My technical PM is a workaholic
Posted by NeedTheSpeed@reddit | ExperiencedDevs | View on Reddit | 46 comments
I will begin with some cultural context because I think it's very important here and it's wildly different than a USA.
So I want to start that I am from Poland and we have a term for a extreme working culture "kultura zapierdolu" it's hard to convey it fully 1:1 because swear words in Polish are kinda hard to do a direct translate to English but more or less it's a "fucked up working culture mindset" in which many Poles were raised into. Like the assumption that you have to work very very hard, it's very promiment in many industries in Poland but I think in IT it started to die out because of working with a collegaues from Western Europe when they have more chilly approach to work.
Thanks to this environment I have learned more chilly approach as I said because there were some people from the UK, Netherlands and Nordic countries so they kinda learned me that the work is not the main in a ones live.
My PM is not a Polish person though, he is an immigrant and we work in a multinational environment, he started in similar time few years ago when i was starting as a junior. He is also Eastern European and I think in most post-soviet countries this mindset that I have mentioned at the beginning is quite prominent.
He never pushed me to work over hours, he gives me a reasonable amount of work, he never denies it when I want a vacation time and I think that he is very knowledgeable and very helpful person that learned me a lot in that time.
In general I mostly considered his approach unharmful because I thought that working many overhours, making prs late in a day (like 8-10pm), almost never going on vacation and when he does he shows up on teams or even in a office sometimes. I considered it unharmful cus I thought it's just his choice.
Recently I went to the office in which I am rarely am since I live far away and most of my colleagues were making a little bit of fun at him. As I said - I am from Poland, we know this mindset, we were raised in it but even for my polish collegaues it seemed a little extreme and I can't even imagine what the collegaues from the UK, Netherlands and Nordics are thinking.
It just make made me think, is it really unharmful? Certainly not for him probably but I see it as a way of cope for him but I just wondered that it really can create unpleasent situations in a team even if he never pushes his work ethic on anyone through authority. I feel like people are a little bit mean or jokingly mean cus I suppose in a corporate comparisons it makes them look bad, especially when upper management is from USA which has much different work ethic compared to the rest of Europe.
I wanted to ask how would you view it? As I said I was never pushed to anything over my working capabilities, I am a genz and I work 40hours per week on average, and slightly longer if a situation requires it (but then I reclaim it). It just strucked me that there may be a lot of hidden resentment across the rest of my colleagues even though I personally don't feel it.
Stock_Blackberry6081@reddit
It is harmful. Overwork is like a disease. If one person gets away with it, the disease spreads to others.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
No it doesn’t. Read the OP again. This person is careful to respect boundaries:
MountaintopCoder@reddit
That really doesn't matter in my experience. OP's team is right to push back on this behavior. People will follow suit for any number of reasons, then the team culture shifts. It's not good for the TPM, and it's not good for the team.
Fantastic-Card-3891@reddit
Those boundaries are irrelevant. Humans are social animals, we are also a very competitive species, hence overwork is literally contagious.
nooneinparticular246@reddit
Yeah not an emergency but the PM’s manager should be talking to them / marking them down for working out of hours or not managing their workload. No point in letting someone burn themselves out and need replacing.
SoulSkrix@reddit
There are people like that everywhere. I worked with one such person in Norway who would have over 180 hours of flexitime accrued at the end of the year, and that isn’t because his company ignored him and let him do it. He was forced into vacation more than once but kept coming right back.
Yet he is the most nice, knowledgable person in this industry I have ever met and likely ever will meet.
Let them do their thing, and don’t give in to workplace drama; bored people and worried people do that.
most_crispy_owl@reddit
Is the work resulting in more money and progression for him? People in the UK won't work that hard as it's often not believed you'll be rewarded (often true)
Cool_As_Your_Dad@reddit
Then it is a "his" problem. I worked with clients/people like that... they can work 100 hours per week out of free will, that is their choice. As long as they don't expect me to do the same.. we all good.
birdparty44@reddit
this. Some people are workaholics. It masks personal issues they are avoiding.
