Every so often, I'm tempted to put in extra hours at work beyond the 40 that are expected of me. Today is one of those times. We are over 6 months into a project that has been delayed numerous times. Because of being on-call this week, I didn't get my scheduled project work done which means I'm going to have to report to my product lead that we need to push the timeline back again by another week. My first inclination is to spend a few hours this weekend trying to catch up so we can stay on schedule.
There are a lot of benefits to this approach: it feels good to be on time, it feels good to report that I'm getting my work done by our deadlines, it does not feel good to report that I'm behind on getting my work done, working on the weekends is kind of nice because there aren't as many interruptions, etc.
Today, I'm checking this desire. Instead, I will report to my team that I'm not going to get my work done this week. We need to push the timeline again. Why am I going to do this? There are a few reasons that override the ones above for me:
1) I have other things I want to do this weekend, things for myself. I have people I want to spend time with. I have my own projects that I want to spend time on.
2) Working on the weekend (or outside of normal hours) disguises issues in our company. The fact that we are going to push our schedule again does not fall fully on me to remedy. It is not my fault alone. If I take on the burden of "fixing" the issue on my own, I'm preventing the system from feeling the pain of it existing. If the system does not feel the pain, it will not change. If the system (the way our company runs) does not change, then I'm going to continue to feel pressure to work more, as will other people on my team.
These are the types of little decisions that shape the culture of a company. I don't want to work at a company where I am pressured to work more. I want to work at one that is efficient in using the normal amount of hours that I give to it. 40 hours in a week is a lot of time to get a lot of things done. It is enough time. The problem is not the amount of time. So me giving more time is not going to fix anything except preventing me some momentary discomfort.
To be clear, no one at my company is pressuring me to work the weekends. I'm feeling this pressure internally because of the way our current project is going. No one is asking me to work on the weekend, but I see the look of frustration on people's faces every time we push a deadline. I often take on burdens that are not mine because I want to help, because I want to feel like things are working when they aren't. I'm writing this up for myself, so I can remember why I'm choosing to not do that this time.
There are a lot of benefits to this approach: it feels good to be on time, it feels good to report that I'm getting my work done by our deadlines, it does not feel good to report that I'm behind on getting my work done, working on the weekends is kind of nice because there aren't as many interruptions, etc.
Today, I'm checking this desire. Instead, I will report to my team that I'm not going to get my work done this week. We need to push the timeline again. Why am I going to do this? There are a few reasons that override the ones above for me:
1) I have other things I want to do this weekend, things for myself. I have people I want to spend time with. I have my own projects that I want to spend time on.
2) Working on the weekend (or outside of normal hours) disguises issues in our company. The fact that we are going to push our schedule again does not fall fully on me to remedy. It is not my fault alone. If I take on the burden of "fixing" the issue on my own, I'm preventing the system from feeling the pain of it existing. If the system does not feel the pain, it will not change. If the system (the way our company runs) does not change, then I'm going to continue to feel pressure to work more, as will other people on my team.
These are the types of little decisions that shape the culture of a company. I don't want to work at a company where I am pressured to work more. I want to work at one that is efficient in using the normal amount of hours that I give to it. 40 hours in a week is a lot of time to get a lot of things done. It is enough time. The problem is not the amount of time. So me giving more time is not going to fix anything except preventing me some momentary discomfort.
To be clear, no one at my company is pressuring me to work the weekends. I'm feeling this pressure internally because of the way our current project is going. No one is asking me to work on the weekend, but I see the look of frustration on people's faces every time we push a deadline. I often take on burdens that are not mine because I want to help, because I want to feel like things are working when they aren't. I'm writing this up for myself, so I can remember why I'm choosing to not do that this time.