Bring Back the 40-hour work week (March 2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: Bring Back the 40-hour work week (March 2012)

#91

Post by crusso » Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 9:15 PM UTC

Joeri wrote: post #70

bitops wrote: post #18

Wanting to work fewer hours is something I think we all hope for, but it also depends on what we're after in life. I was reminded of this essay from Paul Graham: http://paulgraham.com/wealth.html

I disagree with this sentence from that article: "You could probably work twice as many hours as a corporate employee, and if you focus you can probably get three times as much done in an hour.". You cannot work double the hours and be more productive. If you work 80 hours on a continual basis, you will get less done than if you worked 40 hours. I have seen smart people reduced to blubbering idiots by the hours they…

You cannot work double the hours and be more productive

You can't simply put typical workers on a schedule that's twice as long and expect more productivity, that's true. Individually, though, you can normally become extraordinarily more productive if you have the right motivation.

people working crazy hours succeed.

Why is this such a mystery? Haven't you ever thrown yourselves into a new startup or idea and spent every waking hour on it for long periods of time because you were excited by what you were doing and it didn't feel like you were working? Haven't you ever gone to sleep thinking about your ideas, and jumped out of bed right away the next morning like a kid on Christmas and then worked on those ideas, barely wanting to take time to eat, at last breaking away from what you're working on late at night because you know you need to get some sleep? Maybe it's a gene that allows some people to go into that mode. Maybe it's just a matter of finding the right motivation. Regardless, it appears that people who don't experience it can't understand it any more than blind people can really appreciate colors.

Re: Bring Back the 40-hour work week (March 2012)

#92

Post by Tycho » Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 9:17 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #73

I read this title and thought it was a demand to increase the working work. Work 40 hours per week? Is that some kind of joke? Then I read the comments and was quietly horrified. I'm guessing a long long working week is a U.S. thing.

I think they include lunch hours in the 40 hour count, so it's really just a nine to five monday to friday.

Re: Bring Back the 40-hour work week (March 2012)

#93

Post by wyan » Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 9:19 PM UTC

runako wrote: post #8

rdl wrote: post #5

Reducing commute and other wasted time is probably still the low hanging fruit for most people. If your work is sufficiently varied, I don't see how 60-80h/wk is unsustainable at at least 1.5x the work you'd accomplish in 40h, if (and only if) the other hassles of life are taken care of for you -- no cleaning, commute time, etc. I don't think I could do a single task for 80h/wk productively, but I could certainly do…

Without belaboring the obvious: 80h/wk is over 13 hours each day of a 6-day workweek. Assuming 0.3h/day exercise (across the week) and 6h/day of sleep, you're left with 4-5h/day for everything else in your life. This is obviously a tradeoff you'd want to make iff everything else in your life is not something you want to allot any time. Edit: This reminds me of a discussion a friend had with the partner at the white s…

That "everything else" includes eating, commuting, grocery shopping, and all the other non-fun stuff we must get done. And that's considering 6h/day of sleep, which is insufficient for most people.

Re: Bring Back the 40-hour work week (March 2012)

#94

Post by evolve2k » Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 9:19 PM UTC

drewblaisdell wrote: post #9

Perhaps this is a good thread to pose this question. I am a front-end engineer in my early twenties. Right now, 40+ hours a week is doable and I am paid well, but I don't need all of the money I'm earning. I would gladly take a 50% salary cut and work ~20 hours a week. The only problem with this is that I feel like this is a risky thing to bring up with an employer. Has anyone ever had any success getting a good part…

The trick is not to seek 'part time' but rather seek a contract and let them know you can only do three days a week. It's working very well for me. Despite what everyone is saying its a marketplace and the demand for good devs/designers is big.

Re: Bring Back the 40-hour work week (March 2012)

#95

Post by georgefox » Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 9:24 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #89

throwaway1979 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I knew where to get a risk free, consistent 4% return these days ...

More like 7%, because that should be 4% after inflation...

Shouldn't the percentage of savings go down if you adjust for inflation (i.e., larger savings)?

Re: Bring Back the 40-hour work week (March 2012)

#96

Post by marvin » Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 9:25 PM UTC

throwaway1979 wrote: post #77

Sukotto wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you can bank the excess cash and "retire" as soon as 4% of your savings equals your annual expenses. (Work hard to maximize your salary and minimize your expenses) Between now and achieving that 4%, focus on excelling at the things you find the most interesting and building relationships in your industry so that once you cross the freedom line you can take on the occasional consulting gig to keep things interestin…

If I knew where to get a risk free, consistent 4% return these days ...

