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Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs?

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

#171

Post by prawn »

glesica wrote: post #62
mgmeyers wrote: post #24

I've worked 25 hours a week for the past ~6 years as a web developer, and I can't imagine a better work schedule. I've noticed that I'm just as productive on average, if not more so, than my 40-hour-per-week coworkers. I do find it difficult to progress in my career, however. I've been trying desperately to transition into a full-stack, part-time position, but I feel pretty stuck as a senior level front-end dev. In m…

How did you get the part-time gig in the first place?

One of my past employees worked with me for about 6 years, doing four days a week. He asked if it was an option and, while there were days when it was inconvenient given that I run a small business, I didn't mind. He's since moved elsewhere, but I would've kept him on doing three days or fewer hours spread over the week.

I wouldn't feel comfortable paying full rate for part time hours under the guise of it being "just as productive" though. I believe it can be just as productive but it would be too disruptive to face emergency situations or social situations that pop up during work hours.

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

#172

Post by prawn »

gregpilling wrote: post #41

I offered 12 weeks vacation to my staff in exchange for lower wages (but paid during 12 weeks off). Nobody was interested, and they wanted to stay with the current two weeks paid. So as an employer, I have never had anyone interested in doing a 16 hour week. I have had many ex-employees (and an ex-partner) who were paid for 40 hours a week, but only worked 16. To answer your questions directly. 1. They are not easy t…

Do you know if matching up holiday allowances with staff partners was an issue? e.g., I could get away with taking months off or working on the road, but my wife only has the typical 20 days allowance here in Australia with about a week of it fixed at the end of the year when their office closes.

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

#173

Post by jeremyis »

localhost3000 wrote: post #169
gedrap wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

"no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact" tell that to a medical resident...or just about any in-hospital physician, for that matter. many, many people work long shifts and are entirely productive.

I've read that Henry Ford came up with the 8 hour work week after doing extensive testing[1]. I think the difference here is that assembly line work is not "creative". So you can do "non-creative work" for longer (8 hours I guess is optimal)... But it seems like this thread is talking about pure creative - e.g. difficult coding - time.

I'm not sure where you draw the line though. Is HTML and CSS mindless enough that it's "not creative"? What about basic unit testing?

I also don't understand how to reconcile this with the countless startup stories of how you spend all your time working... Even PG said he "used to work till 2:00 or 3:00 AM every night, seven days a week." and "During this time you'll do little but work, because when you're not working, your competitors will be. My only leisure activities were running, which I needed to do to keep working anyway, and about fifteen minutes of reading a night."[2]. Perhaps he actually did four hours of "intense creative" and the rest was mundane (he does in that same essay claim only 10% of the work was "technically interesting").

[1] http://blog.bufferapp.com/optimal-work-time-how-long-should-... [2] http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html

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

#175

Post by alistairSH »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #170
gbog wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"all you can do without burning out." If I may, this sounds to me like if you assumed that everyone should be working just one step below burn out limit. And this seems to be shared by so many people. I wonder what is the rationale behind it? Is it a way to maximise income? or to make sure the 1billionth chance to be a new Bill Gates or Steve Jobs is not lost? For me, as a French, it seems obvious that we should be v…

If you don't push yourself, then you don't grow fast enough. Burnout is also bad, so the ideal is to stay exactly one step below burnout.

And there is research to back this up? One step below burn-out sounds miserable to me.

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

#176

Post by NickSharp »

To answer your question, this is almost impossible to find.

I tried for 12 years in the Bay Area with no real success. I'm a highly skilled software engineer with a solid qualifications. I never had any problem getting full time job offers with huge salaries, even in bust times; but god forbid I ask for Fridays off, I'd be shown to the door real quick.

Finally I started my own company.

Most people work 16-20 hours/week and no one works more than 30 (other than myself sometimes for a crunch.)

Everyone is happy, and I get great value for my money. As a bootstrapped start up, that value per dollar is vital.

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

#177

Post by aianus »

rfrey wrote: post #22

For those that would enjoy such a situation: what would you consider to be a fair renumeration arrangement? Not I. Raw numbers but in comparison to traditional 40 hour/week gigs.

I'm doing about 20-25h a week and make roughly 40% of the standard full-time bigco offers I turned down. No benefits either (but I'm 22 and single so I wouldn't be using them anyways).

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

#178

Post by mistercheese »

scarecrowbob wrote: post #39

I work 4/5, mostly on either crappy wordPress projects (whcih, for all their crappiness, can be kind of fun, since we're not grinding) or on a bespoke PHP framework (which can be a bit frustrating, because I can't just find already answered questions on a list or StackOverflow). My strategy was to cycle through a bunch of agencies looking for freelance, overflow workers and then be super good at performing... until I…

As a complete newbie to contract/freelance work, how did you first get started finding good agencies to work with?

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

#179

Post by mistercheese »

cjauvin wrote: post #33

Thank you very much for this, I think it strikes a major chord with many in the "knowledge worker" community at large, and I hope it stays in the top spot for a while, and spawn a healthy discussion. For my part I've been doing a mix of freelance and salaried work in the last few years (as a data scientist), and I have reached the conclusion that a strict 40-hour week is not an easy thing to handle. I think it stems…

How did you find your mix of freelance work initially? Do you go through agencies? If so, how did you find the best agencies starting out?

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

#180

Post by aianus »

cenhyperion wrote: post #127

My main question would be salary. You really can't reasonably expect your employer to pay you the same salary as someone working more than twice the hours. Are you comfortable making less than half the salary of a programmer working 40 hours a week instead of 16?

If you can work remotely you can move somewhere far and cheap and live outrageously well on half an American engineer's salary. Plus you now have the free time to actually enjoy it.
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