Does your company evaluate your work ethics chiefly based on …

… whether you work on weekends or not?

Let’s begin with a simple question:

What is work ethic?

Does somebody working for 14 hours a day mean he/ she has good work ethic? I think that is a very foolish and lazy way of evaluating somebody’s work ethic.

Most people are going through a lot in life than we’d like to believe. Despite that if somebody is showing up at office, doesn’t that speak for his/ her work ethic? Being on time is even more applaudable gesture. Putting in a fair day’s work each working day is something that I personally value a lot in people.

Valuing own time in office and time of others is also a key feature of a person’s work ethic. Keeping the team informed about their schedule, any roadblocks, the bird’s eye view, etc in a person acts as a valuable asset for the organization. Not losing calm, motivating teammates, making workplace enjoyable for others are often ignored, but aren’t these essential?

But if your employer expects you to be available 24x7 including on weekends, then either you aren’t exploring life enough, or the company is not respecting the fact that you need some cool down time. An employee should respect the company time on workdays, and in return the company should respect employee’s personal time on weekends.

There’s no line that divides this thought into right and wrong. Personal calls can come during work time, you may need to take your mom to hospital and this may make you late for office. Some really critical bug fix might need your time for 4 hours on a Saturday. But stealing office time for personal work regularly? Urgent bug fixes required every Saturday? No and No.

We can avoid the chaos on weekends by better planning. Obviously it gives us a kick to kickstart a new feature. But we should resist the temptation to code, the desire to build. If only we invest more time in planning, we would save time in the long run.

Hence, guys, if during your performance review, your company evaluates your work ethics chiefly based on whether you worked on weekends in the past quarter or not, I think it’s time to move on to a better place.

अहमस्मि योधः ||

is An Attitude — to face your problems, to face your fears

Mayank Mohan Upadhyay

Written by

Google Certified Mobile Engineer • Sr Mobile Er at Einsite • I am an artist who engineers software

अहमस्मि योधः ||

is An Attitude — to face your problems, to face your fears

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