If they don’t demand the same from you, nothing to worry about.
ScriptingInJava@reddit
This was exactly me for years. I was avoiding a heap of personal issues and worked a minimum of 80 hours a week as a Technical Lead, but if someone in my department came online on a Saturday I'd bollock them. Absolutely no reason to be online now, get a hobby, have a wank, do literally anything else. You're not alloweded to work after hours (but I was for some reason?).
Fortunately I've dealt with said issues and still bollock people now for working after hours/weekends except when it's signed off as Time Off in Lieu for a very good reason.
WLB is so incredibly important long-term, it's one of the reasons we sign people out of their Microsoft accounts when they're unwell to force them to get rested and come back when they're recovered, not just "well enough to stare at a laptop feeling a little less shit".
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
Exactly. I think the OP might feel threatened or dislike the feeling of someone showing them up in the office.
You have to get over it, though. If the person isn’t pushing other people to work as hard then leave them be.
NeedTheSpeed@reddit (OP)
No, sorry, this is another comment from you which you misunderstood my intentions and my feelings about , try reading original post more carefully.
Proximyst@reddit
I wouldn't advise doing anything about him working too much. It's his life and his decision to do so. But I would stand up for him; even if you and your colleagues disagree or (in their case) even look down upon the behaviour, nobody deserves to be ridiculed in the workplace. You have the opportunity to be a good coworker & friend here, take it.
It might also be a good idea career-wise. Considering he's also the one to approve your vacations, I assume he's in the loop about promotions. This (standing up for others) is the type of values I would underline as a pro in a package...
Fantastic-Card-3891@reddit
It’s certainly harmful to them, burnout is real and has severe physical health consequences, and whilst nobody will consciously take that person as inspiration, humans are social animals. One person working too hard to the detriment of their health is likely to make others at least feel guilty about not working as hard, or actually try and match him. Long-term there’s a short, quick productivity boost, which is immediately followed by a pretty much guaranteed overall loss of productivity for the entire team, as people start pushing themselves harder to meet an impossible standard.
As for how to handle that — unless you get along with them on very good terms, don’t bother. Such people are unlikely to listen.
new2bay@reddit
It’s not just harmful to the workaholic person themselves, it’s harmful to the team. People see others people killing themselves working that many hours, and they think it’s an expectation, or that working twice as many hours as anyone else is the way to get ahead. Not to mention, working much past 35-40 hours a week, for knowledge workers, has huge diminishing returns. I literally don’t believe people when they say they’re “working” 100 hours a week on a regular basis, because no human can be “on,” working at a reasonably high level, for that long. At 100 hours a week, there is literally no time to do anything else but work, eat, and sleep; and the latter two get shortchanged, if you assume “working” 100 hours a week is actually happening.
Fantastic-Card-3891@reddit
Entirely agreed (if it wasn’t clear from my comment).
And, as a European — I’d say even 40 is pushing it in most cases, at least in our industry. I do my best work with ~25…33 hours. The harder I work - the worse work I do - the more bugs I create - the greater time I spend fixing my own fuckups.
TrickyTrackets@reddit
I think your comment was very clear, people need to read better.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
Unpopular opinion: Working long hours for the sake of working a lot of hours is dumb, but working extra hard in a genuinely productive way (not just being the office) is actually a way to get ahead.
This is also why it makes so many people so uncomfortable: When someone is truly working harder than you and producing more (again, not just work long hours but actually working harder) they are more likely to be noticed and rewarded.
People don’t like competition in the office, and this triggers that dislike very directly.
Unfortunately it’s just a fact of life that some people will work harder than you. Despising them for it or trying to bring them down is toxic. Focus on your own work and do your job within the bounds of how hard you want to work. Let other people do what they want to do. This technical PM is respecting those boundaries and everyone else should too. It goes both ways:
Fantastic-Card-3891@reddit
It might be a way to get ahead, but it is almost never sustainable. If you regard work as a competition, then maybe, but in the end — what do you win from that competition?
