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Comment by BatteryMountain | Hacker News Reader

What happens if you have a peer that clocks 14 hours per day and work weekends too, for some reason? At our place they started comparing everyone to him. I work like at half his total speed. He often break things or have to redo things or are late to standup and don't really partake in conversations. We've all asked him to slow down and not burn out but he keeps going.

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Speaking as a manager, I’d flag this dev as a concern. Very few people can work at this rate without one (or more) of three scenarios playing out:

1. They burn out and clock out mentally or leave altogether

2. They develop psychological issues and destroy their personal life, leading to an unbalanced and unsustainable situation

3. They expect something from the org in return, which normally the org can’t/won’t match (either in the way of product ownership or compensation or role).

Someone like that needs to be constrained. Keep them on the edge and eager to contribute but don’t let them free reign. If the situation and culture allow, try help out to fill the void in their personal life (I ordered one of our guys to leave early twice a week to spend time with his girlfriend because I knew his dedication to work is destroying his relationship. I sent couple of others to weekends in hotels with their SO after long sprints).

Often times people who work a lot are avoiding serious problems at home/family too, so even ordering someone to go home might be ordering them to go back to an abusive partner or something. I know more than one person who used “oh, my job takes so much of my time!” As a socially acceptable reason to avoid interacting with abusive people in their life.

> I sent couple of others to weekends in hotels with their SO after long sprints

It’s a bit odd you’re setting your employees up to maintain their sex lives but I’m sure they appreciate the forced time off after stressful times

He's been going like this for two years.

management should make it clear that working off hours or overtime shouldn’t be done

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