Do Working-From-Home Developers Risk Burning Out? (infoworld.com) 77
"Software developers, like everyone else, have had to transition to a work-from-home world," writes InfoWorld.
For the users of GitHub, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant changes in work cadence and collaboration, along with an increased risk of burnout, a GitHub study of usage patterns on the Microsoft-owned code sharing site has found." In an "Octoverse spotlight" analysis published May 6, 2020, GitHub compared the first three months of 2020 with the first three months of 2019... GitHub said its analysis shows that developers have been resilient to the change wrought by COVID-19, with activity holding consistent or increasing through the crisis.
But their analysis also found:
But their analysis also found:
- Developers are working longer, by "up to an hour per day," seven days a week.
- Slightly more pushes, pull requests, reviewed pull requests, and commented issues.
- More collaboration on open source projects, and less time to merge pull requests into open source projects.
Extra hour per day? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's how much time I spend commuting. Fancy that
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That's how much time I spend commuting. Fancy that
Indeed. Less time commuting leaves more time to get stuff done.
And the "burnout" is pure conjecture. TFA has no evidence that it is actually happening.
I find working to be less stressful than driving in rush hour traffic. So less burnout for me.
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Not to mention that anyone relying on any kind of public transport in their commute HAS to leave the office at a specific time or they just don't get home. Working from home you can put in that extra half hour to finish your current thought process, and I'm willing to bet that the mistakes made from getting tired aren't half as bad as the mistakes made from waiting until after the weekend to finish what you were doing.
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anyone relying on any kind of public transport in their commute HAS to leave the office at a specific time or they just don't get home
That's a bit harsh, isn't it? Plenty of places where connections from place A to place B run every few minutes on average. If you're somewhere in the larger area, perhaps you might need to catch a regional train half an hour later, but certainly you won't "just not get home". Having said that, one can't beat 0 minutes of travel of course.
Re:Extra hour per day? (Score:5, Insightful)
anyone relying on any kind of public transport in their commute HAS to leave the office at a specific time or they just don't get home
That's a bit harsh, isn't it? Plenty of places where connections from place A to place B run every few minutes on average. If you're somewhere in the larger area, perhaps you might need to catch a regional train half an hour later, but certainly you won't "just not get home". Having said that, one can't beat 0 minutes of travel of course.
If you are relying on light rail or bus, then every few minutes, yeah. But if you are relying on regional rail for any of your connections then it's usually something like every 20-40 minutes during peak times, and maybe every 90 minutes off-peak. I actually enjoyed having the hard cutoff when I took the MBTA commuter rail.
I try to follow the same rules when I'm working from home as well.When I am done at 5:30 or 6:00 or whatever, then the laptop gets shutdown. I don't keep anything but my calendar on my phone for meeting reminders, so no email alerts either.
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Tell me about it:
"Developers are working longer, by "up to an hour per day," seven days a week."
An hour a day is half my daily commute, it seems fair to split the difference no? The company gets an hour more, I get an hour more, everyone wins.
"Slightly more pushes, pull requests, reviewed pull requests, and commented issues."
So developers are more effective and efficient at home when they're not having to deal with office distractions and tiresome commute, hence producing better quality output? This is a pr
Re:Extra hour per day? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a problem how exactly?
The PHB is having a difficult time justifying his own existence.
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My PHB is currently actively slowing me down. I've been getting through tasks that he had trouble finishing before he became a manager.
Nothing like proving you're a bad coder and a bad manager.
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The Dilbert Principle [wikipedia.org] in operation.
Re:Extra hour per day? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? Are they paying you that extra hour? Fuck that.
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Yes.
I get paid for getting shit done, not for the time it takes me. It's called a salary.
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>> "Developers are working longer, by "up to an hour per day," seven days a week."
> An hour a day is half my daily commute, it seems fair to split the difference no? The company gets an hour more, I get an hour more, everyone wins.
> "Slightly more pushes, pull requests, reviewed pull requests, and commented issues."
