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Is full-time work bad for our brains?

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Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#111

Post by bluejellybean »

theAnonMe wrote: post #91
stevenwiles wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I'm just like you. About to turn 60, been a daily hardcore drug user for most of my life, and I've been picking up new languages and technologies every day, all while working 60 hours a week. I find it quite hurmorous indeed that there are those that would suggest that we are not intellectually capable. Glad to know there is someone else like me out there. :)

Just registered this account to discuss. This is something I worry about, I am a 31 year old dev, only learned to code 5 years ago. I smoke around 28 grams of strong cannabis (kush and haze) a week. Between the ages of 17-25 every weekend consisted either cocaine, ecstasy, mdma, ketamine or whatever really. I currently feel as although I'm playing with as much tech as ever I can't hold as much state in my head when d…

Cannabis and programming only seem to mix for me when I'm using lightly ( less than a few times a week )

When I moved to Colorado my intake skyrocketed. Was up to around 7 grams a week (16-25%thc) with 90% concentrates mixed in for fun. I was able to work with 0 problems for a few months but started noticing subtle fogginess over the course of my days and like you, holding state was difficult ( along with general debugging slowness )

Naturally I figured it would be wise to slow down consumption and went on a tolerance break. Within a few days I was back to 100% and now only smoke a few times a week. Currently I notice no negative day to day issues and all mental fogginess is gone! I like to sit down after work, toke, and then code.. so happy to report my anecdotal data as positive!

This goes for other drugs too, even "normal" ones like caffeine. I had a nasty habit of drinking a ridiculous amount of coffee and noticed very similar issues as above with cannabis. And like above, cutting the caffeine down was the fix for me.

Take a break for a few weeks ( or at least cut back significantly ) and see how you feel. Smoking that much weekly is only necessary with an extreme tolerance anyway.

Good luck and hope you feel better!

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#112

Post by goodcanadian »

ktRolster wrote: post #96
BjoernKW wrote: post #54

Earlier 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…

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. Because managers up a level have no other way of knowing if you're being productive or not. So they look and see if people are ferociously typing. This is not a joke.

Yes, a place where I used to work once sent out a memo trying to encourage more regular work hours because management couldn't find people, and the office always looked half empty. The thing is, it was the operations staff for a astronomical observatory. The "missing" people were generally traveling and/or working at night!

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#113

Post by chrismealy »

jdc0589 wrote: post #27

My brain usually goes in to "prepare to shut-down" mode every day at about 3:30pm (having started work at ~9am). I tend to have slow mornings, and stay pretty busy/head-down for the last half of that time. The funny thing is, it doesn't really matter if I was busy working on hard technical challenges all day, or just reading articles/browsing the web; my brain shuts down the same time regardless.

I heard a nutritionist on NPR say a little more protein at breakfast will cure the 3-5pm brain fog. It's worked for me. I also stopped eating sugar I think that's helped too.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#114

Post by ktRolster »

maxwelljoslyn wrote: post #106
ktRolster wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The naps don't look particularly comfortable: http://img2.izismile.com/img/img3/20100419/640/chinese_facto... But you know, when someone gives you a 30 minute break, you take it!

That link returns a 500 error for me.

This link will give you a good collection:

https://www.google.com/search?safe=active&site=&tbm=isch&sou...

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#115

Post by cannacoder »

theAnonMe wrote: post #91
stevenwiles wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I'm just like you. About to turn 60, been a daily hardcore drug user for most of my life, and I've been picking up new languages and technologies every day, all while working 60 hours a week. I find it quite hurmorous indeed that there are those that would suggest that we are not intellectually capable. Glad to know there is someone else like me out there. :)

Just registered this account to discuss. This is something I worry about, I am a 31 year old dev, only learned to code 5 years ago. I smoke around 28 grams of strong cannabis (kush and haze) a week. Between the ages of 17-25 every weekend consisted either cocaine, ecstasy, mdma, ketamine or whatever really. I currently feel as although I'm playing with as much tech as ever I can't hold as much state in my head when d…

I'm also 31 and have been smoking almost as long as I've been coding - since I was 15. An oz per week is pretty heavy smoking - if you can cut that down to at most a 1/4 per week and exercise every day, I think you would see a drastic improvement in your cognitive ability when programming. I've found that intense interval type exercise helps with negative side effects of smoking, especially if you do it in the morning and save the smoking for after work.

Plus, smoking after programming all day helps you shift perspective and think differently about any roadblocks you're stuck on. Best of luck.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#117

Post by up_and_up »

ashark wrote: post #76
a_small_island wrote: post #72

Earlier 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 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.

That hasnt been my experience. My employer doesnt care how or when throughout the week I get something done. Just once a week I state what I accomplished and what I am working on now. We still have deadlines, just no constant helicoptering. Its obvious when a project seems behind and I need to allocate extra hours to accomplish it.

It does result in plenty of flexibility and free time.

Constant checkin's, helicoptering, and meetings are nothing but an impediment to productivity IMO. If your company needs that as part of their workflow they prob need to reassess their hiring process (not hiring A players) and communication processes.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#118

Post by segmondy »

lj3 wrote: post #50
whack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What did you deliver this week? This month? This quarter?", should be the only relevant question in the workplace, managers included. Unfortunately, there's another camp that (with credible arguments) claims that task-estimates are almost always meaningless. If you buy into that camp, and if someone under-delivers, it doesn't tell you anything about whether or not they are performing poorly. They could simply be t…

What if you judge a team based on the revenue it brought in vs the cost of the employees in the team? Since profit is the real measure of success, it makes sense to use that as the metric. Measuring individual contributions is problematic, no matter the system you use. Measuring based on the entire team is much easier.

It's difficult to judge teams based on revenue. A software company makes $100million. Is it the developers? the sales team, the marketing team or QA team that get's the credit? do you split it evenly? do you split it by the number of hours worked? If you have a company, there is really only one team, all of the company, all the other teams are usually sub teams that are interdependent on each other.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#119

Post by ashark »

tomdell wrote: post #89

Work 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, w…

Left to my own devices I'm pretty sure I'd work a variable number of hours a week, going as high as 80, and probably averaging in the neighborhood of 60.

The tricky part for me is that breaking 25ish actually-productive hours a week isn't compatible with a steady 40ish hour a week job where I'm doing mostly the same thing every week.

Ideally I'd spend 40hrs studying math one week, 80hrs developing a game next week, 30hrs landscaping/gardening + 30hrs building furniture the next, 50 hours writing fiction the next, et c. It's doing more-or-less the same work every week, whether I'm in the mood for it or not, that places such a low upper bound on my total productivity.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#120

Post by reedlaw »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #58
Kinnard wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten this sentiment before. Does it appear to be improving at all in Korea?

If you look at the younger generation, I doubt it. Korea is a wonderful country full of extremely bright and nice people. But they're caught in an education arms race that is legitimately terrifying. Kids are schooled with incredible tenacity from 9 to 5 and then once they are finished school they attend night classes and weekend classes. I think putting a much higher weight on fluid intelligence over crystallized in…

9 to 5 school sounds like a breeze compared to China. Kids in China are doing 7 to 7 while in middle school (with piles of homework to do during lunch break and in the evening). In high school there is no leaving campus except for once a month.
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