We own your life

Original posting 2008-10-23 (see update below): I came across a job advertisement that rubbed me the wrong way. Sure, it may be good for the business and the major shareholders, but it tells you how much they value their employees.

This is from a company called International Datacasting. They were looking for a software developer. It said very little about the job but seemed to be more of a sales pitch. In these tough economic times, they shouldn't have to beg for people unless they don't understand the message their job postings send out.
Like this line,

"And let’s face it, you are going to spend the majority of your day at work, so why not work where you will enjoy what you do and where you really can shape the future of technology."

Wow! The majority of my day at work? Are they nuts? What kind of slave drivers are they?

Let's analyze the situation. Just what do they mean by "day"? Here's a few dictionary definitions,

1. a period of twenty-four hours as a unit of time, reckoned from one midnight to the next …
2. the time between sunrise and sunset.
3. the time between waking and sleeping.

Surely they aren't referring to 24 hours … or are they? That means your average day at IDC is over 12 hours long. Geez, I sure hope that doesn't include weekends.

If they mean the time between sunrise and sunset, that's a long day in the summer and a shorter day in the winter. Where IDC is located, in Kanata, Ontario, the longest summer day is from 5 AM to 9 PM or about 16 hours. So a summer day could be just 8 hours and that would fit the "majority" o

f time. But, the shortest amount of time between sunrise and sunset is from about 7:30 AM to about 4:30 PM, or about 9 hours. Surely they don't mean just 4.5 hours as a "majority" of your day.

No, I suspect they aren't referring to definition 2, even with the time before dawn and after dusk.

Well then, are they referring to the time between waking and sleeping? This is

quite variable for each individual, so I doubt that's what they mean. But for amusement, this could mean from say 7 AM to 11 PM. That would be 16 hours. Sounds about right. Equal 8-hour slots for sleeping, working, and everything else.

Naw, not likely. I've worked at several high-tech companies and I know they can pull long hours, and expect you to unless you apply back pressure.

It seems the problem is that, well, we don't know what they mean by "majority of your day." And that's what makes me nervous about these folks.

I wish them luck in finding qualified slaves, er, I mean, employees.

P.S. Uh, they do pay overtime, don't they? Ask that question in your job interview and see their reaction. That will tell you everything you need to know.

Update 2009-04-02: This job ad over at Ciena looks suspiciously familiar. Maybe it's written by the same HR person.

"Let’s be honest, you’re going to spend the majority of your life at work, so you might as well enjoy it. A career at Ciena is unique."

Holy crap! Those were the very first two sentences in their job ad. The majority of my life?!?! What kind of frickin' slave drivers are these guys?

Let's keep it really simple and then do a more detailed calculation. Just on a week to week basis, ignoring statutory holidays and vacation, there are 7 x 24 = 168 hours in a week. Ciena says you will work the majority of that time at work. Uh guys, that's over 84 hours per week — forever.

But that calculation is inaccurate. It's much, much worse.

A male will live to be about 78. I'm sure they only hire people out of university, so let's say you start working at age 22 and retire at age 65. That's 43 working years and 35 non-working years, ignoring summer jobs while attending university.

We want to figure out the number of hours a day they expect you to work so let's start by converting the numbers to days. Someone check my math here.

43 x 365.25 = 15,706 days during your work life and 12,784 days of non-work.

Now move the statutory holidays into the non-working total at about 12 days a year.

43 * 12 = 516 so now we have 15,190 days working life and 13,300 days of non-work.

Figure you start at 3 weeks vacation, 4 weeks after 10 years, 5 weeks after 20 years, 6 weeks after 30 years, 7 weeks after 40 years. This is a joke because nobody stays at the same company for 40+ years and each time you move, you're likely to have your years of service reset. Let's cap it at 5 weeks and figure you change jobs before the 10 years are up. To make it easy, let's assume 14 years in each bracket.

(14 * 3 * 7 ) + (14 * 4 * 7) + (15 * 5 * 7) = 1,211 days of vacation.

Now we're at 13,979 days during your working life and 14,511 non-working days.

Oh, oh. The total available working days is already below the non-working days and I haven't adjusted for weekends yet!

What the hell, let's figure out the weekends too. You deserve it.

43 * 52 * 2 = 4,472 days resulting in 9,507 working days and 18,983 non-working days.

Let's do a sanity check, 9,507 / 43 = 221 working days per year. Yup, that's about right on average.

But the good folks at Ciena expect you to work the majority of your life so of the 28,490 days of your life, they expect you to work at least 14,246 days in your 43 working years. Yes, that's right, working for Ciena means you will be working 331 days a year. But those are 24-hour days!

331 days x 24 hours per day = 7,944 hours per year.

Can you do it and still keep your vacation, and weekends. Sure, if you don't mind working 7,944 / 221 = 36 hours per working day, every friggin' work day of your life. This takes, "work smarter, not harder" to a whole new plane of existence.

How about 7,944 / 365.25 = 21.75 hours per day for every day of your working life?

Clearly, they don't mean what they said about spending the majority of your life at work. I don't even agree with the second sentence, "A career at Ciena is unique." It's not unique, there are sweatshops all over the world.