<story><title>The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek</title><url>https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/09/16/sane-workweek/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ThePawnBreak</author><text>Do you also account for the fact that you are way more likely to be promoted if you work overtime?</text></item><item><author>flanbiscuit</author><text>&amp;gt; You&amp;#x27;re just reducing your hourly rate.&lt;p&gt;This is how I&amp;#x27;ve always explained to people who constantly work overtime in salaried positions where they don&amp;#x27;t actually get paid for that overtime.&lt;p&gt;You can at look at it one of 2 ways.&lt;p&gt;1.  Your billable self stopped at the 8-hour mark on a given weekday and every hour after that, including weekends, you&amp;#x27;re just giving away free labor to the company.  Just think about that every time you&amp;#x27;re working overtime, every minute after 8-hours you&amp;#x27;re freely giving away to the company. This is your personal free time.&lt;p&gt;2. Or, like patrickdavey said, you dilute your hourly worth. Say you&amp;#x27;re a dev who makes $90K, that&amp;#x27;s roughly $43.xx&amp;#x2F;hr for a 40 hour work week.  But if you&amp;#x27;re actually working 50hr work weeks you&amp;#x27;re now worth $34.xx, and so on.   The company just saved money on you (or they are making money off you).</text></item><item><author>patrickdavey</author><text>I went to a talk once on leadership. One of the suggestions was to get your &amp;quot;go to hell kit&amp;quot; ready. That is, get enough money in the bank (whatever that means for you) so that you can walk away if things cross your personal lines, be they moral &amp;#x2F; work-life balance, whatever. It&amp;#x27;s a good thing if there&amp;#x27;s pressure to work silly hours. In my first job (recent grad) before I left the job, I&amp;#x27;d been working 5 weekends straight (at least a Sat&amp;#x2F;Sun). Looking back, insane, now I&amp;#x27;d be having a conversation with my manager.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it&amp;#x27;s hard when the &amp;quot;norm&amp;quot; is to work these extra hours. Where I live now, I have worked a normal 8:45ish to 5:15ish and haven&amp;#x27;t had to stay late or work weekends in years.  It can be like that, I reckon it _ought_ to be like that. If your contract says 40 hours a week, why would you work more? You&amp;#x27;re just reducing your hourly rate. Now, I don&amp;#x27;t mind putting in extra effort if needed, no worries, but if it&amp;#x27;s the culture that it&amp;#x27;s just long hours, well that&amp;#x27;s crazy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pjc50</author><text>Promotions are a myth told to people to get them to work harder, aren&amp;#x27;t they? They&amp;#x27;re quite rare and usually come with moderate increments. Whereas the best way to increase your salary is to move jobs. Salary is only vaguely linked to job title.&lt;p&gt;(I was once promoted &lt;i&gt;en passant&lt;/i&gt;, when my first employer wished to inflate the number of Senior Developers assigned to a consulting proposal...)</text></comment>
<story><title>The Programmer’s Guide to a Sane Workweek</title><url>https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/09/16/sane-workweek/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ThePawnBreak</author><text>Do you also account for the fact that you are way more likely to be promoted if you work overtime?</text></item><item><author>flanbiscuit</author><text>&amp;gt; You&amp;#x27;re just reducing your hourly rate.&lt;p&gt;This is how I&amp;#x27;ve always explained to people who constantly work overtime in salaried positions where they don&amp;#x27;t actually get paid for that overtime.&lt;p&gt;You can at look at it one of 2 ways.&lt;p&gt;1.  Your billable self stopped at the 8-hour mark on a given weekday and every hour after that, including weekends, you&amp;#x27;re just giving away free labor to the company.  Just think about that every time you&amp;#x27;re working overtime, every minute after 8-hours you&amp;#x27;re freely giving away to the company. This is your personal free time.&lt;p&gt;2. Or, like patrickdavey said, you dilute your hourly worth. Say you&amp;#x27;re a dev who makes $90K, that&amp;#x27;s roughly $43.xx&amp;#x2F;hr for a 40 hour work week.  But if you&amp;#x27;re actually working 50hr work weeks you&amp;#x27;re now worth $34.xx, and so on.   The company just saved money on you (or they are making money off you).</text></item><item><author>patrickdavey</author><text>I went to a talk once on leadership. One of the suggestions was to get your &amp;quot;go to hell kit&amp;quot; ready. That is, get enough money in the bank (whatever that means for you) so that you can walk away if things cross your personal lines, be they moral &amp;#x2F; work-life balance, whatever. It&amp;#x27;s a good thing if there&amp;#x27;s pressure to work silly hours. In my first job (recent grad) before I left the job, I&amp;#x27;d been working 5 weekends straight (at least a Sat&amp;#x2F;Sun). Looking back, insane, now I&amp;#x27;d be having a conversation with my manager.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes it&amp;#x27;s hard when the &amp;quot;norm&amp;quot; is to work these extra hours. Where I live now, I have worked a normal 8:45ish to 5:15ish and haven&amp;#x27;t had to stay late or work weekends in years.  It can be like that, I reckon it _ought_ to be like that. If your contract says 40 hours a week, why would you work more? You&amp;#x27;re just reducing your hourly rate. Now, I don&amp;#x27;t mind putting in extra effort if needed, no worries, but if it&amp;#x27;s the culture that it&amp;#x27;s just long hours, well that&amp;#x27;s crazy.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>OpenDrapery</author><text>You may be more likely to be promoted if you display a backbone.  Real straight shooter with upper management written all over him.</text></comment>