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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

#241

Post by memracom »

pjc50 wrote: post #154
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…

If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, then being employed can be a serious problem. I spent three years with chronic fatigue where I could only work 25 without falling asleep at my desk; fortunately I had a very understanding employer who needed me. (Also, are you by any chance male, under 35 and have no children?)

I wonder how many of them are just hiring overseas contractors to do their work.

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

#242

Post by lutusp »

com2kid wrote: post #202
lutusp wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Because psychology's topic is the mind, and because the mind is not a physical entity, > That is a false statement, your mind is quite physical! Citation needed. No responsible practitioner in the field of psychology argues that the mind is a biological organ or an empirical part of physical reality. > and indeed you call upon neuroscience in your very next line! Now I see what I'm up against. Neuroscience studies…

> No responsible practitioner in the field of psychology argues that the mind is a biological organ or an empirical part of physical reality Huh? What psychologists do you go to, ones only attached to churches? I'm not going to bother arguing against mind body dualism[0], I have better things to do with my time! I am however confused, you bring up criticisms of a field not acting scientifically, but it appears you ar…

> I'm not going to bother arguing against mind body dualism ...

Good idea, you aren't qualified. Meanwhile, the mind is not a physical organ and it cannot be relied on to produce empirical evidence or falsifiable theories. This is a burden on psychology, it has been since the beginning of the field, and it explains why psychology has been determined not to be a science by scientists:

Title: "Why psychology isn't science"

Link: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jul/13/news/la-ol-blowback-...

Quote: " Psychology isn't science. Why can we definitively say that? Because psychology often does not meet the five basic requirements for a field to be considered scientifically rigorous: clearly defined terminology, quantifiability, highly controlled experimental conditions, reproducibility and, finally, predictability and testability."

The above explains why psychology is being replaced by neuroscience, the study of the nervous system. This change means we can gather actual data and shape real theories.

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

#243

Post by mcv »

Avshalom wrote: post #64
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…

>If only 30 hours is sustainable for you, do that instead. This is not an option for most us.

I have said no to job offers that required me to work 5 days. I explained how it was old-fashioned and that people with kids needed time with their kids too, that part-time work was the way of the future, and that people aren't fully productive for 40 hours a week anyway, so a 4 day work week generally gets you more than 80% of the productivity of a 5 day work week.

They fully agreed, and yet they still couldn't hire me for less than 5 days. The job sounded great, but I said no. It was a good decision.

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

#244

Post by cdcarter »

cgag wrote: post #191
alexeisadeski3 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

There are next to no stable part-time jobs in programming. I don't really know what you're getting at.

There are next to no stable part-time jobs that can sustain someone above the poverty line in most fields.

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

#245

Post by memracom »

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…

Let me guess. You put in 3 times the effort but did not get 3 times the salary and at the end of it all you didn't even get a bonus to compensate you fairly for the health issues that were created.

Nowadays, if anybody finds themselves in this position, take Aspirin every evening as a prophylactic (talk to your doctor) and cut out all junk food. Eat lots of vegetables, and a bit of meat but avoid sweet things and carbs (you are not a runner). If you are into it, try something like a paleo diet. Get exercise sessions spaced through the day (and night) even if only 5 minutes of intensive aerobics at a time.

And look after your fellow workers because you only win this type of thing as a team.

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

#246

Post by xj9 »

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.

Work smart. Work hard.

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

#247

Post by einhverfr »

dclara wrote: post #230
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 cont…

I can do 8 hours of light-weight development easily enough, things like minor bugfixes, minor tweaks, etc. and carry that on for months if needed. But for stuff like coding from scratch, aside from brief bursts, I usually find that 4 hours is a good general guide. Obviously when nearing release, the long stretches of 8-10 hours of coding is going to be much lighter. Most of the tweaks are going to be minor, you hope, and so you can throw the rules out the window for a bit.

If you are working 60-80 hours a week, hopefully you aren't just doing one thing. It's one thing to put in 20 hours a week on software development, 20 hours a week on sales and marketing, 20 hours a week on fundraising, and 20 hours a week on business administration. It is far worse to put in 40 hours a week on software development, IMO.

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

#248

Post by singingfish »

lutusp wrote: post #239
singingfish wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP is incorrect that psychology is not a science. The remainder of the discussion is quite tedious, and shows that the OP has a very confused notion of mind body separation (hint, by and large they are not, whether you're a dualist an epihenominist or something else - I tend to something else but wouldn't feel confident to write my viewpoint down). What is correct is that experimental designs are more or less not pos…

> OP is incorrect that psychology is not a science. Pretend to be a scientist and post your evidence. Here's mine -- the director of the NIMH has recently ruled ( http://www.nimh.nih.gov/about/director/2013/transforming-dia... ) that the DSM (psychology's "bible") may no longer be used as the basis of scientific research proposals, for the simple reason that it has no scientific content. The director went on to say:…

Yawn. There are very few scientific laws compared to the body of scientific knowledge. Most scientific concepts are relegated to theory rather than law as they are are amenable only to inductive proof. The only scientific ideas that have the status of law are those that are amenable to deductive proof.

You are very long winded, and you present as if you think your understanding is better than it actually is.

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

#250

Post by Bahamut »

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…

As a former mathematician and current dev, they are different environments.

In software engineering, 60+ hours a week on just work stuff is bad...I've noticed a bit of performance degradation at around 50 hours. I do spend a large amount of out of work hours learning more stuff on my own, but mentally it's a different ballgame, which lets you be more relaxed.

In mathematics, your mind is mostly in the relaxed state, unless you're about to take an important exam. For the process of research, you just spend the time you can delving into a particular topic and understanding it.

The life of a mathematician is more analogous to learning & experimemting with different code libraries on the side. The mental balance errs more towards relaxed experimentation as opposed to just getting it done.

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