Being In A Self-Managed Team Made Me Try The Most Expensive Hamburgers I've Eaten
11 Dec 2024 #miscI didn’t pay for the most expensive hamburgers I’ve eaten.
An ex-employer did.
When I say “most expensive,” I mean the same greasy $5 or $10-dollar hamburger from a food truck or a corner in a busy street. But they felt expensive because I ate them while working overnight.
In a past job, when my team was lagging behind the self-imposed deadlines of sprints, higher-ups told us: “This sprint is behind schedule. What are you going to do? You’re a self-managed team, so decide that by yourselves. But if I were you, I’d choose to work overtime to keep up.”
“You’re a self-managed team” was their subtle way of telling us to work extra hours, without accepting any responsibility.
We didn’t have any say in what tasks to do and how. We were only a self-managed team when it came to choosing to work overtime.
They didn’t pay us for that extra time. They only bought us hamburgers. And, when someone raised their concerns about the quality of those hamburgers, they told us we should be grateful because other companies buy their employees nothing to eat.
Since I don’t want this to be only a rant…If you’re told you’re part of a self-managed team, read the fine print. Look for signs of real self-managed teams: look at job descriptions and ask follow up questions during interviews. Otherwise, they might expect you to work overtime without compensation.