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What Long Hours Really Mean

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Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#141

Post by Iftheshoefits »

throwaway092834 wrote: post #128
dev_jim wrote: post #125

"Working for free" after 40 hours never resonated with me. It comes out of hard fought labor battles, but an assembly line is difficult to relate to when I'm eating free snacks in my comfy Aeron chair and working on things that generally interest me. I think the biggest issue here is misaligned expectations between boss and worker. Personally, I've always gone into a job understanding what it was going to take to be…

I agree with your overall perspective. I'd like to add that the statement "If you’re salaried, you’re working for free" is inaccurate in two very important dimensions: 1) Equity stake. The 40 hour workweek was invented for laborers, not owners. Would the author admonish a business owner to only work 8 hours a week? At what level of ownership stake does it become acceptable to work more than 8 hours? 2) Compensation i…

Working any number unpaid hours is working for free, no matter how you spin it.*

1) Business owners aren't laborers. They work, and they may draw a salary for tax purposes, but they cannot be placed in the same bin as "employee," which is what "laborer" means in this context. As a matter of opinion on your aside, I'd argue that the "level of ownership" required would be one sufficient to imbue the equity holder with the significant responsibility, authority, share of the profits that other "major" equity holders have.

2) That compensation generally rises with recognition and achievement is: a) not in dispute; b) not relevant to the point, because it doesn't address unpaid hours worked.

* There's a certain argument that exempt salaried employees are paid for their expertise, not their time. Therefore, the hours they work merely divide the salary they earn, so that their effective hourly rate decreases as hours worked rises, but is never zero. Of course this isn't applied symmetrically--a salaried worker who completes his tasks "early" in the week is unlikely to be allowed to take the rest of it off without a reduction in pay (or, more likely, suspicion and being marked for termination).

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#142

Post by rfnslyr »

com2kid wrote: post #69
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…

By what natural law is this true? By what will of nature or physics are you deriving your statements? Deserves? Why does anyone deserve anything? Nature itself does not act that way. People around the world deserve not to live in fear of their government killing them. Women deserve not to live in fear of being raped. Children should not live in fear of abuse. Yet untold millions starve, are beaten, tortured, abused,…

It's all about context. We live in an entirely different world than that. What a weird issue to bring up on a forum where largely everyone works in a nice office. Obviously this stuff still goes down.

Are you one of those people where if I say, "Hey where do you want go for lunch?", would respond with "Nowhere, I just want to DIE, why do I get to eat if everyone else DIES!"

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#143

Post by consultant23522 »

throwaway092834 wrote: post #128
dev_jim wrote: post #125

"Working for free" after 40 hours never resonated with me. It comes out of hard fought labor battles, but an assembly line is difficult to relate to when I'm eating free snacks in my comfy Aeron chair and working on things that generally interest me. I think the biggest issue here is misaligned expectations between boss and worker. Personally, I've always gone into a job understanding what it was going to take to be…

I agree with your overall perspective. I'd like to add that the statement "If you’re salaried, you’re working for free" is inaccurate in two very important dimensions: 1) Equity stake. The 40 hour workweek was invented for laborers, not owners. Would the author admonish a business owner to only work 8 hours a week? At what level of ownership stake does it become acceptable to work more than 8 hours? 2) Compensation i…

I had the opposite experience. Working long hours never got me a raise or promotion. Successful projects got me raises and promotions, but I generally don't need to work even 40 hours to make that happen. Once I lifted my head up out of the code and started taking a more business approach to my work rather than engineering approach, that's when my value and income skyrocketed. The guys I know that rack up those 50+ hour weeks every single week get the same 3% raise they've always gotten and most of them are pretty bitter about it.

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#144

Post by the_watcher »

"Working for free" after 40 hours isn't necessarily accurate if you are on salary, at least if your company is run reasonably well. At my job, I'm paid a salary based on my performance and the quality of my deliverables. If I finish those in less than 40 hours, I am free to go home (although I generally stay and get some work done on projects that are less time sensitive), but if I have to stay late to finish them, I may end up working more than 40 hours. Nowhere in my agreement to come work here was 40 hours a week specified. If it became the norm that I worked 60 hours a week to complete my deliverables (and I wasn't sandbagging), I would ask for a raise to reflect that.

