Live data from Hacker News

Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

codewithoutrules.com

61–70 of 111 posts

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#61

> You need a hammock to solve hard problems Tangentially related to this point (less so the section itself) is the benefit of a comfortable working environment. Personally, i have found that a curved chaise is the absolute peak of laptop coding comfort, especially for late night sessions. If you have space and are in the market for some new furniture, i would urge people to give them a try.

Hammocks -> hang at 30°angle, need to be big, and lie in them diagonally. No spreader bars. In that case you lie flat.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Responding with an ad hominem attack, nice. You see your position as supporting software developers, which is reasonable. It's not reasonable to expect other software developers to refuse to raise rational points of inquiry that you've based your argument on because it may result in weakening your argument on the merits. It demonstrates that you care more about winning than about the truth. As a result, you're respon…

I'd take issue with your claim that the response by GP was the first emotional or attacking blow - that response was to GGP's "easy hipster life" claim, and the implicit claim therein that GP's call for labor solidarity was spoiled whining rather than, perhaps, a call for skilled workers in an industry to support each other's negotiation positions rather than undercut each other. > It's not reasonable to expect other…

My biggest beef is that it's undermining a set of strategies for playing office politics. It's in my best interest to enforce boundaries on work-life balance. It's also in my best interest to talk about enforcing those boundaries in terms of what the company wants, rather than what I want.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#63
This post pretty much makes the statement a lot of scientific research has already proven. Your brain needs rest in order to form new neural connections (especially when you're learning). Working long hours to the point where you are experiencing mental fatigue is counterproductive to one's efficiency and overall output. Even for those people who are capable of pulling 12 - 16 hour days their productivity wanes after a certain point and are more prone to producing lower quality work and making errors. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mental-downtime/

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the sort of bare-bones level of thinking about the consequences of your actions that I expect out of professionals and adults. The lady in the grocery store may be fat, but loudly talking about that true fact is the sort of thing that we teach our children not to do. I'm not expecting us to not discuss these things; I'm expecting us to not discuss them in a way that hurts us as a class. Keep it over the water…

Regarding the "easy hipster" part - I exaggerated for effect. That is the perception people have on SV developers, for right or wrong. Meanwhile, I'm from Sweden so I'm perhaps just an outside observer to this spectacle.. but at least from my perspective, SV developers are generally speaking overpaid. Well, at least compared to Swedish/European developers. :)

I suspect that your belief that SV developers are overpaid is because of targeted media with the goal of underpaying developers outside of Silicon Valley.

If you're reading it, it's for you.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the "easy hipster" part - I exaggerated for effect. That is the perception people have on SV developers, for right or wrong. Meanwhile, I'm from Sweden so I'm perhaps just an outside observer to this spectacle.. but at least from my perspective, SV developers are generally speaking overpaid. Well, at least compared to Swedish/European developers. :)

I suspect that your belief that SV developers are overpaid is because of targeted media with the goal of underpaying developers outside of Silicon Valley. If you're reading it, it's for you.

No, it's more the fact that I have been involved in hiring rounds in SV and seen the insane amounts relatively speaking crappy devs are demanding.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#66
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. And the fact that the breaking point is a nice round 40, which just happens to correspond with our culture's 5-day work week and typical 8 hour day is a little too convenient to believe.

The apocryphal story I've heard is that the 5-day / 8-hour workweek came from Henry Ford doing rigorous research on productivity in his factories (and that 40 hours/week was less than the norm at the time). I'd believe that's true, but I'd also believe there's reason to suggest that what holds for factory workers doesn't hold for information economy workers. (Although anecdotally, I find that I'm WAY more productive…

>I find that I'm WAY more productive when working closer to 6-hour work days than 8-hour days.

I'm glad someone else has noticed this. The fact that I still end up feeling burned out if I constantly work 8 hour days has made me feel very lazy. It's weird, I feel like I can work at top speed all the time if I work 6 hour days, but if I try to maintain that same pace with longer days then I hit a wall. In effect, I need to pace myself to work 8 hour days.

