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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?

#601

Post by spurgu »

stopglobalism wrote: post #463

I think 5 hours of 100% engaged, mentally intense work is about all that can be expected from a person in a day. After 5-6 hours of mentally intense work, there are diminishing returns. Therefore, I think about 6 hours/day are what should be expected from a developer, including 30-60 minutes of meetings/admin work. Though some companies might need another hour or two-- hopefully such extra time is not mentally intens…

Huh, why were you flagged? I "vouched".

Anyways that's interesting. I actually did a personal study during the course of 1-2 weeks a couple of years ago. I kept track of how long I felt like I could give my undivided focus to my work and found that the number was 5.5 hours on average. People will be different of course, but that's as long as I felt I'd feel good claiming to have given it 100%.

Given that I had to work 8 hours in practice it felt like a bad strategy to give it 100% for 5.5 hours and then whatever (60%?) for the remaining 2.5, so instead I "diluted" that focus intensity throughout the day.

You make a good point about the diminishing returns! It sounds reasonable to me that it would likely be better to do 1 hours the next day instead of continuing by creating a mess on the remaining 2.5.

It's hard to measure, but from personal experience I'd say that it'd be worth more (given all externalities) to pay me for 100% focus over 5.5 hours compared to [whatever%] over 8.

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

#602

Post by egypturnash »

greggman3 wrote: post #442
egypturnash wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An American investment banker was at the pier of a small coastal Mexican village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican replied, “only a little while.” The American then asked why didn’t he stay out longer and catch more fish? The M…

This parable is completely unrelated to the topic at hand unless you add in some catch like > The American complimented the Mexican on the quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. > I don't catch them. I just go to one of the other fisherman's boats from my company and take a few of their tuna. That way they get up at 5am and work there asses off and all I have to do is carry a couple of their tu…

Lemme just qualify my general point of "fuck working hard for The Man for some vague promises of happiness much, much later in life when you can just do whatever the fuck you like to do right now" here with another quote:

----

Take an electric pencil sharpener

Take a case of white-out; you might need it one day

Take stuff from work

It's your duty as an oppressed worker to steal from your exploiters

It's gonna be an outstanding day

- King Missile, Take Stuff From Work, emphasis mine.

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

#603

Post by Aeolun »

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…

> There's organizational psych research going back decades showing that teams who work 40-hour weeks will quickly outperform teams working 60 hrs / week.

I feel like this has less to do with the amount of hours worked and more with the kind of organisation/manager that would have their employees actually working 40 hour weeks.

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

#604

Post by distrill »

xupybd wrote: post #534
raducu wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work about 4 hours a day, sometimes not at all and felt terrible inside about myself. Then I got diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Concerta. The focus is not what I want, but the reduction of impulsivity is doing wonders. I started seeing the incompetent, manipulative and rude pieces of shit colleagues that I kept attracting (because of self immage and guilt) and that kept leaching on my time, interrupting…

How did you find out you had ADHD? I often suspect I have something along the lines of ADHD or Dyslexia ( very mild ) but have no idea how to look into it. I've done a few online tests but end up very border line on most.

same, and i feel dirty asking about it because if you don't have ADHD you're basically just asking about getting speed

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

#605

Post by Aeolun »

throw10920 wrote: post #597
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?

Isn’t that exactly what they are doing anyway? The only reason you get anything more is they couldn’t find employees if they didn’t.

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

#606

Post by Apocryphon »

khazhoux wrote: post #525
xvector wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, I've had multiple managers and all of them have been happy with the bare minimum. I would not call that lazy. There is literally no reason to work more. Rather, I would call working more "passionate." Let's normalize not selling your soul to your employer out of some misplaced sense of pride.

> Let's normalize not selling your soul to your employer out of some misplaced sense of pride. That's a bit dramatic, I'd say. The reason people can get away with working one hour a day is simply because software development is so abstract, that it can never be estimated or tracked accurately. This guy takes advantage of that, by giving his co-workers the impression that he's actively solving problems, when he's just…

Maybe all of his coworkers are doing the same thing.

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

#607

Post by throwawaylinux »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #298
2-718-281-828 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well put! I work in consulting for a large corporation and they pay for me more than 1000 Euro per day. I don't see much of that money but I can't really complain about my salary. It's pretty good (not SV-good, though). Now on average I'd say I work no more than 4 hours. Some days even less. Occasionally I feel proud of that and even brag about it to friends. But deep down I feel how this is just not making me happy.…

"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.

Meritocracy is not that everyone should get the same for the same effort though. It's that everyone should get the same for the same value they sell. And yes value is subjective and always changing and not the same everywhere.

Everything is "unfair" from a perspective. Two people working the exact same job and putting in the same effort, if one person packs twice the number of boxes it would also be unfair to pay them the same as the other person who is creating only half the value for the person paying them.

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

#608

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

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…

"This is both normal amd mostly acceptable, in my professional opinion."

I wonder if there is anyone reading this comment who thinks, "That does not sound normal, acceptable nor professional."

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

#609

Post by paxys »

novok wrote: post #522
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…

We spend a lot of our limited lives at work, we should strive to make work enjoyable for ourselves and others. Making work enjoyable can be many things, from changing careers, reducing hours, changing how it's done or changing your personal beliefs about it. It's a miserable experience for you and the people around you to have constant low level subconscious resentment for working. It leaks out into your personal lif…

Detachment does not equal resentment. I find that the whole “you must be fully devoted to your work or you are doing something wrong” ethos to be uniquely American, and pretty troubling when forced.

It is possible for someone to go in to work, do what they are supposed to do, and then go home, all without being overly “bought in” or making people miserable. Heck I feel more miserable when someone is forcing team building events or drinks with coworkers after work.

People also have the ability to partition their work and personal lives such that one does not affect the other at all. I personally never check my work phone after hours, while there are several people who are active on project or social channels at all times of day or night.

There’s nothing wrong with any of this. People have different approaches to the concept of corporate work and what part of their lives to devote to it.

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

#610

Post by tspike »

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…

The lack of replies accusing you of immorality, theft, sloth, etc is somewhat surprising given the reactions in the rest of the thread.
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