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People don't work as much as they say

drmaciver.substack.com

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Re: People don't work as much as they say

#51

Post by jokethrowaway »

skybrian wrote: post #7

Maybe pair programming doesn't look so bad after all?

I don't see how you can reach this conclusion.

You have peer pressure to keep working longer, you get little done and you're wasting your brain power.

It makes sense if someone is junior and learning from the other.

Otherwise it's just an employers' tool to get people to squeeze in more hours of half-assed work (and then work more alone to actually get something done to have something to show for).

Async PRs reviews are way more efficient and less taxing on people.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#52

Post by f6v »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #12
register wrote: post #8

I worked really too much today. I had 10 meetings!!

Somehow I count meetings as … meetings and not work. More like pauses between productive work efforts. Same with communication. Only when I produce something tangible I feel that I’m working. I know this is kind of silly but I feel like sitting in a meeting and getting paid is like cheating. Or replying to an email. In no way I’m suggesting that time and attention are not valuable - it’s just that these activities fe…

> I know this is kind of silly but I feel like sitting in a meeting and getting paid is like cheating. Or replying to an email.

I felt disturbance in the force. As if all the product managers in the world screamed at the same time.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#53

Post by ZephyrBlu »

saurik wrote: post #37

> Most days I can do somewhere between one and two hours of hard thinky work. Wow. Once I start doing this kind of work I both have a hard time stopping (as I find working on such problems addictive, both in good ways and in bad) and feel like it takes at least a couple hours of loading state into my brain before I could even begin to be working "at speed" on a hard problem, which means I actively try to schedule my…

I think I work pretty much the same. Usually get next to nothing done, or am extremely productive for most/all of the day.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#54

Post by Broken_Hippo »

eru wrote: post #36
basq wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, at least you have a paycheck. There are tons of people out there who work 50-hour weeks (artists, musicians) who get less than a decimal of that pay, none of the benefits, and all of the stress.

Artists and musicians specifically get a lot of social prestige. Similarly for actors. That's part of why many people are willing to have a go at these careers despite the well-known abysmal earning expectations. It's just a lot of very willing supply and rather limited demand that depresses monetary earnings for labour in these sectors. Compare also pay and conditions for programmers in the games industry vs those w…

Artists and musicians specifically get a lot of social prestige. Similarly for actors.

No, they - in general - do not. A few get this. A few more lucky folks make a living off of it. In the case of an artist, you are probably doing commissions and spend a lot of time on social media, in the post office, and such things just to tread water. Comic artists and animators you've never heard of go about their day in invisibility while they destroy their wrists, elbows, and shoulders for your enjoyment. (a number of these are contract jobs, too, which means no benefits).

Most musicians are pretty local or fly under the radar. Band teachers are usually musicians, and i'm pretty sure there isn't a lot of prestige there. Lots of "musicians" are working in such jobs, many are touring local circuits, picking music for commercials, and things like that.

The most common sort of artist or musician, though, is the unknown one. There are way more artists and musicians than we have space for in our minds. I'm not sure what sort of prestige you think folks are getting. Even worse, I'm not sure why that would be a substitute for decent pay. Supply and demand obviously aren't the constraints on wages people make them out to be.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#55

Post by tluyben2 »

underwater wrote: post #32
tardigr8 wrote: post #27

Working 80 hours a week is unhealthy and a bad idea. I don’t think there is any solid argument against that. Until recently I was a dev manager for about 20 devs (not all direct). I did work 80 hours a week, still do. I know I am unhealthy. I don’t like doing things that are not technical. I get uncomfortable and bored quickly. My work gives me complex tech problems constantly. So I feel better working. But I attribu…

80 hours a week is the equivalent of 8am to 10pm six days a week. That sounds completely unrealistic. Either the work is trivial, you're destroying your health, or you're over estimating the time you're actually spending.

I would not call it trivial, but I found that, as a manager, you often have to be a psychologist and spend very large amounts of your time listening to the more personal issues of your colleagues. When I was manager over 400 people (there were managers between me and them but I was ‘the top level’), I spent 80+ hours a week doing my work; 60+ was easily absorbed by motivating people and listening to their stories about imminent divorces, dying parents, spouses or kids, and so on. Then 20 or so hours to do my actual work. It is not for me… I do not want such a position again.

I did 80+ hours as well when I was just writing code and managing servers; about 40/60 respectively. It was more than 80 hours and I missed things, but I was young and made up for it. I would not want to do that again either.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#56

Post by tamrix »

vorhemus wrote: post #40

I don't think people who say they work 14 hours a day are lying. They just count in everything that is somehow related to their job, like reading about their business in the newspaper or thinking about work in the shower. And that's the crux of the matter, in jobs that don't have clearly assigned shifts or where attendance is measured, the boundaries between work and leisure become blurred. And then again, comparison…

Almost anyone that brags to others about how many hours they work typically count checking their emails while watching TV as work.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#57

Post by ZephyrBlu »

nnoitra wrote: post #17

Is this true for everyone or is this a special specimen "Most days I can do somewhere between one and two hours of hard thinky work."? 5 - 10 hours of deep work per week required to get a Phd from Imperial. That's impressive.

Like the author says, I think this is pretty normal. Deep work in a flow state is easily 10x more productive than when you're messing around.

10hrs of deep work a week is also a significant amount of time. I doubt most people spend that much time doing deep work each week.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#58

Post by inglor_cz »

underwater wrote: post #32
tardigr8 wrote: post #27

Working 80 hours a week is unhealthy and a bad idea. I don’t think there is any solid argument against that. Until recently I was a dev manager for about 20 devs (not all direct). I did work 80 hours a week, still do. I know I am unhealthy. I don’t like doing things that are not technical. I get uncomfortable and bored quickly. My work gives me complex tech problems constantly. So I feel better working. But I attribu…

80 hours a week is the equivalent of 8am to 10pm six days a week. That sounds completely unrealistic. Either the work is trivial, you're destroying your health, or you're over estimating the time you're actually spending.

TBH I know people who really only code and have no other life. Seven, rather than six days a week.

I am not entirely sure what is wrong with them. Only one case can be attributed to money. The rest looks like a weird psychological addiction.

Re: People don't work as much as they say

#60

Post by jaggederest »

sdze wrote: post #35

I am now in 2 projects in parallel and most of the work time is consumed by meetings. Meetings eat up so much energy that I have none left to utilize the time-slots in between meetings to get things done.

Yeah mentally I estimate the dead time created around meetings as 2x the length of the actual meeting. A "quick checkin" actually kills an hour, an all-hands meeting may well write off the entire day.
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