AvoidingTheProblem

I have a colleague, Justin, who changed his job so that he could work less hours. He was working 60+ hours every week for years. His spouse, Carrie, was initially supportive. But living in this pattern with him for too long, Carrie demanded that he work less.

Faced between a divorce and the job, Justin decided to transfer to a different position within the company that employees him. He perceived the new job as less demanding and thus would enable him to work a normal work schedule.

Have you seen this tactic before?

What do you think of the tactic of changing your job rather than the strategy of changing how you work?

How would you make a change like this?

SteveSmith 2005.04.18

In my NHO, changing jobs is likely to be more successful than changing how a person works at a job that current appears to demand working a certain way. The first time I managed 14 or 15 people, I thought the only way to do that was to work 50-60 hours/week. Then I had a child :-)

I stayed at that job another couple of years, working only 4o hours/week, and making it work. I found it extremely difficult, mostly because I had different expectations of my output. But when I took a different job at a different company, I had no problem maintaining a 40 hour/week (at work, home was extra) week.

It took my yet one more child and another job change to have the guts/ability to explain to my boss that I was available 37.5 hours/week at work. (I was hiring like crazy, program-managing a couple of projects, and managing a group that started off as 6 people and grew to 17 people.) I was willing to phone-screen candidates and review paperwork at home.

I was not able to determine 5 years earlier how much/little I could do at work, and how a little bit more at home (less than an hour a day) could make such a difference in my work habits. I became very intense with my at-work work, not tolerating wandering meetings, work assigned to me by voicemail, all that stuff that makes more work for me, but "less" work for the assigner. (It's really more for the assigner, because that person hasn't considered what they really want, and when you give them what they don't want, they get mad and have to tell you again and again and again.)

I don't know how to do this and remain in the same job; I would stick to all my bad habits :-) -- JohannaRothman 2005.04.18

Interesting strategy, JR. How are you going to do it now that you're a consultant working for yourself? I've had the same job since around 1970. If I couldn't change my work habits on the job, I'd be dead from overwork by now. As to what I do, I'm not sure (but I've got so much other work to do right now, I can't think about it.) - JerryWeinberg 2005.04.18

I don't have the same job every day. My job is to recreate my job. Oh, I'm a consultant, and have been for over 10 years, but my job is to reinvent myself every year or more often. So, I still have some bad habits, such as not cleaning up my office to Mark's satisfaction :-)) But the number of work hours bad habit is not an issue for me anymore.

From my perspective, some people have a whole bunch of feelings and rules about work hours that they aren't aware of. "I must work 60 hours/week to show my boss I'm useful." I don't have that rule anymore, although I think I had a variant of of earlier in my career. To me, it's the rules that we have that prevent us from changing what we do. And it's too easy to keep those rules even if we change jobs.

I appreciate you, Jerry, for the ping to think harder about this :-) Ask me another question. -- JohannaRothman 2005.04.22

Okay, I'll take the challenge. What rules do you have about changing your rules? How did you arrive at them? - JerryWeinberg 2005.04.22

Since I posted this thread, I have noticed two more people with a similar problem. Despite their exhaustion and the dismay of their spouse, they keep on working. One of them switched jobs but the pattern actually got worse.

Like any behavioral pattern, Justin and people like him are getting something out of it. It seems to me that their self-worth is wrapped up in the amount of hours that they work.

Too often management rewards people for working long hours. They love seeing Justin's car in the parking lot early in the morning and late at night. My experience is that most managers would prefer Justin who works 60 hours a week over James who works 40 hours a week even if Justin produced slightly less work. Dedication. Hard work. It's important, you know.

SteveSmith 2005.04.28

I observe it may be easier to measure # hours worked than amount of work accomplished --DaveLiebreich 2005.04.28

It's a moral issue, apparently (or maybe "moralistic" is a better adjective). Like getting up early in the morning. Those of us who hate early morning meetings, and don't relish working long hours for the soul-cleansing sake of it, are moral degenerates. How much we accomplish is irrelevant, as is the quality of the work. -- FionaCharles 28-Apr-2005

For the case of Justin (works 60 hours a week) and James (works 40 hours a week), Justin is trying hard, and it is obvious that he is trying hard. He may never have the productivity of James because of any number of factors. His effort is something that he can control. He is doing what he can do.

He may not be doing what is wisest. That is where managers should step in. It is the role of the manager to step back and see more things in play.

