Nothing is more exhausting than tryimg to look busy when there is nothing to do.
As a freelancer i got some contracts through headhunters that were like that.
Looking back now, i should have quit and found something else.
Is full-time work bad for our brains?
81–90 of 229 posts
Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why are you so sure that this is a bad thing for our brains? I find it difficult to tell what is work and what isn't (I work from home). I wonder how studies like this make that distinction. As you say, being at your workplace doesn't necesarily mean you're actually working.
Working from home is unique - many people find lines getting blurred. The bigger difference is in what your downtime is like. Working from home, you can eat or listen to music or go out of the house to the doctor's office. Take a shower, lounge about, talk to the kids or wife or friends or simply goof off. In the office, you still have to be in the office and looking like you are being productive. Maybe you have to b…
You're describing some things you don't like about being at work, but how do we know which of all these things are actually detrimental to brain function?
Why is programming, being in a meeting, making peace with the annoying coworker or having to be sneaky about reading HN more damaging to our brains than playing a shooter game at home for five hours, having a heated debate with a friend, bingeing on some TV show or contributing to an open source project in your spare time?
Maybe the only thing that really matters is whether we are forced to keep doing something once we get tired of it and would rather do something else.
Maybe all this study reveals is for how many hours the average worker likes doing what they are forced to do at work. That wouldn't tell us very about what work does to the brain function of someone who is exceptionally motivated and loves to keep doing what they do for 16 hours per day.
Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?
#83This is why I work from home. I can work in sprints and take breaks to make food, exercise, run errands and play video games. You will have to drag me back to an office 9-5 at gunpoint.
Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because those of us who believe otherwise usually get beaten out and decide to not run businesses any more. My confounder doesn't like hiring, likes to have a huge pile of cash in the bank to no particular end, and sends people shitty emails if they're late in the morning. He's successfully killed off enthusiasm and passion for getting things done (mine included), and now people are either making time or leaving. We…
"confounder", ha. In my experience, what does a manager do if there's no one around to manage? And how do employees get recognized for their contributions if there are no managers to track it? It's a catch-22. My thought is that if companies simply paid people as much as they could, all of this would go away. You wouldn't even _need_ managers anymore. One of managers' more important roles, liaising between department…
> My thought is that if companies simply paid people as much as they could, all of this would go away.
It would also go away if employees would simply take whatever the company's first offer is.
Neither are very realistic suggestions.
Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?
#85I worked three years full time and now on a startup. I've come to realize that most of the performance improvement for me with the latter is attributable to a difference in sleep duration and quality. I'm someone who needs variability (+/- 2-3 hrs) in when I go to sleep and little to none in total duration. This is especially important when you're exercising consistently (and doubly so for HIIT).
Work life normally doesn't account for sleep, but I feel like it may very well be all the reason for the problems we see. It's no secret that most Americans are experiencing chronic sleep deprivation. And that's linked to a host of other issues like obesity, learning impairment, low energy/productivity, increased stress, etc. In other words, it has a cascading effect on everything else. Most people need around 8 hours per night to function normally and get only around 6.
Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've read your response a few times and still am unclear as to what you're saying.
If results-based work actually gains employees any extra free time, companies that find a way to fit more work into that time (say, by assigning more tasks) will outcompete those that do not. Goodbye, glorious results-based-work free time. Either that or results-based work doesn't actually help us get things done faster than traditional work (_i.e._ it's snake oil) and at best it'll limp along providing little benefi…
If this were entirely true, businesses wouldn't be open from 9am-5pm but would have three 8-hour shifts throughout the day and run 24/7 and simply outcompete companies that are only open 9-5. The "best" companies would have even longer shifts and more complex schedules, with fewer employees.
9-5 isn't the 'optimal'. It's simply what is 'most common' for a diurnal society. Nobody is driving around town looking to get a hair cut at 3am and staring at an IDE from 1pm-5pm trying to solve a bug isn't making you any more efficient than thinking about the problem while cooking an early dinner.
Humans do suffer fatigue - both mental and physical - and proper lengths of rest helps both kinds.
I posit that happier employees are more likely to trend their work/life balance in favor of work if they enjoy their work and enjoy their company. Unhappy employees will skirt by on the bare minimum required knowing that hiring/training a new employee isn't worth the cost of firing them.
Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
As much as I agree with that I'm still at a loss as to why butts in seats management is still so dominant today. It's almost as if everybody wakes up, reads Dilbert every morning thinking "Wow, that PHB guy certainly is a role model to aspire to." It's not as if these patterns can't be changed: The required technology has been available for more than a decade now. There are tried and tested approaches for organizing…
Because those of us who believe otherwise usually get beaten out and decide to not run businesses any more. My confounder doesn't like hiring, likes to have a huge pile of cash in the bank to no particular end, and sends people shitty emails if they're late in the morning. He's successfully killed off enthusiasm and passion for getting things done (mine included), and now people are either making time or leaving. We…
Keep commenting. Ignore the bullshit downvotes. I understand weariness when arguing with someone who is hardheaded. They can even be nice, but so stubborn that you are drained by the end of the debate.
Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?
#88Full-time work in most professions is just the appearance of full-time work. It actually sets up a culture of dependency, much like welfare, except with people selling their days for money. Many of them don't dare build value for themselves because they are afraid of losing a steady paycheck, getting sued etc.
Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?
#89Work is too ambiguous and complex of a concept to directly state that 25 hours a week is optimum over a certain age.
It seems like this article is partially premised on research done on assembly line workers, who are, as far as I'm aware, actually working and doing physical labor for most of the time they're at work. I wonder how well this applies to mental labor? Beyond that, as some people have already commented, white-collar jobs tend to involve a lot of downtime.
Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Working from home is unique - many people find lines getting blurred. The bigger difference is in what your downtime is like. Working from home, you can eat or listen to music or go out of the house to the doctor's office. Take a shower, lounge about, talk to the kids or wife or friends or simply goof off. In the office, you still have to be in the office and looking like you are being productive. Maybe you have to b…
You're describing some things you don't like about being at work, but how do we know which of all these things are actually detrimental to brain function? Why is programming, being in a meeting, making peace with the annoying coworker or having to be sneaky about reading HN more damaging to our brains than playing a shooter game at home for five hours, having a heated debate with a friend, bingeing on some TV show or…
I don't necessarily mind all of that, save the sneaking around with tech when it seems a bit harsh.
We don't know which things are actually detrimental to brain function. If I were to speculate, I'm going to guess the differences lie in some combination of low-level stress and the actual effort involved.
The effort bit might explain more of the differences. Some folks have better genetics for long-distance running and can do so for much of their lives while others develop issues from overuse and/or become more prone to injuries. I'm hoping we sort some of this stuff out in the future as we get better ways to gain insight.