In a previous post, I talked about my refusal to work overtime and how that probably won’t be an option as deadline approaches. The deadline is here and I was right. The lack of posting the past week has been due to working late hours at the Corporation. My group isn’t going to meet its deadline, so the usual finger pointing game is about to begin. Had I agreed to work overtime back then, I probably would have met the deadline for my tasks, but the group as a whole still wouldn’t have. This just means I join the firing line as the manager questions why the deadline slipped.
I can say that this is the first time in my professional career I missed a deadline and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I don’t like missing deadlines. I feel like I let people down (why these people care is another topic). On the other hand, I’m not inclined to work 50-60 hour weeks for weeks on end, even if paid for it. My job isn’t my life, and my choices are starting to reflect that. But I mostly feel numb. It doesn’t bother me a whole lot that I missed the deadline. And other than working a few extra hours, I’m not making any heroic efforts like I would have in my youth. Is this from growing older or from growing more cynical? Is there a difference when you work for Corporate America?
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June 17th, 2005 at 5:59 pm
Eric, I know what you mean. When I was in a relationship, I ALWAYS clocked in early from lunch and left early. I actually had a discussion with my boss about being UNDER 40 hours.
Now that I am single again, it doesn’t matter very much. I could live at work 65 hours a week without even breaking a sweat. And this is the same company we are talking about.
June 17th, 2005 at 6:21 pm
Is overtime de rigeur?
Free from 9 to 5 (no relation to this here blog, even if his nom de plume is also Eric) doesn’t put in OT. Recently, he has been ambivalent about it - because he missed a deadline: I can…
June 17th, 2005 at 6:43 pm
I don’t think of it as age or cynicism. It’s the voice of experience. How many times have cubicle coders been told that a deadine is absolutely critical? That the fate of the Company hangs in the balance? I’ve heard it many, many times. The company is still there - even though we miss more than half the time. So - I don’t buy it anymore. My experience tells me its a load of shit. Because it always has been.
And how come no one ever says: “What idiot let things get so bad that the Company is hanging by such a slim thread?” I’d think that a better run Company would’t let its self get so close to destruction. But what do we, mere cubicle coders know?
June 18th, 2005 at 5:38 am
Without knowing every detail of the project, your team, and your company, I’ll say this.
The company probably doesn’t care about you. If the company did care about you the management would either make it financially beneficial for you to work over-time. Or they wouldn’t even think to ask for it because of how it will affect your life.
Not to mention I bet there were plenty of times throughout the project it could have moved faster if the “business side” didn’t take as long as they did. - Did they work tons of overtime to make sure they had all their ducks in a row?
Like I said, I don’t know enough about your company to know for sure. I’m just taking a guess based on stories from “my friends” about the companies they work for.
June 19th, 2005 at 3:26 pm
I think it’s a matter of expectations (from both sides).
If you have been upfront about your willingness and desire to work only 40 hour weeks, and it sounds like you have, then you are meeting your part of the agreement. Your obligation is to really work the 40 hours (not surfing web, long lunches, …), and their obligation is to pay you for the 40 hours.
I think its unfortunate when employers and employees have hidden expectations, and then are disgruntled after-the-fact. It’s not the company’s obligation to “care about you”. Instead, it is their obligation to pay you for your time.
I commend you for sharing your experiences with the rest of us. You have set clear boundaries for yourself, and you are now trying to hold to those boundaries. Unfortunately, in most jobs, we are surrounded by people who don’t know what their own boundaries are. Then, they expect others to follow them aimlessly.
June 22nd, 2005 at 5:44 am
I have to admire your stance on overtime.
I can’t think of a time when I refused to work overtime, but that was in the days of compensatory time at the end of the project and bonuses for superior performance.
In my last few years in high tech, I rarely worked overtime, because I was in marketing, rather than in development.
By then, I was both old AND cynical!
Great post!