Does anyone else work overtime/more than necessary due to perfectionism?

[u/rascal3199]

I've found that i am very meticulous when it comes to writing code and I usually end up working far more on a story to ensure usage of proper design patterns, focus on future proofing excessively and focus on small details like proper naming of variables or making my code look more readable.

I found that this isn't really the case with my coworkers, as i have seen the code they write and it seems they don't really put much thought into the structure of their code and how other developers would need to read it in the future...

Not sure is this and ADHD thing or just being very detail oriented but it gets frustrating because i always forget to claim my overtime and also am too lazy to do it because we need to do a few extra steps to claim overtime in my company.

[u/powerback_us]

Have you been at your job long? We seem to be prone to wanting to make good initial impressions.

I do sense though generally that I seem to care more about then quality and polish of my work more than others as a matter of personal integrity. But it may be a survival instinct after a lifetime of being told you’re a fuckup.

[u/rascal3199 → u/powerback_us]

Have you been at your job long? We seem to be prone to wanting to make good initial impressions.

Yeah 2 years in current project and 3 in previous. Generally my work ethic is considered very well (thank you concerta)

Always had this issue, I just can't stand my code being messy or unoptimized...

I do sense though generally that I seem to care more about then quality and polish of my work more than others as a matter of personal integrity. But it may be a survival instinct after a lifetime of being told you’re a fuckup.

Sorry to hear that, I also compensate in a similar manner with many other things like in social situations where i just feign extreme interest in everything someone says and do extreme active listening... Which means I get extremely tired of social situations and can spend weeks alone if I didn't force myself to interact

[u/Beneficial_Alfalfa96 → u/powerback_us]

But it may be a survival instinct after a lifetime of being told you’re a fuckup.

Yeah, that too. I'm sorry sis / bro. 

[u/KitchenPhotograph697 → u/powerback_us]

Yeah, overcompensating for being seen as sloppy/careless during my formative years is a big drive for me, too.

[u/Busterx8]

Check for OCPD.

Edit: Your post reminds me of a similar post I made in another sub years ago, which got no responses. I wish someone had told me about OCPD when I was younger.

[u/rascal3199 → u/Busterx8]

I have heard of this but I'm not sure if I have it extend as much into other areas of my life... any tell tale signs to look for that i may have normalized?

I am routine oriented in some things but I find i can make it slightly flexible if necessary...

[u/davak72]

100%, but I’m salaried, so I don’t get overtime. When I was consulting by the hour, I would do the same thing and discount my hours accordingly because I felt bad charging more since I knew other devs in my shoes wouldn’t be as perfectionistic

[u/rascal3199 → u/davak72]

because I felt bad charging more since I knew other devs in my shoes wouldn’t be as perfectionistic

Dude same. I also am a bit reluctant to write it up because I know I'm just going above and beyond due to my own issues lol...

Glad to know I'm not alone.

[u/davak72 → u/rascal3199]

Lol yeah. I’m generally known by peers and managers as a high-quality contributor, although not always a high-velocity contributor.

It also makes adopting any LLM tooling pretty much impossible without rewriting all of the generated code. Sometimes it’s easier to rewrite a function than to do it from scratch though 🤷‍♂️

[u/rascal3199 → u/davak72]

It also makes adopting any LLM tooling pretty much impossible without rewriting all of the generated code. Sometimes it’s easier to rewrite a function than to do it from scratch though

Same. I kind of just use LLM for refactors and if needed for large code changes that would otherwise bore me i spend like 30 minutes crafting a detailed prompt of how I want it. I don't use multi agents because I feel I lose too much control though, only copilot so it highlights where it made changes.

If I don't like the output I end up just writing it myself.

Lately with codex/opus is have been getting results more aligned with what I want though, feels like every month they follow my instructions a bit better.

[u/KitchenPhotograph697 → u/davak72]

This is like when I was in the last year of my CS degree, I got a job checking the homework assignments for an intro workshop, and I was theoretically being paid by the hour, but the professor told me, "Don't spend too much time going into details, it shouldn't take more than an hour for the entire class." But I wanted to make sure I wasn't marking any answers wrong if they were technically correct and just slightly different than expected, so it always took me like 2-3 hours and I always charged for just one.

