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Isn't the bike a preferred method of transport in your neck o' the wood...
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Yes, for many 
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It depends on the situation. Some overtime is expected at most companies, especially when a release to production happens. But I know of places where the developers were working overtime all the time and then you get burnt out. As for the parking, it also depends, maybe his current job is in an area that isn't safe, so then safe parking is a perk to have.
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bit OT but what exactly is overtime/extra hours in dev?
one reason I went solo is "office hours" were wasted on meetings (blaming and passing the buck) and replying to executive idiots in person or by email why they were idiots.
... It was only after the "office hour" idiots went home I could actually get work done.
for that reason even though working late I'd still stay up even longer getting own stuff (and show watching) out, arriving at work next day still tired didn't matter: the hours of [snoozing in] meetings and politics didn't take much energy - just way too much time; by the time I could get to work I'd back in the fully alert zone.
pestilence [ pes-tl-uh ns ] noun
1. a deadly or virulent epidemic disease. especially bubonic plague.
2. something that is considered harmful, destructive, or evil.
Synonyms: pest, plague, CCP
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Two very good reasons in my opinion.
Extra hours? Not unless it's reciprocated with extra pay or extra time off. If the work is interesting, they'll often get some extra hours for free anyway. But it shouldn't be expected.
Parking? What kind of idiots locate their office where parking is expensive or unavailable? If the execs take the bus, maybe the topic is open for discussion. Otherwise, pass.
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Greg Utas wrote: What kind of idiots locate their office where parking is expensive or unavailable?
Every company that locates in a city where potential employees are abundant? 
A friend of mine worked for a company with six parking lots for 200 people, of which two were reserved for the bosses and two for visitors 
People either took their bike, public transport (which stopped in front of the office) or parked their car outside the city and took the subway.
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Most cities have office space outside the core. Unless there's a good reason to be located there (a law firm that needs to be close to a courthouse, say), paying for downtown office space is frivolous.
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The center in Rotterdam has quite a few businesses and they are there because it is reachable.
If you're from the city, you can take public transport and always end up in the center relatively cheap and fast, at least cheaper and faster than taking a car.
Of course you could always take a bike and be there in 10 to 40 minutes, depending on where in Rotterdam you live, or even faster with an electric bike.
If you're from another city, like Amsterdam, Utrecht or The Hague, you also don't want to go to Rotterdam by car because you'll be hopelessly stuck in traffic and you'll still have to drive through your own city.
Many people who live in cities don't even own a car because parking can be expensive.
Public transport, on the other hand, goes straight to Rotterdam central.
I'm taking Rotterdam as an example, but the same applies to Amsterdam, Utrecht and The Hague.
If you're from any of the other cities in Randstad (the area that's roughly between those four cities) you might seriously want to consider taking public transport as well unless you don't mind being in traffic for over an hour.
I live just outside the Randstad area and my only option is to take the bus, which would take me an hour to get to Rotterdam.
It's doable for Rotterdam, but not so much if I have to go to any of the other cities.
That said, it's been years since I've taken the bus.
I only use public transport when I'm already in a city.
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Where I am working at is located in a downtown and the company employs 25,00K people. There's not parking for everyone, and the company hasn't built enough lots or parking garages to handle everyone.
Only employees above a certain grade get assigned parking; below that they get a tag let's them park in the associate tag's lot.
Before becoming an employee I was a contractor. Contractors did not even get a tag. Often had to drive around for 1/2 hour to find parking.
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>What kind of idiots locate their office where parking is expensive or unavailable?
In the Seattle area: Microsoft, Amazon, GoDaddy, etc. Everyone continues to build new office space in already crowded, high rent areas. Nearby real estate prices are ridiculous and commuting to those locations requires an excessive amount of time. Double that time if you want to use mass transit.
Why don't they put satellite offices in the less crowded, lower rent, nearby cities that would LOVE to have them? I guess the AI hasn't pointed that out...
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In my world....
A professional has tasks and deadlines. They need to either get it done on time or get an extension. I think this is called productivity. The more productive you are, the more salary increase you get.
