Time management & make believe

An anecdote from the motherland of workaholics.

In the US, working long hours and letting everybody know about it, is a big part of life. While this is not unique to the States - just ask any medical intern in a German hospital, for example - it is deeply ingrained in the culture.
Of course, there is the fact that you may have to attend a meeting or do emails after hours if your job requires you to work with people from faraway countries.

The long work hours gave rise to the work-life balance movement, itself probably a billion dollar enterprise by now, and you will certainly find people working serious overtime in the name of work-life balance.

We'll tell you about the experience of a northern European engineer E. in an American software company.

E. had recently joined from Europe. Every day, he arrived at work a few minutes before 8 AM and left at 5 PM. On the way out, he'd briefly stop at his manager's office to say goodbye.

This went on for a month or two, when E. thought he noticed a change in his manager's behavior at the end of the day. "You are leaving?" seemed to have replaced the various versions of "have a good evening" or "have a good one".

E. started to wonder but kept to his schedule. Then, one morning on the shuttle bus, he got to talk to a co-worker, and when they got off the bus, he knew what was wrong.

The co-worker had talked about going to the bank after the lunch break, about a trip to Circuit City the week before, about an afternoon walk in the park with others from her team. And then proudly stated the long working hours until 7 PM.

E. was relieved and sad at the same time, as he realized that getting all your work done was not enough. Starting the next day, he left at 6:30 PM, and the goodbyes of the manager changed, the "you are leaving" went away.

A few months later, a period of testosterone fueled heroism began when upper management asked the staff to start working on Saturdays, lunch provided, of course, because without Saturday work, the ambitious product release schedule could not be achieved.

As E. arrived on the first of many Saturdays, he could not help but notice how few of his cubicle neighbors showed up. Those who did come in, tended to appear at around 11 and would be gone by 1, and many would not be there at all.

At that time, E. became somewhat concerned about the health of his manager's infant child, as the manager told him about the child being sickly.

The month of March had just begun, and it became obvious that the April 30 release could not be made, but they soldiered on. E. said to his manager with a joking tone: "We'll get it out just in time for Christmas."

Shortly afterwards, management changed the release date to early July and requested the developers to start working Sundays, too.

E. worked a full day on Saturday and half a day on Sunday until they missed the July date, too. On Sundays, he usually was the only one of the thirty strong team at the office.

It was October when E. handed in his resignation. The product was released on 15 December.
When E. met his former manager six months later and inquired about the infant's health, the manager smiled and said: "He is a very healthy little guy, I know, it was a crazy time."

A couple of years later, the local newspaper ran an interview with the company CEO who complained about the ingratitude of the engineering folks who had recently launched a lawsuit over unpaid overtime.

When the K-Landnews team heard the story,  the resident philosopher curtly said: "Reminds me of Bones."

And when asked for clarification: "The nerdy doctor Brennan from the TV show Bones."