This happened because Siemens AG and Ericsson entered a joint venture called Ellemtel. It was required to produce a software product in 6 months. Each sent 500 engineers. At the end of the (successful) project, fully half the code was found to be authored by one engineer.
The contract was such that, without delivery by deadline, Ellemtel would not be paid. Without that one engineer, the project would have failed.
Details... He was responsible for assigning tasks. Tasks were two weeks. If a task was not done by the two-week deadline, he did it himself over the following weekend.
They took blood samples, periodically, to measure stress hormone levels. Stress rose as the deadline approached. It took 2 years to return to normal. (I.e. burnout is objective.) The 500x's stress level did not increase.
(On a later project, involving an OS kernel he wrote, he did have stress. Also, for English-speakers: Siemens is pronounced "Zeemanss".)
This happened because Siemens AG and Ericsson entered a joint venture called Ellemtel. It was required to produce a software product in 6 months. Each sent 500 engineers. At the end of the (successful) project, fully half the code was found to be authored by one engineer.
The contract was such that, without delivery by deadline, Ellemtel would not be paid. Without that one engineer, the project would have failed.
Details... He was responsible for assigning tasks. Tasks were two weeks. If a task was not done by the two-week deadline, he did it himself over the following weekend.
They took blood samples, periodically, to measure stress hormone levels. Stress rose as the deadline approached. It took 2 years to return to normal. (I.e. burnout is objective.) The 500x's stress level did not increase.
(On a later project, involving an OS kernel he wrote, he did have stress. Also, for English-speakers: Siemens is pronounced "Zeemanss".)