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by Laurent Bossavit.
Original Post: Overtime - I Would Prefer Not To
Feed Title: Incipient(thoughts)
Feed URL: http://bossavit.com/thoughts/index.rdf
Feed Description: You're in a maze of twisty little decisions, all alike. You're in a maze of twisty little decisions, all different.
The blogosphere has been abuzz with the "EA Spouse" story, wherein the work conditions at a well-known video games publisher are revealed as better than those of a third-world sweatshop, but miles short of humane, honest or even very effective from a business point of view.
I've been having an extended conversation with a French colleague, who is interested in the "development dojo", an initiative to provide a radically different form of training in the techniques of software development. He is quite interested, but the schedule we are contemplating (6PM to 8PM once a week) would require him to leave work early. He is concerned that his colleagues and managers would not understand his leaving half an hour early.
I would like to think that it's just synchronicity. But I'm afraid that the coincidence of the conversation and the story over such a short interval suggests that the software industry is still far from mature regarding this issue of overtime.
What gets me is that, to a large extent, we do it to ourselves. I should know. Considering the consequences of chronic deprivation of reasonable time for rest and recuperation, there is really no justification for giving in to real or imagined pressures from management.
Often, the reason is that we lack basic techniques for saying "No" without making a big deal of it. An effective one is Bartleby the Scrivener's : "I would prefer not to". If asked to do something that you have decided is not in your best interests, just decline. Don't explain; don't argue; don't defend yourself; don't attack your interlocutor either - just decline.
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