Work Ethic.

Thaed

Rym just gave us a snippet on this, so it’s hard to extrapolate it out to an entire thread without being grossly wrong, but here goes:

Rym’s co-worker: “You need to stay until the job’s done.”
Rym: “I’m not that kind of guy.”

R & S went on to say in effect that people who aren’t willing to inconvenience themselves for their employers are chumps. Now maybe this would fly in IT, but let’s look at some other jobs where it might not be as well received.

Doctor (during open heart surgery to nurses): “This one has been difficult. I know he’s been open for 8 hours, but it’s going to take another 6 to save his life.”
Nurse Rym: “I’m not that kind of guy.”

Police Captain (during standoff with gunmen to patrolmen): “I know we’ve been out here for eight hours, but if we don’t keep these people isolated, more people will die.”
Officer Rym: “I’m not that kind of guy.”

Fire Chief (during a 5 alarm chemical fire to firemen): “I know we’ve been here for 8 hours but it’s going to take another 8 to get this under control or the entire subdivision is going up in flames.”
Fireman Rym: “I’m not that kind of guy.”

You might say, “we’ll it’s just some stupid IT project, who cares?” Or in other words, the job isn’t important enough to miss a round of Dungeons and Dragons. But is that really the case? I know in the IT department here, some of the guys have to work all night if the system goes down because if they can’t get it working, all work stops for the entire organization. God help us if they to the Rymian approach and didn’t want to work on a Saturday to fix it.

And law, forget about it. Law is all about long hours. The typical attorney works 70 hours a week. It’s expected by the clients as well as the attorney’s peers. According to Rym, lawyers then would be an entire occupational category of chumps. (And maybe we are).

So this is long and it was just a small bit from Rym so there is much distortion. But geez, if I had a guy who walked out on a critical Saturday project without seeing to the end, he’d be off my team Monday morning.

Kilarney

No doubt their views were naive.

A couple of thoughts:
1) Haven't they ever heard of references? When you apply for a new job, you've got to have good references. Having a slacker attitude does not a good reference make.
2) That attitude may be fine if you are content to do the same thing the rest of your life. Some of us are looking forward to moving up the career ladder - not just in pay, but in responsibilities. I suppose that's the problem with being an IT guy. It's like being a pharmacist. You better enjoy what you're doing now, because it's what you'll be doing for a long time.
3) These guys have yet to see a full-blown recession. I remember the early 90's, when the bottom fell out of the tech industry in the Boston area. (and presumably in other cities as well.) People were being laid of by the droves, and couldn't find work. Who do you think will get laid of first? The slacker or the motivated employee? And trust me... another recession will come. It's just a question of when.

Rym

But geez, if I had a guy who walked out on a critical Saturday project without seeing to the end, he’d be off my team Monday morning.

It was a project I had nothing to do with other than being asked to help for a specific number of hours on one day. I was otherwise entirely uninvolved. They tried to make me work longer than the clearly specified times that they had presented and I had agreed to fixing a problem that I had not caused and had no direct control over. No one involved was my boss or had any managerial control over me.

(In actuality, my real boss was loathe to loan me out in the first place, as he has much more important work for me to be doing).

I certainly wouldn't be fired for it. I was under no obligation to stay, and the people who matter in the company recognize my value. They're well aware that I'm vastly overqualified for the position I hold, and they do what they can to keep me happy. They're more worried about me quitting than I am about them firing me.

I'll work odd hours on occasion (with appropriate compensation), but no employer will ever get more than 40 hours a week out of me. No job is worth that. I pointedly and politely decline job offers that involve long hours, nights, weekends, or being on call. I agree to set duties for set pay. If they wish to extend those duties after the fact, they need to renegotiate my terms of employment.

The only people who work long hours in IT are support people. The only people who work nights and weekends are support people and contract cable pullers. I am neither. If this job had entailed such, I would not have accepted it in the first place.

HMTKSteve

I have no problem working overtime because I get paid extra for working overtime!

The first 11 hours are paid at time and a half and everything after that is double time.

Same with holidays. I get my eight hours of pay whether I work or not. If I do go in and work the holiday I get time and a half for each hour worked.

In my job we used to fight over who got to work Thanksgiving and the Friday after as it was two days of extra money!

I also, occasionally, get called in at odd hours to work. If the call comes in before midnight I get paid (overtime) from the time my phone rings to the time I get home, plus mileage. If the call comes between midnight and 6AM I get paid overtime but I also am paid a minimum of five hours of overtime. Thus, when I get a late night call my goal is to get in and out as fast as possible!

