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by Kirby 6109 days ago
I, for one, get higher quality work done when I'm allowed to take breaks. This shop might be heaven for workaholics, but there's a lot of really excellent folks who just wouldn't enjoy their jobs if there was someone in the room constantly pushing them to keep working. It's great their culture works for some, but if this were the norm - I'd quit my job and go back to school in something that didn't involve computers, very quickly.

Or go into management. Do they practice Pair Leadership? Didn't think so.
2 comments
cookiecaper 6109 days ago
Yeah, I had this experience at my last full-time gig; our IT director and the other IT person had no concept of the importance of resting your mind in the middle of the day (along with many other important things).

They would just go on for hours and hours and hours uninterrupted, doing incredibly stupid things. They even closed the blinds because they didn't want to see something outside and get distracted with it (this is how programmers wind up in their building's dungeons and basements, guys).

Guy fought with me a lot because he felt that I shouldn't take breaks as such even between tasks, he said I was being paid "for my highest potential", or something like that, and that taking breaks for 15-30 minutes was unacceptable. I find this ridiculous and crazy.

I also found the guy's post ridiculous and crazy. I now know I will never work for Hashrocket.

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callmeed 6109 days ago
Actually, if you read the NYT article, they use a pomodoro time management technique–25 mins on, then a 5 min break.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/jobs/20pre.html

working hard != being over-worked ... at least that's how I understood it

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ismarc 6109 days ago
The Pomodoro technique is phenomenal. I actually end up doing ~50 and 10 rather than ~25 and 5. The trick is, when the buzzer goes off, I hit save, mash make && make test and go grab a cigarette. Chat about the weather, video games, anything really with other folks (non-smokers are encouraged to take "smoke breaks" outside, get some much needed sunlight and just relax out of the cubicles). Come back in, look at compiler output or test results and there's a list of things to start working on. If it all ran fine, continue working.

Amazing how something so simple as "get up and away from your desk" does more than any "agile", "extreme" or "You're kicked from a plane, you must write a driver that interfaces the rip cord to the parachute release mechanism in order to deploy your chute" methodology.

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