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Comment by bpyne | Hacker News Reader

There are two times of the day to catch software engineers: the start and end of the day. Usually at the start of the day we haven't gotten our minds into "programming mode" yet. By the end of the day, mental fatigue is setting in.

The team I joined - 4 developers and 1 manager - goes for a coffee walk in the morning. The manager waits for us to go through email and other communication that came in overnight. Then we walk to a nearby coffee shop. On the walk, we discuss issues and what we intend to accomplish for the day. It takes about 20 minutes.

Occasionally, we take a walk at the end of the day as well to discuss issues. When the manager calls for an end of day walk he senses our energy is low.

As I get older, I like routines in the morning. They help me get my mind in gear. We go for the coffee walk. When we get back I might read a short technical article. Then it's time to get stuff done.

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> Usually at the start of the day we haven't gotten our minds into "programming mode" yet. By the end of the day, mental fatigue is setting in.

See, to me, neither of those is a great idea. In the morning I'm coming in early before most folks so I can get a few hours of real work done without distraction. In the afternoon I'm mentally fried and ready to do anything other than office work. The best time to get me? Schedule an effing meeting so I can plan my day appropriate, and can make sure I'm apprised of any information I need so I'm not walking uselessly into an ambush. Doesn't have to be a big, formal affair in a conference room.

I think the moral of this whole discussion is that managers manage people, and people are all precious little unique snowflakes with differences. You either create your organization around a certain class of personality with everyone on board and the non-conforming out in the cold, or you create an environment that recognizes people aren't robots and work around those vagaries. Of course this is more a continuum than a binary.

Lazy managers treat everyone the same. Lazy managers also avoid setting some semblance of professional standard, leaving the mob to sort it out.

The idea behind early and/or late walks is to not interrupt developer flow in peak cognitive hours. My current manager is one of few in my career who recognizes the reduction in productivity that comes from interrupting the flow.

Software engineers have largely been nocturnal, favoring later arrival times at work, in my experience. In my team's case, all the developers are late arrivals so our manager simply works with that tendency.

I'm going to sound really entitled saying this, but I hate morning status meetings because they eventually end up being used as a "this is a reasonable time to expect you to be in the office by" kinda measuring stick lol. It ends up leading to unnecessary stress trying to make the damn 'meeting time'.

I know engineers are in demand and we are a high priced commodity but is it unreasonable for a company to expect you to be in office at a certain time? The standup at my current project is at 10:30. And most of us here come around 10.

It's not unreasonable. My team is usually in by 9, 9:30 at the latest. We take 20 minutes to get coffee and discuss issues, what needs to be done, etc. Then we set about completing tasks.

A startup I worked at in the mid-90's had people working in pairs: a server developer and a client developer. They didn't care what hours you kept as long as you didn't hold up the other person in your pair. I arrived around 9:30am daily. The client guy I was paired with came in around 8:30am. I always stayed later so I'd check in code before I left and leave a message for him about the progress. He tested stuff before I arrived and went over any issues when I got in. Then we'd work together the rest of the day. Other engineers came in at 10:30am, noon, and as late as 1pm. They worked it out with their other halves the same way I did.

I think wise managers work with the team, minding company-imposed limitations, rather than enforce personal preferences.

I can completely see it. In the hands of a controlling manager, it can be abused. My manager recognizes that we're usually in the office by 9-9:30 so we walk regularly at 9:30.

Late day meetings are great too if it works better for the team.

In my team's case, we also walk or ride bikes together at lunch. So we can also use that time if necessary, but usually we just keep it casual.

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