[thechat] {SPAM} Re: people who work weekends: a rant

[Simon MacDonald]

I would agree that sometimes weekend or all night working is necessary to
pull a project out of the cr at p  - when things have gone totally tits-up. 

However, in my experience it generally boils down to bad estimating and/or
poor (non-existent) project management. Some (most?) is not being 'able to
say NO to changed requirements - or not willing to impart that- 'Yeah - if
you want that it's gonna cost X more time and Y more money' - PM says Yeah
we can do that - no probs' - and hasn't even gone and got an impact analysis
(just run it by the Lead Software person and get their reaction!).

A good PM has got a bit of flex in the plan so some level change can be
managed - but I guess you folks you been there before - so no more teaching
to suck eggs.

But - a big lesson for me was learning to being able to say NO (in the
nicest possible way)- it's not always the client management horror we think
it is when it's explained reasonably.

(Also: when someone pulls a late don't they always manage to send you an
email at 3:00am - just so you know ;o)

Cheers
Simon

Simon MacDonald
www.lemonslicedesign.com



-----Original Message-----
From: thechat-bounces at lists.evolt.org
[mailto:thechat-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Elfur Logadóttir
Sent: 02 November 2008 19:02
To: 'The evolt.org social mailing list '
Subject: {SPAM} Re: [thechat] people who work weekends: a rant
Importance: Low

Caveat: I've had to work for about 80% of the year, and a similar amount of
late nights, sometimes managing only 5hrs of sleep.

.:| People who work on weekends generally piss me off.

I appologise :)


.:| a. they've been slacking off for weeks, and now trying mightily to
.:| meet
.:| a deadline... yet somehow in the midst of it, they manage to make
.:| themselves look impressive because they are heroically working
.:| weekends


Errr, I love generalizing :)
My problem has been far too many meetings during the day (in addition to too
many projects on my hands).


.:| (or late hours)
.:| 
.:| b. they are stress-puppies who, despite the fact that everything is
.:| on
.:| schedule, fear fear fear that something will go wrong and the
.:| project,
.:| and company can ONLY be rescued by their working the weekend.  Again,
.:| they feel heroic and/or martyriffic for working the weekend.


Well, I keep the projet on schedule BY working the weekends.


.:| c. often people, as they work the weekend in a mad fit of heroic
.:| push,
.:| go too far, start doing someone else's work (that can't possibly be
.:| under control, because that someone else is NOT working the weekend)
.:| and
.:| FVCK everything up.  But somehow, they still feel heroic.


I wish someone else WOULD work the weekend and even start doing some of my
work, god knows that I have no time to do their.

 
.:| d. people who are operating from this state are generally 1/3 as
.:| productive as someone who works reasonable hours, gets reasonable
.:| rest,
.:| and has a life outside of work.  But the important thing is all the
.:| hours they are putting in, right?


I probably would argue that I DO have a life outside of work. 
But some weeks my productivity is lower because of the workload, I would
never argue otherwise.

 
.:| e. because on top of all this, they tend to put on a huge show, and
.:| do a
.:| holier than thou dance should you refuse to join them in the
.:| silliness.

"Holier than thou" is my middle name :)

.:| Take a chill pill, people.


I'll try,

Elfur "holier than thou" Logadóttir ;)



___________________________________
thechat: bovine by-products and MP3s

thechat at lists.evolt.org
http://lists.evolt.org/mailman/listinfo/thechat
http://lists.evolt.org/thechatarchive/
____

Got RSS? Add your feed to http://planet.evolt.org/
See also #evolt on irc.evolt.org and http://spool.evolt.org.uk/
____

Please support the community that supports you. Give your bit to
evolt.org at: http://evolt.org/help_support_evolt/