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People don't work as much as they say

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

#81

Post by i_like_waiting »

It's quite an unpopular opinion, but it heavily depends on person. When I was starting my startup, it was usually solid work from 9/10 to 22:00/ 23, 7 days a week. The big difference is, that in those moments, work was well diversified, so when I felt exhausted by creative part, I went to repetitive tasks, then to investigate how legal part works, then to emails etc. It's mostly about having a right tactics.

In current work, there are still people who think that boss will give them 20% more career progression, when they work 20% more than contractual hours. Being quite productive in areas they already know.

So it is possible but I don't believe it's most viable strategy. I prefer much more to work on personal coding projects after work, trying new methods, not on stuff I already know very well.

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

#82

Post by nhoughto »

Motivation isn’t fungible and I’ve been in a place where the given schedule is true of me, but that’s not a good place for me, that’s me unhappy and clock watching, a sign of bad times. I want to do more, solve more, continue . The end of day comes around quick.

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

#83

Post by k8sToGo »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #79
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…

how about i leave for my office 10 Am and return home 9-10-11 pm ? usually no sundays. 10 minute commute each side.

Just because you are at the office, doesn't mean you are actually working. Just like me sitting at my desk at home isn't actually working.

The difference is that in the office people pretend to be working.

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

#84

Post by albertopv »

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…

80h seems really a lot, I guess you don't have a family. Do you sleep? Do you commute? Do you eat, have a shower?

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

#85

Post by HPsquared »

lmeyerov wrote: post #62
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 invisi…

That's true yet still feels rosy ;-) There's a lot of waiting tables, and if lucky, teaching gigs. Paid performance gigs are rarer and not that rosy either, eg, boring wedding music or sporadic & low-paid pop-ified club gigs. In COVID... yikes. Prestige includes a lot of 'when will you get a real job?' Even for the rare folks who 'make it', there's often a lot of weirdness, especially around the one-hit wonder commer…

It sounds like the main rewards aren't financial. Why do people pursue these careers?

It's hard to try and make money on something lots of people do as a hobby, it's the same situation in professional sports.

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

#86

Post by notefaker »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #54
eru wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 invisi…

> 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.

I've been working professionally as a music creator for nearly 20 years. I think what separates the musician types you're referring to from actual professionals is an understanding of how to make money with art and when to pivot one's career, e.g. "live gigs are paying me nothing... how else can I make money with my music?" I'd be miserable if I'd stayed in live music beyond my early twenties or believed that teaching was an adequate substitution for being paid to create for a living.

Most hobbyist musicians never work beyond the genre or instrument they initially learned, like a "programmer" who learns HTML as a kid but fails to take their expertise further. It's a severe lack of business acumen, self-awareness, and desire to evolve.

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

#87

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

I’ve been reading some variant of this, for many years.

One of the reasons that I hated being a manager, was because the job involved a lot of sitting around, waiting for stuff to happen.

I couldn’t work on my own projects (because I was on paid work time), and it would have been irresponsible, in the extreme, to put myself into the critical path (because it was no guarantee that I would be able to reliably work). I sometimes tasked myself with projects for work, but they were almost always ignored by my company, and that hurt.

I’ve heard that being a soldier in a combat zone is long hours of idleness, punctuated by short periods of terror and stress.

That pretty much describes my time as a manager, without the “terror” part (and the bullets and explosions).

It sucked.

I now work at home, on my own technical tasks. I get a lot done. My personal productivity is through the roof.

I take a lot of breaks. Sometimes, I even nap.

But I don’t have a time clock. I will often start coding, at 6AM (sometimes, before I even get in the shower, after my morning exercise), and will continue to code, until I hit the sack. I often test my software, while I’m sitting in bed, and will enter issues, from my iPad.

When I have a problem that I’m chasing, or I am in the middle of a big implementation phase, I can work for many hours, straight. I will barely come up for air, and I feel absolutely exhausted, when I finally step back (nap time!).

I’m not particularly concerned about a measured life. I get a lot done; far more than I ever did, when I was being paid.

And I’m having a blast.

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

#88

Post by jseban »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #54
eru wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 invisi…

> No, they - in general - do not.

Yes they do. I'm both a musician and a software developer and the difference in social prestige is night and day, depending on how I present myself.

You're trying to refute the statement that musicians and artists get a lot of social prestige, by stating that they make little money and do work that's not glamorous, and that's irrelevant, it's rather actually part of what gives it prestige.

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

#89

Post by polote »

j2bax wrote: post #80
polote wrote: post #77

Honestly it depends. Work can means a few different things. I doubt a farmer is working less than what he says. When Musk says he works 100h a week, that's probably even less than the reality, he is probably working 7*(24 - 7hour sleep) per week. Not all work needs 100% focus. When you are CEO and you go in the kitchen and you smalltalk with employees, is it work or not work ? Imagine if the CEO didn't do it, people…

How much of that 100+ hours includes surfing the internet and posting memes to Twitter? Not criticizing him, everyone needs time to unwind…

Probably not much, but in any case, this is part of why he is successful in business, so you can't remove it as non work.
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