Some of this reminds me of a star wars movie – “Only a “sith lord” thinks in absolutes”. There are so many more intangibles to a career versus a job. Factory workers get paid for every widget produce or every second punched on a clock. Lawyers don’t, doctors do not, professors do not and professional athletes do not.

All have of their very own assessment of their “value” to the “organization”. But it is the view I received from a long time colleague who has a very well noted and MVP style career as an architect that I find most interesting. He asked, “How do I create a new level in my career where I am not limited to hours billed?”

I think at different junctures in ones career our mentality changes. Our ideology evolves and we live scenarios where we are “forced” to grow wings if we are to live in the air or grow gills if we are to live underwater.

Managing a team of hourly developers affords a different perspective. Successfully executing fixed-price-fixed-time projects provides a different platform of learning. A VC buying a consulting company has a much different perspective than the person with the ability to “turn down client business that …” disagrees with their own philosophy.

http://jonkruger.com/blog/2011/06/21/reestablishing-the-employeremployee-relationship/

Here’s how I see it. I think of my career and my life with family like a business. I primarily provide value to two “businesses”: the company that I work for and my family. The company I work for values things to help them to make a profit, and my “business” of my family values things like having time together and having me around to help take care of the kids. My employment is a partnership between the company I work for and the “business” that is my life, and the partnership should be mutually beneficial.

If I’m working somewhere and I work extra hours, that extra value that I provide to the company means that I am providing less value to my family because I’m not around. My kids don’t see me as much, and my wife has more work to do taking care of the kids. (Since I’m a contractor, at least I get paid for the overtime, but I’d rather have the time than the extra money.)

So if the company I’m working for decides that everyone has to work overtime because they want to cram extra functionality in, then that extra work comes at the expense of my family, especially if I’m a full time employee who doesn’t get paid for overtime. I have a problem with that, just like my company would have a problem if I told them that I was going to work 30 hours a week for the next month, but I want to paid the same and I don’t want it to come out of my paid time off allotment. No company would ever allow that, but they’re often more than willing to take 10 extra hours a week away from me and my family. For those full time employees who don’t get paid overtime, why aren’t they allowed to take comp time after the deadline has passed in order to make up for the extra time that they just worked? I’ve never seen any company to do that. If they gave you that expectation of overtime when they hired you, that would be one thing (I worked at one such place, and it was fine because you knew it going in, and we got paid for the overtime). But if you’re hired with the expectation that you are getting paid a salary for 40 hours and then they want to work 50 hours without making it up to you with comp time or at least paid overtime, I have a problem with that. Some managers realize how this works and they see that they can try and squeeze an extra 10 hours a week out of their employees with no extra cost to the company, and they see it as a cost savings or play it off as “the company can’t afford to hire any more workers right now”. I avoid these places like the plague. (This is why I feel that all developers should be paid for overtime so that they can’t be taken advantage of. Usually in these places, the full time employees will be working extra, but the contractors won’t because the company doesn’t want to pay the extra money.)

If someone wants to work extra, I don’t have a problem with that, because it’s your choice. I’m not saying that people who choose to work extra hours don’t care about their family, that’s their business. I also realize that in this business, sometimes you have to work extra in order to get things done, and that’s not always the company’s fault or poor planning or anything like that. In an ideal world it would never happen, but in the real world, sometimes it’s necessary, and I’m OK with that, that comes with the profession. I also place a lot of value on my reputation as someone who succeeds and gets things done, so occasionally I’m willing to do a little extra effort because I high standards for myself. I just don’t want to feel like I’m being taken advantage of.

That’s my long rant. Good post, it was well thought out.

Glad you are doing well. Funny how one thing can lead to another and you never know where you’ll end up.

I am really doing good and I am in MI now.Recently I had spent couple of hours to findout your blog but could not but today I was browsing something personal and accidently got a lead to access your blog…it was really excitng!

I will soon read more from this blog.

You have a good time!
Satya

def score(dice)
result = 0
dice.uniq.each { |element|
result += element * 100 if dice.count(element) >= 3 and element != 1 and element != 5
(1..dice.count(element)).to_a.each{ |elem| result += elem % 3 == 0 ? 800:100} if element == 1
(1..dice.count(element)).to_a.each{ |elem| result += elem % 3 == 0 ? 400:50} if element == 5
}
result
end

Modulo and integer division can fix the scoring easily in routines where they’re coded for bins/counts.

Doing this stretch further into the koan is a nice extra stretch. I’d actually come here to look for sandwich code or other prior-Koan lessons put to work, since I just resorted to old lame count-the-ones, count-the-twos flat code. Mine’s easily read, but has that ‘lots of similar lines’ smell to it, and wouldn’t scale well for a ‘greed’ game played with N-sided dice. … which’d be another good ‘extra’ stretch beyond the Koan.