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Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

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Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#91

Post by ownagefool »

nolite wrote: post #69

As an enrepreneur, having to now hire developers for my startup, I don't see how this could work practically. As a company, there are objectives you need to meet by a certain time frame. If there's a task that needs to be done in 3 weeks, and there are 2 weeks of full time work estimated in order to do it, you're not going to hire someone and let it take 4-6 weeks just because they don't feel like working a full week…

Assuming you half their wages, you eat a small bit of admin and hire two of them. In exchage, you now have redundancy in your dev team and are I suspect gaining more than you lose.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#92

Post by gedrap »

gexla wrote: post #78

Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day. There are a lot of posts here from developers talking about how they are more productive than their peers working less hours. Really, they probably have the same capacity for hours, but the less productive developers are carrying a lot of baggage in attempting…

Totally agree. 9-5 (or 9-6) engineering jobs are a bit crazy - no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact. Many managers understand that and are cool with people just not doing work while at work...

However, I would still prefer to go home than sitting and waiting for 5 or 6pm so I could do something more meaningful, because e.g. side-projects is a gray area while at work and that's fair. Even so, some non-technical higher-ups might think that the engineer is not working hard and just slacking off because everyone else is at the office till 6 or 7.

Some companies recognize that (e.g. Netflix, Twitter, etc) and they don't care where and what are you do, as long as you get stuff done. In an ideal world, every company would treat engineers like that :)

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#93

Post by jahaja »

Why is it so unusual that employers compete with less hours rather than with larger wages? Is it because granting someone with less work would probably make other employees require the same?

I feel that after a certain amount it would be much more enjoyable to get less hours rather than a raise. However the latter seems to be much easier, if not the only one, to get.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#94

Post by mdotk »

Try being a lawyer.... 16 hours days standard and when you are being charged out at $500 / hour (and receiving maybe 20% of that) your boss isn't expecting 4 hours of real work and 12 hours of admin... they want 16 hours of extreme concentration. Gotta be one of the worst careers you can choose.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#95

Post by twelvechairs »

gexla wrote: post #78

Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day. There are a lot of posts here from developers talking about how they are more productive than their peers working less hours. Really, they probably have the same capacity for hours, but the less productive developers are carrying a lot of baggage in attempting…

> Four hours per day of work where you are in high focus is about normal. You will see that professionals across many creative fields only work 4 hours per day.

OK I'll bite. What are these fields? I think it is fanciful to call 4 hours per day 'normal'.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#96

Post by ClassicFarris »

mdotk wrote: post #94

Try being a lawyer.... 16 hours days standard and when you are being charged out at $500 / hour (and receiving maybe 20% of that) your boss isn't expecting 4 hours of real work and 12 hours of admin... they want 16 hours of extreme concentration. Gotta be one of the worst careers you can choose.

The OP was talking about 16h weeks. Not 16h days. I can certainly feel for you if you're the one working 16h days week in and week out.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#97

Post by techdebt5112 »

tspike wrote: post #82
techdebt5112 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like adult life.

This is the kind of simplistic response that prevents our society from progressing. "It's just the way it is" terminates any rational discussion or critical analysis of why we do things the way we do. There's no actual reason for everyone to be either unemployed or working themselves to the point of exhaustion against their will; it's "just" a structural and cultural problem. As soon as people start openly discussing…

I was suggesting that this is a fine way for things to be.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#98

Post by coldtea »

taf2 wrote: post #73
VLM wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I've been trying to convince my current boss that a 3-day week would be a more efficient and compressed use of my time" I do four tens per week on flextime to avoid commute traffic and one major "cultural impedance mismatch" is discussing this face to face with people who are at their workplace (note that I don't describe that as working, merely being at a certain location), perhaps five twelves or even six fourteen…

Sorry but this all sounds lazy to me. If there are any real customers using the software they are going be rather unforgiving of your desired work ethic. Perhaps in a large org with a staggering of staff this could work... But would be challenging to keep the continuity throughout the work week. Certainly an interesting idea for the larger orgs.

>If there are any real customers using the software they are going be rather unforgiving of your desired work ethic.

So? "Real customers" could also want him to work 24/7/365, and to respond immediately to their every demand and whimsy.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#99

Post by blablablaat »

Sounded good untill I read: "I sincerely think it is quite unrealistic to ask a knowledge worker".

What is this with you programmers that you think that you're the best thing that has happend to this world? It's just a job. No more a job then any other one.

Same thing as that bullshit as companies that want every employee to program. Do you see CEO's with a background as a carpenter writing blogposts about how everybody should build at least a chair every month?

Self obsessed rich kids.

Re: Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

#100

Post by marcosdumay »

jahaja wrote: post #93

Why is it so unusual that employers compete with less hours rather than with larger wages? Is it because granting someone with less work would probably make other employees require the same? I feel that after a certain amount it would be much more enjoyable to get less hours rather than a raise. However the latter seems to be much easier, if not the only one, to get.

Manager's calculations tend to have this format:

Person X produced me $A amount in 40 hours. His salary is $B. B being much smaller than A[1], I can increase it without much an impact on the bottom-line. But, again, B being much smaller than A, if he worked less hours, I'd reduce A much more than I reduce B.

[1] It has to be, otherwise, will all the overhead a business has, I'd go broke.

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