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Bring back the 40-hour work week

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Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#71

Post by kamaal »

Bullislander05 wrote: post #67
kamaal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bigger problem is making people think that 60 hour weeks is normal, or honourable, and that a 40 hour week is lazy or disloyal or unproductive or harmful to the company. That's not true, and it's possibly leading to early death of some people. It's certainly making some people miserable. I like working a lot, making great stuff. Some people don't. But that's not my problem. Asking me not to work, just because some…

"Choice to choose a worklife style is upto to the individual. Stopping Individual from achieving their goals is in direct contradiction to freedom to pursuit of happiness." Some might have goals similar to you. Others might aspire to work a 40-a-week job, be there for their spouse and children and not feel burnt out every day. Yes, there are people like you who might enjoy working crazy hours and being super producti…

Please note the person who works 8 hours a day sincerely is getting what he is supposed to get.

Also the person who works for 8 hrs + x hrs is getting what he is supposed to get.

If you are saying despite working for ( 8 + x ) hrs he must not get anything extra or he and the guy who works for 8 hrs must both get the same, defeats the very laws of karma.

Besides, The 8 hrs guy has a problem only if gets into comparisons with the ( 8 + x ) hours guy.

The expectation that one must get paid the same but do little work compared to somebody else generally makes a classic case when the individual blames others for merely being lucky for the comparative success.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#72

Post by kamaal »

bmj wrote: post #46
kamaal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets say #2 is not a problem for the minute and you meet somebody like you. He and you do your day job in 8 hrs. But he puts in an additional 5-6 hours a day and is likely to put for the coming years. Now suddenly you will find yourself in a corner as he will grow(in comparison) inevitably. And there will be little you can do. Putting in crazy hours isn't mandatory, but neither is winning and succeeding.

Perhaps I'm just fortunate, but in my current situation, I don't think this would matter much. Sure, my co-worker may get a larger raise, but I'm pretty comfortable with my current salary, and the fact that I can average 40-45 hours a week with a lot of flexibility in when I work those hours. Perhaps one day, my boss will turn evil, and tell me I'm not producing enough, but, at that point, I'll find other work, becau…

This is the best answer I have heard so far.

So as long as you are happy with whatever you do, you are the happiest man in the universe.

And I have no problems with this.

I have problems with people who stop other people from working hard, just because they don't want to.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#73

Post by marvin »

danmaz74 wrote: post #37
marvin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Case in point: Norway has some of the strictest labor laws in the world. The Norwegian Work Environment Act (Arbeidsmiljøloven) has very strict rules around overtime and overtime compensation, which cannot be changed through an employment contract. (Exceptions are possible where a labor union/worker organization is involved) There are a lot of detailed regulations, but among other things, _all_ work over 40 hours a w…

I think that this is in part because in the software industry we feel much stronger ownership of our projects than in most other jobs... for example, a couple of years ago I put a lot of (unpaid) overtime without being forced at all, just because I wanted the project to succeed and there was no other way to achieve success than for me to work on it myself (even if in theory I was just the project manager and sales en…

Yes, the ownership and pride aspect is probably a big part of it. I'd guess you can see the same thing with craftsmen.

Regardless though, something feels very wrong about working very hard on something that can provide a huge monetary gain for your superiors, with the very real risk that you might not get anything in return. I operate (and have always operated, due to the horror stories I've heard) the same way you seem to do now: Do nothing but what's expected of you for the company, and only do more than what you're paid for if you've got leverage to actually be compensated for the real effort that you put in.

Computer people are, by and large, way too weak in exerting their rights. Whenever I hear a story of a nerd getting screwed over in a negotiation or liquidity event, I think of a small, weak kid getting his lunch money taken by a bully and not having any power to do anything about it. We're grownups and we have a lot of tools at our disposal to push back against injustices like these. It's like Nassim Nicholas Taleb said - sometimes you just need to sue someone. It's a matter of respect.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#74

Post by kamaal »

lrobb wrote: post #53

In the renowned 1993 study of young violinists, performance researcher Anders Ericsson found that the best ones all practiced the same way: in the morning, in three increments of no more than 90 minutes each, with a break between each one. Ericcson found the same pattern among other musicians, athletes, chess players and writers. For Real Productivity, Less is Truly More: http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/05/for-rea…

This is true provided you have to master the instrument. Not when you compose music. They are two different things.