You are giving your health away for a company to do marginally better — for what? For yourself to be recognised as, what?
Are you seriously thinking that anyone will think particularly highly of you?
Your family, if you have one, won’t. They’ll be mad at you for not being there. And not spending enough time with loved ones is an exceedingly common regret for people.
I’m saying this as someone who’s climbed their way to the “top” really quickly, and then realised it’s not even close to worth it and gone back to being an IC.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
This is the problem with discussing hard work on Reddit: People layer assumption after assumption on to the situation.
Working hard for short periods in my career has paid off very highly. I’d be lying if I told everyone that there is never any benefit to working hard.
Working hard for a specific purposes doesn’t necessarily require destroying your health or abandoning your kids (which everyone is suddenly assumed to have whenever this topic comes up).
Like I said, I know it was going to be an unpopular opinion on Reddit where any talk of hard work triggers a lot of reactionary anger. However, it’s illogical to suggest that hard work never pays off. It’s not guaranteed to net you a promotion or raise or career advancement, but it’s getting ridiculous to read these suggestions that imply that any amount of hard work is going to destroy your health, your relationships, and produce zero benefit.
Fantastic-Card-3891@reddit
By hard work, people do generally mean sustained hard work, not short spurts every now and then. That may be briefly hard, but it’s not a lifestyle — and the overall discussion here is that of a specific situation that involves that sort of lifestyle.
Well, the reason your comment got such a response from me was because that nuance would be out of context in this discussion.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
No, that’s just another layer of assumptions being projected on to what I said to make it easier to argue against.
Doing hard work for periods of time throughout a career doesn’t mean you’re grinding out 80 hours weeks for decades. People can adjust up or down to jobs, demands, and lifestyles (having kids, getting older, etc)
Specific_Body8930@reddit
If you're working hard for one week and chilling for another week it balances out and you are working normally on that two week average
Fantastic-Card-3891@reddit
Are you arguing for the sake of arguing? Or are you a troll paid to push a political agenda? Or simply a clueless American?
The nuance you describe is not contextually relevant in this particular discussion, and this comment concludes my interaction with you.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
This is just “Everyone who disagrees with me is a paid shill”
new2bay@reddit
Not only is it not sustainable physically and mentally, once you start getting ahead by overworking, it starts to become an expectation.
Alkyen@reddit
To me it sounds like your colleagues are the ones that have a problem, not him. Asshole behavior to talk like that.
As for him - it's his own choice, people have different reasons for doing stuff. Unless he shows other signs that may lead you to believe he's not well there's no need to be any more concerned than if he was gaming or watching tv shows instead.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
This person works hard, does their job well, and is careful to not push high expectations on to anyone else.
Let them do their thing. You continue to do your thing. You don’t need to moderate other people’s work ethic.
Are you perhaps feeling threatened by having a hard worker on your team, either directly or indirectly? Some people become uncomfortable when the people around them are hard workers or high achievers because they feel it diminishes their own work in comparison. I don’t think you have to worry about that in this case especially because your coworker is a PM and you are not competing with them in the workplace.
NeedTheSpeed@reddit (OP)
No, as I said, he teached me a lot and I was not threatened by it anytime I worked here. It just came to my mind after hearing comments from other colleagues.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
What comes to your mind? What comments? This is too vague to decipher.
NeedTheSpeed@reddit (OP)
I have written about it in a original post, no need to downvote a comment lol.
To make it more clear, they were making kinda mean jokes about him coming to work on his day off and it make me think about it that other people see it more negatively.
Is it clear to you now?
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
You are concerned because some coworkers made some mean comments about someone working hard?
I don’t understand what you think is the problem. Let your technical PM work the way they want to work. Ignore your mean coworkers making snide remarks at others expense. Don’t join in when people become gossipy or mean at work.
Focus on your own work and be respectful of others.
