[commandlinefan]

> This is exactly the tradeoff, right?

But you're also expected to meet your weekly "commitments" in JIRA - which means you're going to be working nights and weekends to do the work you're supposed to be doing since you were interrupted all day to do the work other people were supposed to be doing.

But you're right, this _is_ the tradeoff, and it's by design, since you're "exempt".

[milesvp]

No. The answer isn’t nights and weekends. It is much easier to simply document interruptions. This also means that during planning you can now actually plan appropriately for your time.

Please don’t accept the narrative that exempt means unpaid overtime is ok.

[danaris]

If their supervisors believe "exempt" means "abuse this person with all the unpaid overtime", and don't respect their time and autonomy and expect them to respond to every interruption and get all their own stuff done, it's very unlikely that documenting those interruptions and "planning appropriately" will actually make a positive difference. More likely it'll just get them told they're being insubordinate.

Now, the ideal answer in a situation like that is to leave and find a better job. But if everyone in a situation like that could just leave and find a better job, we wouldn't have situations like that for long.

[milesvp]

Yeah, I’ve worked in some very toxic workplaces. The other reason to document, is that now you have ammunition that you can take to progressively higher levels of management. Bureaucracies hate paper trails, and the sooner you can establish a paper trail the better off you are. But I do get it, often “heads down, do your work” is the only path due to factors outside of work.

[danaris]

I dunno; I'd say "bureaucracies love paper trails—they just want the bureaucracy's official paper trail to be the only one," heh.

But yeah; if you're in an organization that is not totally lost to corruption (of whatever stripe), or one that has to answer to higher authorities, like federal laws and the SEC, then documenting can be an extremely effective way to force, if not necessarily genuine changes of heart, at least skin-deep changes of behavior.

The case where I saw stuff like this happening second-hand (it was to a family member), the rot came, unfortunately, from the top. My family member was doing absolutely amazing work supporting the stated mission and values of the organization, and was having to fight tooth and nail to make it happen. Unfortunately, the organization's actual mission and values were much more along the lines of "make lots of money and pander to the people who will give it to us," so the job description was changed overnight to one supporting part of the organization that they had made perfectly clear over their years in that position they would have nothing to do with (because it was the part that most strongly violated the stated values). This was sufficient evidence that, after they quit and applied for unemployment, the state agreed this was constructive dismissal and paid out in full.

[verall]

> which means you're going to be working nights and weekends to do the work you're supposed to be doing since you were interrupted all day to do the work other people were supposed to be doing

Only if you're totally overscheduled?

It is a balance: you need to do your own work, other people need you to do their work, and you also need other people to do your work. Depending on your and your company's culture you may need to block out sections of your day for deep work. Or you may need to ask your manager for support to not be the SPOF for a bunch of other people's work.

[commandlinefan]

Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but every job _I've_ ever had ends up devolving into a 24/7 expectation without much in the way of appreciation. This seems to follow the person, not the company.

[nostrademons]

I've never worked in a place driven by JIRA, always companies where they just expect a small team to come out with a product or major feature on a timescale ranging from ~quarter - ~year. You're evaluated by whether the product or feature launches and how good it is, not by how many tickets you close.

[commandlinefan]

> whether the product or feature launches and how good it is, not by how many tickets you close

We're measured by both.