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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

#91

Post by manmal »

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…

I‘m not trying to defend Musk, but his Twitter activities are highly efficient marketing.

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

#92

Post by dgb23 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #87

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…

I feel you in terms of the hacker lifestyle you’re describing. I often work from home too (1-3d/w). Fully emersed and free, getting a lot done. But I‘ve found going for a >1h walk a day really helps. The body feels more awake, my eyes are more relaxed, my thoughts are reordered and some new inspirations and ideas emerge.

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

#93

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

dgb23 wrote: post #92
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #87

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…

I feel you in terms of the hacker lifestyle you’re describing. I often work from home too (1-3d/w). Fully emersed and free, getting a lot done. But I‘ve found going for a >1h walk a day really helps. The body feels more awake, my eyes are more relaxed, my thoughts are reordered and some new inspirations and ideas emerge.

I start each day, with a 2-mile walk (not today. Lots of snow, but I’ll be getting my exercise, later).

I use the time to triage my day. Works a charm.

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

#94

Post by learc83 »

yodsanklai wrote: post #76

There are definitely people who can work and focus for 8+ hours a day. I can think of my dentist and family doctor. Waiting room is full from morning to evening. Some of my colleagues work hard. I can see their screen in the open space. They are machines. Never a distraction on the screen. The article should be "some people don't work so much, I'm one of them".

My wife is an ER physician. It’s a demanding job that requires a ton of focus, so most of her colleagues only work about 30 hours a week.

She’s also worked as a general pediatrician seeing lower acuity patients/well visits. From talking to her, good deal of that job is essentially running on autopilot. That’s why you can do it 8 hours a day.

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

#95

Post by zo1 »

Klaster_1 wrote: post #71

The article resonated with my experience as as software developer. At my first place, a small outsourcing shop, employees were required to log daily activities so hours per day roughly fit to 8 and 40 per week. From the beginning and unlike most of coworkers, I measured my time precisely with https://github.com/Klaster1/timer-5 and soon understood that doing 8 hours per day doesn't happen much and often involves stay…

Perspective from the management side at a consulting place: We don't want or need you to log your time to the minute. It's counter-productive and a waste of time. It needs to just be representative and not dishonest (please read that sentence twice).

An hour long meeting booked, that ended up taking 45mins? It's an hour. It's the same reason we don't expect you to stop recording time when you to down the hall to make a coffee or take a bathroom break. The numbers only really makes sense at the aggregate level, and going to a higher level of detail is not reliable because of all the noise and different ways people measure their time.

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

#96

Post by denton-scratch »

> part of his skill was in lying to management

I once worked in the warehouse at a (unionized) manufacturer of printer's ink. I was told-off by the Father of Chapel (the union organizer) for working too hard. This was unskilled labour; so the skill I had to master was how to avoid being fired by management for laziness, while not getting told-off by the FoC for excessive zeal.

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

#97

Post by neuroma »

yodsanklai wrote: post #76

There are definitely people who can work and focus for 8+ hours a day. I can think of my dentist and family doctor. Waiting room is full from morning to evening. Some of my colleagues work hard. I can see their screen in the open space. They are machines. Never a distraction on the screen. The article should be "some people don't work so much, I'm one of them".

Can confirm many doctors work insane hours, which are hard to even imagine for people who do office jobs.

The notion that you can only do 4 hours of productive work a day is frankly a luxury. If you have 10 hours of work to do, all of which is essential for people's immediate wellbeing, you find ways of being productive.

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

#98

Post by dgb23 »

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…

I agree. I do maybe 6h of clocked in official work, then maybe 2-6 additional hours of reasearch, tinkering, learning, thinking, taking random notes.

But those hours are very blurry and come in random high bursts („being onto something“). They’re important and effective for me but it’s difficult to categorize them or even track them.

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

#99

Post by tardigr8 »

maccard wrote: post #67
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…

> I did work 80 hours a week, still do > All my devs wanted to also work 80 hours a week. > DONT work crazy hours because someone else in your sphere is doing it. Do as I say, not as I do. The culture of being always on, and working these insane hours comes from management allowing it or leading by it. It's utterly meaningless for you tell your reports to not work crazy hours only to show them that you need to do it.…

I agree. And I tried it too. In the end I couldn’t find anything else to do in my downtime. So I went home at 5 and worked from there. Got up early and worked before coming in. I work from home now so the above is moot now.

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

#100

Post by denton-scratch »

zo1 wrote: post #95
Klaster_1 wrote: post #71

The article resonated with my experience as as software developer. At my first place, a small outsourcing shop, employees were required to log daily activities so hours per day roughly fit to 8 and 40 per week. From the beginning and unlike most of coworkers, I measured my time precisely with https://github.com/Klaster1/timer-5 and soon understood that doing 8 hours per day doesn't happen much and often involves stay…

Perspective from the management side at a consulting place: We don't want or need you to log your time to the minute. It's counter-productive and a waste of time. It needs to just be representative and not dishonest (please read that sentence twice). An hour long meeting booked, that ended up taking 45mins? It's an hour. It's the same reason we don't expect you to stop recording time when you to down the hall to make…

My experience with timesheets is that they must add up to the hours you're paid for (full-time salaried work, not hourly consulting). That more-or-less guarantees that timesheets are made-up.

My first salaried job was as a salesman; we incurred expenses, which we could claim back. It was explained to us that the system was there to ensure that we weren't out-of-pocket; claims didn't have to actually be true, but you did have to have incurred the expense.

I fairly soon realised that this was a lie; the expenses system was really a salary-augmentation scheme, and you were expected to inflate your claims. Everyone was at it.

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