I honestly don’t see where the concern is in this situation, except maybe for the coworkers making mean comments.
NeedTheSpeed@reddit (OP)
Not sure why are you pushing a narrative that I have some sort of a problem. Personally I don't, I just wanted to spark a discussion how other people view it and feel around a people like that in a team, out of curiosity, doesn't have anything to do with problems resolvance, ultimately he is a grown up person and he is making his choices.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
You are the one who came here to ask the question about this person.
NeedTheSpeed@reddit (OP)
I am sorry, but have you ever dealt with open questions? Yes - it raised this question in my head and also yes I think it's mostly his business in this case but I also think that I may be wrong here, that actually resentment from my other colleagues didn't appear out of thin air and I wanted to learn other perspectives.
Its crazy that I have to explain it because I thought learning other perspectives is encouraged.
Point taken, I know your stance cus you are pretty active here and you don't need to die on this hill. As you can see others disagree with this approach so we came out to something valuable.
TangerineSorry8463@reddit
Za dlugie nie czytam. Jaki jest twoj problem w dwudziestu lub mniej slowach?
NeedTheSpeed@reddit (OP)
Krawędziowe, dont cut on that edge
TangerineSorry8463@reddit
A na powaznie. Typ pracuje po swojemu, was nie zmusza, moze tak sie odnajduje w zyciu. Problem gdzie?
NeedTheSpeed@reddit (OP)
Czemu zakładasz, że to jakiś problem? Pytam z ciekawości jak inni się czują wokół takich osób, bo ja osobiście problemu nie mam, ale jak widać część osób jest jakoś tym poruszona skoro potrafi wygłaszać różne komentarze tego typu na głos. Chce poznać percepcję tyle.
djerro6635381@reddit
Why is one good and the other bad? If he doesn’t impose this expectation on you, then all is good, no? You can’t decide how others work as he doesn’t decide for you how you should work. Maybe this person has ambitions and this is their way to work towards that ambition. Maybe their spouse is horrible and he is actively escaping private live. Maybe they just love what they do.
If you feel they are doing something that makes them look better than you, you have the free will to amend your behavior. If you don’t want that, don’t take that out on your colleague. Especially if they are not doing anything at your expense.
NeedTheSpeed@reddit (OP)
No, as I said. I have nothing against, never personally felt pressured or anything like it. It just strucked me when I went into the office physically that I've heard a comments about it so I can imagine it's not the same for the rest of the people.
PragmaticBoredom@reddit
Your original post was asking about the technical PM working hard, but all of your comments are deflecting everything to these coworkers making comments about it.
Is your real concern that coworkers are making comments? Honestly it sounds like you just need to ignore and stay away from the coworkers who feel the need to deride someone for working hard.
djerro6635381@reddit
Yeah that just seems weird. Sure you can joke in a positive way, but negatively joking about somebody on work (in any way) is just bad.
Ok-Reflection-9505@reddit
I like working with polish/eastern european devs because they usually pull their weight.
It’s a crapshoot with other offshore devs — some are good, a lot try to get away with doing the bare minimum.
NeedTheSpeed@reddit (OP)
As I said, it's embedded within our mindset because of a history and culture and a belief that we need to catch-up western people after half of a century of a Soviet occupation. it's not the healthiest one, even though I learned chilly aspect of working from Western colleagues I still have a memory of it and sometimes I sink into it.
Definitely great from demanding employers perspective but I don't think its serving us well as a nation but that's a topic for a loooong discussion.
ohmomdieu@reddit
He is a workaholic and it’s not explicitly enforced by your company from what I got, then it’s his choice. As long as you are not being imposed a similar behavior by anyone, it should be fine.
If still you feel guilty about not working as much as this person, don’t. There will always be workaholics for whatever reasons, and you can’t control their reasoning for doing so. They may get burnt out eventually but that is their problem.
You could ignore their workaholism as long as it doesn’t affect you directly. Unless you have power to influence them but it looks like you don’t, so don’t make this your own problem.