Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cutting your salary by 40%

codewithoutrules.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 451 posts

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#101

Post by dogruck »

Twirrim wrote: post #55
edanm wrote: post #21

As much as I'd love to believe the "work more than 40 hours a week, because SCIENCE!" party line, I have a hard time accepting it, and I think so do most people who hear it (outside of HN, at least). For one thing, it's highly convenient that the standard US work-week happens to be the exact "correct" amount of hours to work to maximize productivity. For another, anecdotally at least, most people know plenty of peopl…

> For one thing, it's highly convenient that the standard US work-week happens to be the exact "correct" amount of hours to work to maximize productivity. It's not in the slightest bit down to convenience. It's because 40 hours was quite simply discovered to be a more productive length of day, well over a century ago, back in the later stages of the industrial revolution. In the US, if memory serves, the move to a 40…

Ah, Henry Ford experimented? That's just good science. Hehe.

Seriously though -- I'd like to read more about that. Do you have a source?

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#102

Post by mcv »

Ascetik wrote: post #10

To add to this, I recently got let go from my job 2 weeks ago . With that said, my boss routinely tried to guilt trip me because I didn't want to work more than 40hrs a week. I have 2 very small children and my wife is pregnant, I can't spend all my time working, nor do I have any desire to. There were a few times I put in a couple of 60hr weeks, but that was only to appease him, not because I felt it was necessary.…

I hope you find a saner work environment. These are not healthy expectations from your boss.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#103

Post by Clubber »

richardknop wrote: post #89
Godel_unicode wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think GPs point was that people can clearly be productive more than 40 hours a week because so many are. How people should be compensated for their time is only loosely coupled with how many hours they can work. I agree with you that we should be fairly compensated, but I also agree that the dogma of "40 is the max a worker can be productive, possibly less" is wrong in a large number of cases.

You might be right that some people can be productive more than 40 hours per week because I am one of them. However my point was that when negotiating salary you can't really say "I can be productive 70 hours per week" and therefor ask for 40% higher salary. It doesn't work that way and what you negotiate is based on your skills mostly in comparison to other people who are assumed to put in cca 40 hours per week. So…

>You might be right that some people can be productive more than 40 hours per week because I am one of them.

Is that constant heads down, in the zone coding, or does that include some coding, some management, some marketing, etc? Also, how long can you do that for? 5 years straight?

I typically work in bursts. If I don't have an outlet in between bursts (surfing, 30 minute tv show, walk, etc), the longer it takes to get back into a burst. Being in an office doesn't offer much as far as outlets go.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#104

Post by jo909 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #48
doikor wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is weird to me. At least here in Finland when you are salaried for the standard 37.5h work week (7.5h work day with 30min lunch break) if you work more then that you log the hours as overtime and get paid for them or in some form of "flex" time that you turn into vacation days or money (there are limits to how many hours of flex you can have banked up) I know some smaller companies/start ups work around this but…

If it's a standard number of hours what's the point in being salaried? Why don't they just pay you hourly?

A very common problem for hourly workers, for example in the food service industry, is that they don't "get" enough hours in a certain week or month. They would be willing and available to work more, but there is not enough work/shifts for them to earn what they need.

Of course it goes both ways, the employer can also not be sure how much they will be available to work for him and needs to reschedule constantly.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#105

Post by codeulike »

Ascetik wrote: post #41
gwbas1c wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call up an employment lawyer. Firing someone for not working on their vacation is wrongful termination. Companies that do this need to be sued out of existence.

Although I think I would have a decent case against him, I can't afford legal fees right now. And 70% of our clients were law firms who would be more than happy to represent him. My separation notice said "Unable to perform job duties", which makes no sense, since I worked there for nearly 2 years with positive reviews and multiple successful projects. But apparently I'm not working because I want to go home at 6pm a…

At least talk to a law firm and see what they think

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#106

Post by dogruck »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #9
quuquuquu wrote: post #4

Cool post! What happens when every company is doing this ritual? I'm starting to notice a very bad trend. Just like how LA has record numbers of homeless people, it also has a high vacancy rate. Similarly, despite plenty of "open positions", candidates are being denied left right and center, even as they do their best to signal that they will do anything for the job.

> What happens when every company is doing this ritual? Just look at Japan to see what a 12+ hour / day work culture looks like. Their population and their economy are both slowly going down the shitter thanks to it, depression is widespread, etc.

What makes you think that Japan's economic growth is directly connected to the long work hours? Sounds like a stretch to me.

Also, aren't we supposed to be accepting of all cultures? If that's the Japanese culture, why is it okay to disparage it?

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#107

Post by raducu »

rhpistole wrote: post #35
quuquuquu wrote: post #4

Cool post! What happens when every company is doing this ritual? I'm starting to notice a very bad trend. Just like how LA has record numbers of homeless people, it also has a high vacancy rate. Similarly, despite plenty of "open positions", candidates are being denied left right and center, even as they do their best to signal that they will do anything for the job.

If the underlying hypothesis that overworked developers are bad developers is true (and I believe it is), then it should be a competitive advantage to not overwork your developers.

Hours worked is easy to measure, good/bad developers, quality of code -- not so much. Doing deep/meaningful work for 70hours a week is reserved for genetic freaks -- 0.1% of the cases -- the rest are either the sub-mediocre bureaucrat types who want the office face time in order to climb the corporate ladder or the victims of the said bureaucrats who are guilt tripped into doing it.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#108

Post by mcv »

chrisseaton wrote: post #48
doikor wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is weird to me. At least here in Finland when you are salaried for the standard 37.5h work week (7.5h work day with 30min lunch break) if you work more then that you log the hours as overtime and get paid for them or in some form of "flex" time that you turn into vacation days or money (there are limits to how many hours of flex you can have banked up) I know some smaller companies/start ups work around this but…

If it's a standard number of hours what's the point in being salaried? Why don't they just pay you hourly?

Because that's what the salary is for. You work a certain amount of hours per week, they pay a certain amount of money per month, as well as some vacation money in May, and there's no need to keep track of the details. Hourly pay makes more sense with more flexible hours or if the worker wants to carry their own entrepreneurial risk (which is what I do; I'm self-employed and bill by the hour). Many people don't want to be self-employed, though. They just want a steady paycheck.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#110

Post by [deleted] »

bmj wrote: post #27
quuquuquu wrote: post #4

Cool post! What happens when every company is doing this ritual? I'm starting to notice a very bad trend. Just like how LA has record numbers of homeless people, it also has a high vacancy rate. Similarly, despite plenty of "open positions", candidates are being denied left right and center, even as they do their best to signal that they will do anything for the job.

Every company will not follow this ritual. Despite what some folks think, not every technology is run by 20-30 somethings without families. I know quite a few engineers in my city, and I've never heard any one of them say they are compelled to work more than 40 hours a week[0]. This includes engineers at at several "household name" companies. Yes, some companies have poor management, but these companies are also not…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN