[not_a_test_user]

I can't believe how negative the article's comments are. Is everyone so addicted to work?

I would understand if I could work at top performance 10-12 hours a day, 5 days a week but that's just not possible for me. In the end driving developers to exhaustion is worse for everyone, with subpar code that'll probably require refactoring Monday morning.

[Disruptive_Dave]

Yes, everyone is addicted to work. This is what we've been conditioned to know/believe/live. I'd also venture to say "fear" is the foundation upon which many managers/motivators operate, at least here in the U.S. Remote work has the same challenges; "if I can't see my employee at his desk, he's probably screwing off somewhere!". It's lazy, but it's what most know.

[fsloth]

"Remote work has the same challenges; "if I can't see my employee at his desk, he's probably screwing off somewhere!"

This should not be a problem in a sane software development shop because there should be a way to track a) code reviews done b) tickets implemented/code merged /etc.

LOC/hour is a crappy metric for software development but averaging these over, say, six months should give some indication if someone is slacking off. Or just working in a different project than anyone else but task based variances ahould be accounted for. It does not give a "perfect metric" that could be used for perf evaluation but should be a sufficient safe guard against total slackers.

[iopq]

I've implemented 300 tickets. All of them typo fixes. You've only implemented 100 tickets like Bitcoin payment integration and the DB migration. I should get a raise.

[fsloth]

Could you please re-read my last sentence in the message you responded to :)

[falcolas]

> Is everyone so addicted to work?

I would say that everyone is addicted to the thought that attendance == effort. It's just such an easy measuring stick to use when comparing the relative worth of two people.

<s> I mean, come on. That other lady might be "smart", but she leaves at 5, but I'm here until 6, so I deserve the raise, not her. </s>

[k-mcgrady]

>> "I would say that everyone is addicted to the thought that attendance == effort"

This is very true. Personally I find that after a certain number of hours my ability to write good code and solve problems is significantly diminished. Although I would love Friday off personally I would find it more useful to finish at 3pm or 4pm instead of 6pm as that's when my productivity declines quickly. First of all that's a waste of my time in those final few hours as I'm getting much less done. But for the company I think if I had an extra few hours every evening I would be better rested and prepared for the next day and probably more productive in those first 6/7 productive hours.

[Igglyboo]

"If he gets to work 4 days then why can't I?"

[falcolas]

Go for it! Just make sure that you meet the deadlines we've agreed upon, just like he did.

[swatow]

Based on what you wrote, I expected the comments to be along the lines of "who do these privileged man-children think they are, don't they realize what real work is?". But when I read them, I saw they were more along the lines of "this can't last". Which I agree with. 40 hour weeks (or more) are the norm across the entire industry. I've met some people in small companies who work less (or have a lot of vacation). I envy the lifestyle, but these positions are fairly niche and definitely not the norm.

I would be very happy to do 75% of my current work for 75% of the pay. Unfortunately things don't scale like that for a number of reasons. E.g. a team of 8 people working at 75% will not be as effective as a team of 6 people working at 100%. Coordination is costly, and the fewer people can get a job done, the better.

[engendered]

Is everyone so addicted to work?

The overwhelming majority of people are in a situation where such a practice isn't possible. Jealousy is a very, very strong emotion, and leads to the crab mentality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality

You see it in any sort of "someone has a better situation than me" post.

[maaku]

Selection bias.