Reply to post: Re: Maximum weekly working hours

This always-on culture we're in is awful. How do we stop it? Oh, sorry, hold on – just had another notification

imanidiot Silver badge

Re: Maximum weekly working hours

Had a short period of that in the past too. Fortunately we were right in a period of discussing the structure of our work and client contract negotiations. Our boss was somehow genuinely surprised when 6 of us unanimously stated we would much rather actually be at work and working while on call (and shift the weekend if working, so work on Saturday and Sunday, then get Monday and Tuesday off the next week). Took a bit of haggling and back and forth but in the end it ended up with us just working 2 alternating shifts and 1 weekend a month, and being on call during work.

The problem as I see it here is that the sort of people on the boss/manager side are often the sort of high/over-achievers that genuinely don't see a problem with always being able to take a call (and don't understand why just picking up the phone like a glorified secretary isn't sufficient). They are so used to always having their phone on them and answering it at any time that it seems normal and logical to them. While to us techies it meant being unable to truly just enjoy the day because "being able to take a call" and getting to the client site within 1 hour had to always be in our minds. For some that basically meant not being able to go anywhere as they lived nearly an hour away to begin with. So for us working early/late 2 shifts with the occasional weekend was ideal.

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