Due to the nature of my job I will always stay until the job is done.

Thaed

I'll work odd hours on occasion (with appropriate compensation), but no employer will ever get more than 40 hours a week out of me. No job is worth that.

It is clearly your right to set the parameters by which you will be employed, but most places would never hire anyone under those restrictions with the intention of honoring them. This is not an attack on you, believe me. I value my personal time as much as you do. However, an employee's willingness to be personally inconvenienced for the sake of the work is a job requirement almost everywhere. Probably what will happen in your career is that employers will lie to you and tell you that's fine and then abuse you when you don't do what they want. If I had to make a prediction, I would say that you will own your own business someday and then you'll be able to do what you want (but you'll still have to work hard at times).

Apreche

It does really depend on the job. If you are a plumber, you aren't paid a salary. You are paid by the job. You go to someone's house and you fix the plumbing. If you don't finish, you get squat. If you do succeed, you are paid for your work and for any expenses you had, such as parts.

If you are a programmer with a salary, things are a bit different. You are a knowledge worker. You know a lot of shit that the company does not know. They want to have access to your knowledge and they want you to use that knowledge to do things for them. They pay you a flat sum of money for a pre-set number of hours and days of your labor. If you work more or less, you don't get paid more or less. Technically if you take more vacation than you have days they will dock you. If you receive increased responsibilities or working hours, I'm sure you will receive bonuses or raises. However, there is no hourly rate. If I go home early today and come in late tomorrow, nothing happens. There also really isn't an opportunity for promotion besides going into management. If you are someone who likes technology, managing is not something you want to do. Therefore, our attitude is the correct one for our job. If I were an ambulance driver, I would do things differently.

Kiey

Yeah it really depends. I have a friend who is an engineer who refuses to stay overtime because he gets paid a salary not hourly so he gets no overtime for staying late. The only time he stays late is when he needs to get something done and solved because it would otherwise bug him until the next work day.

Thaed

I'm about a week behind on the shows, so I'm in the middle of last Thursday's. Rym's point on disconnecting himself from his office when he's away is actually fairly common. The problem is that competition waits for no one. Other businesses are always trying to eat your businesses' lunch. Look at Ford Motor. Businesses and their key employees need to do whatever it takes to fight the competition and 24 hour availability helps.

Rym

The problem is that competition waits for no one.

And that has nothing to do with someone like me. ^_~ The PR and marketing departments handle the competition. All I do is the tech. My role is basically supervisory and advisory, and no part of my job would ever be urgent if not already scheduled as such.

Projects don't just appear out of the ether. Problems can, but they are the responsibility of the helpdesk. Any late work is scheduled well in advance.

24 hour availability helps.

The problem is that companies by and large aren't willing to -pay- for that 24 hour availability. At least in IT, such jobs are generally low on the totem pole, paid poorly, and have little room for advancement.

TheWhaleShark

I'm posting this comment from work, on New York State tax dollars.

It reall does depend on the job. For example, I work in a public health field, so when an issue arises that represents a possible threat to public food safety, it is a part of my job to make sure things are seen through to the end. It's even more critical in a clinical setting.

I doubt anybody would die if Rym half-assed his job. As he said, he was called in to provide additional assistance above and beyond the call of duty, so you can't really fault him for cutting out. It also really depends on the problem at hand and whether or not it's his responsibility.

Andrew

It reall does depend on the job. For example, I work in a public health field, so when an issue arises that represents a possible threat to public food safety, itisa part of my job to make sure things are seen through to the end. It's even more critical in a clinical setting.

Do you wear a lab coat and big ol' goggles?

kenjura

I'm 100% behind Rym on this.

I am a software engineer for a large corporation. Technically, I'm a contractor; that changes a few things, but I'll get to that later. I used to work for a startup. The CEO had a business plan, plenty of capital, and knew the right people to hire (myself included). I trusted him. I burned bridges to go along--we damn near ruined the division of the company we left, but then again, this guy started and owned that division anyway. He basically wanted to break off his division without the name or the deadweight.

So we work at it. He's a tough boss--overbearing, opinionated, able to get me to work long hours for no pay. He wanted us workers to be more than 9-to-5 coders; he wanted us to have ownership in the company (not the kind that actually pays dividends, just the figurative kind), and to do what we thought best for the company of our own initiative. Not being experienced businessmen like him, it took us a while to adapt from being dungeon programmers to being able to interface with clients, anticipate their needs, and represent the company, all while doing our actual technical work.

