As a programmer in the U.S. for 30 years now I have spent some of that time working more than 40 hours in a week, which is not all that common in this industry, and when I was salaried I rarely if ever got more pay.

No more, I now find the whole idea nauseating.

I am not talking about running your own business, or working at a startup or other business entity where working more hours might get you a big payout. I ran two small software companies from the mid 80's to 90's and we did work a lot of hours; but all of us shared in whatever we made and in the second company worked under contract so the more we worked the more we got. But that's not the point of this post.

If I worked at some big technology company and agreed to some salary, my expectation is that I am being paid to do my best for a standard work week, which is generally considered (at least in the U.S.) to be 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. If they told me I have to work 70 hours a week, or some manager expected the team to show up 7 days a week, I would refuse today. Why?

mk: In Europe your health is not tied to your employment in any way. If companies want to keep a valuable employee they have to do something positive and entice them to stick around.

That is an important point. It is not just health care, but in many cases, your actual health that is tied to your employment. This is going to change, because it does not work well.

I work in research, which has very busy periods, followed by slower ones. One upshot of my job is that I do get rewards from effective work, in terms of grants, increased salary, and independence. The downside is that when funding is low (and currently it is very low), sometimes effective work goes unrewarded for so long, that you lose your job.


posted 4440 days ago