The only time I feel like I need a day longer than 6 hours is when I'm in meetings all day. Meetings and working seem to use two different kinds of energy. So I could meet for 3 hours about something and work for 6 hours just fine, but I'd be wasting my time if I was attending 3 hours of meetings each day.

The thought above pretty much reinforces my belief that the hours we work have nothing to do with productivity, and everything to do with an illusion of fairness. My boss spends more than half his day in meetings. It probably wouldn't look good if I was working 3 hours less than him each day just because I don't have as many meetings to attend. The issue is even trickier when I consider the fact that many of my coworkers need less concentration to perform their roles, and would be perfectly fine working 5x10s by their own admission.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#67
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some data & has a bunch of references to more data. http://lunar.lostgarden.com/Rules%20of%20Productivity.pdf The claim is not that 40 is some kind of hard threshold, and if you work any more than that you'll be instantly less productive. The claim is that a steady-state of, say, 60 hours per week is less productive long term. It's actually more productive for a little while, like a month, but then people get…

But even if 80 weeks ends up with only a 50 hour per worker per week extra benefit, because everyone is paid salary and it doesn't cost the corporation an extra penny to make people work 80 hour weeks, there's not any incentive for them not to push for it, unless people quit, but when you're working 80 hour weeks it can be hard to find the energy to hunt for a new job (and people start feeling like they have to do it…

Agreed, there's often not enough incentive for companies to not do it, and people don't quit often enough - both were true in the cases where I've worked lots of overtime.

That said, productivity during extended 80 hour week crunches may well dip below 40 and be a net drag on the company, but it probably still wouldn't matter. Game studios in particular aren't asking themselves whether it's worth it to crunch, they don't know whether crunch is more or less productive and they don't care. They look at a looming deadline that appears to take 3x more work than there is time left. Publishers attach bonuses to being on time, and fees to being late. Crunch is often seen as the only option. That shouldn't be true at the huge game companies, but it still is.

Plus, it is really hard to measure true productivity in a non-factory setting like software. Nobody actually knows if 80 hours per week sustained equals 50 or 30 or 70 or 10.

All that said, a true 80 hour work week doesn't leave enough time & energy to eat properly, see your family, or even watch TV, let alone job hunt. I'm the kind of person that always does extra work, or has side projects going, but I realized at some point during game crunches that I was trading money for my entire life, and nobody can pay me enough to work 80 hours a week.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd take issue with your claim that the response by GP was the first emotional or attacking blow - that response was to GGP's "easy hipster life" claim, and the implicit claim therein that GP's call for labor solidarity was spoiled whining rather than, perhaps, a call for skilled workers in an industry to support each other's negotiation positions rather than undercut each other. > It's not reasonable to expect other…

My biggest beef is that it's undermining a set of strategies for playing office politics. It's in my best interest to enforce boundaries on work-life balance. It's also in my best interest to talk about enforcing those boundaries in terms of what the company wants, rather than what I want.

That last point is a great one I hadn't considered. Framing work-life balance as a business need is the only tenable bargaining position we will continue to have. Thanks for the clarification.

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#69
post #47
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The most successful people I know work a lot of hours. That's also anecdotally untrue.

Sure. I was pretty clear that this is my anecdote.

I have my very own anecdotes (based on my own definition of success) - The most unsuccessful people I know work a lot of hours. Don't get me started about my successful 4-hour week friends !

Re: Work/Life Balance Will Make You a Better Software Engineer

#70
post #15

Yeah, I'd like to see some actual data. Some kind of scientific study, anything. I don't say this because I'm a proponent of work-at-any-cost culture -- I'm not. I work about 45 hours a week, no weekends or nights outside of rare emergencies. That's certainly good for my mood and my relationship with my family and so forth. But I see all these articles in which they suggest that after 40 hours a week, your productivi…

It's anecdotally untrue. The most successful people I know work a lot of hours. I don't advocate it because I don't think it's healthy on a personal level but it's certainly an effective strategy to gain an advantage in the workplace and generally just get more stuff done.

Nobody has ever become successful by doing more of the same repetitive work. They became a success by starting or running a business, creating a new product or service, inventing something etc.

Bringing that in to this discussion just muddies the water; we're discussing overtime for regular office workers.

Post reply on HN