Man, no kidding. Why would anyone want to sign up for that? 45-50 hours codified face time in your open office cattle farm. Get permission from a founder at least a day in advance if god forbid you need to be out of the office for something. Not only do I not want to work there, but I'll think twice before signing up with them as my 2FA provider.
Permission from one of several founders at a 10 person company is proportionally equivalent to letting your team lead know you'll be absent. That's not exactly an excessive standard, is it?
Further, an open expectation of 45-50 hours at a place that also encourages spending 4 of those hours on self-study seems fine compared to the risk-adjusted industry average.
An expectation of 45-50 hours work is illegal in most of the developed world. This company is legally free to require that, and prospective employees are free to work somewhere else, that treats their staff like normal human beings.
It's the implication of what the rule means. There's a huge difference between "let someone know you're going to be absent" and "ask a founder for permission to not have to come to the office."
> Permission from one of several founders at a 10 person company is proportionally equivalent to letting your team lead know you'll be absent. That's not exactly an excessive standard, is it?
Requesting is different from informing. "May I work from home tomorrow?" is not the same as "I am going to work from home tomorrow."
If you tell your boss "I am going to take tomorrow off", and they say, "Actually, you're scheduled for an interview, can you please come in? But take Thursday or Friday off by all means", you're going to still go to work, right? Informing, in practice, is identical to requesting, and this is really just a language thing that makes it clear that you (a) should inform somebody you'll be gone and (b) you can take any day off except maybe 5% of days have critical meetings or whatever.
It seems reasonable to think this is codified this way because the alternative language of informing doesn't imply suggestion (b), but sure, it could also be due to the founders being control freaks.
> If you tell your boss "I am going to take tomorrow off", and they say, "Actually, you're scheduled for an interview, can you please come in? But take Thursday or Friday off by all means", you're going to still go to work, right? Informing, in practice, is identical to requesting ...
In my experience, "you must ask for permission" is substantially different from "you don't have to ask, but your decision may be overruled". It sounds like your experience is different.
Perhaps the differences I see can be put into another context. Think about the action "eating off someone else's plate", rather than "working from home". Do you see the gap between informing and requesting in that circumstance? The difference seems huge to me.
