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40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

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Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#31

Post by abbasmehdi »

This article does not take into account that what happens after that weeek. A week of spent with family, outdoors, video game spree, hacking spree with no distractions all sound great, but when did the author come back to doing the same thing again, over and over again? For instance, when did he/she feel like spending another full, uninterrupted week with family/on the beach? Also, how long can you keep repeating the @ 90 hr week?

Yea binging works, only when it is a once in a while thing. But if you have a business, and customers, and a code base, and a team - shit is ongoing, you just can't get things over with.

Think of it like food. Can you eat a week's worth of food and not come back? If you have a child (a company is like a baby always keen to hurt itself), can you dress them up once for the rest of the year?

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#32

Post by blakehill »

Since I think we all agree the post is kind of missing the point, let me ask it like this: He said he liked working a 90 hour week hacking away when he was in grad school. Is it possible to have a hacking spree that is only 40 hours a week and get the best of both worlds; spending the other 40 hours outdoors or with your family?

I guess maybe this guy is the type of person who is all or nothing. We know everyone's different in this way. But to really be devoted to a project and getting it out the door, do you have to work 80 hours a week for 3 months so you can ship, or can you work 40 hours a week for 6 months?

I have some thoughts, but I'm curious as to what others think.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#33

Post by hkarthik »

Once you start to have more of a personal/family life, the 40 hour (or slightly more) work week becomes a lot more essential.

Kids need more consistent time from you, they can't take 20 hours one week and zero hours the next. Same with spouses/significant others.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#34

Post by dilap »

A lot of this comes down to personal preference.

But for me, it really resonates. I'd really like to try a job where I worked, say, 60 hours one week, and zero the next. (Yeah, that's not quite a full-time average.) And, let's say, every 5th month worked every week, and took the next month as vacation.

I think I could actually be really productive this way, but I've never had the chance to try it.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#35

Post by BlazingFrog »

acheron wrote: post #15
cryptoz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. Do you work exactly 40 hours? As in, start and 9am, leave at 5pm and never arrive early or leave late? Never a week of 41 hours? Because if I worked at a job I absolutely loved - as you describe - I would probably choose to work 50 or 60 hours. I think that the assumption here is that if you work 40 hours, you're probably doing it because that's what is expected of you and yo…

If you're talking about working for yourself (that is, working for customers), then sure, that makes sense. If you're working for someone else who is paying you specifically to work 40 hours, then there's no reason to work more than that unless you consider your time worthless.

If you equate worth with money, in that case you are correct. Hopefully there is a lot more than money to your job or, no matter how many hours, you'll likely not enjoy that work week.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#36

Post by liljimmytables »

I work in a very ad-hoc sort of way, but I find the idea of an n-hour work week very useful. If I work _n+d_ hours and feel exhausted, or I work _n-d_ hours and miss a deadline, I have an immediate and intuitive insight into what the problem is (the sign) and how big it is (the delta). Essentially it's a metric that I don't have to think too hard about.

I don't work rigid hours. My n-hours approach is a patch for the otherwise vague system in which I do stuff. And I (at least theoretically) don't beat myself up if d gets too large in either direction; if I'm overworking it's a sign that my planning process is out of whack, and if I'm underworking it's a sign that I need to find a way to get motivated or get out.

I view these "do x" blog posts as interesting things to try based on other people's life experience. It might not work for everyone, but I wouldn't pull the "x sucks" card because it's a pretty subjective problem.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#37

Post by philwelch »

I enjoy intense working binges followed by days of slacking off as much as anyone, but aside from a handful of jobs you can't get much done that way. 40 hours a week gives you eight hours of rest, eight of work and eight to live the rest of your life every workday with two days to recharge. That's probably a fairly sustainable rate.

It's an interesting question what jobs can be done that way. I don't think many programming jobs can--startups don't seem to allow for the slacking, and working for someone else probably doesn't have that much flexibility either. I guess the old days of desktop software were somewhat like that, with intense crunch periods up to release followed by long stretches of time off after release. But now that software is released continuously that's gone away.

It's interesting to think of what jobs you can get done that way, though. Off the top of my head, grad students without assistantship obligations, filmmakers (in fact, anyone in the filmmaking process), writers, in-demand freelancers, proprietors of fairly undemanding online businesses, and actual rock stars all work that way.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#39

Post by yuhong »

hugh3 wrote: post #12

I work 40 hour weeks. Nine to five. I got into the habit when I started my PhD, because I knew that if I didn't force myself to work to a certain schedule, I'd probably slack off. If I only worked when I felt like it, on what I felt like working on, I would never have finished my thesis because, heck , who wants to do proofreading when you could be at the beach? And if I ate whatever I felt like, whenever I felt like…

Yea, reminds me of the "Professionalism vs Passion" HN submission. In fact, I think the two topics are closely related.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#40

Post by jandevos »

cryptoz wrote: post #11
wccrawford wrote: post #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 bos…

> I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. Do you work exactly 40 hours? As in, start and 9am, leave at 5pm and never arrive early or leave late? Never a week of 41 hours? Because if I worked at a job I absolutely loved - as you describe - I would probably choose to work 50 or 60 hours. I think that the assumption here is that if you work 40 hours, you're probably doing it because that's what is expected of you and yo…

I really love my job, and when I am working on 'the good parts' of it, I find it very hard to stop at 40 hours (ok, honestly, usually it's a little bit more like 45). I do force myself to stop, in large part because I have a family at home who deserve to know me. But I've also found that when I not working, filling my time with some other things than work really does enrich my life, and I feel that my performance at work does increase, or at least is more consistent because of that.

In any case, I see very clearly, also in people around me, that loving your job and working extremely long days are not the same thing.

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