Working 30 Hours Per Week - Zupit
The burnout - Pitech
One year ago I was lost, I hated my job, I was burned out, and I had no idea how to fix it.
I started that job at Pitech in a setting that was like a “software factory”, a small team of trusted people, I could have entrusted my life to my colleagues and I had a deep respect for my Project Manager.
We worked toghether for years, taking on giant projects and delivering them in record time.
I was proud of the work we did, I learned a lot, and I felt like I was part of something bigger than myself.
Then the company decided that taking on project and completing them on time was a risk for them, there could have been scarce periods without many projects, there could have been problems with the clients, so why risk taking on a project and being paid on completion when you can just lease your employees to other companies and get paid by the hour?
It was a shock to me, and it was the beginning of the end for me.
I was no longer working on projects, I was no longer part of a team, I was just an asset that could be leased to other companies.
All the teamwork we build, the trust we had, the respect we had for each other, it was all gone, I was in a new company, with new people, and I had to start from scratch.
Also the new team of the company I was in was giant, we had more than 60 people working on projects and I kept being moved from project to project, from team to team, I had no stability, no sense of belonging, and no sense of purpose.
They worked in an archaic way, with a lot of bureaucracy, and a lot of meetings, and a lot of micromanagement, and proposing a new idea was like proposing a revolution and had to be approved at different levels…
The code I was writing was not modern code, and it was not written how I would have written it, it was legacy from the start despite being new.
The first change - TCConsulting
After months of me hating my job, myself, and my life, I finally decided to leave the company, I started looking for a new job and I found one, the paycheck was better, the company seemed better, and all the development was done internally, no more leasing to other companies, I was excited to start a new chapter in my life.
The first few months were great, I was learning new things, I was working on interesting projects, and I was happy, or well… I was too busy learning how to fit in to be unhappy, I was still in the honeymoon phase, but I was optimistic.
The accountability problem
Then the reality hit me, the company was really good actually, but their workflows were really bad for me and for how i work.
There were not too many meetings, the code was modern, the projects were interesting, but the accountability required for each developer was too much for me.
I was expected to not only write code, but also to write reports of what I did every hour, and also to write weekly reports of what I did in each project with all the details of what I did, how I did it, and why I did it.
This started wearing me out really quickly, I was spending more time writing reports than writing code, and it was really demotivating.
At a certain point I started trying to automate it by writing scripts that would read my commits in git and generate daily reports based on that, but it was not enough, I still had to write weekly reports, make the hours match the reports, and make sure that everything was consistent, it was a nightmare.
The fun fact in all this is that i was not even working just 8 hours per day, I was working way more to try to compensate for my inability to remember what the hell I did during the day.
Being AuDHD my working memory is pretty bad…
I can perfectly code and be in the flow and i can work fast, precisely remembering every detail of what I’m doing, not to brag but i can safely say I’m faster and more efficient than most developers.
But if you stop my work every hour and ask me recall everything I did…
it breaks the flow and it makes me forget what I did, and then I have to spend more time trying to remember what I did than actually doing it, burning my energy and making my memory worse, it’s a vicious cycle.
The solution - Zupit
In a second burnout in a row, completely exhausted, I tried to find a solution, I tried to automate the reports, I tried to find a way to remember what I did, I tried to find a way to keep track of my work, but nothing worked, I was still spending more time writing reports than writing code, and I was still exhausted.
So i decided to leave the company again, after just 6 months, and I started looking for a new job, I wanted to find a part-time job this time, I was desperate about having more time for myself to decompress, to relax, to do things I enjoy, and to not have a meltdown every week (or day).
I started searching for part-time jobs, and I noticed that… they were RARE, like really rare… But i got lucky and I found one, Zupit, a company that only hires part-time, and only work on project interally in small teams… it was like a dream come true, I applied and i was suddenly in a giant pool of candidates, it was a competitive and long process, a company that make people work only from 8AM to 2PM is not a company you see every day, expecially if that company does pay comparably to full-time jobs, but I was good enough, a bit lucky, and I got the job.
The first month
The first month was a bit of a shock, the calls were like a LOT, and the onboarding was not as fast as I expected, but I was still optimistic and I was still happy to be in a company that values work-life balance and that allows me to have more time for myself.
The first day was weird, I did my job, i performed my hours, talked to people, did stuff… then it got to 2PM and I had to stop.
That’s when i realized my whole life had changed, I had still 4 hours before my partner got home and I had absolutely no idea what to do with myself, I was not used to have so much free time.
And now?
In the time I got used to it and i started programming on side projects, learning new things, doing things I enjoy.
Now my day start at 8AM, then work till 2PM, and then I have the rest of the day to do interesting stuff, to relax, to decompress, to do things I enjoy.
I still sometimes mourn the fact that I can’t work on projects all day, the truth is that I’m a bit of a workaholic, I don’t love working, but I do love programming and usually since I don’t have a lot of free time I end up using it to code, and very often I used to end up working on the same stuff i was working on at work, just for fun.
In this company the things are different, in all the companies I worked in before no-one would have told me to not work outside of my scheduled hours, more work = more free unpaid value for the company no?
But here we are expected to make all the work fit in those concentrated 6 hours and we are expected to NOT work in the remaining time, on the contrary we are expected to have a life outside of work, to learn new things, to do things we enjoy, and to not burn ourselves out.
And you know what? It’s working, I’m happier, I’m more productive, I’m more efficient, and I’m not burned out anymore.
Accountability is not a problem anymore
The accountability problem is not a problem anymore, here we use a tool called Toggl Track to track our time and it is heavily integrated in our workflow, when i start working on a task in Jira i just click the button inside jira and Toggl starts tracking my time, when i stop working on that task i just click the button again and it stops tracking.
Also at the end of the day i can still resize and manually adjust the time if i forgot to start or stop the timer, but it’s really rare that happens, and even if it happens it’s not a problem, i just adjust the time and move on, it’s not a big deal.
The devs here are also not expected to write sprint reports for every thing developed since the system that the company uses for managing the work with the clients is really good and basically let us NOT have to write any reports since everything we develop is already decided with the client before they do not need a report of what has been done.
Maybe the PO actually does something like that, but as a dev i don’t have to worry about it, i just have to do my work and make sure that it’s done fast, well and correctly, and that’s it.
The only small downside
If i had to find a downside to this, it’s that they do too many teambuilding activities, like a trip 3/4 times per year, and despite the fact that meeting the team is nice and that they are fully paid… for an autistic person like me, it’s a bit overwhelming, but it’s a small price to pay for the benefits of working part-time.
But i guess i’ll tone the teambuilding down a bit by not going to all of them, I want to be present for now since i’m still in the first months, but in the future i might skip some of them, it’s not that i don’t want to see my colleagues, it’s just that i need to have some time for myself to recharge and to not get overwhelmed, and i cannot get a whole week of vacation every time I have to go on a trip with the team.
Conclusion
Working part-time has been a game changer for me, it has allowed me to have a better work-life balance, to be more productive, to be more efficient, and to not burn myself out anymore.
I would recommend it to anyone who is feeling burned out, who is feeling overwhelmed, who is feeling like they have no time for themselves, who is feeling like they are not enjoying their work anymore.
The problem is that part-time jobs are really rare, and it’s not easy to find one, but if you can find one, it’s definitely worth it.