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Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

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Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#111

Post by capisce »

I too am looking to work less than the standard 40 hours a week for similar reasons. Only committing to 4-6 hours in a given day also gives me more freedom to take a large break in the middle of the day to go for a walk or a run, which can be useful in the Scandinavian winter when the sun is only up for a relatively limited time each day.

There are some political parties in Norway and Sweden who want to make a six hour work day the norm.

There are many good arguments for significantly reducing the amount of time the average person works, both for the benefit of individuals and community: http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/21-hours

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#112

Post by aidenn0 »

gedrap wrote: post #92
gexla wrote: post #78

Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day. There are a lot of posts here from developers talking about how they are more productive than their peers working less hours. Really, they probably have the same capacity for hours, but the less productive developers are carrying a lot of baggage in attempting…

Totally agree. 9-5 (or 9-6) engineering jobs are a bit crazy - no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact. Many managers understand that and are cool with people just not doing work while at work... However, I would still prefer to go home than sitting and waiting for 5 or 6pm so I could do something more meaningful, because e.g. side-projects is a gray area while at work and that's fair. Even so,…

> no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact.

I disagree with your fact. I know many, many people who can do it. The simple fact that you talk about working on "side-projects" makes me think you have productive, creative hours outside the time you spend on work items.

I do agree that in the current market for software developers, you'd be crazy to not try to get some of your creative time to work on what you want to instead of your employer, but I just don't comprehend all the people acting as if 8 hours a day, 5 days a week of productivity is unattainable.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#113

Post by nitrogen »

twelvechairs wrote: post #95
gexla wrote: post #78

Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day. There are a lot of posts here from developers talking about how they are more productive than their peers working less hours. Really, they probably have the same capacity for hours, but the less productive developers are carrying a lot of baggage in attempting…

> Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day. OK I'll bite. What are these fields? I think it is fanciful to call 4 hours per day 'normal'.

Any office job ever. As much as 50% of the time in an 8 hour day can be spent chatting with coworkers or inadvertently zoning out.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#114

Post by uhmmmm »

I want to work less hours for an employer / a client also because I want to invest productive hours in my own self improvement and personal projects. There should be a lot more flexibility from the employer side in how many hours an employee commits to working. It should probably be negotiable and explicitly stated in the employment contract.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#115

Post by untog »

aidenn0 wrote: post #112
gedrap wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. 9-5 (or 9-6) engineering jobs are a bit crazy - no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact. Many managers understand that and are cool with people just not doing work while at work... However, I would still prefer to go home than sitting and waiting for 5 or 6pm so I could do something more meaningful, because e.g. side-projects is a gray area while at work and that's fair. Even so,…

> no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact. I disagree with your fact. I know many, many people who can do it. The simple fact that you talk about working on "side-projects" makes me think you have productive, creative hours outside the time you spend on work items. I do agree that in the current market for software developers, you'd be crazy to not try to get some of your creative time to work…

Perhaps a more accurate statement is that no-one is able to work productively for 8 hours straight, which is what the 9-5 job tries to make you do.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#116

Post by leoh »

nitrogen wrote: post #113
twelvechairs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day. OK I'll bite. What are these fields? I think it is fanciful to call 4 hours per day 'normal'.

Any office job ever. As much as 50% of the time in an 8 hour day can be spent chatting with coworkers or inadvertently zoning out.

Or meetings. Poorly run meetings. Probably because people are tired.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#117

Post by clarky07 »

aidenn0 wrote: post #112
gedrap wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. 9-5 (or 9-6) engineering jobs are a bit crazy - no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact. Many managers understand that and are cool with people just not doing work while at work... However, I would still prefer to go home than sitting and waiting for 5 or 6pm so I could do something more meaningful, because e.g. side-projects is a gray area while at work and that's fair. Even so,…

> no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact. I disagree with your fact. I know many, many people who can do it. The simple fact that you talk about working on "side-projects" makes me think you have productive, creative hours outside the time you spend on work items. I do agree that in the current market for software developers, you'd be crazy to not try to get some of your creative time to work…

i've worked with a lot of people in a lot of places, and I think you are kidding yourself if you think most people get 8 hours of work done every day. I'm not saying nobody can do it, but most can't and don't. And that's not a problem. Most people are going to need breaks throughout the day. I suspect many of us here check out hacker news at some point during the day. In moderation that is fine as well (IMO).

For me personally, sometimes I put in 10-12 hours a day for a month or two and then I back off to 4-5 hours for awhile. I can do it in spurts, but 8 hours everyday for years at a time sucks. more than 8 is just unreasonable. If we're being honest I suspect most people do between 4-6 hours of work a day. Perhaps if they weren't forced to be in the office for 8 hours, they could fit that 4-6 hours of work in 4-6 hours instead of 8.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#118

Post by jahaja »

aidenn0 wrote: post #107
jahaja wrote: post #93

Why is it so unusual that employers compete with less hours rather than with larger wages? Is it because granting someone with less work would probably make other employees require the same? I feel that after a certain amount it would be much more enjoyable to get less hours rather than a raise. However the latter seems to be much easier, if not the only one, to get.

I don't know the answer, but I have a few ideas: 1) Puritanical roots of America (Idle hands are the devil's workshop) still linger as the ideal is you spend most of your time working. 2) Hiring more people is hard; furthermore the larger the team, the less efficient (per person) the team is. Therefore you want to get maximum value out of the people you have any way possible. A 25% boost in output of each person on t…

I agree with point 1 - sad but true. Not only in America as well.

I like that you say "perceived loss of 20%". I wonder how substantial the actual difference in productivity is. I wouldn't want to compare at this day to 16 hours, but rather something like 30 hours.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#119

Post by wyan »

mmaunder wrote: post #86

You've described the perfect job for most developers. No one wants to maintain old code. Everyone wants plenty of free time. Everyone wants low pressure with an opportunity to outperform. These jobs are more common in startups and almost never found in going concerns for obvious reasons (there is no green field). It's worth pointing out that hopping from one greenfield project to the next with low pressure isn't goin…

It's worth pointing out that not doing so probably won't expose you to world-changing opportunities either.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#120

Post by krashidov »

asdfologist wrote: post #35

I sometimes wonder if, for mind-intensive, non-repetitive jobs such as programming (the good ones, anyway), lowering the number of work hours per week may actually increase overall output. It's well known that people tend to become more efficient the less time they're given to complete a task. So if people were to work fewer hours and use the rest of the time to get more sleep, relax with their family, etc. - hence k…

I don't know how it works in other industries, but I would bet for software you're right. Sometimes you need to step away from a problem and it let it process in the background.

I've had moments where I'll work on something for hours late into the night only to realize the next morning that I didn't need to or that I can do it using some other method in only a couple of minutes. If I had stopped and went to bed earlier I would've saved a lot more time.

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