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How do you know that programmers sitting in your office at a computer are working and not goofing off? Maybe instead of programming they are posting messages to the midrange.com mailing list...ooops <g> Seriously, though. If you read the regulations on overtime pay, you will see that there are two exceptions to who gets overtime pay. One being managers, the other being technical professionals, such as engineers and programmers. I tried to figure out how they came up with their reasoning, and I think we've answered that question in our discussions here, is programming an art or a science? According to the government, it would seem, it is more of an art. Where the time to do anything is dependent on the artist (programmer). Since some programmers may take longer to do the same thing, the company shouldn't be responsible for this, so they (the company) doesn't have to pay overtime for the programmers extended time needed to do it (hey, this is how I interpret it, any other interpretations?). Which brings us back down to the same problem we've been discussing, how do you track a programmers productivity? Lines of code? Hours spent in front of a tube? What about the programmer who spends half a day researching something and then finishes it the rest of the day. Then you have another programmer who doesn't do any research at all, spends all day doing it, and takes twice as much code. Who was more productive? Personally, I would say the one who did the research and did it in half the code. I'll bet you dollars to donuts that his/her code is going to be a lot more maintainable. But now you do have a problem. How do you know if a programmer at home is working on the problem, or goofing off? Maybe he hasn't touched the system for 4 hours, but how do you know he's not doing research? Or reading newsgroups and mailing lists, like this one, for solutions (and no, I do not consider this mailing list "goofing off". I consider this very excellent research and on going training). You basically are going to have to do it the exact same way you do it now. Give them a project and a time line. How close to the timeline do they come? If they are coming in at the timeline about the way they are now, they're not goofing off. If it suddenly takes them twice or three times as long to do anything, bring them back into the office. Some programmers (myself included) just can't stay focused at home, too many distractions. I tried working from home once for a couple weeks, I just couldn't do it at the time. Too many distractions from the wife, kids, the dog and Diablo <g>. Allowing people to work at home is a big step, and a totally different approach needs to be taken in managing them. No longer can you think that cause they've been here 8 hours at the computer that they put in a full days work (heck, half the time that's not even right with someone at the office). A lot more individual managing needs to be done. I have read a lot of articles on the subject, and I would suggest you look some up. Regards, Jim Langston Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 10:52:17 -0600 From: "midrange" <midrange.mail@sfmco.com> Subject: monitoring contract programmers We are entertaining the idea of telecommuting. Are there any tools on the 400 or any third party tools that will allow you to monitor programmer activity in the system? +--- | This is the Midrange System Mailing List! | To submit a new message, send your mail to MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com. | To subscribe to this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-SUB@midrange.com. | To unsubscribe from this list send email to MIDRANGE-L-UNSUB@midrange.com. | Questions should be directed to the list owner/operator: david@midrange.com +---
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