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A forty-hour week? Not in IT

But that's the IT world. Anybody who works in it knows that the job follows you home. Users will always leave work and forget everything when they get home. Hence IT workers having to be on call during and after work. Unless you plan to not answer the phone when it rings, we'll always work over 40 hours.

What, everybody?

I think not.

I can only speak from my 20+ years in IT and every position I've held from operations to MIS Director has required more than 40 hours p/week every week to maintain and/or enhance.

Can you clarify a little bit. Who fooled him, and what did they fool him about?

kcat123 said "...every position I've held from operations to MIS Director has required more than 40 hours p/week every week to maintain and/or enhance."

There is no reason for this unless you allow others to dictate reality. As someone famous has said - Ye canna change the laws of physics. If you're working more than 40 hours on a regular basis, it's due to poor time/resource management not because that's the way it HAS to be.

If you can't manage time, then your never going to be a sucessfull manager in anything, not just IT.

I have on occasions worked extended hours during a particular day/week, but never more than a single week. And only during that period, I elected to monitor a project to ensure effectiveness.

I have worked in operations, development, and IT management for over 26 years, burn-out is a product of poor "time management".
With that said, 80% of the 26 years have been in an independent environment that is turly fortunate. The 20% has been a living hell due to incompetent "time managers" in larger environments with layers of directors, managers, and non-performers who are rewarded for poor "time management".

I agree with you. The reason why this trend to work on extended hours has become pervasive is because some of us in IT act like their supermen/women capable of doing everything all at once in a single day, to the point of experiencing burn-out. Come on you guys! Work is part of life, it's not your whole life. There is time for everything.

The Swedes I believe have a saying that if you have to work extra time regularly then it is for two reasons
1. you are overworked.
2. you are incompetent.

Both of these are very easily fixed I would say.

Well said, I agree with you.
The culture of long hours is part of society's ills and nothing to do with creating good products or services.
It is ludicrous that every single thing that an employee does has to be done in a hurry, and that they must stay on late at the office at the end of every day's work.

If the management team doesn't hire enough people to cover the load, that's their responsibility, not mine. I'm not sacrificing my personal time for their mistakes. I got hired to work for 40 hours, any more is not acceptable except in occasional circumstances.

Part of the issue is you need to lay down the law during the interview. My line: "the salary we're negotiating is for 40 hours a week salaried. If you expect more than 40 hours/week, the salary needs to increase correspondingly."

If I'm on call and get a call, the time spent to fix the problem comes out of the follow day's hours. If I work 4 hours in the middle of the night, there's no way I'm then working a full 8 the following day. That's just absurd.

I've often been told, proudly for some odd reason, by other IT coworkers "I regularly work 60-70 hours a week!" Yeah, and you're only getting paid for half of that. You're a dumbass.

The company will take what it can from you. It's up to you to set the limits before you start with them. If they say that it's required for the position then you have to make a decision. The job or your family. Personally I have always chosen my family over the job and I've always been happy.

I have a bad habit of working through lunch, I really shouldn't. It's one more spot where the company starts to expect that that is regular.

20 years in the business, and other than after hours work or big projects I've never had a job I worked more than 40 or got paid overtime for it. You do have the right to ask for that in the interview.

I work for a healthcare facility and lately I have been inquiring about what other facilities within my specialty have within their IT department. What I have found is that we are twice as advanced with on average 1/3 the staff. Talking to 1 manager he weekly attends 8-10 meetings to discuss IT. Sounds like most places spend more time talking IT than doing IT.

I worked for a mine we were bused in and out and it was 50 hours on site or walk home... now I work nine to five and they kick us out most of the time, i do dial in from home probably twice a month to do server maintenace and so that is probably an extra 1 hour each time. It is a different world and I think I get more done now in 35 hours than I used to in the 50 hours.

if your workin more than 40 hours a week as a IT then you should at least be making a heft paycheck when the week is done if i didnt id be pissed but a big paycheck would wipe that of my mind

This is very common in my work history. Consumers of IT services have problems that required IT assistance but they never plan for that possibility. As a result they are in a panic when their plan shows it's weakness and now IT has to drop everything and provide assistance. What is the addage "Your poor planning does not consitute an emergency to me", well something like that.

I can't speak for others time management or lack thereof habits because I don't know their environments. But I know we are on a 40 hour work week. And have been for years. Yes there are exceptions sometimes when certain things can only be done on the weekends or not nights, but it doesn't happen very often.

Thankfully I have a boss and work for a company who wants us to have a life outside of work.

I was working one weekend quite a while ago. The president of the company happened to come in that day. He asked why I was there. I told him why and he told, "Well get out of here as soon as you can and enjoy the rest of the weekend."