So a year goes by, a year in which he predicted a net loss (duh), and breaking even would be "a triumph". So what happens? He ends up hiring a personal friend as a project manager and his brother as a salesman. I can't fault the man for helping out his bro, but this PM made our lives miserable. She really didn't know anything, and just made our lives more difficult.

So what did we programmers do? Besides continuing to work over 40 hours every week, remaining on call 24/7 for whatever nutty thing our boss or clients wanted, and working every holiday and holiday weekend save Christmas Day itself...we decided to take it to the next level. We had meetings, off company time (Friday nights), to discuss how we could, of our own initiative, improve the company. You know, like he wanted. We came up with novel and interesting ways of managing tasks, improving quality, and generally making our company more money.

What happens? The PM gets a bug up her ass and decides we're conducting a mutiny. Obviously my boss never told her what he very explicitly asked of us when he started the company. We explain to him what we were doing--it would neither undermine her "authority" (which was never defined), nor make her useless (no more than she already was). But, she's a personal friend, so he sided with her. Our free, overtime efforts that might have been were never harnessed.

The bottom line? The company didn't break even; we had a net loss...of approximately equal to the salaries of the useless PM and the CEO's brother. Yeah. GG.

Needless to say, I don't work there anymore. I realized something. Business is about making money. If you find some passive, self-deprecating chump to code for you 80 hours a week on a 40 hour/week salary, you fucking take it. Why the hell not? And if you've got some know-it-all who refuses to work over 40, and you think he's worth it, you keep him. Why the hell not?

Yes, every business needs some people to work outside 9/5. Hospitals run 24/7. Surgeons are on call. Even IT workers have 24/7 responsibilities--that's why the Internet doesn't go down. But that's usually accomplished in shifts. You have to pay people more (or find people with lower standards) to work those shifts. You have to pay surgeons a LOT more because they know they're on call 24/7.

Rym and I have one thing in common - a degree. We know we're hired for our knowledge and competency. We're in slightly different businesses, but the end result is the same: we're getting paid what we're worth.

Now sure, if I'm lagging behind on a deadline, and 6 other projects are going to be delayed if I don't get my build done by Monday morning, you bet I'll work late. To a point, that is. Overtime is for making deadlines. You don't just do it every week unless you're a chump. Surgeons have 20-hour surgeries, but they don't have them EVERY DAY. That's IMPOSSIBLE. There's enough surgeons to go around so they don't have to do that.

And one final thing: this isn't surgery. This isn't even (in my case at least, dunno about Rym) maintaining an Internet backbone. I provide middleware to plug in to more middleware to interface with more middleware to maybe, eventually, possible provide some end user with some sort of service that has a value. It's pure business. We're not farming. If we don't work 120 hours a week, we won't starve. The average American professional makes somewhere around 50-60k/year. That's WAY more than enough for his own needs, and plenty enough for a fiscally responsible person to take care of a family.

You don't work overtime for yourself, you're doing it for the company. If you don't think your overtime will truly help the company, or you don't think you'll get any share of the extra profit the company makes, there is NO REASON TO DO IT. Spend the overtime with your family, your friends, or even yourself, because he who dies having worked the longest hours is still a fucking dead guy.

Kilarney

Technically, I'm a contractor; that changes a few things

Yeah... it changes a major thing. An employer can not dictate the hours that a contractor works.

Jason

A couple of years ago I was offered another job; I used that as leverage to renegotiate my terms of employment at my current job. I got a raise, of course, but the other concession I went hunting was independent contractor status. That allows me to keep whatever hours (within reason) I want as long as I accomplish X number of tasks and achieve a certain quality rating each year. Neither of those two requirements are a problem, and I end up being in the office really only about 30 hours a week. One of my coworkers always jokes that if Jason's at his desk after 3 p.m., he's collecting overtime. I say it's the spoils of being more efficient than the eggheads that are scrambling to get their work done in 45 hours a week. (They're the Baby Boomers who don't know how to use computers, and spend three hours a day doing simple routines I take care of in 15 minutes every morning.)

kenjura

On the subject of being a contractor;

While it's true my employer cannot require me to work more than the number of hours my contract states, that's technically true of everyone. If your employment contract says you work 40 hours, then you do; anything else is a favor. Now, if it says you get paid time and a half for overtime, maybe that's something. But people in my line of work are "exempt", a kind way of saying "a bunch of losers who can't protect their rights, so have retained no right or privelege of overtime pay". In other words, programmers don't get paid overtime unless their employers do so out of the goodness of their hearts.

