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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

#171

Post by Derbasti »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #82
Derbasti wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statistics tell a different story. There were numerous studies on productivity relative to many measures. Then again, you know, you might be a actual snowflake...

[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…

Read the mythical man month.

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

#172

Post by mertd »

ExpiredLink wrote: post #157
TacticalCoder wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed... And most of the friends around me who made it big also played it hard. When Broadcom was nowhere several employees number xxx (with xxx less than 300) were, while in crunch-mode, sleeping in their trucks , on the parking lot, to deliver chip plans on time. Stock options have been good for them the day Broadcom was worth $12bn. I've got a few friends who started a 3D-rendering business for TV ads, short movi…

Work smart, not hard.

The falsest dichotomy of all. What are the circumstances? what is the "work" trying to accomplish? Who are your competitors? Sometimes you have to work both smart and hard.

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

#173

Post by Spooky23 »

d0 wrote: post #21
theorique wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The art of working though is to earn as much money as possible whilst doing the least amount of work. 60 hour a week people haven't got that idea yet.

The exempt employees working for 50% more hours than they are compensated for really miss the boat. If you want to work 80 hours a week, god bless you. Just don't make it a charitable contribution.

I had to work a 90 hour week a few weeks ago to address a operational crisis. That netted me a bunch of overtime and a week off.

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

#174

Post by frozenport »

wazoox wrote: post #69

When I was 25 to 29, I used to spend a lot of time at work. For a while, it just came naturally because I was so eager to learn; I'd stay at work reading books, programming, looking for information on the web and newsgroups (I hadn't internet access at home back then). But at some point in 1998, for a few months we entered in death march after accepting to be the rescue team for a doomed, undoable project; I've worke…

You saved the project and made somebody a ton of money?

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

#175

Post by RodericDay »

joe_the_user wrote: post #140
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…

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. Two different things are frustrating about this simple homily. * It's very easy to fool yourself into thinking you can handle things you can't, especially with peer pressure, job pressure and so-forth involved. By the time your health is ruined, your marriage is ruin…

not to mention the tragedy of the commons  interns who work for free prevent people from asking for wages for their work, to name one example.

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

#176

Post by CJefferson »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #146
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…

Indeed... And most of the friends around me who made it big also played it hard. When Broadcom was nowhere several employees number xxx (with xxx less than 300) were, while in crunch-mode, sleeping in their trucks , on the parking lot, to deliver chip plans on time. Stock options have been good for them the day Broadcom was worth $12bn. I've got a few friends who started a 3D-rendering business for TV ads, short movi…

>Wealth. Lots of wealth. Yet money wasn't the drive.

Please could you send me a list of anyone who agrees with this. I would like all the money they have made above average wage.

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

#177

Post by sliverstorm »

alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #121
asolove wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want people to see that there are many paths to a fulfilling, excellent life. In this community, we have so many models of two of those paths--making FU money, or achieving technical mastery--and so few public models of other options, like the patient parent, the spouse to an emotionally-troubled partner, the upstanding community member, etc. I understand that some people people who attempt one of these goals…

>I do mind people who devote their lives to one of these goals because they don't see the other options or know themselves well enough to see that they're working hard in the wrong direction. Seems a bit presumptuous to judge how others choose to live their lives...

He's not judging, he's lamenting. Lamenting what he sees to be choices made as a result of a lack of information, which is something we do all the time when it comes to technological decisions. It's not a critique of the choice, but a critique of the context in which it was made.

I pity these poor fools, who thought Exchange was their only option...

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

#178

Post by aNoob7000 »

beachstartup wrote: post #158
TacticalCoder wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed... And most of the friends around me who made it big also played it hard. When Broadcom was nowhere several employees number xxx (with xxx less than 300) were, while in crunch-mode, sleeping in their trucks , on the parking lot, to deliver chip plans on time. Stock options have been good for them the day Broadcom was worth $12bn. I've got a few friends who started a 3D-rendering business for TV ads, short movi…

i basically agree with your post but i will add this caveat... if you're in your mid 30s or older, if you work 80+ hours a week there's a significant chance you will simply keel over and die. that's not the good kind of exit. in my opinion the strategy is to get the bulk of the hard work out of the way when your body is able to handle it, i.e. 20-35. if you're an entrepreneur, you have to have the foresight to set it…

Thank you for pointing this out. Most of the posts I see here are all work, work, and more work. That kind of mindset might work for someone in there 20s and early 30s with no wife or kids. But once you have a family, I think your mindset has to change if you want your home life to be as successful.

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

#179

Post by Nursie »

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?

Enjoyment of life.

Everything else is secondary.

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

#180

Post by pattisapu »

The first draft of the Fair Labor Standards Act had a 30 hour workweek, past which you'd get overtime.

Many laws before the FLSA (like the New York law famously struck down as unconstitutional in the later-reversed Lochner v. New York) capped the workweek at 60 hours.

Imagine if either of these laws were the standard for the country ... maybe that would change our perspective on what is healthy and what is unhealthy.

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