How to run yourself into the ground in tech

In a few weeks things are going to calm down, we just need to finish *this* project

There is a lot to do. You work on a system, and it has some quality problems, and needs some new features, and has some technical debt, and there are parts of it that aren’t documented, and the knowledge of the system on the staff is uneven.¹

You gotta get creative to get ahead. But you aren’t creative, everybody from your high school art teacher up to your current manager are aware of this and tell you frequently. So there is just one option: work harder.

Working harder means different things to different people. For some it means just trying harder. Being more aware, more focused. Wanting it more. Not taking no for an answer. For others it means treating things more seriously. Making sure the details are all handled. Working smarter has a role here, but you have to be working to work smarter. And guess what you do after working smarter? Pickup more work and work harder on that.

If you take an average of all of these approaches, working harder means sitting in your chair for longer. Working longer hours.

Get Ahead

If you can get three cards done normally (or 9 points), then if you can manage to get four done each week instead then you will eventually catchup and then get ahead. It is just simple math, after all. You just need to run faster. The target is not moving. There is no way in hell that work that you get done will generate more work, or that other work will come in while you are sprinting. You just need to look at the goal line (zero cards, zero bugs, no new features, your retirement, the heat death of the universe) and run as fast as you can towards it.

At first this just means working a little after 5:30, your normal quitting time. Or logging on at night after the kids have gone to bed or after your nightly Call of Duty session gets boring², or whatever other hobbies you might have. Then it turns into doing this on Sunday night as well, so that you can Get Ahead or Start the Week off Right. Then it turns into using the company’s odd PTO policy as an excuse and working an entire year without taking any real vacation. It means installing Microsoft Teams and Zoom and Skype and Whats App on your phone, so that you can keep in touch with things, even with the team members on the other side of world. Your greatest ability is your availability.³

But there are always times when you can’t be online. These times are stressful and feel like you have stopped running and that the goaline is still moving. When you return from PTO, forced by your company, spouse, or parole officer to take some, and you find out a terrifying truth: The World Continues to Spin Without You. Cards are created, pointed, tested, finished, and ship without you being involved. There are others running. But how can you reach the finish line if they are also running? You spend the next week working every night “catching up” and getting back into the middle of everything so you feel ahead of them again. It isn’t a competition, your metaphor is breaking down faster than your liver, this feels upsetting.

But what is a better metaphor? What exactly is a term for something that you work really hard at but never finish? Is your team fighting a battle? No, those are won and then end pretty much. Is your team occupying enemy territory?⁴ There must be a better metaphor somewhere.

Nah, probably not. Time to make some more coffee and sit down to work. It is almost 10PM, if you start now you can get a good session in before your 1AM bedtime.

1. This describes every system in use that is not in space, and maybe those as well.

2. There are only so many times a grown-up can lose at something to a teenager within a 24 hour period. We must all find this value and not go over it lest we start talking about how this generation doesn’t know the value of hard work and only plays video games.

3. I am not wasting my time finding the source for this quote, but I bet $100 it was not created for technical on-call rotations.

4. You have been playing Call of Duty during your PTO, you need to install other games.