[TRENCHES] Thursday, May 30, 2013 - Medibles
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Medibles
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/medibles
Rising Tension
AnonymousAs a developer I always valued the QA team and tried to show them my appreciation whenever our working days overlapped. I would stay late into the evening writing code, sorting out my strings, leaving in a daze. The next morning the Testers would come in at the crack of dawn and begin filing reports for all the bugs caused by my aforementioned dazed coding the night before.
I would then swan into work around 9.30-10.00am, yawning, and immediately head over to the testers. Every morning I would bring in a small box of doughnuts for them; I was in QA once myself and I wanted them to know that I appreciated their help.
As the project dragged on, our build started to collapse under its own weight. I began having to stay behind longer and longer, looking through an endless stream of bug reports and coding well into the night. Morning after morning I began to arrive at work looking more dishevelled, my mood growing foul whenever I saw the big stack of bug reports I had to work through. The doughnuts dried up, and the QA team began giving me weird looks if I ever passed them in the parking lot or in a corridor.
One night I was the last one left in the office (despite people working almost 24 hours at this point, the other people still around where elsewhere in the building). A tester had filed a bug report about a certain weapon reload sound not syncing up properly.
Attempting to rectify the issue was a nightmare, and I spontaneously grabbed a headset and let forth a blood-curdling “AAARRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”. When it’s 1am and you’re furious, you’re willing to take it out on anyone, and in my sleep-deprived state I blamed the QA team. I changed the code so that my scream would play instead of the weapon reload sound.
The next morning I skulked into work. I couldn’t even remember what I’d done the night before, I could barely think, getting from my house to my desk had become its own boring mindless routine. I could sense a different atmosphere as I entered the building though. People kept their distance as I walked to my cubicle. As I sat down the Project Lead came over to me, wanting to discuss a ‘private matter’.
The poor testers had rallied together and demanded that I be given a week of paid vacation. Always respect the soldiers in the trenches; they certainly saved me.
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Top three, at absolute least.
That's not suit-think. That's "wanna be a suit but too stupid" think.
Agreed. Doubling one guy's hours does not get you results comparable to just hiring two guys.
Hell, doubling one guy's hours doesn't even get you results comparable to leaving that guy's hours the same.
your = belonging to you
their = belonging to them
there = not here
they're = they are
And thus Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon was first conceived.
Agreed I have an organizational management book from my MBA, that agrees with this, and after 78 hours you start risking negative productivity. Really going over 55 hours a week is where roi starts to diminish greatly. However most people can be worked 52 hours a week every week no problem. At the end of the day they'll be at 70 percent, but it can drag doing 50 hours a week.
That there was even some kind of study to find these limits is why I hate modern civilization.
96 hour work weeks (16 hours a day for 6 days a week) was the norm about 100 years ago.
72 hour work weeks (12 hours a day for 6 days a week) is the norm in the Philippines (and many other developing nations) right this minute.
Modern civilization is at least a small improvement.