Re: Like long hours?

[Goober <techcommgoober -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

> As a manager, I am far more impressed with people
> who get the work done in a 
> normal span of time, rather than trying to convince
> me what hard workers 
> they are by putting in so much time I feel like
> charging them rent.

Also from a management perspective, knowing you have
workers who chainthemselves to their workstations for
9-12 hours a day is fine and dandy, but it does not
help you with project planning. You still have to
assume a normal workday with normal workday overhead
when planning a project. The long-hour workers may
throw a wrench into your plans because though you know
they stay late to get the job done, you can't rely on
that and assume they will always be putting in those
hours, and if they spend many long nights, it's hard
to determine what they could get done in a normal
worktime situation, again for project planning
purposes.

I once worked with one writer who was a workaholic.
I'd get in at 7am, and he'd already be there working.
I'd leave around 5pm, and he'd still be there working.
I'd log in from home to fart around online on the
weekends, and his IM gave him away - at work, for
usually about 6-8 hours on either Saturday or Sunday.
Though I admired his desire to do good work and get a
lot done, it made me wonder about a few things:

1. Was he really happy with what he was producing? 

2. Was he more efficient by working longer hours?

3. Did his diligence impact the project in a positive
way?

The answers ended up being no, as no matter how many
hours he spent getting things done, projects still
shifted and changed (as they always do), so he was
hitting a moving target at 90% completion and 80%
overtime, while we were hitting a moving target at
about 75% completion and about 20% overtime. The 75%
was far easier to rework and move forward from, and we
were able to give an extra push with longer hours to
get it done once the project "froze". Meanwhile, the
workaholic was already tapped out at maximum, and
changes only added stress with no real solution but to
trudge forth and hope the work could be done in his
usual 60-80 hour work week. Add to that the usual
frustrations of SMEs being unreachable (especially
late at night), managers looking at milestones at the
11th hour (which shouldn't happen, but does), and
general fatigue, and well, you get burnout. Bad
burnout (as if there's a good burnout). He ended up
leaving out of frustration, and I don't blame him
100%, as there was a lot to be frustrated about
besides what he'd brought upon himself, but I can't
help but wonder how things would have turned out if we
all stuck to more "regular" hours and planned our work
around them.

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