[mancerayder]

On the flip side celebrating a culture where (allegedly) people are expected to toss out their personal lives and time (what is sometimes referred to as passion in some circles) is a race to the bottom. It means colleagues who DON'T do this are punished or replaced. Perhaps that's what you refer to as mediocrity, the unwillingness to put in long workdays that extend into night.

[quotemstr]

Do you think that I should be forced not to code after a certain time of day? I wouldn't work at a company that imposed this restriction.

[reaperducer]

I work at a company like this.

In fact, I need permission from my manager's manager's manager in order to stay past 7pm.

This company believes in a strong work-life balance, and this is one of the ways it achieves this.

Also, it "changes the world" in good ways, not by "connecting people" through bogus data siphoning addiction traps.

[glori3]

If you did, do you get fired? Genuinely curious: what happens?

Personally I strongly prefer no fixed working hours. If you want to work at night, so that you can do things when it’s light out (especially in winter), and you still get the expected results, what’s wrong with that?

[Spooky23]

A few workaholics create a culture where more people become expected to be doing stuff outside of business hours.

Also, lone wolves working at night are harder to manage and communicate with.

[reaperducer]

If you did, do you get fired? Genuinely curious: what happens?

Probably not fired. But the interior motion sensor alarms go on automatically at 7pm, which would probably alert the security guards that roam the campus.

When I first started, I came in too early once and set off the alarms. People were nice about it, but I was super embarrassed because I was a n00b.

Personally I strongly prefer no fixed working hours. If you want to work at night, so that you can do things when it’s light out (especially in winter), and you still get the expected results, what’s wrong with that?

I worked at a place like that once. When I was hired I was told I could make my own hours. I prefer to work early mornings, so some days I came in long before anyone else. A couple of times around 3am. But I always worked at least eight hours, and often more.

In my exit interview, my supervisor was rabid about how I wasn't a good fit because I "come and go as [you] please." She was so full of crap about other allegations against me that I didn't even have a chance to bring up that making my own hours was part of my employment deal.

[mancerayder]

I think the conversation above was more about people who put in very long hours because they're passionate and so forth, or they're obliged, or whatever the reason the 'company culture' is a certain way. I think flexible hours that you describe is a far more popular idea (and probably a good one if you ask me).

[fesoliveira]

Yes, and it shouldn't be up to an employer to set that limit, but to regulatory bodies. Having people spend 12-14h a day working is not good in the long term, and expecting people to do that otherwise they will be fired is draconic.

[scarface74]

It’s not that cut and dry. For a lot of reasons, I don’t do side projects. But I do choose jobs that are using technologies that will keep me marketable. So if I want to learn a new to me technology, I’ll often work some crazy hours to both learn the technology and get the work done.

Yes my company benefits from it, but so do I. For instance, given a choice of trying to come up with an idea to learn about a feature of AWS and pay money for the resources I use, and take advantage of my work AWS (Dev) account where I am an admin, I would rather do a work related project where I have the resources and I don’t have to come up with an idea and I don’t have to pay for it.

What I don’t do is “signal”. I don’t stay at work late, I don’t send emails out after hours, and I pushback if they give me unreasonable deadlines.

[Spooky23]

You’re not working.

[scarface74]

Let’s say my team had a feature to get out and the React expert said he could do it in 30 hours and he could have it done by Monday morning without working extra during the week or on the weekend.

On the other hand, say it would take me 50 hours and I knew I would have to work on the weekend because I’m not as experienced, but I thought I could still have it done by Monday.

I might be willing to volunteer, knowing it would take me longer but it would also be done on time. That extra 20 hours, I’m still working, committing code but zeal do trying to figure out the framework. I wouldn’t have a problem doing that because I am learning a new skill.

But, I wouldn’t work weekends to finish a project because I was given an unrealistic deadline.

The first scenario, the extra 20 hours benefits me and the company. The second, it just benefits the company.

[glori3]

But... nothing about “12am” sets that expectation. You need to know when they started work.