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What Long Hours Really Mean

wearemammoth.com

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Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#31

Post by dalek_cannes »

jmvoodoo wrote: post #23

This entire piece is written from the perspective of someone who sees their job as only a way to make money. That person might look at me and say something along the lines of "look at him, wasting his life away spending time at work." To me, though, he is the one wasting his life spending even a few hours a day to do something he would not do for free. If you don't absolutely love your job, quit. And if you absolutel…

I love my job, and I love working extra hours on it. But on my own terms and as a means of building something more, not compensating for lack of planning or management.

> why the hell wouldn't you want to stay a few more minutes?

Strawman. Everyone stays that extra few minutes. Sometimes even a few hours on occasion. That's not what 'long hours' here refer to.

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#33

Post by RussianCow »

enjo wrote: post #18
christianmann wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to discount this, but where does commute fall into this breakdown?

That's on your own time:) Seriously, people need to start living closer to work (and demanding that work make that possible).

Or work from home, and demand that work make that possible. :)

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#34

Post by DigitalSea »

jmvoodoo wrote: post #23

This entire piece is written from the perspective of someone who sees their job as only a way to make money. That person might look at me and say something along the lines of "look at him, wasting his life away spending time at work." To me, though, he is the one wasting his life spending even a few hours a day to do something he would not do for free. If you don't absolutely love your job, quit. And if you absolutel…

Quite clearly you love your job more than you love your friends and family if you're happy staying back because you love your job as opposed to going home to your husband or wife, or catching up with your best friend who you haven't seen in 3 months because you've been too busy working.

Overtime is expected in the design and development industry. It's when companies factor in overtime into their estimates in order to quote lower than other agencies competing for the same work because they know that the employees will pick up the slack to get it done, that's when it's not alright.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my job and where I work, but if overtime is an expected thing every single project, that's taking advantage of your own employees and a sure-fire way to churn through workers like butter and eventually get yourself a reputation in the industry for being a bad place to work. People talk and reputation matters in the design and development industry more than people realise, it's everything.

I have a family and friends, you might be okay with working overtime, but what about your wife, is she okay with it? What if you have children at home wanting to see their father? You might be okay with it now, but you'll regret it when you're older and realise you missed out on your children growing up.

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#35

Post by borplk »

jmvoodoo wrote: post #23

This entire piece is written from the perspective of someone who sees their job as only a way to make money. That person might look at me and say something along the lines of "look at him, wasting his life away spending time at work." To me, though, he is the one wasting his life spending even a few hours a day to do something he would not do for free. If you don't absolutely love your job, quit. And if you absolutel…

If you work for yourself that's something. But I really hope you don't work for someone else with that attitude because in that case people like you are making it difficult for the rest of us.

If you work for someone else and your attitude is "haha I love this job so much I'm willing to do it for free" then everyone else starts discounting everything on you "because hey that guy loves doing this stuff".

Don't bring your love for the job into the equation because that will only hurt you.

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#36

Post by e12e »

tslathrow wrote: post #14

Seeing as I grew up on 80+ hour workweeks, I can promise you this is false for a certain group of people. I spent two years in banking - normally we had 18+ hour workdays... definitely gave me stamina later on. Tier 1 bonus bucket at a bulge bracket one year, Tier 2 the other year. You pretty much always end up getting paid for hard work.

Which kind of work did you do that wouldn't have been more effective if it was split in two (or even three) shifts (assuming it would've been possible to find qualified people to help/hire with/for the workload? How much of that time is for breaks/lunch etc? Genuinely interested in what an 18 hour work day consists of.

Personally I can absolutely see "working" long hours -- but then that'd probably be something like 6 hours effective programming/planning/implementing and 6-8 hours of studying.

Either that or doing some form of manual labour with which I'm familiar/skilled enough that slips in concentration wouldn't be damning. But even for those kinds of jobs, having three (or four) shifts to 24 hours would probably be much more effective (again, if possible).

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#37

Post by henrik_w »

qq66 wrote: post #13
dalek_cannes wrote: post #9

Every human being deserves an average of 8 hours of work, 8 hours of family/leisure, 8 hours of sleep and 2 days a week free. Even a doctor on whom many lives are depending . Lives of critical employees are just as valuable as the lives of those who are affected if they don't work harder. The whole "if I don't do this, the project will sink / things will be destroyed" is a self-imposed ransom situation that managers…

Where do these numbers come from that you proclaim them to be universal human standards? Why not 7 hours of work? Why not 9?

There's a good article called "Bring back the 40-hour work week"[1] that seems to indicate that working more than 40 hours per week is less productive.

[1] http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_...

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#39

Post by e12e »

This posts seems to resonate well with the "Electronic Arts Spouse"-post from 2004:

http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html

(Poor management, poor planning, dropping productivity per hour worked as the workday is increased).

It's nothing new of course, Ford pushed for 8 hour shifts, not out of the kindness of his heart.

As for working "for free" -- that could be seen as poor labour laws. Norway has very strict rules regarding work hours (and compensation). Not that they're not broken -- but generally only managers (or others who realistically can set their own hours) are allowed effectively unlimited over time.

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#40

Post by telephonetemp »

quinnchr wrote: post #29
philwelch wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel that you're wrong about that.

If you think their is such a thing as objective truth in this world you must be some sort of postmodern miracle.

There is mathematics and physics, at least. A lot of arguing can be, and has been, had here but it's largely arguing about definitions; you cannot deny that they allow you to obtain the "truth" in the sense that that truth can be used to predict and affect what happens in the real world as far as your senses can best tell you. There's no arguing away fire or public key encryption.
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