Yep, that's how I see it. I've been mostly working from home for several years. I roughly split the saved commute time between myself and my employer. They benefit from not having m
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60 seconds? Fuck that. Buy a mini fridge and keep it in the office.
Even better, put a bed in the office too, it makes for a much shorter commute in the morning.
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Due to having less commute I feel like spending more time on projects at work and I have more time to spend on my personal or freelance projects. I'm enjoying working from home. Developers at home is a great idea but I doubt this will change much at most companies.
Re:Extra hour per day? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's moronic, like some vignette out of Harrison Bergeron. They pay me a shitload to think, then spend a bunch of money to build an environment where that's impossible, and require that I be in it. Is this Revenge of the Jocks?
I'm not going back. Ever.
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"They pay me a shitload to think, then spend a bunch of money to build an environment where that's impossible, and require that I be in it." - I'm stealing that part. Money and deadlines are the only two things managers and bosses understand.
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In their defense, it's a lot cheaper to build out an open office than individual offices.
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Square footage floor wise, but probably not materials wise.
Cube walls (6' tall) were 900 each. To split one large room into 3 cubes and a common area for a printer and coffee machine, 6 walls were required - not to mention the extra doo dads like the jacket closet, purse drawer, shelving, etc. So 3600 for just the walls. Fairly sure I drywall and some 2x4 studs are cheaper.
I even asked about it - was explained that it was cheaper to re-do in the future for a different configuration. Called BS on that o
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Called BS on that one as well, since complete demo w/ non-loadbearing walls, etc. is trivial and a 3-4 cube room could be done by one or two guys in a day.
You see, there is this thing called insurance. I can tell from your comment that you don't understand how liability insurance affects business operations, but lets just say that your BS call was BS.
Even if your local building codes allow you to build your own interior walls, and your company owns the building, you still can't do it yourself because insurance. The cubes are truly a lot cheaper than the actual options that the business has. And most companies don't own the building, they lease, and they can h
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To be clear, are you saying insurance prevents free-standing cubicles? It sounds like that is what the GP was saying, and what you are arguing against.
Cubes? What cubes? (Score:2)
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Cube walls (6' tall) were 900 each.
I would love to have 6' cube walls again. I hope this pandemic gets businesses to move back to those instead of the shorter walls we have now allowing you to see, hear and infect everyone on the floor.
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I'm not going back. Ever.
We're not burning out. We're burning in.
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We have one of those adult daycare looking offices, one big room with 100 people
About that. There have now been multiple studies of different "open offices" in South Korea like this one [cdc.gov] that have shown them to be great ways of infecting a lot of people quickly with a respiratory virus.
Maybe, just maybe, businesses are going to start rethinking that.
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No commute = less stress? (Score:3)
There's so many other sides to this. You could argue that the extra hour of work a day is effectively what would've been commute time to those that worked at offices more frequently.
You could argue that not having to commute could potentially lead to a far less stressful day.
But clearly, not everyone has the luxury of being able to easily separate a work/home life balance - those without a dedicated work space.
I guess there's the risk that devs will never 'switch off' - and possibly out of the boredom of lockdown, be tempted to put in more work hours?
For me, I've found the isolation initially caused a 'disconnect'. Before lockdown, I would WFH about half the time and going into the office allowed me to connect with my team.
Now we are all WFH, it has taken a lot of adjustment. Some are handling it better than others.
The daily stand-up becomes ever more important - and it does help if everyone has their camera on.
I think the thing I miss the most, is proper whiteboard sessions - there's nothing quite like physical interaction to convey ideas and work out plans.
Virtual whiteboards don't really cut it.
Burnout? I don't know, I think any burnout is going to come from a social aspect more than a work one - when work ends up becoming the highlight of the week, giving you something to do!
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I think the answer in part depends on your personality. For an extrovert, working from home under social isolation conditions would be extremely stressful. But I think most developers tend to be introverts. For an introvert, isolation helps you get into a productive flow state.
