Ha'aretz - Tuesday, October 13, 1998 
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/htmls/16_1.htm

I do not agree with many parts of the article, but I think
it is still worth reading.
Jacob - CJI Editor

How to succeed in high-tech without really working

Programmers come to work, drink coffee, read the
newspaper, go for lunch, play Solitaire, surf the Internet,
catch forty winks, wake up, surf the Net some more and
then go home. Hidden underemployment in hi-tech
companies is no longer a marginal occurrence 

By Guy Hoffman 

Yoni's telephone has been ringing non-stop for several
days now. The fact that the man on the other end of the line
has neither met him nor even read his resume, has not
dampened his enthusiasm to offer Yoni a very tempting job.
Rami, one of Yoni's good friends who is already employed
as a programmer in the keen caller's company, is also
eager for Yoni to join the ranks of the successful software
house. After all, he has been promised a holiday for two in
Cyprus in return for his head-hunting work, which is known
locally as "Friends Bring Friends."What is it about Yoni that
makes him such a prize catch? The main secret of Yoni's
charm is the fact that he knows how to program computers.
Even if he decides not to sign this time, Yoni is shown once
again that he is a commodity in demand, and that as soon
as he decides, he has a new place of work waiting for him -
all he has to do is sign. 

In Silicon Valley, the story goes that computer programmers
are head-hunted in the parking lots of computer companies,
as employees are on their way to lunch, but the cases of
Yoni and Rami remind us that in Israel too, the market for
programmers is in excellent shape. One thing, however, is
beyond argument: the dearth of programmers has created a
situation which borders on lawlessness, a state of affairs
unparalleled in any other field. This is hardly surprising,
since for every 15 programming job slots in each start-up
company, there is an average of just one interviewee. Then
it's time for some hard bargaining.
It's good to program 
When the talk turns to salaries, five figures is de rigueur.
The lack of proportion between demand and supply has
bumped up salaries to a level which would cause every
Jewish mother to rethink the doctor-lawyer dream and push
her child toward the PC instead.

According to the latest issue of the salary survey carried out
by Computer Jobs in Israel (http://www.jr.co.il/cji), the
average salary for a junior programmer in Israel (not a
project manager) is around NIS 12,000. The upper limit is
NIS 24,000. Anywhere between NIS 15,000 and NIS
20,000 is a reasonable salary for a newly graduated
computer science student (25 years old, one or two years
experience) and that does not include the optional extras.
Other benefits include a company car, managerial
insurance and sometimes even a gym on company
premises. Contracts for two to four years are most common,
to try and ensure that the programmers' eyes do not wander
to potentially greener pastures. Judging by the issue
parties, which are given by a programmer upon collecting
his shares in the company after two years' employment and
which are usually followed by his immediate resignation,
then without these long-term contracts, the average length
of employment in high-tech companies would be in line
with that in California: eight months. 

In other words: it's good to be a programmer in Israel at the
end of the 1990s. But that's old news. What is perhaps less
common knowledge is that because of the imbalance, a
certain complacency has overtaken the programmers,
which leads, in many cases, to concealed
underemployment. Ironically, it is the hi-tech industry, which
to outsiders seems to be the very model of efficiency and
hard work, an image which is often supported by colorful
articles in the media, which offer safe haven for anyone
looking for the easy life. If, of course, he or she happens to
be a programmer. 

The testimonies collected by Captain Internet may surprise
anyone who is not involved in the field, so it would be
proper to observe at the outset, that there is no intention to
denigrate the work done by the vast majority of software
house in Israel, which have become accustomed to long
and grueling working hours. Indeed, the timetables are
hectic, the competition is cut-throat and often teams work
extremely hard for long periods to produce a product. That
said, there are two sides to every story, and the industry
does not like to talk about the other side: the phenomenon
is more common at the larger companies, but is far from
rare at small start-up companies.
What about siestas? 
The hidden underemployment in the software market is not
a marginal occurrence, and it enjoys a conspiracy of
silence which is convenient for all involved: programmers,
project managers and managing directors. Conversations
with programmers from a wide range of hi-tech companies
give a slightly different impression of what goes on - or
what does not go on - behind the monitors of the Israeli
hi-tech industry. In order to protect their careers, the
interviewees agreed to tell their stories under the condition
of anonymity. 