As for parking... we have a Be Active incentive which covers a portion of our health care premiums. I meet the requirements for this by walking to and from my parking spot (1 km round trip)
Director of Transmogrification Services
Shinobi of Query Language
Master of Yoda Conditional
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MadMyche wrote: The more productive you are, the more salary increase you get.
How do you measure productivity?
Lines of code? Bugs solved? Meetings attended?
I had a coworker who produced lots of lines of code... In a single function that only he understood and broke in production!
Most "productive" guy on the team, except I wouldn't hire him if he paid me for it (unless he paid me so much that I didn't have to work anymore) 
It's hard to measure productivity for a programmer!
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Productivity is a measure that management makes up as they go along; and it is a comparison of how much you got done compared to what they think you should get done
Director of Transmogrification Services
Shinobi of Query Language
Master of Yoda Conditional
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Quote: It's hard to measure productivity for a programmer
Which is why, as a freelancer, I prefer to work for small clients with no other IT input (or at least on small projects with no other IT input). "Productivity" is then a doddle for the client to quantify - it's how much they save (or generate) as a result of what I do for them, divided by their cost of hiring me. Or in another measure, how many days it takes to recover that cost. When there's a team involved, the client can get an overall figure for the team, but not the individuals in that team.
Quote: Some overtime is expected at most companies, especially when a release to production happens
That's probably the worst time to be expecting overtime. That's when some of the most critical decisions are made (i.e. where a single bad decision can have the biggest negative impact) and you don't want your workers tired, stressed or resentful at that time. Manage your project and put in the overtime as soon as any slippage - including eating into any contingency - occurs.
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I am on a team of Senior Developers at a multi-national engineering/manufacturing company... so these items are a little different in my worldSander Rossel wrote: It's hard to measure productivity for a programmer!DerekT-P replied: Which is why, as a freelancer, I prefer to work for small clients with no other IT input. "Productivity" is then a doddle for the client to quantify
My junior developers are all contracted in, their tasks have a budgeted time amount. I do give input and I do review their work. My bosses review their invoiced time and compare it to what was budgeted.
Jacquers wrote: Some overtime is expected at most companies, especially when a release to production happenDerekT-P replied: That's probably the worst time to be expecting overtime.
That depends.... Our (team) projects all have time budgeted for the deployment projects as well as post-deployment support.
But then again, if other parts of the company change up their data format or come up with something else weird... we may get some calls about what they did to gum up our works with the natural question of how am I going to fix it.
Director of Transmogrification Services
Shinobi of Query Language
Master of Yoda Conditional
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Quote: other parts of the company change up their data format
Eeek. Yet another reason why I prefer to be in small companies where I am the IT department! However, one of my last roles before going freelance was as "Design Authority" for a household-name insurer. The role involved (among other things) making certain that all teams across the company followed the same principles, used compatible software, and made sure that there were no "unexpected" format changes! I was also able to identify and eliminate a lot of duplication. Having someone in a role like that (not necessarily with that title) has the potential to make a massive difference to how smoothly things can get into production.
Re measuring productivity by comparing to a budget is a start, but is measuring the skill of the budget estimator just as much as that of the developer.
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At least he's being honest.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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Sure, maybe. There's a place that invited me for an interview that didn't own the parking spaces in front of it. Local govt owned them. Local govt put a 4 hour limit on it.. and enforced it too. So in your lunch break, you had to go out and reset the time, or get a fine. Absolute trash. There were other reasons to reject them but it would have been enough.
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Hi,
I had the same situation with parking issue. Every morning I had to circling at least 20 minutes around my company to find a free parking place.
If you wondering on the candidates answer, than you never been in this situation. You can't feel how frustrating it is.
Zoltan
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If you're in Europe, I can believe not being able to park his car comfortably. I scratched up the passenger side of the rental car pretty good in Killarney due to a narrow little lane and my lack of depth perception.
On a side note, turns out it wasn't a good idea to go to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day this year...
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I can sympathize with that. If you work at an office downtown and you have to find parking on the street or something that would get old really fast. Thats one of the reasons I wouldn't want to work downtown.
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But to be honest, I never knew she sold flowers... 
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: flowering plants are [often] simultaneous hermaphrodites that can self-fertilize
So instead of telling someone to go f*** themselves you can tell them they're like a flower 
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Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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