The rest is your circumstances. The biggest productivity killer for developers is interruptions. If you have a boss who continually breaks your train of thought, then home is better. If you have a toddler who constantly breaks y
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Why get fully dressed? It's pointless. Just make sure you look "business-appropriate" from the waist up. Just remember to never get up during a video meeting.
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Well, whatever works for you, but keep in mind your brain act rationally. If it did, it'd be easy to lose weight and no problem at all to finish of that novel you have in you.
I compare it to having a really smart dog. You can't *reason* with it, but you can *train* it.
Re: No commute = less stress? (Score:2)
Employers have already started abusing the work/life balance.
You need to keep to a schedule and switch off from work. Just because you donâ(TM)t have to commute doesnâ(TM)t mean you have (Nor should you) to work.
Use that your for yourself unless you are getting paid by the hour vs salary or have a project deadline and are behind.
Donâ(TM)t take work calls outside work hours. And, make sure people know your work schedule.
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I keep a strict schedule. I sign on at starting time. I am out for the lunch hour. And I sign off at quitting time. I may, if I choose, start working earlier, or continue after, but only for my convenience, and I may compensate by being available, but kicking back for awhile during the day.
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But clearly, not everyone has the luxury of being able to easily separate a work/home life balance - those without a dedicated work space.
This is so easily overlooked. When the lockdown came into effect I was unfazed. Sitting in my $500 office chair (I have back problems) with my perfectly setup desk and 2 very large monitors in front of me.
A week later we decided to start having team meetings with the camera on. What we saw was a good 75% of our team either slouching over a kitchen counter on a bar stool, sitting on the couch balancing their laptops, or those with desks still using their laptops in what looked like a really uncomfortable pos
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My preferred working position is reclined and relaxed anyway.
Sat on the sofa with my legs up and the keyboard on my lap? 10 hours with only toilet breaks, no problem, no residual soreness.
Make me sit at a desk? Hurts my knees, causes pain and discomfort. Sod that.
It is FAR better to work from home. (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, I find that I often need to stop and think about some coding problem. I can go do something else in my house while my brain is working on that. At work, doing something else besides working may not be accepted.
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On the "time to think about some problem" I have found that taking my daily shower (hah, daily) during the day during this "thought time" is a great way to break free of the problem. Taking a shower in the morning before going into work is a huge waste of the opportunity to relax for a few minutes before getting back to work.
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Exactly. I did not give times, but yes, see my post above.
I would say absolutely (Score:1)
Re: I would say absolutely (Score:2)
The WFH blurs the distinction between work and What was the *other* thing again?
I would suggest posting to op-ed columns once in a while. At least the ones that are SFW (safe for work)
Ordinarily? Probably not, but right now, yes. (Score:3)
I am working from home these days, and I find that I'm putting in *WAY* more time on my job than I ordinarily do.
But I think that's because everything is closed on account of pandemic concerns, and there's nothing else to do in the city, so there's not really anything else for me to do in the evenings or weekends *except* work.
Re:Ordinarily? Probably not, but right now, yes. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm in the exact same boat. I start work a solid 60-90 minutes earlier because of no commute and "shower sometime this morning when you've got some down time", but end up working through what would have been the evening commute too, because what else is there to do? Not like I'm going to kick off early and head down to the pub.
With a solid 50-75% of "meetings that should have been an email" now email, I get a ton more done during the day. But what I'm finding is that being way more productive plus a lot more hours to do it is starting to burn me out.
I have a pile of vacation to use but the weather is barely getting nice enough to consider sitting on my deck around here, so it's a hard sell to want to waste a vacation day staying inside my house....where I've been for the last 1.5 months. 1/3 of the year gone by and I haven't taken a vacation day yet. Don't think I'll take any in May, but I might start taking every Friday off in June if we're still working from home.
I know I'm burning out a bit, but I'm not really sure how to fix that. Normally it would be take a 3-day weekend or a week off to do something, but neither seem worth it right now. I think I'm going to have to try to reign in my hours, but I'm so damn productive it seems like a waste of an opportunity to clear off the entire backlog and then some wish-list items as well.
