Management know this, and it has lead to many other unethical employment practices, not including crunch. Often these industries are located only in certain parts of the world, so people are afraid to speak out in case they get a bad name in their small community. Staff are afraid to rock the boat, lest it cost them the job they have always dreamed of. Staff in video games and movies have subjected to crunch because the field is competitive and the union culture is weak. Management also abuse the reality of the career field. Staff are also eager to sacrifice their own time, for the hope, not promise, of it paying off later in their career, another fallacy management are happy for staff to believe. The rights of employees are at all times murky and management willingly allows these murky beliefs to remain unclear as it 100% benefits them. Staff also fear that they will be subject to consequences that they can’t necessarily be protected from at a later date, or will miss out career opportunities. Staff often are not aware they are being subjected to Crunch Culture until they begin to suffer and while, in most countries, staff are legally protected, seeking legal protection is not easy. They lack any power to question or reject being exposed to Crunch Culture. Management to employee is an unfair power dynamic and Crunch Culture is either instigated by, or allowed to exist only by the hand of management.Īn employee holds practically no cards in this relationship. The scope of a project should be clear and stable, staff should not feel like they are on moving sand.Ĭrunch Culture represents a big ethical failing. You also cannot keep changing the what is needed to be delivered, even if you change the delivery date. If x amount of work is agreed to be delivered by y date you cannot add stuff without moving out the delivery date. Commonly seen in project management type spaces. This causes other work to back up, sometimes resulting in conflict between your staff and any stakeholders they pushing back in line, due to the urgent last minute request.Ĭhanging what needs to be delivered in a project either repeatedly or without fairly revising a delivery date. These pieces of work are often sold as ‘urgent’ and ‘important’ and normally result in staff ‘dropping everything’ just to get it done. Repeatedly requiring staff to deliver work within short time frames, i.e deliver last minute. This is either expressed up front or you are chastised after the fact for not being able to deliver. Basically the employee is still expected deliver on everything, within the same amount of time, even though the amount of work has increased. Willfully not covering a ‘predictably busy period’ with an increase in resource / support, or a decrease in other deliverables. When it happens regularly, when it actually becomes predictable itself - and can be avoided - this is unacceptable and is what I mean when I say ‘Crunch Culture.’ You may ‘crunch’ to get some work done before you go away on leave, a sick staff member may lead to your team having to ‘crunch’ to cover their responsibilities, or an unexpected busy period may result in crunch.Ĭrunch in isolated scenarios, even though it can be unpleasant, is a reality when you can't predict the future. Now the occurrence of a crunch scenario in isolation is not overly problematic, it’s bound to happen, we can’t predict the future and sometimes we get thrown a curve ball. Crunch culture is the expectation that you will sprint more than you don’t. It's something you can do short term to cover more ground, but its not sustainable for long periods of time. However you don’t have to work in video games to be a victim of crunch culture, in fact I’m pretty certain that just about everyone has, at some point or another, worked in crunch conditions.īecause, fundamentally, crunch can be boiled down to a scenario where you have to push yourself harder than normal to meet a deadline. Crunch Culture has gotten a lot of visibility in the past few years, primarily due to the Video Game industry.
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