31 March 2015

So yesterday (30 March 2015) I go to a large insurance company for an interview. Some high-level technical questions arise. I could tell that the interviewer is buring to get to something. Then he mentions that he has had to put in 300 hour months and whether I would decline a project on that basis.

Well.

Let me think.

So we have seen countless examples of why working overtime does not help. For those still wondering about this simply search for “overtime counterproductive”.

In South Africa it is rather difficult to get hold of decent developers. So instead of employing a productive developer to work “normal” time and actually add value it seems to be better to employ anyone willing to work 300 hour months.

This was one of the shorter interviews in my career.

I really do not get this obsession with overtime. If working odd hours is part of your job that’s something different.

I was not interested in the job as it would leave me with very little liberty.