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but end up working through what would have been the evening commute too, because what else is there to do? Not like I'm going to kick off early and head down to the pub.
Uuuuuhhhhhhhhhh... maybe use some of the time to consider what is important in life, and maybe get a hobby?
My goodness. There is nothing else to do because you can't go to a pub?! That's what you value?
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When you hit a natural break point in your work, just go for a walk. Half an hour outside will help keep you sane, then you can grab more coffee and get straight back onto the productivity. Or play with the kids, or cuddle the cat, or spend some time making a nice lunch for your partner.
Working from home isn't about start and stop times, it's about pacing. You can build breaks into the day, so take that opportunity. You're already more productive and getting more done so it's entirely ethical, and will help
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because what else is there to do
That's at least part of what's causing your burnout. Find a hobby. You need to be able to focus on something outside of your work.
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I do a lot more quality work, but spend a ton less time on work, so much so, I could even pick up another job and probably wouldn't notice simply because people can't walk into my office, all meetings are scheduled and remote which cuts down on the 'office banter' during/before/after a meeting. Things are a ton more efficient at home, you don't have to acclimate when you start in the morning and when a meeting is over, when work/meeting/break/lunch time is you literally connect/disconnect and appear/disappe
No (Score:5, Interesting)
I work in IT for 25 years and I LOVE it (I start coding when I was 12 years old on a Commodore 64). It's the first time I'm so peaceful about my work. I save 2-3 hours of commuting every day. I save on time and money (gas, car maintenance, ...). I work the same amount of time I did when I was at the office. I can assure you that I'm far away from a burn-out compared to when I was at the office.
Now I have time to cook, learn, work on side projects, take a good breakfast, talk with my childs, ... Now I have time to think about why I need ALL I have now. Why I work like a crazy to keep ALL I have. It's time to sit down, take a breath and think about our "occidental opulent" life style. Also stop to be always "connected".
Two things contribute to burnout (Score:2)
1. Your management is clueless as to how much work something may take, and you aren't in a position to stand up for yourself.
2. You are not good at doing the task and should take some classes, do lots of practice stuff, or find something else.
Re:Two things contribute to burnout (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullshit.
I'm burning out because I used to get about 4 hrs of work done in an 8 hr day, and now I'm getting 15 hrs of work done in a 10 hr day. I'm working more and getting a ridiculously huge amount done.
The problem is that all takes braincells, and I used to give them a lot of rest during the day sitting in stupid meetings. Now with very few meetings I'm doing hard shit with a frequency and intensity I haven't seen since finishing up grad school. I've blown through all my work for the next 2-3 months, and I'm now tackling the backlog of items that we never did because they would take too much time. And those are starting to look like they won't have too many more weeks before I run through them. Then it's "if we could go back in a time machine and build this from scratch, how would we do it?" sort of work.
I'm burning out because I haven't had to think this much for this length of time in at least a decade. I'm using brain cells that thought they were retired.
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I think your best bet is to start drinking at lunch.
Put those supposedly retired brain cells down for the count.
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The problem is that all takes braincells, and I used to give them a lot of rest
Maybe you're "burning out" because your idea of quality free time is only going to the pub. It might be a personal crisis, not a professional crisis.
It depends (Score:1)
It really depends or the developer, their self control, and what their business is like.
I take longer lunches, which cuts down on stress, but my commute used to be one of my favorite parts of my day (I was a pizza delivery driver for 5 years and would have done it the rest of my life if it paid a living wage), so I've still lost more stress reduction than I've gained.
Some of my coworkers can't help but work more because their bored and the boundaries between work and home are blurred, so their chances of bu
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I think I'll try your advice about walking. I read one time of someone who would walkout their front door, walk around the block, and go in their back door to start their day, and they'd do the reverse at the end. Harnessing the power of rituals to change mental contexts.
