More on yesterday's topic...

I replied that I could work as much time as was necessary to get the job done, but if getting the job done required heroic overtime levels all the time, then - frankly - there was something wrong with my manager.

There are certainly organizations where this kind of response to an interview question would not go over very well. Principal among these would be organizations described as "bureaucratic" - as opposed to "barbarian" - in Philippe Kahn's classic 1990 presentation explaining why the Borland way was superior to that of organizations such as Lotus and Microsoft. Bureaucratic organizations quantify everything in terms of metrics and have procedures in place for everything. Short of actually making a profit, the only way to measure productivity is by the all-holy metric.

There was once a period, back when I was a junior engineer, when I worked a lot of overtime to Get The Job Done™. I worked late, sacrificed a lot of weekends with my family, and even sent them off on vacations without me once or twice so that I could demonstrate my Dedication to the Cause™. Oh, brother, was that ever my bad!

Looking back, I recall days (and nights) of having to whip myself into a productive lather, because I was tired and it was too easy to rationalize taking it easy at 2 pm because I was slated to remain at work until 9 pm.

It was near the end of that job that I gradually realized how, over the course of some surprisingly short time, I had managed to get as much accomplished in a normal work week plus 20 hours of overtime that I had previously accomplished in just a normal work week. I wasn't consciously shirking, I was just conserving my energy for the long haul.

But the mythology of productive overtime is a hard one to overcome. It comes fully buttressed not only by the illusion of building one's cred as a loyal and dedicated worker, but also by the mechanism of client billing. By putting in those extra hours, you show proper attitude, pay your dues to bear the title of "crusty veteran," and oh, yeah: the accounting department gets to charge the end client for your time.

I recall once, during a time when there were no pressing issues at hand, being called on the carpet by my boss after a couple of weeks of leaving work a mere half hour after quitting time, three times a week, to attend taekwondo class with Natalie. I was setting a bad example with my lack of dedication, said my boss, and I needed to straighten up and fly right. As I was still under the thrall of obeisance to the corporate work ethic, I quit the class.

And the problem is that the migration outlined in Kahn's talk seems to happen in all organizations. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, it happened at Borland. Our "barbarian" organization, which had been kicking butt in the software industry, suddenly embarked on a course of action that included hiring people from Lotus. Rules suddenly appeared prescribing a dress code for Borlanders at trade show booths, so we could look just like the Microsofties (just in a different uniform). PR people, who had been "embedded" with business units in the aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake (and who were, as a result, extraordinarily responsive and alert when PR calls came in), were suddenly whisked away to a fiefdom of their own, under the benevolent oversight of a corporate PR manager and operating within guidelines that guaranteed PR responses to be forthcoming in near-geological time frames.

Don't get me started. (Yes, I know: too late.)

I need to go cool down.

Cheers...