- cross-posted to:
- experienced_devs@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- experienced_devs@programming.dev
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I think the bigger issue is treating 60-80 hour work weeks as a normal thing. I don’t care what company it is me actually living a life is always more important than a job writing code.
There’s no priority combination where sustained 60-80 hour weeks make sense.
Looking to prove yourself? You can’t sustain that long term, at least not at the same quality, so you’re just setting unrealistic expectations and setting yourself up to disappoint your boss.
Your boss told you to? If this is meant to last longer than 2 weeks, he’s setting all his subordinates up for burnout, and quality will suffer. Don’t let your boss set everyone up for failure.
Personally, I’ve found that 60-80 hour weeks is okay for a 2-week crunch. Then you need to recharge for 2 months before you can do it again. So treat crunch time like any other limited resource, and use it sparingly. Boss just wants it fast? Tough shit, it’ll be done when it’s done. Half the company is blocked until you fix this thing? Crunch time.
and in the back of their head, right, they’ve started the spiral already. they’re telling themselves, “oh my god, I haven’t really shipped anything in a while. what I need to do is work harder. I’ll just work hard enough. I’ll save this and no one will know.” like, “in the next week, I’ll do a whole month’s work. and no one will know.” they’ll start losing sleep, all of that. and it sucks, because bro, they start getting depressed, missing meals. their relationships suffer, both work and personal. and they just start spiraling, spiraling, and it ends up in worst-case scenarios. they burn out, they need to take a month off, they get PIP’d, they get fired, they quit their jobs because they think, “you know what, this is not salvageable.” and it really sucks.
Yep I accidentally did this. Would not recommend.