He feels the biggest asset to the company are its employees. He doesn't want us burning ourselves out. He wants the talent we have in place to stay.

I wish every company took that stance. There is an expectation in the industry that long hours are a given. Unfortunately my company has been pressed to a point where our IT professionals are overworked, although I can't speak for their pay.

I've moved out of IT for the most part, but may move back in that direction some day.

Still, the company depends on the e-commerce website and in turn the site depends on the skills and knowledge of a few really hard workers. I would like to see them have more help to keep things running.

For the past couple of years I have also ealized that when you negotiate a salary position based on a number of hours, if you exceed those hours you are working for less, worst than that for have demonstrated that you lack the knowledge on our worth. Being flexible, changing when you work the hours is a better approach as we know IT needs time OOB for things like patches or upgrades.

So why not tell us your sevret that works for you?

A lot of management don?t have these problems any more; they just farm out all the work to India, Malaysia etc no 40 hr week problems then.

...I've had colleagues that always managed to get themselves into more work than needed. For instance, if someone's request was referring to reinstalling Office, they'd do a full computer check-up or a hardware and software upgrade... Instead of sticking to the job to be done, they'd try to "change the world" and that always got them into more and more work. I'm not implying that's your case but it might... become? On the other hand, THERE ARE people who are (as a personal feature) overzealous, excessively thorough, methodic and slow (not that these would be bad things but sometimes they are). One should NEVER mistake the job for his life. Work is what we do in order to get the money that will allow us to live our life as close to the way we want it as possible. And one more thing: keep in mind (ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND) that LIFE starts after 5 p.m. What you do between 9 and 5 is called WORKING not LIVING.

At the beginning the office ran from nine to five and the janitor locked the doors at 6 o'clock. Soon the requirements of the business exceeded these hours until it took up what become 24/7. Computing had to cover this somehow so the result was inevitable, anybody who moans should not have joined, so just shut up and get on with. I am still at the desk at 72 because I like it so there.

But just because the business is now 24x7 does NOT mean that every worker should extend their hours for free.

If it's contracted or paid OT then you have your choice at joining or being offered the OT - but when your work week is 40hrs (or whatever) then work that and then go home. Yes occasionally do teh extra hours whenit is genuinelt required, otherwise forget it. What benefit is there?

Live to work or work to live?

You get the choice but telling others not to 'moan' and 'shut up' isn't exactly helpful from (what I can only perceive you to be) a senior member in IT.

I'll have a pint to that! I don't watch the clock and routinely end up staying after my end time (a few minutes or so) but I make sure I get out and do something at least a few times a week. I ride my motorcycle to work and when I go out - makes a great excuse for why I couldn't answer the phone, my hands were otherwise occupied.

I choose to work to pay the bills, live to ride and ride to live!

Some people are simply proud of working extra hours. A complaint is actually a disguised boast to get attention. I say it's most important to just get the job done, and to try to strike a balance most of the time.
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John Reiling

Yeah, this is the mentality that put I.T. in this position in the first place.

I have been blessed in my most recent place of employment. We never work more then 40 hours (unless oncall). If our work starts to push us past 40 rugularly, then management addresses the issue by redistributing work, brainstorm an issue as a team, or put in a request for another programmer. That's how a team is run.

Once I worked in a place that had a regular cycle of incompetence followed by overworking. For about a month everyone would take it easy and do subpar work until rollout time would come around. Then it was 16 hour shifts for two weeks straight... weekends included. That didn't last for me.

As with most things in life, it's all about balance. I don't have the 20+ years working in IT as everyone else seems to have, I just barely pass the decade, but I have learned, that through IT is about keeping an infrastructure working and monitoring for emergencies, the situations that keep us in the office extra hours should be that, emergencies, not normal. If you stay extra because your mail server keeps acting up, so you have not solved the real problem, because mail server are expected to work unattended, as many other servers (hence the word servers). If you keep fixing computer or viruses problems a) The proper IT policies are not in place/enforced or b) there is too much people for you to deal with and you need more personnel. At the end IT is an intellectual job, if you overburn, you will be incapable of performing it well, and then your employer will not have his infrastructure working, a loose-loose situation.

of work,,,, trained corporate slaves.

Your life, your choice.

Desi's(people from Indian Subcontinent) Especially. Most of them are like this. Thay have '0' social life. Also they are compelled by H1B (Visa) holding companies and middle men (again usually Dasi's) to be so.

I agree - I will be working as long as I can as well.

