A few late nights here and there is perfectly fine! Heck, even my wife stayed a little late at the zoo sometimes to get stuff done. The main point of the post is glorifying overworking vs necessary overworking. It’s sometimes “necessary” in software to work a few late nights, but it should be FAR from the norm. Hell, my old manager used to let us order DoorDash on the company dime if we had to work a few hours on a weekend to meet a deadline. I got fancy sushi!
I cannot think of a single time a software project requires any of that.
There is a insanely vast gap between the handful of jobs whose output literally save lives and grinding on a software project to hit a deadline. You’ve literally described the work ethic the post is cautioning against.
I’m saying meeting deadlines promised that can’t be pushed back, like you have to present at a conference or something. Sure, you or your manager should’ve planned better. But at least in my job when we “have” to work nights or weekends we get time off otherwise. We also have oncall rotations that need to have intervention at night if a dependency breaks or something.
A few late nights here and there is perfectly fine! Heck, even my wife stayed a little late at the zoo sometimes to get stuff done. The main point of the post is glorifying overworking vs necessary overworking. It’s sometimes “necessary” in software to work a few late nights, but it should be FAR from the norm. Hell, my old manager used to let us order DoorDash on the company dime if we had to work a few hours on a weekend to meet a deadline. I got fancy sushi!
I cannot think of a single time a software project requires any of that.
There is a insanely vast gap between the handful of jobs whose output literally save lives and grinding on a software project to hit a deadline. You’ve literally described the work ethic the post is cautioning against.
I’m saying meeting deadlines promised that can’t be pushed back, like you have to present at a conference or something. Sure, you or your manager should’ve planned better. But at least in my job when we “have” to work nights or weekends we get time off otherwise. We also have oncall rotations that need to have intervention at night if a dependency breaks or something.
Deadlines can always be set with reasonable timeframe, and despite what they tell you they can always be pushed back
Someone dying on the OR table cannot.
A child who needs food cannot.
A burning building cannot wait.