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by naavis 966 days ago
> When I tell fellow engineers about it, they think it’s unethical because my contract specifies 40h/week (I’m an employee). I couldn’t care less what the contract says about working hours.

Honest question, do you unilaterally ignore any other parts of the contract?
2 comments
DoingIsLearning 966 days ago
Arguably these contracts are a legacy of factory shifts in industrial revolution times.

What (most) managers want is your output, irrespective of how long it will take, may be 12h or 3h.

One could argue, that while working 3h or 4h one should still be available to support, help, communicate, meet with, your team and stakeholders for the remaining hours of that contract.

I would not have an issue with less hours provided you don't ghost for the remaining hours, if one of your colleagues hits a block, or your manager gets hit with a shitstorm, then you need to have a communication line open (which should also not be 24 hours but for the hours in your contract).

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naavis 966 days ago
This I agree with. But I would say being available to help and support and whatever is part of the job. If you say you work for 4 hours, but still have to be available for all of the above for 8 hours, you are working for 8 hours, not 4.
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andirk 966 days ago
In "agile" or "scrum" or whatever story pointing is, the "level of effort" is often touted and rightfully so. The mind can quickly become exhausted after grueling mental labor. Personally, I often get some 5 hours of solid work in one day and consider that enough. Other times, I'll work 10+ hours in a day on less mentally grueling work but I rarely bill over 8 hours in one day even if it's more. I always want my employer to see the cost of me as well worth it.
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bigDinosaur 966 days ago
Nobody works exactly to the contract. Except perhaps in the most monitored and hellish workplaces (e.g. Amazon warehouses).
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naavis 966 days ago
Not exactly, no. But how far can you stretch that? Working 4 hours a day is half of what is agreed in the contract. Would you be fine with the employer ignoring the agreed salary with the excuse of no one following contracts exactly?
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distances 966 days ago
What do you mean? As far as I know, I've always worked according to the contract.

Some of my employers had flexible timekeeping, and then I would often work a bit over 40h/week so that I could take extra days off for extended weekend trips when I felt like it.

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bigDinosaur 965 days ago
You've always done things like observed the precise lunch hours (and not taken a single minute more)? This stuff is usually defined in contracts but at least for a professional job in a good workplace is subservient simply to getting the work done rather than literally doing your 7.3 hours of work and 0.7 hours of lunch to the letter. Even doing duties for your job that aren't listed as part of your contract is common. How common is working more than the contract specifies by just a few minutes? And so on. There's a reason Work to Rule strikes [1] are a thing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule

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tonyedgecombe 966 days ago
Are you working right now?
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distances 966 days ago
Why would I be working now? It's Sunday.
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tonyedgecombe 964 days ago
That's the problem with retirement, I have no idea what a weekend is anymore.
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