Working extra hours started with the BS from management. We'll "give you a laptop" Whoopeeee said the idiot, how generous. For years now you can enjoy your leash to the company in the form of the "wonderful" communication devices they "give" you.

On my last job I was in charge of everything, any other tech couldn't figure it out it was dumped in my lap. 65-70 hours for 5 years a 24/7 shop calls at 3 AM with questions a 2nd grader could answer. Business presold most of the years product by March.Last February they announced they were having the best year in a long time. Because it was the cool thing to do at the time they laid me off,along with the absolute worst employee I have ever met in my 38 years of working.really drove home the point. i now have a job as a manager, when the second hand hits 4:30 I am out the door like a scalded dog. What are they gonna do lay me off for a bad attitude? at least I will feel like I deserved it

You're right, the idea that by being absolutely dedicated to a company it will engender loyalty to you from that company is not correct. I've seen bad employees laid off, and I've seen good employees laid off, and it mostly depended on what position they held (with a few exceptions).

I was working 60-70 hours/week for a year because of a big project we had going on, and during the summer of that year I was supposed to teach my oldest child (who was 5 at the time) how to ride her bike without training wheels. I was always getting home too late to do it, and it didn't get done that year. That's what opened my eyes. The next spring, I got to help teach her some, but my wife taught her most of it because she was going to make sure it didn't get missed again. I'm not missing another milestone like that because of work.

I now work long weeks occassionally when required, but most weeks are shorter (still not 40, but a lot closer). We all have a choice. Work hard while you're there, of course, but don't forget the rest of life!

I feel badly for you if you are somehow disconnected from yourself for 8 hours a day!

Between work and commute, getting ready for work and coming home, it's the majority of the non-sleeping part of your day.

Enjoy the time off, of course. But you're cheating yourself if you don't enjoy the work part of your life, that's too bad.

Work to live, not live to work. If it can't get done by the end of the day it will be there for you in the morning.

Yes it's Krispy again, sorry to raise a storm, it is POETS day after all. Additionally you must realise I have only worked this side of the pond, never managed to get a green card. In the UK we realy don't take things quite so seriously, tomorrow is another day!

Tomorrow Is Saturday!

They expect us to work every hour god sends at my workplace in the UK. Dont get me wrong i dont sing to their tune but i know i clock up more than 40 hours when observed in detail.

Put on top of that selling my ass to the highest bidder for freelance work (the highest bidder usualy aint that high)

Sleep when im dead i think the saying go's! Unfortunatley i read something the other day that said people who sleep less live longer. Dam the irony!

I've learned a hard lesson when my wife died unexpectedly. I was busting my arse 10-12 hrs a day trying to keep up with the network and asking for additional help (then not getting it). I lost those precious years with her and will never live it down. I'm not going to miss watching my kids grow up ever again.
If the thing is broken and not completely dead, it'll be there waiting for me in the morning.

sleeping on it you will probably fix it 10 times quicker and the first time you try. if they don't need it right now or first thing in the morning GO HOME at 5 or 6 whatever your standard hours are. you will get twice as much done tomorrow

There are times when I take on a project because it's challenging and satisfying to complete, and it may take me past 5. But I also recognize that this is a choice I've made and I also choose to keep those times few and far between so I can be with my family and do the REAL LIFE stuff.

Even if it's fun, you should track the time and recover that time another day. You're doing it for the benefit of the company, and, the company owes you for your time.

Get ready for tsunamis of more work. Dont be suprised when it hits up to a notch of 50+ hours

This isn't just an IT issue, but a "T" issue, as in "Technology". Almost anyone who's a salaried professional (i.e. NOT Management) in a technology producer will be working 50+ hours/week (or in the case of my company, 60, 70, 80+).

Unless, of course, the company is on the skids and can't afford to lose anyone. In that case, it's pretty easy to turn the tables and tell your boss to "piss off" or risk losing 2-3 months on the schedule to have someone else come up to speed.

What really burns me are these managers who stroll in at 11AM, leave at 3 "to pick up the kids", and then are online all night wondering why you're not extending your 10 hours in the office with another 10 at home!

You are so right Rich, We have to put in gobs of hours, 80+ hours, many times 7 days a week just to keep things running smoothly while some 'special' people can stroll in when they want and go home early. And others are allowed to have a liquid lunch and passout in their offices.

We get little is any recognition along with proper compensation. Yet if the mouse fails to move smoothly, all hell breaks loose. Yet those above mentioned people get raise after raise and do less and less.

I call people who stand to work 80+ hour weeks workaholics, not hard and dedicated workers.

These days people working those hours are more afraid of losing their job and have gotten the added workload of their laid-off co-workers.

This guy said he was the field for like 20 years and it has always been this way.