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Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

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Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#591

Post by WalterBright »

cvwright wrote: post #275
paxys wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However! I will say that this way of working and living comes with some significant hazard to your mental health. Doing something you don't like, care about, or believe in for decades long periods of time can really mess with your sense of self worth and happiness in life. Agree with everything you wrote except this part. I have worked jobs where I truly believed in the mission, worked hard, was paid a lot, achieve…

Just wanted to point out that this > I truly believed in the mission, worked hard, was paid a lot, achieved great things and was overall very satisfied. and this > used to leave at 5pm sharp are not mutually exclusive. We have this weird thing in tech where we think that, to be passionate, you have to work yourself into the ground. But this is stupid. There's organizational psych research going back decades showing t…

> going back decades

Longer than that. In WW2, factories increased hours to 60 to increase production. The workers were all on board with this. Production increased for a while, and then dipped below the 40 hour results.

Some experimentation showed that to get a sustained increase in production, the working hours would be increased for a time, and then brought back to 40, back and forth.

Personally, I'm well aware that when my tiredness exceeds a certain level, any programming work I do has to be undone (thank you, git!) and redone after I'm rested. What I do when I want to work, but am tired, is work on things that don't require much attention, like organizing my office, making backups, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#592

Post by ltbarcly3 »

5e92cb50239222b wrote: post #222
nostrebored wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

60 hour workweeks are absolutely sustainable? Desirable maybe not, but I’ve known lots of people who have worked ten hours a day six days a week. Especially if they don’t have other commitments.

I think many doctors work much more than that (60-80 hours each week) for pretty much their entire careers.

No they don't. They do it for a brief period when they are interns, under the theory that if you only have 2 years to make someone a good enough doctor you need that many hours per week to accomplish it.

The majority of doctors work 41 to 60 hours per week. This is self reported, so it is likely that it is somewhat inflated. I once met someone who claimed to work 180 hours one week (do the math).

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#593

Post by p1anecrazy »

i_dont_know_ wrote: post #18

I think there's also something to be said for passive processing. Sometimes I'll know I need to write some code or some function and I'll just think about it in the back of my head while doing other things, sometimes for a whole day or two. Then I'll sit down and write it in like 20-30 minutes. Did I work 20-30 minutes, or have I been working for a day or two? I would say a day or two, and the 20-30 minutes was the t…

This kind of “background processing” was covered in detail in the infamous “Learning how to learn MOOC”. I would go further suggesting that for people unaware of this way of thought processing/problem solving (like OP?) peer pressure may bring something akin to impostor syndrom.

This doesn’t have to be a programmer only thing IMHO. If you spend 5 hours chilling and 3 executing and everybody is happy with your performance, it may be just your way to do things. If someone next to you does the same by coding 8 hour straight - its their style, and neither is better.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#594

Post by SjorsVG »

I often feel like I do way too much. Especially now that I am expected to be a full-stack engineer and be involved in managing the team. I wish my job was just programming, not all this Scrum stuff. Sometimes I think programmers need to know and do way more than people in other (perhaps more lucrative) jobs, but I guess that isn't really true.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#595

Post by ww520 »

Once there was an old engineer retiring from a company after working there for many years. He's their top notch guy and knew their system inside out. Couple months later the biggest machine in the company stopped working, costing the company millions in lost production. No one could fix it. In desperation the manager called the engineer to come in to take a look. The engineer looked around the machine for a few minutes. He put a chalk mark on the machine and told them to use a hammer to bang on it. They did and the machine was running again. The manager was very thankful and told the engineer to send in the bill for the repair. The engineer sent them a bill for $100,001.50. The manager called him and was upset for such a huge bill over a small repair. The engineer replied, $1.50 for the chalk and $100K for knowing where to bang the machine.

You sir are a knowledge worker. Companies pay you for your knowledge, your experience, and your ability to solve problems. They are willing to pay you to sit around so that they can call you to work on something at the moment's notice. People are willing to pay reserved instances in AWS though the reserved machines do nothing most of the time. It's called reserving capacity. Same in your case.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#596

Post by soneca »

ww520 wrote: post #595

Once there was an old engineer retiring from a company after working there for many years. He's their top notch guy and knew their system inside out. Couple months later the biggest machine in the company stopped working, costing the company millions in lost production. No one could fix it. In desperation the manager called the engineer to come in to take a look. The engineer looked around the machine for a few minut…

I don’t think OP is solving any problems

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#597

Post by throw10920 »

cattown wrote: post #132

I've been a software engineer and managed software engineers for 20 years and worked in all kinds of businesses. This is both normal and mostly acceptable, in my professional opinion. Doing just as much work as your employer requires and no more is way less of a problem than employees who actively steal, commit fraud, bring drama and distract other team members, or are introducing defects because they've faked their…

> Doing just as much work as your employer requires and no more

Do you also think that it's acceptable for an employer to only do as much for its employees as is required by law, and no more?

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#598

Post by ClumsyPilot »

kerneloftruth wrote: post #528
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My g/f earns about a third of what I do while actually working a tough, stressful job in full time" There is only one thing i learned, life is deeply unfair, meritocracy is a myth, and noone knows why most things are the way they are.

I would suggest that you keep studying life. From what I've learned: life was never promised as being fair. Civilization is a thin veneer over the Jungle, but it does try (without ever achieving 100% success), to provide fairness. One can debate where in the world Civilization is thriving vs. struggling (it's mostly struggling). Meritocracy does exist and does work, except where it is undermined (i.e. "Equity", or as…

"Meritocracy does exist and does work, except where it is undermined (i.e. "Equity"

You really pick 'equity' as the example? I get thats it fashionable to hate on woke politics around these parts, but aren't your forgeting that most of the world is more like Russia, i.e. jungle, where stongest rules because they can, with mirderous intent.

I mean if you are talking about principles of life, its got to be universal, not just applying in a handfull of fortunate countries.

The principles of we go by, they are in conflict with one another.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#599

Post by Aeolun »

I do much more than 8 hours a day of actual work, but more and more, most of that is work that I think is important.

I could hammer out features all day and get a lot done for a little bit, but I’d burn out in a few weeks.

I honestly don’t mind people putting in only 10 hours a week as long as the quality is good. What I hate is people shipping 40+ hours a week of garbage.

Re: Ask HN: Are most of us developers lying about how much work we do?

#600

Post by [deleted] »

ConfessionTime wrote: post #242
ineptech wrote: post #168

Long time manager here. I call this "work-shy" and it is neither ubiquitous nor rare, I'd guess about 10%-20% of all employees, and it's certainly not unique to software or even to white-collar work. You should think of this as a problem. Even if it's not for your boss or your teammates (and it will be, eventually), it is for you. It is soul-crushing to fill up the hours. Two pieces of advice: 1) The "good" solution…

It is interesting the number of people who see this as a problem that needs to be fixed. Since this specific comment is near the top, I might as well address that here. Why should I work more? How will that improve my life? My self-worth is derived from what I do outside of work to the extent that I don't prioritize professional validation. The primary reason I work is for money. I make enough money that I can live a…

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