Now, people are people, and contracts are contracts. If your contract doesn't say you have to work overtime, and doesn't say you don't (which is normal), then it's up to your boss. He can say "please do it" or "you must do it". It doesn't really matter. They can fire you for any reason. The understanding between you and your employer is more important than anything, unless you're in a court of law discussing the contract.

So if my employer really needed me to work some overtime, and I thought it would work out, I'd do it. If I thought they were just trying to wring some free work out of me, I can always hide behind my contract. =P

Kilarney

While it's true my employer cannot require me to work more than the number of hours my contract states

I'm no employment lawyer, but I think you may have signed a pretty crappy contract.

From the IRS:
A general rule is that you, the payer, have the right to control or direct only the result of the work done by an independent contractor, and not the means and methods of accomplishing the result.

Or... from this law firm's website:
If the worker must devote full time to the business of the employer, the employer has control over the amount of time the worker spends working. This implicitly restricts the worker from doing other gainful work. An independent contractor, on the other hand, may choose for whom and when to work.

Or this summary of a presentation given by employment law lawyers that says setting a minimum number of hours is a "Don't" if you want to establish an independent contractor status.

So how does it feel to be paying all of those self employment taxes?

But people in my line of work are "exempt"

There is a difference between an exempt employee and an independent contractor.

HungryJoe

So how does it feel to be paying all of those self employment taxes?

I can tell you from harsh, harsh experience: It doesn't feel nice at all. I never really thought about how much money Sam takes until I had to pay him myself. That's one of many reasons I hate unnecessary wars.

kenjura

I'm not an independent contractor, I work for an agency. Our benefits and work conditions are all but identical to the full-time employees at the corporation. Most of our contracts have no specific expiry date, and almost all of the contractors end up getting hired by the hiring company. It's really just a matter of convenience to them. They pay the contracting premium so they don't have to do the legwork of finding appropriate employees (save for the interview). The contracting agency gets so much business from the corporation that they don't mind the people who get hired full-time.

While there is a difference between exempt and independent, they are not mutually exclusive. They are descriptors. Programmers are exempt from any legally mandated overtime regulation. You can still pay an employee overtime if you agree to those terms.

I have a friend who's self-employed, and he does have to deal with taxes on his own. Not something I'd be incredibly interested in. My taxes are withheld per paycheck, like any other salaried professional, and I reconcile the difference in April.

That being said, contracting definitely has its benefits. It's all too easy to treat full-time workers like common laborers. At my last job, my boss went from the attitude of "just get the job done, if it takes 20 hours or 80, and you'll be rewarded for your accomplishments" to "I'll start docking people $500 for showing up at 8:15." When we started, we had a defacto schedule of 9-5, with 1 hour lunch--effectively a 7-hour day. He complained, and said we should work 8 hours. We did, of our own accord, for no additional compensation. He didn't even notice. He complained a month later that we were still showing up at 9. He worked with us, in the same room (it was a very small company then). He just didn't notice. The man was insane.

So, yeah, contracting codifies an approach to employment that ought to be followed by any rational person anyway.

HMTKSteve

I far and away prefer sending in quarterly tax payments (investing the money for three months) than having money taken away from me and given to the government as an interest free loan. Even worse is when you get back money at the end of the year. Money that should have been in your pocket months ago!

One year (about a decade ago) my wife and I had a tax bill of $13 due in April. I was happy she was mad. Another year she screwed around with the withholdings and we got back $6500! I was pissed and she was happy. I tried to explain to her that we had been giving Uncle Sam an extra $100+ every week as an interest free loan! She was just happy to have the big fat check...

Rym

She was just happy to have the big fat check...

So she didn't understand when you explained it?

HMTKSteve

She was just happy to have the big fat check...

So she didn't understand when you explained it?

This is the same woman, who after paying bills on payday, will transfer $500 from checking to savings and then tell me to stay away from the ATM because the checking account is nearly empty...

kenjura

Steve: are you, in fact, John C. Dvorak? Because you are one Cranky Geek.

If you are, that also makes you the only person on TWiT that isn't completely full of shit. =P

Jason

She was just happy to have the big fat check...

So she didn't understand when you explained it?

This is the same woman, who after paying bills on payday, will transfer $500 from checking to savings and then tell me to stay away from the ATM because the checking account is nearly empty...