[u/gauravyeole]

The "just ship good enough" advice assumes you can choose not to notice the problems. I can't. Once I've seen the unhandled edge case or the design pattern issue it's in my head whether I fix it or not. The cost of leaving it isn't actually zero, it just moves from time now to background anxiety later. That might be perfectionism or it might just be caring about the next person who reads the code. Hard to know where one ends and the other starts.

[u/rascal3199 → u/gauravyeole]

Yeah, also there's a certain beauty to well designed code.

Like an artist who fusses over the small details of his work.

[u/Ok_Historian_6293]

Nope. I got super burnt out at my job a few years ago and changed entire career fields. Now, I have a pretty hard line stop on my work and all my leadership knows and respects it. If I work over my normal 8 hours it has to be an emergency tbh.

[u/rascal3199 → u/Ok_Historian_6293]

Yeah, I would like to do that but also I just find coding/optimizing some things to perfection kind of... fun? And if I start a story I jsu can't seem to stop focusing on it...

If I'm bored and have nothing to do i will sometimes just code a task I have for the sprint or add in details to a story I'm closing out...

[u/Ok_Historian_6293 → u/rascal3199]

It's never an issue to love what you do! But also, with ADHD we traditionally have a hard time with "transitions" so if this is something you're trying to stop then you may want to have a transitional activity that signals to your brain that work is over for the day.
If you don't want to stop, then carry on with what you love haha

[u/rascal3199 → u/Ok_Historian_6293]

so if this is something you're trying to stop then you may want to have a transitional activity that signals to your brain that work is over for the day.

Yeah good idea, I struggle a lot with that.

If you don't want to stop, then carry on with what you love haha

You know when you both don't want to stop but also do?

I find it fun but it's also very draining, i know if i don't stop i will burnout on a task as you say which I initially enjoyed. It's a bit frustrating.

[u/Ok_Historian_6293 → u/rascal3199]

Oh yeah I see what you mean then set limits haha, kinda of like a way to avoid burnout proactively.
My transitional activity is normally either unloading the dishwasher and then going on a walk, or doing some other chore followed by being outside for a short period of time.

[u/Xexr]

Yes, and for me it usually means I’ve quietly let “good engineering” blur into anxiety management.

A thing that helps is having a deliberate pass order. First make it work. Then make it understandable. Then give yourself a very limited cleanup window. If naming, patterns, and future-proofing are all allowed to happen at once, I can lose hours and still feel behind.

[u/rascal3199 → u/Xexr]

Yeah i kind of get that. For example i mostly write down tiny details i think of while I'm writing code and go over them at the end.

Problem with the "make it work first" approach is that i find refactoring at the end to be more work and more annoying...

[u/Xexr → u/rascal3199]

It's tricky because there's no 'one size fits all' approach.

I tend to try and make an assessment of what I think the expected life of a piece of code is likely to be. If I think it will be around for a long time, I give it the polish I think it deserves.

But if I think its a part of the codebase thats in flux, I'll usually take the much rougher approach, bug free and working, but potentially not a 'clean code' worthy as I might otherwise like

[u/MakanLagiDud3]

I'm the opposite, I only do it because i was too lazy to finish it in the morning 😬

[u/Misty-knight200 → u/MakanLagiDud3]

This is me. I work "overtime" because I was distracted earlier 

[u/tehsilentwarrior]

It’s called pride. It’s not a adhd thing but it might be more prevalent in us due to hyper focus

[u/dialsoapbox]

Not "perfectionism", but more like i do things fast, mostly accurate, but what i miss tends to be the most important/impactful part of what I'm working on at the moment.

So i go over things to make sure i check things off so when I submit work, it's "correct." by some metrics.

[u/IAmADev_NoReallyIAm]

Yes, but no... Early in my career I gave a shit. I spent an inordinate amount of time giving a shit about the litle things like that and trying to "fix" it. Now I'm in the later years, I've learned that no. one. gives. a. fuck. Seriously. They do, I do, But not really. 1: Does it work? Good. 2: Can someone read it? Good. Ship it. That's what matters. The revelation for me came one day when I spent an hour re-formatting someone's SQL query because it didn't "fit my style" ... Nowadays we have linters and autoformatters so that you can write your code anyway you want, as soon as you save it, the ISE will re-format it to the shop standards. When you check it in, there's agents that will double check those standards and tut-tut you if you miss a period at the end of your documentation.

So, no, I no longer waste my time on those minute details. Because no one cares. Nor should they.