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Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

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Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#21

Post by swinnipeg »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #9
yangez wrote: post #5

> I have a friend who brags that he busts his * 60 hours a week driving a Coca-Cola delivery truck. Congratulations, I work 35 and make twice as much as he does. This is a straw man. The point is that if you worked 50 vs 35 hours at the same job, you'd simply get more done - even considering diminishing returns. There's a reason many hugely successful people are notorious workaholics - see Elon Musk, Oprah, Marissa M…

But where does that end? We decide the 8 hour work week isn't productive enough, even though worker productivity has skyrocketed, so we go to 10, then we decide 10 hour days are for socialist pussies and go to 12 hour days, then eventually we are calling people lazy for sleeping and ridiculing them for not dragging concrete blocks for a .0000001% holding Elon Musk's Mars Miner corporation. I mean at some point life h…

It doesn't need to end. It is "work life choice" not "work life balance.

Choosing to spend more of your time to a task will generally return a better results. Now choose your own adventure and determine where you want those results, friends/startup/employer/family/fitness or whatever else you value.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#22

Post by cowsandmilk »

rfnslyr wrote: post #3

When I worked at a large corporation, I nearly automated all of my work and I was called lazy. I'd do about an hour work a day, customize an existing script to process new data, then read for the remaining 6 hours. Co-workers called me a lazy nerd and proceeded to copy paste words into excel for 8 hours. Now I get to wake up at 12, smoke a joint, have a beer, take a shower, go for a walk with my dog, and then work on…

your mention of lawyers reminds me of the Kia Motors outside counsel technology audit[1]. Many lawyers waste ridiculous amounts of time doing busywork. In my day job, I spend many hours visiting customers and spend much of that time adding automation for them, simple bash scripts that allow them to do things much more quickly. Yesterday, I taught someone the rename command[2]. Previously, they had been spending an doing it manually with the mv command. I am constantly reminded about the amount of low-hanging fruit there is out there for automation that is currently handled extremely manually, sometimes by some very well-paid people.

[1] http://www.law.com/jsp/lawtechnologynews/PubArticleLTN.jsp?i... [2] http://linux.die.net/man/1/rename

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#24

Post by rfnslyr »

muratmutlu wrote: post #15
rfnslyr wrote: post #3

When I worked at a large corporation, I nearly automated all of my work and I was called lazy. I'd do about an hour work a day, customize an existing script to process new data, then read for the remaining 6 hours. Co-workers called me a lazy nerd and proceeded to copy paste words into excel for 8 hours. Now I get to wake up at 12, smoke a joint, have a beer, take a shower, go for a walk with my dog, and then work on…

Have you ever read Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh? Sounds very similar to your story, he automated his work using a script, I think he even stopped going into the office

I have not but I'll add it to my reading list. Funny you should say that. The way it worked at my place, is we had a few managers on each floor. Each floor has over 300 people. A lot of people had no idea who they report to, what they're supposed to do, they just kind of asked random people for work.

One of the contractors was hired shortly before the hiring manager quit. He had an office. He came in every day, opened his macbook and worked on his own projects for three months before somebody finally asked him who he was. Nobody questioned him because nobody had an idea who to even talk to about such issues, nor did they care.

We have armies of developers that essentially do nothing.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#25

Post by lazyjones »

Work isn't an end in itself, it's a means to an end. If you work hard and achieve your goals quicker (or at all) because of it, that's admirable as long as your trade-offs (spare time, family ...) are made consciously. If not, adjust your goals accordingly.

Condemning hard work and long hours without any such considerations, is not constructive. Personally, I don't see a value in working as little as possible just to waste more time watching TV or drinking beer, but if that is what you really want to do, fine ...

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#26

Post by rfnslyr »

jmduke wrote: post #17
rfnslyr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The work I did does not even remotely tie into what I am doing now nor did it warrant a second thought beyond the office. It was a contractor position. I had to import data sets into excel from other documents. All I did was export the previous doc into a CSV file and write a script to import it into excel. It was piss easy. Then I shipped off that data set to whatever team needed it. That's all I did. It was menial.…

I'm honestly fascinated by that kind of work -- not that its interesting, but the fact that it exists is just strange to me. Right now I'm doing iOS development. I get to take my laptop to the park, or anywhere outside and it's goddamn amazing. Last night I worked all day on an isolated beach on an island right across from my city. Possibly the most fun I've had in months to be honest. Sounds like you're living the d…

Nah I'm not making any money at all. I'm using the money from the job I just finished to fund 2 years of development time, rent, and food. I don't spend much so I get to live a fairly risk free lifestyle. I just work and read whatever is interesting that day/week/month.

Worst case scenario: I get a stupid amount of experience and land a sweet job at a startup once my time is up. Loving it.

My minimum goal is to become an awesome full stack engineer. My max goal is to live lavishly as a freelancer/consultant.

Thanks, I hope I succeed as well.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#29

Post by rfnslyr »

edw519 wrote: post #19

For developers building something, the following are often true: Tweeting != Work TalkingAboutWork != Work Blogging != Work DoingSomethingInYourIDE does not necessarily = Work DoingSomethingInGithub does not necessarily = Work ThinkingButAppearingToBeDoingNothing may = Work Meetings != Work CodeReview may = Work Testing usually = Work DeliveringBuiltSoftware(AndItsPrerequisites) = Work HackerNews definitely != Work

Meetings: where minutes are taken and hours are wasted.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#30

Post by jasonlotito »

rfnslyr wrote: post #29
edw519 wrote: post #19

For developers building something, the following are often true: Tweeting != Work TalkingAboutWork != Work Blogging != Work DoingSomethingInYourIDE does not necessarily = Work DoingSomethingInGithub does not necessarily = Work ThinkingButAppearingToBeDoingNothing may = Work Meetings != Work CodeReview may = Work Testing usually = Work DeliveringBuiltSoftware(AndItsPrerequisites) = Work HackerNews definitely != Work

Meetings: where minutes are taken and hours are wasted.

Depends on the meetings.

And if you are wasting time in meetings, then you are wasting time in meetings.

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