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Cutting your salary by 40%

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Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#241

Post by wonderwonder »

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…

I don't know if 40 hours is optimal or not but it is the standard or yard stick by which salaries are set and measured. If company A offers me 100k and company B offers me 115k I can assume the rational choice is to accept company B's offer. This degenerates though if I discover company B requires 70 hours of work a week as there are costs to that including reduced family time, increased stress, less time to work on my own projects. etc.

40 hours is essentially a useful measuring stick and the accepted standard.

Now I do agree that for some people they can and do work long hours and greatly enjoy this and good luck to them. I have to assume they are working at a company where they do work they love and are proud of. I think of employees at SpaceX, Tesla, video game companies for gamer type developers and NASA.

I interviewed at a large game developer a long time ago and was asked back for a second interview. After I discovered they regularly worked past 7:30 at night I declined. I do not play video games so for me the draw was not there but I could absolutely understand how that could be someones passion and they love what they do.

For me I value my family time and when comparing jobs prefer to compare apples to apples and the main way barring a very unique work place is to compare dollars earned per hour worked (including benefits).

To your point though if someone wants to be there, they are making an informed choice and they believe it is an amazing opportunity then more power to them.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#242

Post by philipkd »

adambmedia wrote: post #222

I often think about Arthur Rubenstein, the phenom mid-century pianist, for whom a lot has been written about his mission in early life to "practice as little as possible." There's a lot of hyped up romanticism in these quotes and anyone who plays at his level has spent a lifetime playing piano, period. Regardless, his guidance about spontaneity, creativity, and the relationship to practicing too much, which I equate…

I feel the same way about karaoke. Do a little bit of practice so you don't look like a fool. But, if you over-practice you'll take the fun out of having your best performance live.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#243

Post by Waterluvian »

tome wrote: post #221
Waterluvian wrote: post #216

One of my past employers wouldn't pay me what I felt and showed was fair market value for my skills and what I do for them. So I counter offered to work 4 days a week for the same salary. A year of 3 day weekends did more for my life and relationships than a raise ever could have.

It's quite bizarre to me that they would accept a reduction in working hours but not an increase in salary.

It probably helped that I convinced them (then proved it) that my productivity really wouldn't fall much. I could do the same work in less time.

Unless you're making widgets on a production line, productivity doesn't linearly scale with time.

I wasn't at work on Friday, but I was still subconsciously processing what I had researched, how to solve problems, etc. It's the ultimate "sleep on it" or "get up and walk around".

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#244

Post by grasshopperpurp »

dogruck wrote: post #127
grasshopperpurp wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Professionally successful, or successful as people?

As people. Granted, none of those people are grinding away working for The Man. Instead, they are running their own organizations. Is that not your experience?

Yeah, my experience is the opposite. Sounds like you hang out with people in a higher tax bracket than I do, and that could explain some of the difference in experience.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#245

Post by rpazyaquian »

chii wrote: post #138
soVeryTired wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He didn't anticipate our bosses taking all the profits from our productivity gains, though. He also didn't anticipate zero-sum competition for inflexible goods like housing. If I want a nice house in a decent city, I have to out-compete and out-borrow everyone else who might want that house. If everyone around me is making bank and I want the nice house, then I'd better make bank too. Lots of us end up working more…

> zero-sum competition for inflexible goods if you consider good housing to be only within a certain distance of some CBD, then yes, housing is zero sum. But there's lots more space available than humans right now, and relaxing the distance/centrality requirement will greatly increase the pool of available housing (and hence, "cheaper"). The only winner when everyone tries to outbid for a small amount of housing is t…

Unfortunately the only way I can see to relieve this is to support remote/WFH workers who might live in suburbs away from major city centers, or even in a totally different part of the country. That, and decentralizing our entire culture. That'll be much harder.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#246

Post by vkou »

traverseda wrote: post #203
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…

>it's highly convenient that the standard US work-week happens to be the exact "correct" amount of hours to work to maximize productivity. I mean, why do you think people arrived at the 40hour/week metric? How do you think we came to standardize on it?

Union lobbying.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#247

Post by vkjv »

adambmedia wrote: post #222

I often think about Arthur Rubenstein, the phenom mid-century pianist, for whom a lot has been written about his mission in early life to "practice as little as possible." There's a lot of hyped up romanticism in these quotes and anyone who plays at his level has spent a lifetime playing piano, period. Regardless, his guidance about spontaneity, creativity, and the relationship to practicing too much, which I equate…

I listened to an interview with guitar Richard Lloyd (Television, Matthew Sweet) with a very similar sentiment that stuck with me.

(While discussing talented guitarists like Satriani who exhibit perfection in their performances)

"There's got to be a little danger. Some of the greatest bands, you feel as if they aren't going to make it through the song... It's captivating in a way that perfection isn't."

https://cosmicgeppetto.com/2016/08/28/episode-38-guitar-icon...

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#248

Post by somethingabout »

panarky wrote: post #167
jcadam wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pfft. A man-hour of labor is a man-hour of labor. Which is why I fully understand why my employer is requiring me (and the others on my team) to make up the 48 hours of labor I lost when I evacuated due to Hurricane Irma (even though the office was of course closed for much of that time). I'm spending the extra hours perusing/posting on HN and looking at job listings :|

> Pfft. A man-hour of labor is a man-hour of labor. Not all hours are created equally. I do my best work with hyperfocus. I don't just mean more work, but far higher quality work that's at the edge of my intellectual capabilities. This is the work that's most rewarding and gives results that I'm proud of. But I can't get significant time "in the zone" on a 40-hour week. All the normal but necessary distractions take…

How do you get 3 months of vacation?

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#249

Post by alexeiz »

I work as a software developer. Instead of working more hours I found another approach quite useful for productivity which is almost quite the opposite. The idea is that every day you have to call it a day at a certain hour. Let's say your bus leaves at 5:30pm and if you're late, the next bus is only at 6:30pm. So you'd better get all your work done by 5:30pm to catch the first bus. Amazingly, this is quite a productivity boost for me. I don't want to waste any time at work, because if I do, I'll either have to stay late, or not get things done. It also allows me to prioritize tasks better. For example, at 5:00pm I'll try to wrap up my current tasks and I don't start any new tasks that can take more than 10 minute to complete. Another positive aspect of this approach is that each day I go home with a clear picture of what I have accomplished that day. And that feeling of accomplishment makes me want to come to work the next day.

Re: Cutting your salary by 40%

#250

Post by Yhippa »

philipkd wrote: post #242
adambmedia wrote: post #222

I often think about Arthur Rubenstein, the phenom mid-century pianist, for whom a lot has been written about his mission in early life to "practice as little as possible." There's a lot of hyped up romanticism in these quotes and anyone who plays at his level has spent a lifetime playing piano, period. Regardless, his guidance about spontaneity, creativity, and the relationship to practicing too much, which I equate…

I feel the same way about karaoke. Do a little bit of practice so you don't look like a fool. But, if you over-practice you'll take the fun out of having your best performance live.

> But, if you over-practice you'll take the fun out of having your best performance live.

I wish this was true about the modern coding interview.

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