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by kzrdude 1352 days ago
Having a real weekend shouldn't be a novel idea.. I assume most people in our industry have that? I know it would be a luxury for some, but I couldn't live without it.
1 comments

I agree, but with programmers in particular it's seen as a badge of honor and sometimes even as an expectation from employers to just "eat, sleep, and code" all the time. We have things like "the crunch" or hackathons, but the dark side to it is the lack of labor laws surrounding computer work.

In fact, computer programmers have special exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17e-overtime-co...

The FLSA guarantees minimum wage and 1.5x overtime pay for workers in the USA. In other words, if you are a computer programmer in the US, your employer can legally work you overtime/weekends without 1.5x pay like other workers.

Of course, the US also has the highest-paying programming jobs, and it has the most software developers by a very wide margin as America invented software engineering. This unique position in the labor market has caused the rights of computer programmers in the workplace to be largely overlooked.