skill, it take practice and not everybody will find it
applicable.

When I first learned to drive a car I couldn't talk at the same time.

~~~
katpas
I definitely agree that it's a skill to be learnt and it's something I enjoy.

Is it really useful to do it all the time though? Like there must sometimes be
edge cases where people will achieve more alone, e.g. if it's something
simple/repetitive, isn't it more productive to just hammer through?

~~~
jacques_chester
Sometimes, yes, it would be as effective to solo. But we're reluctant to break
pairs because it means the same fan-in/fan-out problem reappears.

So for repetitive stuff we often wind up throwing together something to do it
for us.

Additionally, in Pivotal Labs, one goal is to teach the practice of pairing.
It works best by total immersion.

By analogy, French teachers try to make the class speak French at all times,
even if sometimes it's easier to speak a mix of English and French.

------
andrewingram
Whenever companies i've worked for have provided breakfast, i've always
abstained. I only eat breakfast if i'm going to the gym before work, in which
case I eat beforehand. Otherwise I wait until lunch (around 12:30). So it
always seems strange when companies offer it as an incentive to get in by a
certain time.

------
manojlds
> Employees at the US firm's 20 global offices all have to be at work and
> ready to go at exactly 9.06am

How is it 9.06am for everyone globally? Are they talking about each location's
separate stand-up?

~~~
jacques_chester
It's a poorly-worded sentence.

Each location starts at 9.06am local time.

Disclosure: I work for Pivotal.

------
cdevs
They still haven't figured out our pattern of "if you keep me out of a meeting
about my project that's the day I'm taking a hour lunch during your hour
meeting". So either invite me to the meeting about my project or I'm taking
lunch because if you think I'm going to pound away on a keyboard while you
learn what to come back and tell me out of context then your wrong.

------
dolzenko
> So we thought, 'let's provide breakfast for everyone.' It gives them a
> reason to get here.

Oh well...

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mattbee
For an article that is about the precise time of 9.06am, why use an
illustration of a wall-clock that is 18 seconds late? Is it a coded message?

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0xmohit
Why do they all show a text editor containing either JS or PHP code?

Curious, honestly.

~~~
toomanybeersies
They're Getty images stock photos. BBCs human interest articles are full of
them.

------
draw_down
Yuck.

------
thro32
> _all have to be at work and ready to go at exactly 9.06am._

> _everyone has to leave the office at 6pm sharp because staff aren 't allowed
> to work into the evening._

I worked for similar company before. It was toxic environment.

~~~
chewyfruitloop
nothing motivates people like having their exact hours monitored

