[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by BryanBusby

This works both ways and I think you aren't quite on the same page with me here. There's a difference between working 80+ hours a week slamming your head against the wall for your employer and working your 40 hours and taking some of your own time to learn things that interest you and invest in your own continuing education.

That's different from someone who works the 40 and goes home to play video games all weekend or watch public access TV. I do not put in a minute over 40 hours on the actual job, but I do spend time advancing my own ability. At the same time, I'm not going to pretend I know it all because it's just imposters syndrome.

Makes sense, and there are definitely areas where you can get sucked into very company-specific tech, so it's important to keep broader/industry-wide skills up to date.

Originally Posted by BryanBusby

With that said, you have to look at it from the employers prospective. Why the **** should we hire another person so Bearcat can have a reasonable life when he's already doing the work of two people? We're saving money. On the same token, why should we pay Bearcat more when they're already doing all this shit at salary X?

My devil's advocate to those questions...
- I've never seen a company actually hire anyone to specifically relieve someone of extra hours, and I'm not sure it would ever happen if those extra hours are seasonal or something like go live support, where people are working a ton more for a relatively short amount of time before going back to a much more reasonable workload.
I've worked for companies in growth spurts for sure, hiring people left and right, and while it is in the end the company's fault.... the reality is help (probably) isn't coming, and....

- The flip side of the 2nd question is -- we already have x number of people working a ton of hours, why should we give Bearcat a raise before he starts doing the same? We could just find someone else who will work 60 hours/week.
As I mentioned before, the extra hours are no guarantee of raises, just that it's the best bet in the IT world, from my experience.

And I've had it both ways... I was at one company and received a couple of ~2-3% raises over two years, and probably averaged 50-60 hours/week. So, I left, and the next company and managers there really saw the value in the extra hours, taking on more projects, mentoring, etc; and I really saw the benefits from it.

That just goes back to having those conversations with management on what you're looking for....
- What's my salary ceiling right now? How do I get there, or advance to the next level?
- I want to be making x% more a few years from now, is that possible? How so?
- I'm looking at this kind of salary trajectory, what does that take?
- I want highly visible projects, or to move to this area, how can I prove myself?

In my experience, a lot of people don't drive their own career growth or salary growth in this way, and make assumptions on whether their extra work/effort will pay off... and as I said before, set the expectation and have those discussions, and if they don't work out, either find something else or reset your own expectations (such as working less hours).

There are of course still managers who aren't transparent and still companies that get away with abusing employees.... yet, employees have more leverage these days than ever before. Specific to IT, employers know you can simply find a new job every couple years and get decent bumps on salary. The managers and companies that figure this out will do what it takes to retain their best and hardest working talent.

Originally Posted by BryanBusby

If you really need to work 80 hours a week to get anything more well I'm truly sorry.

Nah, just under 60 hours/week during the craziest years. Granted, that's still several 70-80 hour work weeks, shit has to be completely out of control for me to kick it into that gear.