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Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

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Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#121

Post by agumonkey »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #19

I love how things like the 40 hour work week with two days off get enshrined as some kind of natural phenomenon that has always been with us. 40 hours is an arbitrary number that came from trade unionists demanding fair hours and Robert Owen's slogan: “Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.” I mean those two things: 8 hour work day and 8 hours of sleep have been considered to be the biological/…

No research on sleep requirements ? are you serious ?

Have you been sleep deprived ? There's a clear limit under which you're useless. For an extreme instance, I lost sleep for 5 days and went borderline insane.

Maybe 6h of sleep is adequate but saying 8 is arbitrary bulls$t is... exactly that.

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#122

Post by walshemj »

rb808 wrote: post #46

Does this include side projects? ie if you work 10 hours/week on a side project you shouldn't work more than 30 in your job. Maybe employers should be able to ban side projects for this reason.

Given the source of employment law is the masters and servants act I think you might find that employers can veto outside work certainly getting permission for out side work is often required by contract.

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#123

Post by walshemj »

tobych wrote: post #48
jbmorgado wrote: post #12

This title is very odd, I suggest an edit: Research is unable to prove that working more than 40 hours a week increases productivity.

Yes, coming from the UK, where my hours in academia were 37.5/week, I was surprised to learn (from my incorrect interpretation of the title) that those 2.5 hours/week I work here in the US were pointless.

I had one boss who had worked in the valley and the uk he said he got no more work out of the USA teams who worked longer hours and much less leave than he did in the UK where we where on civil service terms

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#124

Post by bsder »

skybrian wrote: post #118
veidr wrote: post #9

TL;DR: you can get more done if you work 60 hours instead of 40 hours in a week, but the work done in that extra 20 hours might be a small fraction of what gets done in 20 hours during a 40 hour week. This is self-evidently true for many jobs. E.g., if you pick apples for 40 hours, then even if you only pick one apple per hour after that, you will still pick more apples working 50 hours than 40. We software developer…

It seems plausible that programming while tired doesn't do a whole lot of damage in itself (more than the usual amount of bugs), provided that you also write unit tests and do code review. This could include self-review: that is, don't check in while tired, and read it over the next morning. On the other hand, the shortcuts people take while under deadline pressure seem more damaging, and people are more likely to wo…

> It seems plausible that programming while tired doesn't do a whole lot of damage in itself (more than the usual amount of bugs)

I can tell you in embedded devices that simply isn't true.

In a lot of embedded programming, you can cause real damage--short out boards, crash equipment, etc.

If I have been at something for too many hours, I may simply stop. I will certainly stop if I recognize that I just did something really boneheaded and simple. That means that I'm likely to continue doing boneheaded things and cause real damage.

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#125

Post by Gibbon1 »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #60
adekok wrote: post #18

Which says to me that the game development culture of "work 80 hours per week for months on end" is largely about incompetent management, and/or deliberate abuse. It's not about getting things done.

I think you may have misunderstood the article - if anything this is an argument for death marches.

I wonder if the author being a student pushing for a European PhD[1] warps his thinking about this. With a PhD all the reward is at the end. You either make or break. None of the work you do has any tangible results outside of the end goal.

Most work isn't like that. The rewards are continuous and ongoing. Meaning every task has captured value. If a loan officer closes 19 loans this month instead of 20, productivity is down 5%. BFD. Vs PhD student, complete 19 out of 20 required classes, no PhD. You totally wasted a couple of years of your life.

[1] Europeans historically are way more creditialist than Americans. Learning something isn't very helpful unless there is a credential to go along with it.

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#126

Post by scottLobster »

bitwize wrote: post #100
WalterBright wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this really an intrinsic quality of capitalism? Hardly. The history of capitalism shows that absent government intervention to prop up companies, they rise and fall. When I started out, everyone was a-feared that IBM would inevitably take over the world. Then Microsoft dethroned them, and Microsoft was going to take over the world. Then Apple dethroned Microsoft. And on it goes. There was Sears that dominated re…

Isn't Christensen one of those thought leaders who are paid by megacorps to spread Gramscian false consciousness and make the masses think capitalism really isn't so bad?

Sounds like you already have your conclusion in mind, so why ask the question?

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#127

Post by valuearb »

bitwize wrote: post #100
WalterBright wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this really an intrinsic quality of capitalism? Hardly. The history of capitalism shows that absent government intervention to prop up companies, they rise and fall. When I started out, everyone was a-feared that IBM would inevitably take over the world. Then Microsoft dethroned them, and Microsoft was going to take over the world. Then Apple dethroned Microsoft. And on it goes. There was Sears that dominated re…

Isn't Christensen one of those thought leaders who are paid by megacorps to spread Gramscian false consciousness and make the masses think capitalism really isn't so bad?

Yes, facts don't matter, only the political pedigree of the person relating them.

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#128

Post by valuearb »

pcrh wrote: post #115
rhizome wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

asymptotic productivity of work, and winner take almost all nature of capitalism. seems like a very succinct way of explaining why people work so damned much A myth of capitalism is that the donkey can reach the carrot hanging from the stick if they work harder, that "almost all" can be won by those who are being driven to work more hours. However, this doesn't take into account that there are at least as many carrot…

>A myth of capitalism is that the donkey can reach the carrot hanging from the stick if they work harder That's the myth of the "American Dream", not Capitalism per se. Capitalism is more simple, if you have capital, you have control, and with control you can profit.

neither is true. Having capital means you will blow it a good portion of the time. Control is illusionary, just as it was for Sears, IBM, and Microsoft.

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#129

Post by luispedrocoelho »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #20
justbaker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Semi-true; it depends how the extra 20 hours are spent for myself. I've had weeks where I program 60 hours or more and it's all spent well, and then the next week I might be a little more burnt out.. take it a little easier and then sprint again.

Which goes towards 60 hour weeks are not sustainable...

Which is a good reason not to work 60 hours regularly over the long term, but not a reason to never put in a 60 hour work week or even a few in a row.

Elsewhere, I've written how it may be better to switch between periods of very long hours and downtime rather than a steady pace:

https://metarabbit.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/average-work-wee...

Re: Research does not say that people produce more when working 40 hours per week

#130

Post by kafkaesq »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #19

I love how things like the 40 hour work week with two days off get enshrined as some kind of natural phenomenon that has always been with us. 40 hours is an arbitrary number that came from trade unionists demanding fair hours and Robert Owen's slogan: “Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.” I mean those two things: 8 hour work day and 8 hours of sleep have been considered to be the biological/…

Guess what, I want to [work 80 hours], that's how my body works, why are you trying to stop me from doing that?

No one's going to "stop" you. We're just not going to believe you when you say that's how many hours you work.

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