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A comment on Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people. Parent comment

Re:Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people by pc86 on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @03:57PM (#23481341)
At the same time if they're willing to do 60 hours a week of work (not if it takes them 60 hours to do 40 hours worth of work) they should probably be pointed out positively in the team meeting for putting the effort in, and privately told that it's probably not maintainable in the long term, and if they need to work that much to meet their objectives they have too much work.

But I don't see anything wrong with praising more output under the right circumstances. Everything ebbs and flows. As an IC there are times I go 3-4 days without a single commit. And there are times I have commits for 12 days straight because I'm on a roll.

I've been fighting for an "unlimited with minimum" vacation policy for the developers at my current job for a while now. It was fight to get the base increased from 2 weeks to 3, and the system doesn't allow negative PTO balances, which seems kind of draconian to me. But I'd love to see my coworkers taking 4-5 weeks a year.

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Re:Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people by Thlom on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @07:21PM (#23483335)
So glad I live in a country with sane labor laws. We have mandated 4 weeks vacation, most places have 5 weeks. The law actually says that the employee is mandated to take 4 weeks vacation and the employer is mandated to make sure the employee takes their vacation. It's possible to "transfer" vacation days from one year to the next, but most people take their vacation every year. Looking forward to July off.
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Re:Advice to new managers: don't joke about firing people by Sodman on Wednesday June 10, 2020 @06:32PM (#23482953)
As someone with a tendency to accidentally work 60 hour weeks sometimes because I genuinely enjoy the work, I think you have to balance any praise with very clear expectations for the rest of the team. Something like "40 hour weeks are meant to be the norm and while heroism is appreciated, it is not sustainable".
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