You won't get risk-free 4% return after inflation, but you can (probably) expect a 4% annual return on average if you put your money in the stock market. At least this is the assumption that the Norwegian Pension Fund, the world's largest stock market fund, operates with. Although it has been discussed to reduce this number to 3%.

Re: Bring Back the 40-hour work week (March 2012)

#97

Post by squarecat » Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 9:29 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #40

otakucode wrote: post #6

40 hours? No. Average worker productivity has skyrocketed since 1980 with the introduction of computers and automation technology. Salaries have remained flat. A 20 hour work week with the same salary would be far more reasonable (though still very far off the mark of paying employees according to the value that they produce).

though still very far off the mark of paying employees according to the value that they produce Employees aren't really compensated for increases in output that are achieved through standard business practices, technology, automation, etc. That's because their relative input remains the same. Same input, same salaries. If I'm starting a business mass-producing widgets and I fund the machinery, process development, an…

Or, for the sake of discussion, why wouldn't your big red button pusher take home a majority of the profits? Without them, what do you have?

As I understand it, your scenario is how unions justify their continued existence.

(If you're not already an American Republican, you really should look into it. trollolol...)

Re: Bring Back the 40-hour work week (March 2012)

#98

Post by enraged_camel » Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 9:31 PM UTC

rowsdower wrote: post #54

latortuga wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this almost cult-like obsession with measurement among the hacker crowd where everything must be measured and optimized. Unfortunately, people don't work this way. Telling people that they haven't measured up to some arbitrary standard is a significant demotivator. If you are measuring your workers on some chart, they'll begin either gaming the chart or comparing against each other, neither of which will moti…

This is spot on. It's exactly what happened at HubSpot with their support team.

People will try to game whatever metric you use to evaluate them by. This does not mean metrics are bad or useless. It just means you need mechanisms to detect and account for gaming attempts.

Re: Bring Back the 40-hour work week (March 2012)

#99

Post by jwatte » Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 9:35 PM UTC

jabbernotty wrote: post #31

shahchip wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an engineering student right now but I know exactly how you feel. I like the content but the thought of working full time terrifies me. I spent a couple of months as an intern/observer in a company and I can't imagine devoting my life to work. It would almost certainly make me burn out in a year or two. I've been looking into jobs that work few hours but are highly qualified and they're usually outside consultant…

To me, making a 40 hour work week is not the same as "devoting my life to work". Obviously there is a relationship there, but even if you have two hours of travel time each workday, and you work 8 hours a day (add a half hour break), there is time to do other things than work on a workday.

The break is part of your working hours. And if you live an hour from work, research shows you will be much happier if you move to within 20 minutes (even if this means you get "less" for your money.)

6 hours without reddit, hacker news, meetings, and other distractions, beats 9 hours with those things (as long as you're working on the right thing and not throwing away ALL your time :-)

Re: Bring Back the 40-hour work week (March 2012)

#100

Post by lostnet » Tue, Nov 13, 2012, 9:38 PM UTC

bokonist wrote: post #51

drewblaisdell wrote: post #9

Perhaps this is a good thread to pose this question. I am a front-end engineer in my early twenties. Right now, 40+ hours a week is doable and I am paid well, but I don't need all of the money I'm earning. I would gladly take a 50% salary cut and work ~20 hours a week. The only problem with this is that I feel like this is a risky thing to bring up with an employer. Has anyone ever had any success getting a good part…

Software is generally a winner-take-all market. Software has zero marginal cost, so the company with the most revenue can invest the most upfront into making a better product, giving it even more revenue. Furthermore, in most cases there is little incentive for customers to ever use the second best product in a segment. So when building software, you not only have to meet the customers needs, you have to meet the cus…

This is exactly what a lot of companies and managers will try to tell you.. But it is a bunch of nonsense.

An actual 40 hour a week programmer is an awful asset, if we do more than ~20 hours of work a week the rest is bad code and the shit we are to tired of thinking about to fix/automate. The ones who work 50+ hours have forgotten that things can be automated or even pondered before diving in, or that are powerless to fix the accumulating breakage of their group/project/company.

That being said, a 20 hour a week engineer who is partying the remainder probably isn't great either.

I currently work 3 days a week, but I spend about half of the remainder studying things that interest me, mostly in CS or physical sciences. A few years back, I worked 2.5 days in tech support, while finishing up my BS.

I would say live and breathe it while you are there, you should be senior/mature enough that you don't require mentoring/sponsoring to do your job, be a bit humble about your immediate "importance" and handle those longer term pains, and have a nice (but unapologetic) explanation for how you spend your other time.

If overall I spend less than 25-30 hours a week thinking about the field then expect to gradually feel rusty. But then CS is not a good field to mentally slow down in.