40 Hour Work Weeks Suck
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40 Hour Work Weeks Suck
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Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck
#2This seems like the perspective of someone without spouse and kids. Which is fine, and I don't even disagree. But there are people for whom (and phases of life in which) a steady pace is not a bad thing at all, and not necessarily indicative of hating your job.
Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck
#3"People who hate their jobs often work 40 hours weeks, why be one of them?"
Working 40 hours doesn't make you one of them. It's not even a symptom of the real problem.
I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. And I loved my last job. And I liked all the jobs before that. That's because I have pride in doing my job well, I've worked for people who appreciate it (even if that sometimes means the customer, and not my boss), and general have a good disposition towards getting things done.
There are things I dislike, like red tape, but in general, I accept them as part of the process so that I can get to the good stuff, like coding the backend of a complicated system.
Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck
#4> If I’m working on interesting things, 40 hours is not enough. If I’m working on boring things, 40 hours is far too many.
If you like you can always work more. You enjoy it after all. Hopefully you work in a place where that will be noticed and will be rewarded with promotions and bonuses.
If you _consistently_ work on boring things, then it might be a sign that something else is wrong and you need to find a new project, new company.
Some companies have 40 hours but they are flexible, can come in anytime, work from home if needed. It is good though to have core hours when most people are in (say 11 to 3 or something like that).
Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck
#5> If I’m working on interesting things, 40 hours is not enough. If I’m working on boring things, 40 hours is far too many. If you like you can always work more. You enjoy it after all. Hopefully you work in a place where that will be noticed and will be rewarded with promotions and bonuses. If you _consistently_ work on boring things, then it might be a sign that something else is wrong and you need to find a new pro…
> If you like you can always work more.
This is what I came here to mention.
I could quite easily coast along and pull the bare minimum in 40 hour work weeks, but I thoroughly enjoy what I do, and 50 hour weeks are the norm for me now, out of choice.
Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck
#6Measuring work in terms of hours is fine for some jobs, but not others like programming. But the main problem is that most of them are using fear-based top-down command and control and treating people as dumb automata, which is basically suitable only for industrial manufacturing (the term "corporate drone" was created for a reason).
Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck
#7This seems like the perspective of someone without spouse and kids. Which is fine, and I don't even disagree. But there are people for whom (and phases of life in which) a steady pace is not a bad thing at all, and not necessarily indicative of hating your job.
He is a professor at the University of Utah, married with two kids. I think his post represents a set of people who work hard and play hard.
When you are passionate about your work, it's very hard to keep it within 40hrs/week. So your weeks look like periodic bursts of intense work interleaved with excursions and vacations.
You don't have to be single without kids to have that lifestyle.
Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck
#8This seems like the perspective of someone without spouse and kids. Which is fine, and I don't even disagree. But there are people for whom (and phases of life in which) a steady pace is not a bad thing at all, and not necessarily indicative of hating your job.
Exactly. Try telling your three-year-old that you can't play this week (!) because you want to hack on a cool idea. It's bad enough to be late picking him up because work ran long.
Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck
#940 hours a week sounds great!
Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck
#10"People who hate their jobs often work 40 hours weeks, why be one of them?" Working 40 hours doesn't make you one of them. It's not even a symptom of the real problem. I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. And I loved my last job. And I liked all the jobs before that. That's because I have pride in doing my job well, I've worked for people who appreciate it (even if that sometimes means the customer, and not my bos…
"There are things I dislike, like red tape, but in general, I accept them as part of the process"
I'm having a hard time accepting it. I find it frustrating to wade through the red tape. So by the time I get to the interesting bit, it feels like a chore.
My Solution: I secretly write dev-tools and unleash it to the group just so I can by pass the red tape that comes with starting a new project. I do collect feedback after the release and fix stuff. But the initial release is based entirely on my design decisions which in turn are based on what I've observed.