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A 60-Hour Work Week is Not a Badge of Honour

jeffarchibald.ca

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Re: A 60-Hour Work Week is Not a Badge of Honour

#101

Post by yummyfajitas »

mattmanser wrote: post #96
yummyfajitas wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[Citation needed] I've gotten the following list of citations in the past, which suggest that the 40-60 hour regime is (aggregated over many workers) optimal for construction: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7089557 But I've never seen anything even remotely suggesting that an individual needs to be an "actual snowflake" in order to productively work more than 40 hours. Since you claim there are "numerous studie…

They don't suggest that at all! Can you not read? The key thing you've just conveniently left out is this: overtime is only effective over very short sprints Operative words. VERY. SHORT. And overtime, in the context of the article and all the supporting literature, is working more than 40 hours. Worst still, you or your employees then become stupid. Unimaginative. Burnt out. They make silly mistakes. Does that sound…

All of the studies I linked to discuss population means. Not a single one addresses the claim Derbasti made about the tails of population distributions.

Whenever this topic comes up, people constantly claim tons of research showing 40 hours is some magic right number for everyone everywhere in every industry, yet that research is rarely cited. The best I've seen so far is the post I linked to, which is population means in construction.

Re: A 60-Hour Work Week is Not a Badge of Honour

#103

Post by pyrrhotech »

rickhanlonii wrote: post #52
sergiotapia wrote: post #12

I work 40 hours a week at maximum - most weeks I work about 34 to 38 hours. You 80 hours a week guys, what the hell are you doing with your time? Are you divorced? No family? No friends? Is 'disrupting' an industry really that important to you?

My name is Rick and I'm a 80 hour a week guy. I'm 26, single, and have no pets. I have a family and friends, but I'm very transparent about my work habits and priorities as a full-stack engineer. Being so young, I see myself as training to be the person I want to be in the future. The best programmers in the world worked at it relentlessly. Sure, there are variances in the amount that they all worked, and some did it…

I don't believe you are an 80 hour a week man. Unless you count reading HN, browsing the web, reading email, eating lunch, commuting to work, getting ready for work etc. NO ONE does 80 hours of legitimate work a week. It's a myth.

Re: A 60-Hour Work Week is Not a Badge of Honour

#105

Post by hox »

claudius wrote: post #95
pizza234 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem comes from the culture; certain cultures identify success as the core value of a person, so people tend to identify their identity with the product of their work. It's more than some "important"; work is how people [with this attitude] values theirselves. Keep in mind that if you grow up pushed to be the best at school and then at work, there's nothing really meaningful in life outside those areas. That's…

So, err, what other metric than work output (be it products, ideas, bright kids or whatever else you might think of) are you using as the ‘core value’ of a person?

One's core value cannot be quantified by an objective metric. We are not all computers.

Re: A 60-Hour Work Week is Not a Badge of Honour

#106

Post by pyrrhotech »

opinali wrote: post #27
theorique wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't about disrupting an industry. It's about money.

Exactly. The thing is, people who make say $120k/year but work 80h weeks, are at exactly the same level of compensation / status / respect as people who work 40h but make $60k/year. This applies to salaried or consulting professionals of course; if you're working your ass off to build your own business and maybe hit big rewards in the future, it's a sensible choice. Otherwise, you're just busting your health and pers…

Who the hell works 80 hours a week to make a measly $120k? You should be making 300k+ for that kind of productivity. Otherwise, you are only cheating yourself. There are tons of 120-160k jobs at 40 hours/week

Re: A 60-Hour Work Week is Not a Badge of Honour

#107

Post by btbuildem »

zxcvvcxz wrote: post #56

This false dichotomy is seriously getting annoying. If 60 hours is sustainable for you, do it. If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, do that instead. But stop imposing onto others what is right or wrong when there are so many factors at play. Some of my most productive memories are summers studying and working for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week (= 72 hours). I didn't get tired, burned out, or anything. Another summ…

> stop imposing onto others what is right or wrong

Take your own advice much?

Re: A 60-Hour Work Week is Not a Badge of Honour

#108

Post by abe_duarte »

rickhanlonii wrote: post #52
sergiotapia wrote: post #12

I work 40 hours a week at maximum - most weeks I work about 34 to 38 hours. You 80 hours a week guys, what the hell are you doing with your time? Are you divorced? No family? No friends? Is 'disrupting' an industry really that important to you?

My name is Rick and I'm a 80 hour a week guy. I'm 26, single, and have no pets. I have a family and friends, but I'm very transparent about my work habits and priorities as a full-stack engineer. Being so young, I see myself as training to be the person I want to be in the future. The best programmers in the world worked at it relentlessly. Sure, there are variances in the amount that they all worked, and some did it…

I too thought at 26 I was training, believe it or not your time is now!

Re: A 60-Hour Work Week is Not a Badge of Honour

#110

Post by nickbauman »

The army has done a lot of research on this topic from WWII onwards. I've read some of the studies. I've also read some papers done in the private sector on this topic in the construction industry. What they found was about the same: people who work more that 40 hours a week can do so for a short period of time before it starts to impact a lot of aspects of their health, which translates directly to their performance. This is not controversial.

What I haven't seen much of is how it affects people who don't soldier for a living or who don't work with their hands outdoors for a living. People like me who code. I'm sure the studies are out there, I haven't taken the time to read them. My guess is that the negative impact of working longer hours to outcomes is even more pronounced, not less.

I can cite an internal audit at a large software company I worked at back in the 00's. They found that having people work longer hours wasn't worth it. Period. It didn't improve linear increased output, it produced a negative output ratio per hour overall, furthermore it increased attrition and problems with engineering implementations. Note that said software company's goals were well aligned with getting people to work as long as possible for the same money and they still reached this conclusion.

So go ahead. Work those longer hours. Just be aware that the all the best numbers we have don't support you doing it for long for any good reason.

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