Obviously there is hidden underemployment, says Sarit, a
programmer in a start-up company. For example, people go
to drink coffee during working hours and simply do not
come back. It has reached the stage where there are
newspapers next to the coffee machine and people just
spend a whole hour with their coffee and a newspaper. If
there's a coffee house in the area, it's even easier. They
leave in the middle of the day for coffee and cake.

Are there whole days when no work is done? 

Yes. Some days you get to work at ten in the morning, read
the e-mail which has piled up and read the messages in the
newsgroups you're interested in. That takes two hours.
Then you go and drink coffee. When you return, you maybe
work for half an hour, and then it's time for lunch. That takes
at least an hour, maybe more. When you come back,
there's the tiredness following a meal, known as the
post-lunch dip. People actually put their heads in the
keyboard and take a siesta. It is not uncommon. 

Sarit goes on to explain that there are reasonable
explanations. The job requires a high level of
concentration. So one has to take a lot of breaks. But these
breaks are not the major problem. Most of the wasted time
stems from the misuse of the powerful computers, and the
cheap and super-fast connection to the Internet. You are
sitting at the computer, says Sarit, and it looks like you're
working, but in fact you are just doing things that you find
interesting. Nothing to do with work. 

Anat, a programmer for a company which was recently sold
to an American investor for hundreds of millions of dollars,
concurs: "I get to work, where the Internet and e-mail
present a lot of temptations. If I get an e-mail from friends, I'll
write back right away. A conversation will develop and I
don't get down to work. It's undoubtedly a huge waste of
time."

Uzi, a programmer in a software house in central Israel,
says: "People stay late after work and get paid overtime just
to use the computer and the printer to produce their
university papers." Uzi and Anat relate how for weeks on
end they improved their skills at Solitaire, the card game
distributed with the Windows operating system. They also
know of workers who claim dozens of hours of overtime in
their monthly reports, when they are, in fact, simply playing
computer games. The hourly rate for a computer
programmer can reach $25.

Although concealed underemployment decreases in the
days before a new product is released, even deadlines are
not always a good enough reason to buckle down. Anat:
"Once, I was working on a project I didn't particularly enjoy,
so I simply came in late, left early and when I was at work, I
played Solitaire all day and no one paid attention. I was
shocked when the deadline passed and no one even
noticed that part of the program was missing."

How is that possible? 

Sarit: In the hi-tech industry, it's almost impossible to predict
how much time any one project will take. You can always
claim that the project was more complicated than expected
or that there are still bugs that need solving. One cannot
really blame the programmers. The projects are so
complicated that a project manager cannot exactly estimate
his timetable. 

Poor time management 
Ironically, it is in the hi-tech industry, where products have
to be ready months in advance, that management
procedures leave a lot to be desired. The lack of applied
effort often stems from poor management, says Uzi,
delicately. People with limited management experience,
often former army officers, think they know how to manage
a team of programmers. The field is full of people who
simply do not know how to manage well. 

Yuval Cohen, development manager for Rad-lan, is forced
to agree that a managerial problem certainly exists. Many
project managers allow themselves safety margins when
calculating development times, and that period is in fact
wasted. Because of mismanagement, there have even
been cases when a project manager has not recognized
that a project was completed. 

The Internet heads the table of major time-wasters,
followed by e-mail and programs such as ICQ. While this
varies from place to place, almost every programmer works
on a modern PC with a fast Internet connection, and a
personal e-mail address. This high-speed surfing, which is
several times faster than the home connection, is a
temptation many find hard to resist. 

So, despite this, why do programmers have a personal
e-mail address? 

Anat: It falls into the category of working conditions. If they
were to tell me that there is no Internet in the company, I
wouldn't work there. 

Most programmers believe that even if the Internet and
e-mail are used primarily for non-work related issues, no
self-respecting programmer can work without them. Hagai
Katz, general manager of Nice Israel, agrees: "In my
company, e-mail is a vital tool. It is the main way we
transfer information within the company and to outside
sources. We're almost totally reliant on e-mail; if the e-mail
network were to crash, we could shut the company down
without thinking twice. 

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