I'm from eastern Europe and everyone I know is working 2-3 hours instead of 8 hours/day even though they are paid for 8 hours, but for multiple companies. If you sum it up on contracts they work 24 hours/day :)<p>Lots of dev forums talk about this and encourage others do the same, even juniors, just to earn more because their 2 hours or work is better than 8 hours of their colleagues from western countries.<p>I don't want to judge the morality of doing this, but is this that spread only in this part of the world since the pandemic or everywhere?
> Lots of dev forums talk about this and encourage others do the same, even juniors, just to earn more because their 2 hours or work is better than 8 hours of their colleagues from western countries.<p>I work for a company's whose headquarters is in Poland and we rely on eastern europeans for a fair amount of work. For context on this statement, we (americans) all believe our 2 hours of work is equivalent to their 8 hours of work.<p>To massively oversimplify, eastern europeans believe american corporate speak and many meetings are a huge waste of time and inefficicent communication. Americans believe eastern europeans miss critical context that leads to work which needs to be redone because its incorrect.
I’m an eastern european and this sounds very much like the typical corner-cutting and cheating that we are taught is something to be worth bragging about.<p>Reminds me of my Polish high school. Not only were people cheating and open about it between each other, teachers were encouraging that if you don’t get caught then it’s not a problem.<p>It’s a feature of our culture that at the end of the day tires everyone out because you have to be on a constant look out for fuck ups.
I have noticed this with contractors on Upwork and have unfortunately had to recently start forcing time tracking for the first time. I used to default to trusting people, but I've recently had developers who were billing 50-60 hours after working somewhere near 0.<p>This is unfortunately also pushing me toward daily standups, which I have also avoided my entire career so far.<p>It is unethical, certainly. But it also hurts the honest people who don't do it.
I've read one or two similar stories in the past year or so (but subcontracting extra hours), but haven't seen any personal disclosure on HN, for example.<p>I find it hard to believe, but I'm also far detached from large corps nowadays to know what kind of shenanigans can be passed by them.<p>I still very much doubt all of your claims, without some proof. As an Eastern European developer with a sizable network of peers, first time I'm hearing of this as "common practice"
Nope, I'm doing close to 9 hour days here in NZ. Meetings and other distractions eat into the day but I'm doing lots of work.<p>I'm interested in what's behind the claim that 2 hours work in country y is better than 8 in country x?
I think it might depend on if you're entry level or more senior. (just a guess)<p>Though, in my own personal experience, I've observed the exact opposite as you with regards to geography :)<p>I'm from the USA, and am "one of those" who's been writing software their whole life (though I only entered the market around 2001).<p>Over the past 10 years I've had multiple contracts where I billed my client 40hrs a week, though the work only took me perhaps an hour a day, if that. Client's <i>extremely</i> happy, because in his words, my hour of work is more useful than 8 hours of work from a 4 person team from India or China.<p>My guess, knowing nothing about how it's done over there, is that labor costs must be so inexpensive that you can assign 30 people to a 1 person job, and hope that something works? But I'll always be curious.<p>Regarding morality, I don't see how it comes into play! Be honest, be ethical. But your money source is just that -- a money source.<p>Do you think your employer would feel bad about hiring someone similar to you at the same time, so that after a year, they could fire the lower performing one? They wouldn't feel bad at all. At some businesses, this is an established procedure!<p>OP: Don't Feel Bad about working multiple jobs at once. It's not a marriage or a intimate relationship. There's no expectation of exclusivity. As long as you can do well at all your jobs at once, more power to you.<p>Put differently, I think active deception would be immoral. I can't believe it but I heard a story recently about foreign workers taking advantage of remote work/pandemic by running a "bait and switch". One person applies, gets the job, then someone different (and unqualified) actually shows up. _That's_ unethical.
I haven't heard this but wages must be so low it doesn't matter similiar to how Indian firms will over employ and pair developers because they can afford to.
Construction companies did something similar with building new homes. Supply issues came in, prices skyrocketed and it killed a bunch of companies and significantly delayed finishing old contracts.<p>Over subscribing works until it doesn't. Some people are going to get caught out when one job eats their whole day or management wants to cut staff.
Around here, working multiple contracts is effectively prevented by clients sprinkling meetings all over the workday. Attending all of those for multiple clients AND getting your actual work done would be quite impossible.<p>Also, thank you for this. Now I know why out-of-country contractors have such a variable rate of output.<p>Imagine an /s here if you feel it's appropriate, I can't decide.
I have 15 years of experience as a developer. Is it easy to pivot into contract work?<p>I would love something where I can work 2-3 months then take 1 month off. We were asked to go back into the office and my first day I felt extremely depressed - I never felt like this before and I'm worried about what will happen.
How they can take multiple jobs at the same time?<p>I mean the real works, for example 4 different people from different company asking for 4 different solution it’ll take some times to process<p>How big is contract works over there, in my place I never heard someone take more than 2 jobs 1 fulltime 1 freelance
People just want to get rich quick. "Rich" means 2-3 apartments or constructing own house, 2 cars, exotic holidays, expensive hobby like flying or diving. There is no inter-generation accumulated wealth in post-Communist countries. What you describe is also notorious among medical doctors and is a reason of catastrophic state of healthcare in e.g. Poland. The one outcome is that when you deal with such "professional" you never obtain anything constructive. The "professional" is busy with something else, cuts the corners at takes shortcuts, has to physically go somewhere else. In our society behaving like this are signals of well educated, high status individual, very unfortunately.
Whether it's 500K salaries or overemployment with 5 jobs, it's most likely a bubble. There are absolutely tons of companies out there that have no idea how to manage technical staff,so for anyone who's even remotely competent, it can be the easiest gig in their lives. On the other hand,any half competent shop, whether it's in Poland or Germany, would boot out anyone who'd try to pass off 2h worth of work as a whole day's effort.