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by gregmac 3357 days ago
> Don't create the expectation people should work in their time off.

I have no such expectation, nor did I say people should work in their time off.

I think people need to keep up their education. Learning doesn't stop when you graduate. Your company should be willing to pay for training/courses/conferences, but I also think people that are passionate about things will naturally grow on their own.

At the least, this might mean staying current with news and/or community, especially within your current toolset/ecosystem. As an example, if you don't usually know within at least a week or so that your main language/framework/database/etc has a new release, you're in this category if people I'm talking about.

And to clarify when I say "9-5" I mean the type of person that always has their stuff packed up and is walking out the door by 5:01pm. This tells me either you've stopped in the middle of something, which means instead of staying for 10 or 30 minutes to finish it you will take two hours tomorrow to regain context, or that when you're done something and it's after say, 4 o'clock, you just don't start anything new.

I don't believe in working crazy (or even just 'extra' hours beyond what you're paid for): that leads to burnout and that is bad for literally everybody. I do think it's better to stay longer to finish and not waste time on the context switch of going home, or other days just leave "early" if you are done and can't finish anything further.

2 comments

Why isn't it acceptable to leave in the middle of a project? If I have a very regular after-work schedule (like picking kids up from daycare), I don't understand why I shouldn't leave at exactly the same time every day. Even if that means leaving something unfinished, that I'll get back to when I get back in the morning. And I might not have anything I can "do" by leaving 30 minutes early, because I can't go home and I can't get to (regular obligation) early.
I think you are dramatically overestimating the amount of waste that results from context switching.