I think he meant that if there is a serious crisis he might stay. Sure, every once in a while a tornado sweeps through your data center. That happens once every other year. "We need you to stay till midnight because a very serious VC is coming in and this project needs to be done" is not a crisis.
Serious stuff happens, it does not happen every other week.
Precision isn't accuracy, and pedantic precision isn't super common in casual conversation anyway.
Look I can't speak for the OP, maybe ze would quit the first week ze's expected to work 40hours and 1 minute. Saying "no more than 40 hours, unless a tornado hits the data center; or my close friend and co-worker's mother dies and he asks me to stay a little late to finish some of his paper work; or a bomb will go off killing a dozen orphans if we stop coding" might be more precise, but it's also less accurate because by listing off every one of a billion unlikely situations in which OP might be willing to work over time it creates the impression that 40 hours is a much more flexible limit than it is.
pedantic precision should be common for a programmer. This is really easy, he could have said, "I will only work overtime in exceptional cases, and those should be very rare." This is what I usually say in interviews.
"under no circumstances will I work overtime" has a very clear meaning.
How is this more precise? You said "rare", and the other party heard "rare", but guys never agreed on what "very rare" was. Believe me, people can have very different ideas about what "very rare" means in this context. :)
There is probably some circumstance I would work a little extra. Seriously, you want ever comment on every blog to be written like a legal contract or a game rulebook? I wasn't about to devote an entire paragraph covering every possible scenario where I may or may not work more or less hours. You get the idea.
Umm, I was supporting your phrasing. :) i.e., that most people get that you will work extra hours when truly required.
And that even a supposedly more precise phrasing suffers from the problem that the listener may not interpret the words the way the speaker intended them to be.
I personally feel that a categorical statement such as yours is less amenable to misunderstanding than a equivocating one. Thanks.
Anyway, we're generating heat rather light in this subthread.
rather than implying that the people who took you at your word did something wrong, you should admit that you used a poor choice of words.
As I said, you could simply have said, "I will only work OT in exceptional cases, and these cases should be rare". It doesn't take an entire paragraph to get this point across. You get the idea.
You can check my comment history and see that I don't insult people often. However, sometimes when people are being really stupid the correct response is to call them stupid.
Think about what numerous people are arguing here. OP said, "under no circumstances do I work more than 40 hours a week" and a number of people insist that these words mean "sometimes I will work OT", and that it's perfectly clear. That's stupid.
Gotcha, and I agree with you on that. Like I said in my comment, this is exactly what I say in interviews, and I haven't had a problem with it yet. If I do then I'll find a new job. After a little practice you can get a feel for reading people and companies and you can usually tell if you are on the same page. I also always ask how many hours on average people work per week, or something along those lines.
Also, I absolutely would not tell a company that I want to work for that "under no circumstances" will I work any overtime. Nor will I hire someone that says such a thing.
I see some ambiguity: this is the contract negociation; the work may be referring to the entire duration of his employment. Exceptional circumstances are exceptional, and he may choose to give up his Friday then.
Exactly - I would completely understand someone insisting on a work/life balance - I want it, and I have no problem with people wanting that; but seeing it worded that way is a red flag to me.
Well you can do plenty of living when lots of businesses do not hire you due to the fact that they realise sometimes stuff needs to get done. We all want to avoid the constantly crisis mode businesses, but you do this by being reasonable.
Serious stuff happens, it does not happen every other week.