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I had a boss tell me at an end of year meeting that another employee had worked 1000 more hours that year than I had. I looked my boss in the eye and said "then

I had a boss tell me at an end of year meeting that another employee had worked 1000 more hours that year than I had. I looked my boss in the eye and said "then he's doing something wrong". Consistent 60 hour weeks is a failure of management and of the employee to better manage their time. Especially if you are salaried.

iambateman 13y ago
This week I was told another employee has been "working weekends for months" to get the project done, passive aggressively implying I hadn't done the same. The problem with this is the guy is addicted to working weekends. He's been doing it for years and it makes everyone else look like "slackers", despite his obvious burnout.
- tjtrapp 13y ago
  Could he just be bad at his job? Maybe he needs the extra time to compensate for what he does not accomplish during the M-F work week.
- jbl 13y ago
  I think this hints at the crux of the problem. I have no problem with others working long hours, and will even put in a stint here and there when I feel it's warranted. The problem I see is that it slowly becomes the new norm and benchmark, regardless of whether long hours are productive. These new expectations then get encoded in cultures that devalue those who either choose to spend time on other things or who are simply more efficient. Do we just need to find better measures of output and figure out what fair compensation for average output is?
drdeadringer 13y ago
How did your boss respond?
- jimbobimbo 13y ago
  It doesn't matter, really. If you are at the stage when you have talks like that with your boss, it's clear that you're ready for a change. Be it changing the way your work is managed or changing companies altogether.
  - nmcfarl 13y ago
    Or he has an open honest relationship with his boss where both parties respect each other enough that honesty is rewarded. Of course your interpretation is more likely.
- AutoCorrect 13y ago
  About like you'd expect, he shrugged it off and went on with his meeting.
MrScruff 13y ago
You happen to work in an industry where working weekends and overtime is the exception. That's not always the case.
- AutoCorrect 13y ago
  I work in the IT business - there are plenty of times when weekend work is the only way to get something done (don't get me started on broken architecture that precludes rolling weekday rollouts). I just take the time away from some other day. And I'm not averse to overtime either, in exceptional circumstances. But for me, salaried means that I do my job as efficiently as possible, and if there's nothing to do, I don't work.

iambateman 13y ago

This week I was told another employee has been "working weekends for months" to get the project done, passive aggressively implying I hadn't done the same. The problem with this is the guy is addicted to working weekends. He's been doing it for years and it makes everyone else look like "slackers", despite his obvious burnout.

tjtrapp 13y ago
Could he just be bad at his job? Maybe he needs the extra time to compensate for what he does not accomplish during the M-F work week.
jbl 13y ago
I think this hints at the crux of the problem. I have no problem with others working long hours, and will even put in a stint here and there when I feel it's warranted. The problem I see is that it slowly becomes the new norm and benchmark, regardless of whether long hours are productive. These new expectations then get encoded in cultures that devalue those who either choose to spend time on other things or who are simply more efficient. Do we just need to find better measures of output and figure out what fair compensation for average output is?

drdeadringer 13y ago

How did your boss respond?

jimbobimbo 13y ago
It doesn't matter, really. If you are at the stage when you have talks like that with your boss, it's clear that you're ready for a change. Be it changing the way your work is managed or changing companies altogether.
- nmcfarl 13y ago
  Or he has an open honest relationship with his boss where both parties respect each other enough that honesty is rewarded. Of course your interpretation is more likely.
AutoCorrect 13y ago
About like you'd expect, he shrugged it off and went on with his meeting.

MrScruff 13y ago

You happen to work in an industry where working weekends and overtime is the exception. That's not always the case.

AutoCorrect 13y ago
I work in the IT business - there are plenty of times when weekend work is the only way to get something done (don't get me started on broken architecture that precludes rolling weekday rollouts). I just take the time away from some other day. And I'm not averse to overtime either, in exceptional circumstances. But for me, salaried means that I do my job as efficiently as possible, and if there's nothing to do, I don't work.