Typing is not the same as programing. I learned to type real fast long back. But I'm still learning the art of programming.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#75

Post by rythie »

kibwen wrote: post #54
jdietrich wrote: post #36

I keep reading these sort of articles and wondering why the American people seem so opposed to basic employment law. Here in Socialist Yurop, the Working Time Directive means that no employer can compel an employee to work for longer than 48 hours per week. All workers are entitled to a legal minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid holiday. You all seem to agree that you work too long and don't get enough holiday. I've never on…

"All workers are entitled to a legal minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid holiday." Heh, at my current job I won't be eligible for paid holiday until eighteen months after my date of initial employment, at which point I will receive five days of paid holiday for one year, and then ten days of paid holiday for the next four years. That's a pretty stark difference, I'd say. Is Europe hiring software developers?

There are tons of developers jobs in U.K., companies always seem to be on the look out.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#76

Post by kamaal »

AlexandrB wrote: post #39
kamaal wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets say #2 is not a problem for the minute and you meet somebody like you. He and you do your day job in 8 hrs. But he puts in an additional 5-6 hours a day and is likely to put for the coming years. Now suddenly you will find yourself in a corner as he will grow(in comparison) inevitably. And there will be little you can do. Putting in crazy hours isn't mandatory, but neither is winning and succeeding.

Unless he's a machine, his 5-6 hours will be producing shitty, sloppy code that others will have to fix later. This is not a net-positive.

Knowing when to work, when and how to rest is the key.

Besides you can train your biological cycle to do wonders.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#77

Post by kamaal »

bartmcpherson wrote: post #60
kamaal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bigger problem is making people think that 60 hour weeks is normal, or honourable, and that a 40 hour week is lazy or disloyal or unproductive or harmful to the company. That's not true, and it's possibly leading to early death of some people. It's certainly making some people miserable. I like working a lot, making great stuff. Some people don't. But that's not my problem. Asking me not to work, just because some…

Wouldn't applying some of your extra productivity to an open-source project be more beneficial to more people? Instead of having a difficult work environment with your co-workers you would have learned, created great stuff and been recognized by peers.

Yes this is true, and you would be definitely helping a lot of people.

One of my long term goals is contribute to a open source community.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#78

Post by kamaal »

18pfsmt wrote: post #41
kamaal wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bigger problem is making people think that 60 hour weeks is normal, or honourable, and that a 40 hour week is lazy or disloyal or unproductive or harmful to the company. That's not true, and it's possibly leading to early death of some people. It's certainly making some people miserable. I like working a lot, making great stuff. Some people don't. But that's not my problem. Asking me not to work, just because some…

I didn't down vote, and agree that people should be able to work as much as they want. However, when I read sloppily written comments with poor grammar and syntax, I always wonder if the author also writes code in a similar manner. I kind of take it as an insult when author's don't do their best to make their work easily understood by others.

I am from India, and English is not my mother tongue.

Sometime I make mistakes, but I correct them often when some one points out.

I don't think its a big issue, I don't see this as a problem while coding, interaction or even while writing documentation.

Sometimes I make a mistake because of my mother tongue influence over English.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#79

Post by DanBC »

kamaal wrote: post #71
Bullislander05 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Choice to choose a worklife style is upto to the individual. Stopping Individual from achieving their goals is in direct contradiction to freedom to pursuit of happiness." Some might have goals similar to you. Others might aspire to work a 40-a-week job, be there for their spouse and children and not feel burnt out every day. Yes, there are people like you who might enjoy working crazy hours and being super producti…

Please note the person who works 8 hours a day sincerely is getting what he is supposed to get. Also the person who works for 8 hrs + x hrs is getting what he is supposed to get. If you are saying despite working for ( 8 + x ) hrs he must not get anything extra or he and the guy who works for 8 hrs must both get the same, defeats the very laws of karma. Besides, The 8 hrs guy has a problem only if gets into compariso…

The 8hour worker is getting what they're supposed to get.

The 8 + x hours worker is getting less than they're supposed to. Often they're doing x hours for free.

There can be several problems with that. Sometimes the company gets a lot of value from the x hours, and sells lots of product for lots of money, but doesn't give any money to the worker.

Or sometimes the worker is doing poor quality work, but getting personal value from the x hours (perhaps seen by managers as being more productive) and the other workers have to fix the errors, but are not seen as productive.

> The expectation that one must get paid the same but do little work compared to somebody else

Quite often overtime is unpaid, or is paid at low rates.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#80

Post by lrobb »

kamaal wrote: post #74
lrobb wrote: post #53

In the renowned 1993 study of young violinists, performance researcher Anders Ericsson found that the best ones all practiced the same way: in the morning, in three increments of no more than 90 minutes each, with a break between each one. Ericcson found the same pattern among other musicians, athletes, chess players and writers. For Real Productivity, Less is Truly More: http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/05/for-rea…

This is true provided you have to master the instrument. Not when you compose music. They are two different things. Typing is not the same as programing. I learned to type real fast long back. But I'm still learning the art of programming.

You obviously didn't bother to read the article or it's references.
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