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

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

#221

Post by dinkumthinkum »

Elizer0x0309 wrote: post #217
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…

Preach the word. I personally do fine with 16 hrs per day. Yes I'm healthy, fit and extremely successful.

You work this sustained? Then unless you sleep very little, you are doing nothing but work. I don't think this is very sustainable. Some places typically use the phrase "pics or GTFO," seems apt ... :)

Maybe it's true; I guess it is clearly possible and some people but I don't think many people could sustain or find it worth it for very long.

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

#222

Post by Elizer0x0309 »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #221
Elizer0x0309 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preach the word. I personally do fine with 16 hrs per day. Yes I'm healthy, fit and extremely successful.

You work this sustained? Then unless you sleep very little, you are doing nothing but work. I don't think this is very sustainable. Some places typically use the phrase "pics or GTFO," seems apt ... :) Maybe it's true; I guess it is clearly possible and some people but I don't think many people could sustain or find it worth it for very long.

That's the point of above comment. I don't go around telling people you're lazy or anything. We each have our priorities and that list decides how much time we invest in each.

For me purpose is to better the world through technology. Others it's through family, friends etc. All play a part in forming a society! A great one too might I add! xP

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

#223

Post by dinkumthinkum »

theorique wrote: post #16
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?

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

Shhh ... Stop that you're poking holes with all your "reality." We have this facade that we would like very much for you stop uncovering ... Now repeat after me: we are disrupters. We are "bettering the world." We are "empowering our species." We are "transforming human organisms into something amazing." Or, fill with whatever oddly worded scifi-esque hyperbole you can think of. And remember, we're doing this with fancy CSS and crud, oh and lots of JavaScript projects that re-implement stuff we could do 40 years ago. :)

OK, I don't want to be overly cynical here ... but come on, if you read some of the stuff in our echo chamber ... just don't take yourself so seriously. I mean I know there ideologues are only in startups so they can one day build some utopia in which there is no such thing as money ... but come on. :)

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

#224

Post by ksk »

dwaltrip wrote: post #163
ksk wrote: post #40

This article doesn't pass the smell test. There is nothing magical about 40 hours per week. 60 hours is just as arbitrary as 40. Also, it probably originated when people did actual physical labor, and so it wont apply to dev work. Countless people in the sciences have toiled day and night to bring about great discoveries - and that's a good thing. Question: Do non-software people (I'm thinking Scientists, Mathematici…

60 is not "just as arbitrary as 40". The human body has very real constraints.

You're begging the question, how does 60, 40, 50 w/e figure into those constraints? And the more important question, because there's going to be variability how do you end up a meaningful number?

To me, this sounds similar to the question - How much weight can you lift? Almost everyone can increase the amount of weight that they can lift. But physical, genetic reasons will force some upper bound on the progression.

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

#225

Post by j45 »

I find working a lot of hours can lead to confusing activity with results. When you're gaining experience you don't know what to focus on so you spend your time focusing on things that don't matter in the end. As you get wiser, you learn to focus on what matters more, and have the choice of doing it more, or not.

One other very big caveat is this type of a conversation with me when I was 20 would have been tougher because I had much less of a clue of what else was out in the world that I couldn't live without and wanted to have as part of my life. It's also what allows young people to give up their 20's pursing startups that have little to no chance in hell of setting them up to chase their interests for the rest of their life.

It's also why I very much agree with PG's advice to simply solve actual problems as a student, as the closer you are to solving problems, the closer you're to value that can carry you forward into the next thing you work on.

Invariably, many 20-somethings don't know much about the world, or what's in it. The more time spent behind a keyboard the more once can be left behind the eight ball in becoming well rounded enough to interface with the problems that are out in the world that need solving.

Life hasn't been binary for me so far, there's no specific generalization available to follow. Instead of focusing on one thing for 60 hours a week, I've found that paying attention to make sure I'm growing and having experiences that are helping me grow in a meaningful, satisfying, fulfilling, and lasting way was enough to kind of get the hang of.

Getting caught up in the echo chamber of doing what others doing got me what most others got -- not much that I valued for those hours, until I changed it up.

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

#226

Post by dinkumthinkum »

fredgrott wrote: post #142

Somewhat interesting.. The productivity studies of Navy military groups on ships is moving them away from 60+ hour weeks to 40 hour work weeks. They are finding that it hampers alertness/awareness

This is a very different situation.

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

#227

Post by johnjlocke »

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 do it because I want money, success, or fame. I do it because I deeply want to make a meaningful impact on the world. > I don't want to stop working.

Rick, you need to be really careful what you wish for, because you might just get it.

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

#228

Post by StavrosK »

Shivetya wrote: post #206
x0054 wrote: post #181

To everyone who jumped in to comment that 60+ hours at work is just fine, because they can do it. I have to say, stop equating work with progress. Busiest time in my life was when I was studying for the California Bar exam. According to the program I was doing, I was expected to study 12 hours a day. Most people I knew did 12+ hours of studying at least, all of them passed the bar. I did about 6 hours a day (+ other…

Sixty hours is fine when you enjoy your work. Sixty hours a week was a short week in the old days, the conveniences of a modern society allow us to choose more free time should we want it, all you have to do is venture outside of our comfortable environments and you will find people wishing 60 was the max. Having grown up on a farm all I can say is, you don't notice it unless the wrong stuff keeps piling up. Its amaz…

It's a bit easier when your job doesn't require you to think all the time. You get really depleted after a few hours, and you need more rest than the physical fatigue farm work brings.

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

#230

Post by dclara »

einhverfr wrote: post #205

I am not sure that the question is whether a 60 hour workweek is fine. There's a huge difference, like it or not, between on one hand answering tech support calls for 60 hours in a week, or coding 60 hours in a week, or the like, and working as a self-employed individual for 60 hours every week. I probably work 60 to 80 hours a week, most weeks. During slow times I work less. It includes everything from software deve…

That's really true. Counting for hours regardless of the intensity of workload is meaningless. I also think the OP's meaning behind how the hours is counted is regarding the full capacity of work load during the day, instead of including everything work related.

The intensity of the software development prevents one to work over 8 hours a day, and even not for too long without a break. What I mean is pretty much continuous work, reading news, emails and making calls are not included. This number is usually 5 hours for some standard software companies, which usually have meetings and chatting from time to time during the 8 hours of office work.

Everybody has his own strength during different age range. As startup company, it's really necessary to work 60-80 hours a week including overall work related activities. Just make sure not to burn out yourself.

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