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Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

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

#201

Post by atemerev »

coldtea wrote: post #106
atemerev wrote: post #18

I do hire on such terms. I believe it will become more and more widespread in the course of years. James Altucher is right — in the future, there will be only business owners and temp staffers/freelancers instead of our usual "permanent" office jobs, with lots of legal obligations.

In the future there will be less jobs, and more unemployment, including more broke "business owners". In other words, business owners would be commoditized and not mean much at all...

Yes, sure. We are already commoditized. Capital is the commodity. Startup talent is a commodity. Ideas, of course, were a commodity since the very beginning. The stage is set, the only option is to play.

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

#202

Post by brittonrt »

The only correct work schedule is the one you are able to work out with your employers and customers which works for you and for them. If those conditions are met it's a legitimate schedule, even if it's only 1 hour a day one day a week.

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

#203

Post by goblin89 »

So at 9-to-5 job in an average US company, if you work only 9-to-1, and spend the rest of the time doing what you like and chatting with coworkers, but produce the expected results—you'll be considered not working hard enough? Sounds like Japan.

I doubt that's true, though—I bet OP can just find any job and work comfortable hours (provided OP delivers). Any decent company in our field shouldn't judge you by how hard-working you appear throughout the whole work day. Just find a decent company.

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

#204

Post by nnq »

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…

It is unattainable, from the perspective of the employer. As an employer, you just won't get those 8 hrs of productive work a day! Even if most employees can and do have more than 8 hrs of productivity, you just won't ever get more than 50% of that, no matter how many hours you pay them for.

...and it is OK. Yes, you have to pay someone for 8 hrs in order to get 4 hrs of useful work for you company out of them! Yes you have to pay for their side projects even if you like to pretend you don't! And yes you have to pay for people slacking at work... otherwise you don't even get that 50%!

So, as an employer, accept this fact, pay up, and motivate your people to create awesome products that delight the consumers and bring record profits, in this limited amount of useful time that you can squeeze out of people!

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

#205

Post by suyash »

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" - this is not a fact at all, where is the proof? Show me the research. I would still challenge it by showing you days when I've easily pulled 12 - 14 hours for 5 and sometimes 6 days of solid work in a week with no burn out. It's all about managing energy and having your internal motivations aligned with the goals and tasks at hand. Not that everyone should be working 12-14 hours but often we need to.

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

#206

Post by spektom »

Did you think about your work beyond these four hours a day? I you did, then it makes a lot of sense. Normally, thinking should take a half of the work time, the rest is dedicated for the implementation. So, if the four hours a day is the implementation net time, and another four (may be more) you were chewing all possible solutions, architecture, optimization, learning new technologies to apply, then totally it becomes much more than 16 hours per week job.

I work in a big company now, and I try to split my time exactly the same: four hours - I'm thinking/reading/learning, another four or less - I'm typing some code. And this scheme is proving itself as much more optimal comparing to a daily 10 hours implementation rush in a start-up where I worked before.

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

#207

Post by cliffcrosland »

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…

If you love what you do for work, it is probably sustainable to work for more than 4 hours per day. We all do things during each of the 16 hours of consciousness per day. Some of those things are more enjoyable than others. If you find yourself in a situation where you must work more than 4 hours per day, and it is not enjoyable, there appear to be two options:

1. Find work that you enjoy doing more than 4 hours per day. 2. Learn to love what you do for work.

In the healthy romantic relationships I've seen, partners fall in love, but they also choose to love one another. I wonder if loving work is similar. There is a lot of rhetoric encouraging people to follow their passions to find the jobs they love, but there is little rhetoric about choosing to love the job you have. It's important not to delude yourself that a horrible job is lovable, but it's also important to notice all of the positive aspects of a job and how you can use it to grow and give back.

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

#208

Post by aidenn0 »

nnq wrote: post #204
aidenn0 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It is unattainable, from the perspective of the employer. As an employer, you just won't get those 8 hrs of productive work a day! Even if most employees can and do have more than 8 hrs of productivity, you just won't ever get more than 50% of that, no matter how many hours you pay them for. ...and it is OK. Yes, you have to pay someone for 8 hrs in order to get 4 hrs of useful work for you company out of them! Yes y…

I'm totally fine with the position that an employer can't reliably get 8 hours of productive work per day from employees. I just am a bit fed up with people repeating over and over again variations on the theme of "nobody doing creative work can consistently be productive for 40 hours per week" which is something I have personally observed multiple counterexamples from across several industries.

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

#209

Post by cerberusss »

mike_esspe wrote: post #197

If you can't find such job, there is a simple hack: work one year, then take a year off.

That requires you to save 50% of your income.

For most of us, that requires relocating to a cheaper home, or telling your significant other that she'll need to chip in just as much as you do. Both are pretty big hurdles.

However if you can pull it off, it's great.

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

#210

Post by a-saleh »

blablablaat wrote: post #99

Sounded good untill I read: "I sincerely think it is quite unrealistic to ask a knowledge worker". What is this with you programmers that you think that you're the best thing that has happend to this world? It's just a job. No more a job then any other one. Same thing as that bullshit as companies that want every employee to program. Do you see CEO's with a background as a carpenter writing blogposts about how everyb…

Knowledge worker is not limited for programmers :-) I.e. it is not as hard to imagine, that the guy asking for 16/h job could be mathematician, engineer, architect, or even some product manager in some financial institution ... and this debate with motive "maybe if we worked less hours/day, but with consistency and focus" is much older than programming craft. Ford started this with his 8h/day instead of 10h/day for his factory workers ...
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