However, I agree that many companies are not great at this. While my company is not perfect, their handling of this issue is one of the many things they do extremely well.

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#145

Post by acuozzo »

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 don't absolutely love my job. I'll gladly quit if you're willing to financially provide for myself and my family!

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#146

Post by matwood »

Wingman4l7 wrote: post #3

Working even half an hour extra each day adds up to ~3 weeks a year of extra work that you're not getting paid for. That's several thousand dollars in wages. It's easy to dismiss a half-hour here or there but if you sit down and run the numbers, it's quite an unpleasant conclusion.

What if your salary already has that factored in? What if you wouldn't have that salary without those extra 3 weeks/year you are working? To say it another way, if I only work 1 hour/day and run the numbers it is a great conclusion.

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#147

Post by NDizzle »

My long hours story. (in summary form)

Small company got acquired by a big 4 accounting firm. Lots of changes, seemingly lots of room for growth. Some people left. I stepped up (no promotion or raise) and took over for several departed people. Worked 12-14 hour days, 6 days a week, for 10 months. Received the highest performance award, which is given to 0.25% of the 50k+ employees in the US. Got a 1.25% raise because our unit was underperforming as a whole. Quit 4 months later. (after taking 2 months off after my second daughter was born.)

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#148

Post by randomdata »

rjurney wrote: post #56
sdoering wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing. I commute not that much (1hr) per workday. I use this time, to listen to relaxing music and reading fiction (and sometimes popular science). After the commute I have to walk 10 minutes, to arrive at my front door. I have to walk through a little park. Really. For me commuting and then walking is my way of coming down. Of letting go of the work, so that I arrive at home free of all the stuff, that happens…

A driving commute makes you unhappy because it is exhausting, and you lose that time. It sounds like your commute is on transit, which isn't so bad... you can read, so that time is still yours. I'd love an hour transit commute. I like to read!

I commuted to an office for the first couple of years of my career and it was awful. Now I only commute to the farm and get excited about it. The drive itself is very similar to both locations.

I feel like the big difference is the expectations of others placed on me. When I had to commute to the office, I was doing it for someone else. Others wanted me there certain days, at certain times, and it becomes a dash to meeting their expectations. That was the most draining part of the entire job. On the farm, I'm doing it for myself. I want to go because it is what I want to do.

Driving itself isn't that bad. I spent nine hours in the tractor and another hour on the road yesterday and while I was certainly tired and beat up, I felt a certain euphoria of accomplishment.

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#149

Post by chrisoverzero »

collyw wrote: post #127
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New, from Labor Union! WEEKENDS! Two whole days off from work every week! You buying yet?

Us Europeans think your 10 days of holidays (vaccinations) a year is crazy in the US. But then you do seem to get paid a lot better in the tech sector.

Vaccinations have indeed been the topic of much craziness in the US as of late.

More on-topic, I once mentioned to a European colleague my company's policy of giving employees four weeks of vacation once they've been here for five years. It took some convincing for him to understand that those employees did not get that extra four weeks of paid vacation as their PTO balance every year thereafter.

Re: What Long Hours Really Mean

#150

Post by Wingman4l7 »

matwood wrote: post #146
Wingman4l7 wrote: post #3

Working even half an hour extra each day adds up to ~3 weeks a year of extra work that you're not getting paid for. That's several thousand dollars in wages. It's easy to dismiss a half-hour here or there but if you sit down and run the numbers, it's quite an unpleasant conclusion.

What if your salary already has that factored in? What if you wouldn't have that salary without those extra 3 weeks/year you are working? To say it another way, if I only work 1 hour/day and run the numbers it is a great conclusion.

That's kind of what I'm getting at, though. If a job is advertised at $50k, and then you find out they expect you to work 9 hours a day instead of the usual 8, it's really more like $44k. Such discrepancies just make it harder to compare apples to apples when looking at the job market.
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