Fergie's Tech Blog

Insanity in Silicon Valley

Sounds familiar. :-)

Carolyne Zinko writes in The San Francisco Chronicle:

Silicon Valley tech workers already have bragging rights when it comes to their workload -- they put in longer hours and take fewer vacation days than people in many other fields.

Now, they're boasting about conditions that are getting worse: having to be available to work with clients in all time zones, all the time.

"The joke I've heard is, 'Going global means I never sleep,' " said Maureen Goode, a program manager at Agilent Technologies in Palo Alto.

On a recent weekday, her first meeting started at 5 a.m., with clients in Germany (where it was 2 p.m.) and in China (where it was 8 p.m.). To plan the conference call, she relied on one of her favorite Internet bookmarks, World Clock Meeting Planner, www.timeanddate.com, which produces charts useful for detailing the best and worst times for teleconferences in multiple time zones.

Goode's work is conducted in the garage -- where she, like many of her co-workers, has moved her office to avoid waking her husband and kids.

posted by Fergie @ 7/29/2006 09:05:00 PM