Hi Ed (and the many responders),

as you can tell, you really touched a chord here. I wanted to weigh in on your side, at least as I understand it.

It took me a few minutes to remember back to my first psychology practicum (my first and former profession), and my being confused by the Chief Psychologist telling us that under no circumstances were we to work through lunch; nor were we to work through breaks; nor were we to stay late; nor were we to take work home.

There were a couple of results from this: one is I became pretty good at roofball (a local made-up game); and more importantly, I was very focused on the task while at work. If the latter is the intention of your contraints, they make a lot of sense: getting back into the "flow" is expensive in time, so the prediction is that productivity would be higher, not lower.

Most of us operate, within companies or in consulting relationships, in crisis mode: the project has been delayed, or botched, and then we are called in. That makes doing what is actually the better course of action seem impossible. And certainly from an emotional perspective there is that part of us that wants to get the job done, now.

I never missed a deadline that Summer. And I did that while enjoying the Long Island sound beaches, or the Hamptons beaches, nearly every night when I wasn't playing basketball or travelling to the City to visit a friend in the Village and catch a free concert in the East Village. Of course, never missing deadlines means that the work product requested was in line with resources: something else that is most often in mismatch in crisis projects (especially given the well-known Man-Month constraints on juicing up timelines with more bodies).

So, if the purpose of the constraints is to get only work hour focus, and to get uncontaminated focus during work hours, I applaud your efforts. The scientific literature on software development focus supports that direction.

Good luck in your search.

Hank Fay


>The qualified candidate will become the third member of our computer team. Presently the team consists of a hardware/network specialist who works under a manager/code expert. We seek to add an additional code specialist to the team to enable us to complete new projects and maintenance matters at a faster pace. Our core application platform runs in Foxpro in a Microsoft server environment. The Foxpro program consists of several hundred inter-related tables. The ability to comprehend existing code, write new code and develop database queries, reports and applications is essential.
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>In addition to coding duties the qualified candidate will have responsibilities for preparing (or better yet automating) an array of regulatory and tax reports that rely upon data extracted from the database. The qualified candidate may also find himself or herself involved in matters and decisions not solely related to code. Hardware, networking, backup and VOIP telephone system issues might come into play. While we strive for a division of labor and responsibility, computer team members do not work in isolation from one another. Certain areas of responsibility overlap such as coding a telephone system to work in conjunction with our database.
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>The company’s commitment to computer automation has made it a market leader. Investments in equipment and talented people will continue. We desire to automatic wherever possible. Beyond internal processing projects we constantly work to improve the look and utility of our web site. Thus experience with Web based coding languages is important as well as an aptitude for learning and exploring new programming languages in general. The mandate for the computer team calls for keeping this company on the cutting edge.
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>Toward this end we seek professionals who can think creatively and get the job done without supervision. We do not allow smoking in the office. We do not eat at our desks. We frown on personal phone calls. And we adhere to an office professional dress code. The culture here is generally pretty grown up and serious. However, at the same time we have a great group of talented people and very low staff turnover. The two members of the existing computer team have over fourteen years combined employment here.