Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#161

Post by pjungwir » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 5:02 PM UTC

nether wrote: post #70

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…

> 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. Oh my god, I'm dealing with this now. I made a Python program that automated a lot of our Excel work. It reduced…

When I moved across the country to Boston back in late 2000, all I could find was a data entry temp job. They were using a Perl program to automatically build QuarkXPress pages based on an XML feed. But the Perl program was introducing dozens of typos per page, in a 1200-page catalog (mostly extra spaces, plus some Unicode issues). Six other temps and I had to go through each page and fix the typos.

I looked at the Perl program, found the regex that was causing the space problem, and saw how to fix it. I mentioned that to my manager, and fortunately he had a better response. He made me write a proposal (can't really blame him), and sent that to the app's developer. I think the proposal was three pages, describing the problem, the cost, and the solution (to remove two spaces!). A few days later they offered me a job in the programming department.

Maybe I was just lucky? But I'd hope most places are not so WTF that if you're willing to earn some trust you can't introduce improvements.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#162

Post by thibaut_barrere » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 5:02 PM UTC

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

I disagree on some points here: if you develop and promote a product or an open-source project, tweeting, talking about work, blogging are definitely in the scope of useful and more than required work. Getting the word out is critical.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#163

Post by rfnslyr » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 5:03 PM UTC

antitrust wrote: post #111

Arnor wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's time to leave that company. They don't deserve you.

Or time to talk with the boss' boss and remind him that time is money, and you can save him money. The incompetence of the people around you isn't your moral responsibility.

People don't care. I've tried. They want job security and nothing more. We have an $88 million dollar budget for a shitty mobile app at a bank. Yes. That's right. You read that. 88 MILLION for a mobile banking app. You know why?

Team of manager salaries. They employee salaries. Contractor salaries.

There over 500 people working on this thing.

I suggested in a meeting "Why not hire an agency that will do this at a fraction of the cost?" I got a lot of angry glares. Why not? Because half our building worth of employees would be pointless.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#164

Post by RyanZAG » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 5:03 PM UTC

sbjustin wrote: post #152

RyanZAG wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree here. If what you're saying is correct, then the following would be true: School != Work Learning new language != Work Testing new lang/framework != Work This is blatantly false, because doing these things may enable you to create something you couldn't before. Let's take two people. Person A only does code. Person B both codes and learns new theory. Person A creates something in X hours. Person B spends X…

I agree. Perhaps a better clarification would be billable work vs work?

Nice one, but billable work is - by definition - whatever you can get someone to pay you for. If that's the case, I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people getting paid to be on HN, or sleep under a tree with their phone on and being on call. That would be billable work too, and very productive if you consider productive to be "how much money I made".

And no, there isn't someone in the sky recording how many minutes you looked away from coding and deciding if you're an acceptable person or not. ;) The "work" vs "not work" is all in your head.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#165

Post by paranoiacblack » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 5:04 PM UTC

antitrust wrote: post #104

paranoiacblack wrote: post #54

No, you stop glorifying "smart" work and shorter hours. Could it possibly be that people work at different paces, have different work ethic, and have different aspirations, but that they can't be compared at face value purely on the hours worked? Just because you work less hours, doesn't necessarily imply you're doing the work "smarter," it probably just means that you are only doing the required the work. It is poss…

> These are the same people who were high school dropouts or got kicked out of college for not doing the work. Like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and every hacker known to humanity? > Could it possibly be that people work at different paces People who are less efficient at a certain job may be in the wrong career... and we shouldn't hold others back because some are slower.

Uh Steve Jobs and Bill Gates weren't high school dropouts nor did they get kicked out of college, they consciously moved past it. And when they did, you bet they worked more than 35 hours a week to make it.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#166

Post by yankoff » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 5:04 PM UTC

I see glorifying of short hours way more often here.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#167

Post by NegativeK » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 5:05 PM UTC

sriramk wrote: post #64

I've seen this promoted in subtle ways. At Microsoft, I once saw a VP talk about how a team had worked nights and weekends to make something extraordinary happen and how he was surprised to get emails from them in the middle of the night. I had a private chat with him later of how this encourages the wrong behavior - the key is that great work got done, not the fact that teams worked late nights or that they were on…

What was the VP's immediate response to the chat?

More importantly, what was the VP's long-term response?

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#168

Post by senekisa » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 5:05 PM UTC

It is the harsh reality.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#169

Post by paranoiacblack » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 5:07 PM UTC

silverbax88 wrote: post #138

paranoiacblack wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ITT, don't tweet about things you are proud of. It makes us regular people feel bad. ;(

If someone is proud enough of not being able to finish their work in a reasonable amount of time, then sure, they should let the world know about it. I know I won't hire them, either.

Huh? How do you figure that people proud of their work aren't finishing it fast enough. It turns out that when you finish your work, you can work on something else. You don't have to end your work week right then and there.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#170

Post by mhurron » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 5:15 PM UTC

rfnslyr wrote: post #123

wavesounds wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amen Brutha! My last job I had coworkers who would complain to me that they got bored over the week we had off for Christmas vacation. I'm so much happier now that I'm away from that culture and am working with people who love what they do and love doing other things as well.

Same here. How could you possibly be bored with a week off? When I had a weekend off I basically planned all the fun shit by the hour that I was going to do. Shows, beers with friends, trips, bike riding, tons of stuff to do!

I have this problem, usually on weekends and not weeks off, but not because I live to work. It's because I have a lot I would like to do, and many of these 'little projects' would take more then the time I have on a weekend. So I end up with a backlog of things I'd like to do but don't have the time to do them in. I get bored with lots of things to do but not enough time to start them in. I then curse the need to go to work.

Thank god I don't have friends, bastards would be stealing even more of my time.