Re: It depends (Score:2)
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I really love stopping mid-thought. I throw a "// continue here" comment wherever I am and save and close. Then when I come back I can pick back up where I was a lot easier.
Being able to dial in to meetings and tune out is the best thing about WFH. There are far too meetings that could involve 3 people or could've just been an email. I always include Purpose, Agenda, and Output for every meeting I create so anyone invited can tell if they need to be there or not.
Microsoft? (Score:1)
First of all, we have very special take on things MS in our trade. For a complex reason. Do not forget, just.
Nope (Score:2)
Self Employed Contract Programmer (Score:4, Insightful)
My quick take is:
- Working @ home takes real discipline.
1. to work, but if your self employed, don't work, can't pay bills.
2. to break away, my big failure. I work 7 days a week, most weeks of the year.
I made my hobby electronics, into a career computer programming.
But electronics and computers has always been my fishing
As for burn out, 5 years ago I never thought I would retire. If I can get paid to write code from where ever, why not write code since it keeps the mind occupied.
But in the last year or so I have started to think I want to write the code, I want to write. I have some ideas in mind.
So for me @ 64 it is not burn out, maybe for me it is more like redirection.
Just my 2 cents
Without proper self manamagent... (Score:2)
Burning out at home is a real risk, especially with the big shift to work from home the last few months. I was 80% work from home before the pandemic, would go into the office once a week to shake babies and hold hands. After the pandemic hit, my daily meetings jumped up to 6-7 hours every single day. I can't get shit done at this point because I'm in meetings for maintaining communication between different teams. It's bullshit, I hate it and last week I went as far as staging an internet outage at my house
Lots of factors (Score:2)
I've been at this over 20 years. Burnout happens when people don't have any boundaries. Before the virus, there was a massive 11 year economic expansion and a Second Dotcom Bubble that attracted tons of newer younger developers. Tech companies are all too happy to take that enthusiasm and trick them into working non-stop delivering IoT enabled, blockchain backed serverless functions in the cloud.
The dark side of all the good that the DevOps/Agile thing brings is the constant metrics and measuring. If you do
Burnout or maybe not (Score:1)
It shows that free accounts skyrocketed and open source contributions jumped just as much as paid/corporate accounts. It's up across the board. Maybe all of this increase is due to the lack of alternative activities. Whether it will cause burnout or not depends on the motivating factor for the increased coding. Is it because their job is now more demanding, or is it simply because they don't have any other hobbies?
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"Is it because their job is now more demanding, or is it simply because they don't have any other hobbies?"
I think it might be mostly the second one. While there are plenty of well-adjusted IT and dev types, some just have zero boundaries and don't do anything other than work. This is burnout city waiting to happen. Now that there's no distractions (for those with no family and no other activities,) why not just contribute to open source? Some people can keep this up forever, but most will eventually get fe
Working more hours, or more hours of the day? (Score:2)
I'm home, and so is my baby son... my wife is a healthcare worker so she's either at the hospital all day or when able to be home she's having to make patient calls and do televisits.
So I am working over more hours of the day, but overall I am working fewer hours because much of my day is spent taking care of him.
My first emails and checkins start at 6AM when I wake up and have an hour or two, and the last are at 10-11PM after I've been able to spend a few hours working without distraction... I'm bookending
nah (Score:1)
You code monkeys could live in a closet and be happy.
I can take a nap at home (Score:2)
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Balance (Score:2)
What I've noticed is that balance is better.
The pressure of constantly having to produce is off so there can be down times and lazy moments, which are made up for later when we're feeling more into the task. That balance has decreased the stress levels substantially.
Health (Score:2)
Impressing the boss to prove a point? (Score:1)
If I wanted to work from home but had a PHB who insisted that I couldn't be as productive there as in the office, then something like this came along and forced him to let me work from home for a while, I would be tempted to work extra hard at home so that I could show a productivity increase to "prove" that letting the arrangement continue after the crisis was a good idea.