I don't agree with everything you've said, but I do agree with the notion that "putting in time" doesn't necessarily equal work.
It's important to me to maintain a good work life balance. To this end, I work from home 90+ percent of the time so that 'working late' doesn't mean having to miss out on family interactions, or becoming the proverbial stranger to my family.
The flip side though, is that if there's a problem, or a challenge that needs to be solved, I generally go all out until it's solved. Not every bit of programming is amazingly fun -- CRUD operations or writing login forms for example are pretty mundane most of the time.
But when I'm building out the logic for something that I don't know is possible, or if I'm attacking a problem I don't immediately know the answer to, I tend to spend a lot more time on it than 8 hours a day, and I seldom even notice until I'm done that I have.
To me, it's not about watching the clock, it's about getting work done. If it takes me longer to get something done than I thought, that shouldn't necessarily mean that it's going into the queue for another day. Similarly, if I have dinner plans with my family, I'm not likely going to miss dinner because there's an unsolved problem. I don't have family plans or obligations every single day, so there really isn't a good reason for me to bolt at 5:01 every single day unless things are running smoothly.
What's interesting is that I agree with everything you said!
My view of the job is that you should be passionate about what you are creating. That is not at the exclusion of personal or family life. Not at all. At times this dedication to the task will result in sacrifices. I am saying that, so long as these are justified this is OK.
If working long hours is normal there might be something wrong with the process. My view was more about that case where "Hey, I am really into getting this state machine figured out. I should stay and get it done 'cause I'm in groove" or "we really have to ship this by Friday, let's get it done and take a few days off next week".
In my view of the job the team is a team and everyone looks after everyones interests and well-being. I've let employees go out of town for a few days (fully paid) to go see a concert by a band they really liked. When asked, if nothing horribly pressing is happening I'll almost always say "yes". Why? Because I have those interests and passions outside of work too and it would not be fair to treat others differently. This is not a religious view, BTW, as I am most definitely not religious. When someone takes a few unscheduled days off to go do something they love the business does not loose money, you gain by fostering a stronger relationship as well as having someone come back from their trip re-infused with energy.
Robotically clocking out at 5:01PM has never made sense for me, even when I was the employee. I don't think I have ever worked 9 to 5 in my life. Maybe I'm lucky 'cause I've had fun jobs that I wanted to keep doing.
The only thing I really disagreed with was the notion that 501 developers aren't necessarily good developers.
I've worked with some folks who belied that argument. Good, solid work, but no more than 8 hours of it. In all fairness, this usually (though not always) was the result of having been exploited. They were great developers working 18 hours a day, 6+ days a week, until they came in and quit. Realizing how necessary they were, the employers were able to strike a deal that kept them. Usually the only complaint were the work hours. Employers give them a gentler schedule and they stay, still producing good code.
I get the motivations for the 501 guys, and will freely admit there were places I worked where I wasn't happy, and that unhappiness expressed itself as a nonchalant attitude toward the work.
Of course, once I realized it, I made it a priority to get out; to get myself somewhere I could enjoy the work, and to get my employer the opportunity to get somebody in place of me that might enjoy the work they were doing. I didn't feel it was fair to either party for me to be that guy, and sadly, the work itself was exhilarating, it was a variety of factors within the team that made the job unenjoyable.
> The only thing I really disagreed with was the notion that 501 developers aren't necessarily good developers.
I don't think I said that. If I implied it, I'm sorry, I should have used more precise language as this is not what I believe.
My comment about writing good code had to do with their manifesto. They obviously go into a lot of the reasons why they want to work 9 to 5 but fail to also commit to doing a solid eight hours of work and producing good code during that time. You can work eight hours and produce absolutely nothing or far less than you could/should.
So, if you are going to work eight hours and code for eight hours --no youtube, no facebook, no HN, no anything outside of what you are supposed to be doing-- then, that might be OK.
In other words, like brick layer lays builds a wall or a Walmart employee attends to the cash register.
If you want flexibility than you are not a 501'er.
Ah -- my apologies for putting words in your mouth.
I'd say that's a fair and accurate statement all around. If, as an employer, I can't count on you, as an employee to be flexible, then I'm certainly going to be less tolerant of the miscellany (like HN, youtube, etc.) than I would be if I knew you were more likely to get things done.
Of course, if my guys can put in only 8 hours and still meet all tasks assigned while surfing porn and youtube all day, I'm almost certainly going to look the other way.
Before I was a software developer I was an auto mechanic and this ethic is what makes the good people good in both fields. Sure, you can make decent money doing flat-rate brake jobs that pay 1.5 hours in 30 minutes, but if you like to fix cars, you crave those problems where you've got to dig deep and experiment, and are more concerned with solving a challenging problem than what the $/hr turns out to be for that job. In an auto shop, the people who are willing and able solve the hard problems when they come up generally get assigned the best(easiest to finish under book time) of the other work. From what I have noticed in both fields, the happiest and most successful people have a sincere interest in their craft (knowing how, and wanting to know how things work), and this interest often carries over into how they chose to spend their personal time.
It's important to me to maintain a good work life balance. To this end, I work from home 90+ percent of the time so that 'working late' doesn't mean having to miss out on family interactions, or becoming the proverbial stranger to my family.
The flip side though, is that if there's a problem, or a challenge that needs to be solved, I generally go all out until it's solved. Not every bit of programming is amazingly fun -- CRUD operations or writing login forms for example are pretty mundane most of the time.
But when I'm building out the logic for something that I don't know is possible, or if I'm attacking a problem I don't immediately know the answer to, I tend to spend a lot more time on it than 8 hours a day, and I seldom even notice until I'm done that I have.
To me, it's not about watching the clock, it's about getting work done. If it takes me longer to get something done than I thought, that shouldn't necessarily mean that it's going into the queue for another day. Similarly, if I have dinner plans with my family, I'm not likely going to miss dinner because there's an unsolved problem. I don't have family plans or obligations every single day, so there really isn't a good reason for me to bolt at 5:01 every single day unless things are running smoothly.