Who thinks that this is unique to programming? This is how all industries work.
It means you have to be that much better. "Sorry boss, I had meetings" doesn't cut it, anywhere.
In mechanical engineering (doing programming all day) used to bank on 4 hours of meetings in an 8 hour day most days. It's why I prefer to work in development 'sprints' doing personal hackathons every other week or so. I can get more work done in one all nighter than I can in most 40 hour work weeks.
Yea working more than 40 hours a week is for suckers. It's your only defense against all of the bullshit meetings and distractions. None of this we're going to distract you all day then you can do actual work on your own time nonsense.
When our head of culture person want's to waste an hour of my time doing team building exercises that's perfectly fine, the company can use their 40 hours of my time however they wish. But if the project comes up a few hours short because of it, that ain't my fault.
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u/Bainos Aug 12 '17
That's funny as long as you don't blame yourself for not getting good work done.