alt Hacker NewsYes! So much of professional software development is about assisting the nominal job of management—planning and budgeting—rather than users or even business fundamentals.
Why am I awake at 1:00am, ruining my brain and body, trying to get this feature finished before the end of the week instead of three days later? Ah yes, so that we meet our quarterly OKR, and the next quarter's plan that the EM and PM negotiated without me or our customers isn't disrupted and doesn't need adjustment. That would invite reprimand from the director, and the extra work would be terrible for them, I understand.
I'm reminded of this recent thread in which Heroku left the devs in charge and suddenly features that the author had requested for years got implemented: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47669749
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Just on a personal note as someone who worked in the game dev industry for far too long and is still suffering for it... if
> Why am I awake at 1:00am, ruining my brain and body, trying to get this feature finished before the end of the week instead of three days later?
is actually you (or some other reader) please quit/find a new job ASAP even if it means a pay cut. You don't want to deal with back issues, heart issues, weight issues, digestion issues, blood sugar issues - none of that. Please respect your body and your limited time with us. A coworker of mine had a stroke at thirty - that is a life changing event with, honestly, no real paths to full recovery.
For that matter, here's a thread from a few days ago recommending the practice of scheduling status meetings for the purpose of pressuring the attendees to work on your project in addition to their other work: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47906942
What hermit wouldn't love meetings that simultaneously insist that you do more while taking away time to do it, all to avoid adjusting a pollyanna quarterly plan and budget!