Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours • Hacker News Board

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#191

Post by rwg » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 6:26 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…

At ${PREVIOUS_JOB}, the director of another department tried to recruit me. One of his selling points was that they often worked insanely late nights and slept at their desks. Considering I was already thinking about quitting my job due to long hours and unrealistic expectations, his pitch didn't exactly woo me.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#192

Post by badman_ting » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 6:31 PM UTC

swamp40 wrote: post #11

Well, there are certainly two camps with regard to this. If you don't feel like going over to Alex's campfire, holding hands and singing Kumbaya - let me invite you over to the other fire for an inspirational moment before getting back to work: "Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-l…

Blech, you all can keep it. Just let me do enough to be useful, but not too useful, give me my money, and go away. Feel free to bash each other's brains in for a chance at imaginary glory when I am at a safe remove.

As an American, if I am in love with battle, then it would be the sort of battle where the guy makes a big blustery show, charges toward me, and trips over my foot.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#193

Post by cafecodelife » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 6:42 PM UTC

I like this article. My viewpoint is that it sucks that even if you finish all of your work on Friday at noon, you still have to, due to corporate culture, sit at your desk until 5 or 6pm, regardless of if you are producing or able to produce anything.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#194

Post by rfnslyr » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 6:43 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #179

rfnslyr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in a very large corporate environment. I have had so many meetings where I didn't say a word, didn't even know anyone there. Manager I talked to like once a month sent me meeting requests and I went. It was pointless. They weren't optional either.

I've never worked in a very large corporate environment. > meeting requests Did you ever reject the request? I'm honestly curious to know what would happen? Did you ever speak up to your manager about this? His manager? I guess the real question is, what did you do to fix this?

I'd rather be as much as a ghost as possible in the environment lest I get more shit-work to do. Nothing, I set a world record in Temple Run from all the training I've received at these meetings.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#195

Post by rfnslyr » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 6:49 PM UTC

mhurron wrote: post #170

rfnslyr wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Exactly. Just need 2-5 close friends and thats all.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#196

Post by wslh » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 6:51 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 would add probabilities. And see it differently in my case:

HN is ~10% work (this comment is not work)

Blogging is 90% work

Tweeting is 90% work

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#197

Post by cupcake-unicorn » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 6:55 PM UTC

This is something that is really important to me. I've even thought of perhaps finding another line of work where this mindset doesn't prevail. I suffer from chronic health issues, and that really helps put things in perspective in a different way. My number 1 commitment is to my health, and working 80+ hours a week is not going to be doing me any favors in that department. Life is short, and it doesn't mean anything to earn all that money if you're not healthy, can't go anywhere to enjoy it, don't see your family, etc. People need to put it in perspective.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#198

Post by gruseom » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 7:07 PM UTC

jtbigwoo wrote: post #140

enraged_camel wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fetishizing hard work is a purely American phenomenon. Like many other parts of American culture, it has to do with the country's Puritan roots. Back in England, the Puritans were entirely city people. Even those who lived on the countryside were not farmers. So when they came to America, they had to work extra hard to learn farming and adopt that lifestyle, which was made even more difficult by the fact that the soi…

There's theology behind it as well. Puritans believe in Calvinist predestination. In a nutshell, God has known you for eternity. God knows what's going to happen and what you're going to do. God decided whether you will be saved or not before you were born. Your salvation/damnation happens through God's grace, not through your good works. This presents a dilemma: Why be a good, hard-working citizen if you can't affec…

That is a rough approximation of Max Weber's theory from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which is an amazing and surprisingly readable little book.

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#199

Post by cunac » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 7:09 PM UTC

paranoiacblack wrote: post #172

cunac wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really simple(in this context of hard workers). If you are willing to work for free it is your choice but mostly that is not economically smart choice and most likely not healthy choice. Unfortunately seems that you equal hard work with amount of value provided (results) , but you actually should look what is efficiency of your work hour comparing to the others. Work != life in most cases , you can't stop life…

I don't know what you're talking about. Although raising a family might be your personal life, it is seriously HARD WORK. Just because you love your family, doesn't mean you don't work hard to provide for them. My parents, for example, are foster parents and so we have about 6-7 children around the house on average. Because of this they are always on the run; cleaning the house, keeping the children busy, paying bill…

you just choose to not understand my point, working in mine is also hard work , working in mine for free is hard work and plain stupid

I don't consider family interactions work , it can be hard but it is not my definition of work. You can stretch definition to suit your justification of your lifestyle but I am happy with my 133 hours/week left for me after I call quits :-)

YMMW

Re: Stop Glorifying Hard Work and Long Hours

#200

Post by canvia » Wed, Jul 10, 2013, 7:18 PM UTC

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

Great book. Highly recommend reading it.