I'm with you there, Steve. Mine does the same thing. Funny thing is, I have no idea how she usurped so much power... I pretty much ask her whenever I'm going to spend money. What the hell just happened there? Why do I hear a whip cracking in the distance?

HMTKSteve

Jason,

It got worse when my company added our expense checks to our payroll check. I used to be able to get my mile and meal expenses in check form. I could then cash them and she would never know... Now it comes in with the bi-weekly paycheck...

gomidog

From what I can gather, Rym does his work, but is irked at having to stick around after something is completed merely because of time requirements. As far as work ethic goes he complains that he is bored and not busy enough, so the lack in effort may be more that he is complaining about not being given challenging assignments, rather than shear, pure laziness. They all seem to like him at work, so I guess I would not worry about it. Even if he is bored, he still has good manners to his coworkers and superiors.

I'm with you there, Steve. Mine does the same thing. Funny thing is, I have no idea how she usurped so much power... I pretty much ask her whenever I'm going to spend money. What the hell just happened there? Why do I hear a whip cracking in the distance?

She controls your money? I always thought that if you entered into a domestic partnership, each person gets to control the money that they earned and for large things like cars it is kind of a compromise sort of deal. My ideal domestic situation is where each person operates with some degree of finacial autonomy and neither person weilds control over the other. Yeah, that would be good.

Rym

My ideal domestic situation is where each person operates with some degree of finacial autonomy and neither person weilds control over the other.

Hear hear!

Funny thing is, I have no idea how she usurped so much power...

That's a sad and scary thing to say. I can't imagine there being "power" or control or anything like that in a relationship.

It got worse when my company added our expense checks to our payroll check. I used to be able to get my mile and meal expenses in check form. I could then cash them and she would never know...

If you have to hide money from someone in a relationship, something's wrong...

Jason

We need to start using a different color for tongue-in-cheek comments. I suggest green.

We are in a partnership. That means we share liabilities and benefits. That means that one hand has to know what the other is doing. I don't spend money from ourchecking account without clearing it with my wife first, and she also checks with me. It's not about her mysterious power and control of unimaginable dimensions. It's about accountability and respect, and from a pragmatic angle it's about scrapping waste.

And no, gomidog, that's not how it works. You CANNOT make an issue over how much money the other makes. Both of our salaries go into the central pot.

I DO hide my expense checks for mileage from my wife, and there's nothing wrong with that. Whereas our checking and savings are intertwined, maintaining my own, secret account lets me maintain autonomy. It's money that I don't owe to anyone, and I don't have to answer for it to my wife. I suspect she does the same. The bottom line is that it's none of her business, and her account is none of my business.

I briefly thought about saying that the people who aren't married shouldn't judge those who are, but I recognize that is a childish logical fallacy. I will say, however, that I operate on an entirely different plane of responsibility than you do. I am not one person anymore; I am two. Marriage isn't just about mushy love (which I have for Mrs. Jason), but it's also about mutual respect and consideration.

I will also say that my wife does yield a great amount of power over me. She could ask for anything and bat her eyelashes and I would give it to her. She's impossibly cute. That reminds me, I should go do the dishes.

Rym

Whereas our checking and savings are intertwined, maintaining my own, secret account lets me maintain autonomy.

My question is why does it have to be secret? Why don't you just tell her you'll have your own separate account for things like that?

Jason

It doesn't have to be. It just is ex facto. She probably knows it's there, and I make no effort to conceal it. I've not given her the account number, and her name isn't on the account with the bank. It's just not any of her business, and she respects that. Is this really that hard to understand?

HungryJoe

It doesn't have to be. It just is ex facto. She probably knows it's there, and I make no effort to conceal it. I've not given her the account number, and her name isn't on the account with the bank. It's just not any of her business, and she respects that. Is this really that hard to understand?

I am in total agreement. There are some things you know about but never discuss based on mutual, silent assent. If you ever actually said it aloud, there'd be a shitstorm.

Back to the topic. I don't know what it's like to work in IT, so I have no reason to doubt any posted descriptions. I do know what it's like to work for a law firm, though, and I feel very confident in saying that your ideas about overtime will have to undergo an adjustment if you ever work for a law firm. Don't get me started about billable hours. Try working in a firm that requires 60 billable hours a week when you have a stack of non-billable stuff on your desk and then come talk to me about how you're "not that kind of guy". And don't say you're going straight to an IT company with your shiny new JD. You're probably gonna need at least some firm experience first.