[AnimalMuppet]

I'm going to split the difference between you and toomuchtodo. I accept that overtime comes sometimes in this business. I accept it as long as it's rare. There's a crisis for two weeks? OK, I'll be there - maybe not every possible second, but quite a bit more than normal.

There's a crisis for six months? That's not a crisis; that's a management failure. Management should have fixed it by then. That's on them, not on me.

They want overtime every week? FORGET. THAT. NOISE.

[conductr]

Why always the jump straight to interviewing? Raise the flag that the team needs resources, propose a solution, negotiate with management (it’s going to take a lot but we can deliver x & y, or z but not x, y, and z). There’s a bunch of things you can do besides jump ship, coincidentally these are all management skills and it’s called managing up.

[krageon]

The jump straight to interviewing comes with the ironclad faith that changing an organisation from the inside is now much harder than changing organisations. In the end, salary and work is something you do to support yourself. If you are going to take time and energy out of your life to improve the company where you work, that's time and energy you're not using to improve yourself (or at least, you're not using it as efficiently).

[conductr]

I don’t get this rebuttal. You don’t need to change the organization. You just need to set expectations with your boss. This is what allows you to go home on time. Instead, technical workers tend to let the deadlines be driven from the top and then they complain about working for slave drivers.