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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?

#171

Post by ZenoArrow »

madaxe_again wrote: post #70
stronglikedan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like it could be a diet thing. Have you tried eating different things for lunch to see if that affects your mid-afternoon mood?

Actually, I find the most effective means to not fall asleep after lunch is to just not eat lunch. When and if I do, I'm intolerably tired for the afternoon. It's your body's natural response to having been fed - conserve energy until the next hunt.

> "It's your body's natural response to having been fed - conserve energy until the next hunt."

I think it's more likely to be due to the energy it takes to break down food (meaning you have less free energy) that causes people to feel sluggish after a large meal.

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

#172

Post by xapata »

DaniFong wrote: post #165

This is a paper on the work that the article cited: https://www.melbourneinstitute.com/downloads/working_paper_s... There is a critical mathematical mistake with their use of statistical analysis which basically, as an artifact, bakes in this "conclusion" into the "results". It comes about because they manually add "Working hours-squared/100" into the factor analysis, and then, low and behold, there is a parabola cor…

I skimmed the paper and couldn't find this "critical mistake". The nonlinear model you describe is common and appropriate to situations like this.

    y ~ x + x^2
A mistake would be

    y ~ y^2
And even then, it would be appropriate if we're modeling an autoregressive process.

    y_{t} ~ y_{t-1}

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

#173

Post by madaxe_again »

Ductapemaster wrote: post #147
madaxe_again wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In our case it's more like newtonian mechanics - for every force there is an equal and opposing force. I've always pushed for growth, for hiring, for bigger clients, for new avenues, for risk - and he has always challenged and pushed for the status quo, and to not spend, not invest, not grow, make sure every month is profitable. When we were small, my view was dominant, as I worked within and with the team, and we di…

Thanks for sharing your story and your experience so others can learn from it. Please don't stop commenting!

Nope. Slowbanned for my comments here today. Outright racism is fine here. Criticising the HN "community" makes you an enemy of the state.

Be seeing you.

Edit: tautological post.

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

#174

Post by Hydraulix989 »

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #161
Hydraulix989 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exercise was a means to an end. College adcoms want well-rounded students, not narrowly-focused math drones. Applying to top colleges with good academic AND athletic credentials is very important. I did not have a cellphone in high school. iPhone 1 was released during my senior year. A few of my classmates who were much more well-off than I was had Razr phones, LG keyboard phones, and the like -- all paid for by…

>College adcoms want well-rounded students, not narrowly-focused math drones. I find this incredibly misguided.

Please elaborate?

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

#175

Post by findK »

cubano wrote: post #64

I'm 50yo and am still learning new shit everyday...just a month ago I bit the bullet and learned enough javasc...excuse me ECMAScript, to be pretty damn dangerous :) Over the past weekend I learned docker and am now running containers all over the place...these aren't trivial things and the speed of which I'm picking stuff up is as fast, if not faster, then it has ever been for me. The point is I am 10 years older th…

"These aren't trivial things..." Those are pretty trivial things, I mean JS is some people's first language. You can LEARN docker in couple days or less. Please correct me If I am wrong ?

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

#176

Post by derefr »

groby_b wrote: post #95
dclowd9901 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

Forgetting the other most important role, coaching people on the team. And yet another one, shelter from outside unrest. Oh, and blame-absorber. And coordinating efforts, when yet again three engineers in three different places work on the same issue. You know, this is starting to resemble the "what have the romans ever done for us" skit :) I'm not disagreeing that many managers don't do this. Or that they do it badl…

The funny thing is, if you do all those things, but you don't "liaise", then it's very likely that your job-title isn't "manager", but rather "administrative assistant." Sadly, I've never heard of a team of engineers having a dedicated admin assistant.

A lot of corporate malaise could be solved, I think, by

1. giving each team the budget to hire their own admin assistant to coordinate and coach for them (but to leave the liase-ing to the team lead), and then

2. firing all the middle-management layers that now serve literally no purpose.

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

#177

Post by derefr »

bostonpete wrote: post #80
dclowd9901 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> How does this work? Rather than a company asking an employee what their salary range is, the employee asks the company what is the most they can afford to pay you, and they pay you that. I still don't see how that works. Your comment seems like it boils down to saying the company should pay the employee more than they're worth (i.e. worth to the business compared to others who could add the same value), but the com…

Sure, but it's just as irresponsible (economically irrational) as an individual to go the other way.

Really, the "optimal" salary negotiation is for both the employer and the potential hire to first agree on a dollar-value of how much money the employee is expected to make the company—literally, what the hire is worth—and then, having come to agreement over that, to then negotiate what profit margin the company wants to keep of that created value.

You might recognize this as the process a hiring agency goes through to negotiate with an employer. In this case, the employee is their own hiring agency, and the one who will end up with the majority "cut."

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

#178

Post by vacri »

BjoernKW wrote: post #54
quantumhobbit wrote: post #5

Stretching 2 hours of work into an 8-9 hour day through meetings and sneaky Reddit/hn usage is certainly bad for our brains. But this is the norm as long as managers interpret productivity as butts in seats.

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…

> I'm still at a loss as to why butts in seats management is still so dominant today.

Most jobs aren't 'creative at any time of the day by oneself' jobs. Support staff can't just clock in at 1pm, because that's when they feel most supportive. Government clerks can't just start and stop when they like, because the counter has to be staffed during office hours. Most office jobs need to have considerable overlap with the times of other people in the office.

Even for programmers, remote work and your own hours is not a clear win. Some people adore it and work well with it, but other people don't do so well in managing their own time. I've worked with people who work remote, make a pretense of busywork, and get little of substance done - but when they were in the office, they got more work done.

Penny-pinching time ("be here at 0900 exactly!"^) is silly, but at the same time, this meme that bosses are automatically bad if they want in-office work and general office hours... it is way too simplistic.

^ funny how those penny-pinchers never demand that you leave on time as well...

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

#179

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

quantumhobbit wrote: post #5

Stretching 2 hours of work into an 8-9 hour day through meetings and sneaky Reddit/hn usage is certainly bad for our brains. But this is the norm as long as managers interpret productivity as butts in seats.

is certainly bad for our brains

Why? Can you elaborate on this point? What makes you so certain that doing so is bad for our brains? Bad in what way? Is the badness cumulative and irreparable? Is it temporary and reversible? Maybe it's good for our brains because it's less stressful than trying to cram 15 hours work in a 9 hour day.

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

#180

Post by derefr »

snowwrestler wrote: post #121
quantumhobbit wrote: post #5

Stretching 2 hours of work into an 8-9 hour day through meetings and sneaky Reddit/hn usage is certainly bad for our brains. But this is the norm as long as managers interpret productivity as butts in seats.

Is this you? If so, why aren't you seeking out more work to do, since you have so much free time? I know this sounds snarky, but I have never seen a company that didn't have undone work. And I've rarely met colleagues who didn't appreciate a helping hand when they were busy.

Likely: zero equity, and a negotiated wage that is less than the opportunity-cost of one's time because it had an expectation of "slack" calculated into it by the employer. Most retail jobs have these properties.
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