• I think you might just straight say “management skills” because that’s bare minimum part of their fucking job to organize a schedule well enough so they don’t have to have people running into overtime to get the job done. That is time management, too, because you’re supposed to know how long it takes each employee to do shit, and you should be fucking organizing based on that.

      I’m so fucking sick of skeleton crews. I’m pushing 50 and the last 25 fucking years has been nothing but skeleton crews where if one person calls out sick everything falls apart. Sorry, that’s inefficient as hell. If one person calling out wrecks everything, then that means you’re doing it fucking wrong and maybe you need one or two more people to help cover the gaps. I’m sure it makes them beaucoup bucks in the short term, but the profits from ruining your relationship with your customer base won’t last. Eventually customers do get sick of being treated like shit. (Corporations are banking on all of them similarly treating you like shit so you won’t have any real options that are better.)

  • For me, it’s very much cyclical: when there is a project going, there are so many people counting on you that pretty much every minute counts, and the cost of mistakes is always high. It’s during these times that time management skill is critical and you need people on the team who’s job is to manage everybody’s time and make sure things gets done, but even with that, the long hours are unavoidable. I don’t think it’s something to brag about, it’s the nature of the job.

    But when there is no project going, it feels like there is really not much to do all day, sometimes even the task of finding things to do is a struggle, so you do whatever you want until the next project starts.

  • I always wondered how bragging about how long you worked was considered by some as a good thing. The “higher ups” must have used some fancy tricks to get people to think that way. It never worked on me though :)

    • I think people believe it is a sign you are striving to excel or that you care about the work you are doing.

      In my case I think I talk about how much overtime I work because I got insecurities about my productivity drilled into me as a child with undiagnosed ADHD. Constantly being told you don’t work hard enough regardless of the effort you put in will give you some weird hangups. I think subconsciously its about needing external validation that the time you put in was adequate, or insecurity around ‘work ethic’

  • What is this anti worker propaganda on .ml? Your fellow worker is brainwashed by the capitalist state and instead of seeking to build solidarity with them you mock them? How about sympathizing with their excessive workload and likely lacking compensation and eventually introducing that a different system would not require that from them?

      • This of course refers mostly to salaried workers, as, at least in the us, hourly gets overtime pay at 1.5x normal pay. Up to an extent, many workers appreciate the extra pay.

        Not always though, as even then, some companies want lower workforce, and will work them half to death.

        • Appreciate you adding that last sentence, but ideally no one would work more even for additional pay. People need time to recuperate and enjoy life and in the current system often just getting by requires overtime pay. I’ve worked in both types of positions, and though I’m glad overtime and holiday pay exist in our current system, often the people working more or over the holidays are the most desperate or marginalized.

          I think the OP sentiment was directed towards salaried workers because I’ve basically never heard hourly workers talk about it in this way or context. I think the reason salaried employees brag about long hours is largely due to the fact that they might not be getting additional compensation so are at least trying to get social capital in exchange for their time.

      • “Not normalizing” comes in many forms and this one seems hostile to fellow workers. Approaching it from a place of empathy is far more likely to help than a place of blame. It’s not the workers fault. It’s a systemic problem and the first step to helping someone realize that is to open their eyes to the fact that they are struggling for no reason other than that the institution demands it, not that they are the problem.