[thechat] people who work weekends: a rant

[Luther, Ron]

Erika ranted:

>>People who work on weekends generally piss me off.  Mightily.

Hear, hear.  Well, since I've told any number of people, including my boss, that working weekends and late nights is against my religion - and I hold to that as best as I can - I'm guessing that doesn't include me.  ;-)

I'll agree with what pretty much everyone said, that it's a function of environment.  And I will quickly concede that there actually are some situations where you need to put in some extra time on a specific project - even if that cuts into your weekend.

But I really don't think that's what Erika was ranting about!


Martin noted:
>>...equally may indicate lack of competence on the part of management
>>who have imposed a set of constraints that make overtime inevitable.

Heh.  But what he didn't note was how utterly amazingly you can p*ss off the 'holier than thou' crowd by  letting them start in on their stories of how many millions of hours they put in and then interrupting, giving them that concerned look in the eye and gently asking "Gee, I'm sorry to hear that.  Has your team figured out yet how they F-ed up and let their plan get so far out of control that you need to work those hours?  What's their plan for getting back on track?"


Martin also noted:
>>Possibly, although I think gameplaying is often rarer than feared.

Really?  Damn!  Must be nice to work with adults!  My experience is different.  I've seen gameplaying in every company I've ever worked for.  The worst, though, was in Akron.  Anyone working late or coming in over the weekend had to sign in and out at the guard's desk.  Every Monday morning the CEO would stop at the guard's desk and look through the log to see who came in over the weekend and how long they were there.  And everybody in the company knew he did that.  So we had people who would come in every Saturday and write out their bills, use the phone, surf the web, read a book ... anything to kill a few hours and get noticed by the CEO.

I'm pretty sure that's one of the types of behavior Erica was railing against.  I find it annoying too.


Yes, there are some legitimate needs to (sometimes) put in some extra hours and effort.  But there is also a lot of unnecessary busy-work type posing and posturing that goes on too.  Has nobody seen the folks who work late every night?  Well, at least until 5 minutes after their boss leaves?

[Not mentioning, of course, the people who quietly work late nights and weekends because they don't want to go home ... because home isn't a happy place.  But I don't think these folks often fall into the 'holier than thou' category.]


Someone who's never late for recess,
RonL.