DwaynePhillips 29 April 2005

My thoughts on Steve's original questions relative to Dwayne's note follow. Justin's manager may be the one making it clear that the longer work schedule is the desired one. He may be doing so and not know it, but it may also be intentional. If the former and Justin trusts his manager, then I believe Justin should have had a conversation with him. If the later, which is much harder to assess, then changing positions may be a better strategy, though it may be hard to tell if the new position has more reasonable hours.

To respond to Dave's and Fiona's notes: I don't believe it's possible to measure hours worked in the knowledge industry. You can only measure hours present. On the line in a factory, presence and work are related, so attendance is a moral issue, though Ford apparently realized the relationship was not linear. In the office, hours present is far less connected to work. I do some of my best work in the shower or on the drive to work, though I need to be there (or at my computer online at home) to get my results into the system.

MikeMelendez 2005.04.29

Good point. The other thing that is very hard to measure (although testers can help identify it) is useful hours worked. We just had a developer work 12 long days straight to complete an overdue report. She was present and working as hard as she could. She would have been working more useful hours at 80 than 130. Every tester reading this has probably tested code developed under these conditions. And retested it, and retested it, as the bugs were gradually removed. And the same problems occur with everything the developers write afterwards until they have recovered.

SherryHeinze 2005.04.29

Let's see. You can change jobs to avoid a situation or a person. If it's a similar job in a similar industry, the situation might not be all that different. For example, why would one boom-n-bubble-time dot-com have a different culture from any other? Extending the example, why would a newer start-up founded by boom-n-bubble survivors be any different from the one thing they know, which worked for them the last time.

The thing you'll bring with you to the new job is yourself. I think maybe after enough rounds of changing jobs to fix the hours problem, one might consider something else. Maybe making a different choice of jobs. Maybe changing the person who goes to work each day. Maybe deciding that you are OK with that kind of job and hours like those, after all. Maybe something else.

-- JimBullock, 2005.04.30 (Or at least that's who I choose to be today.)

You always have a choice. Always. Most people who work 60-80 hour weeks have never tested their assumption that the boss will punish them if they only work 40. And maybe because they have some silly idea that your boss is supposed to know how much you're accomplishing, so they shyly refuse to lay out what they have really done in a really clear way on a really regular basis. Managers measure hours because they have no other measures. You may think the measures are their job, but then you're being foolish. YOU measure yourself, and feed your measurements to your manager. If you rate yourself fairly--not under or over--you'll do all right, or else if you don't, you'll find you're working in the wrong job and can make another choice. - JerryWeinberg 2005.05.01

Of course you always have a choice in any work situation. You just have to prepared to exercise it with your feet. My point -- albeit overstated -- was that sometimes we are dealing with deep, unexamined beliefs that have nothing to do with productivity, results, nor indeed anything measurable or even reasonable. There is a powerful puritanical streak in our society, manifested in the workplace as 'work ethic', or as Steve said: 'dedication', 'hard work'.

It isn't just managers who think people aren't working hard unless they're working long. It's Joe or Jane Programmer or Tester. (And often the managers are doing it to themselves, too.) They aren't so much afraid of punishment, as they are of their own consciences. They're so easily guilted because underneath they have an uneasy belief that it's really true.

I can't count the number of arguments I've had about this. With managers about people on my teams. With testers and managers about themselves. With managers about me. Even people who admit they're workaholics say it with a certain amount of pride.

If you're one of these, then changing jobs won't make any sort of permanent difference. You can always find a way to feel guilty. Even if you aren't, it's hard to resist the prevailing culture. FionaCharles 2-May-2005

It can be very difficult to resist the prevailing culture. It often easier to find a different prevailing culture that fits you better.

Changing the prevailing culture is more valuable, but may be more trouble than it is worth.

SherryHeinze 2005.05.02

Fiona's right--a lot of people just carry their problems with them. But Sherry's right, too. The brine is generally stronger than the most determined cucumber. So a good strategy if you want to change something about yourself is to try to put yourself in a culture what they thing you want to be is highly valued. The culture will teach you, unless you're a particularly green cuke. - JerryWeinberg 2005.05.02

What I'm getting for Justin's consideration:

Check yourself. (Fiona)
Check the culture. (Jerry)
Check your manager.

and key to Justin's decision

Check the culture where you hope to land.

MikeMelendez 2005.05.03

Updated: Tuesday, May 3, 2005