Ask HN: 16-hour work week jobs? • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by mercer » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 3:00 PM UTC

capisce wrote: post #123

zackmorris wrote: post #55

I have been working 25 hour weeks for a little over a year now, but agonizing over finding a good number for years before that. I've found that for difficult problems to crack, I may only work 1 or 2 hours per day. But for easier stuff like initial setup, a little refactoring, translating wireframes to layouts, etc, I can easily manage 6 or 7 hours per day. 8+ is too much, and working 3 or more days in a row at that…

Hehe, the web of interests sounds very familiar. I'm using pocket (getpocket.com) to cut down on the number of tabs though, maybe it would be useful for you as well.

I can also recommend the OneTab plugin!

I currently use Instapaper for longer articles and stuff I 'must' read, Pocket for more whimsical stuff or resources and things I can safely never read, and OneTab as a 'temporary storage' for everything that doesn't quite fit these other two categories.

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

#242

Post by eastbayjake » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 3:34 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #115

aidenn0 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact. I disagree with your fact. I know many, many people who can do it. The simple fact that you talk about working on "side-projects" makes me think you have productive, creative hours outside the time you spend on work items. I do agree that in the current market for software developers, you'd be crazy to not try to get some of your creative time to work…

Perhaps a more accurate statement is that no-one is able to work productively for 8 hours straight , which is what the 9-5 job tries to make you do.

Even if I wanted to work productively for 8 hours straight, most of the low-level office tasks I'm required to do keep me from doing it -- explain to marketing why X product from Y vendor won't work for our situation, responding to email, meetings that always take up an hour no matter how short the agenda, etc. I think most of the engineers I know have employer-created hurdles that limit them to 4-6 hours daily of truly productive work.

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

#243

Post by abledon » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 3:48 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #156

stevesimmons wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact How do you know this? Are you sure you aren't extrapolating your own energy levels and assuming everyone else feels as you do? I know plenty of people with phenomenal drive, focus and energy who are extremely productive for much longer work days. My own situation is a counterexample. I am at my desk at 6:30am most days, can easily work 14+ hour days vir…

Could you tell us what field you work in, some details about the specifics of your job, your age, and maybe why you want to dedicate all your waking hours to working rather than something else? Do you understand that what you're describing is anomalous behaviour and ability. In Europe we have legislation to protect people against being forced to work for more than 12 hours at a time because this has been seen to be d…

a la google: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~scs/ ?

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

#244

Post by chudi » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 3:49 PM UTC

mistercheese wrote: post #178

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?

If you don't get someone to recommend you to a good agency, you just have to try until you got a new one.

There are some signs that might help you, like that they do have an office, down payment, etc.

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

#245

Post by woah » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 3:54 PM UTC

eastbayjake wrote: post #242

untog wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a more accurate statement is that no-one is able to work productively for 8 hours straight , which is what the 9-5 job tries to make you do.

Even if I wanted to work productively for 8 hours straight, most of the low-level office tasks I'm required to do keep me from doing it -- explain to marketing why X product from Y vendor won't work for our situation, responding to email, meetings that always take up an hour no matter how short the agenda, etc. I think most of the engineers I know have employer-created hurdles that limit them to 4-6 hours daily of tr…

Sounds like most of these things are pretty important for the business (except for maybe the overly long meetings). We'd all like to code in a bubble, but there are other things involved in running a business.

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

#246

Post by walshemj » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:24 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #234

spacemanmatt wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps his real customers are internal, and his continued employment proves they are satisfied.

The above, and I'm on call 24x7x365 although I only get a call about once a month. Also both the company and I have a motto of fail gracefully. So the automated testing system and the ticketing system decide they're not on speaking terms anymore, well, we could all set our hair on fire and run around and scream, or just buckle down and do it manually, 5x as slow and much more error prone than my integration system. T…

So your doing 4on4 on call I hope your getting paid for that - must ruin your social life to be tied to a computer.

I assume you on the standard 15 min response and onsite or connected and working on a fix inside an hour.

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

#247

Post by ksenzee » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:33 PM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #153

stevesimmons wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one is able to work productively for 8 hours, that's a fact How do you know this? Are you sure you aren't extrapolating your own energy levels and assuming everyone else feels as you do? I know plenty of people with phenomenal drive, focus and energy who are extremely productive for much longer work days. My own situation is a counterexample. I am at my desk at 6:30am most days, can easily work 14+ hour days vir…

Actually reduced cognitive ability (lack of sleep) makes the simplest of tasks more entertaining, it's a large part of the reason they give amphetamine analogues to those who are not challenged by school, and why you'll find that those that are passionate about the the long hours of sorting through trash to commit identity fraud also high on meth. Another great example of how people don't realize how cognitively impa…

That was an eye-opening video. I'm not convinced that amphetamines improve attention by decreasing cognition, though. Is there research on that?

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

#248

Post by walshemj » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:33 PM UTC

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.

no they want 16 hours of billable time :-) that fact that for those 12 hours you put down as reading case notes you spent 1 of them arranging your holiday and 1 gossiping is neither hear nor there

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

#249

Post by torq101 » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:40 PM UTC

Jumping on this thread a little late, but a lot of the points raised here and in the comments resonate quite strongly with me.

It sounds like many of the comments here from people who have achieved a shortened work week are from consultants/freelancers. So I have a few general questions towards that end, for anyone that would be willing to answer them:

1) How did you get into consulting/freelancing?

2) Have you always managed to work at a reduced work week(3) It sounds like much of this depends on finding good clients to work for. How did you go about finding those clients? How long did it take? How did you know they were good clients?

4) What resources did you find most helpful when you were first starting out consulting/freelancing?

I'm really interested in achieving this goal, I'm just not sure how to get started or where to look for information. Any help/discussion would be greatly appreciated!

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

#250

Post by josephjrobison » Mon, Jul 07, 2014, 4:44 PM UTC

suyash wrote: post #205

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" - this is not a fact at all, where is the proof? Show me the research. I would still challenge it by showing you days when I've easily pulled 12 - 14 hours for 5 and sometimes 6 days of solid work in a week with no burn out. It's all about managing energy and having your internal motivations aligned with the goals and tasks at hand. Not that everyone sh…

I think you're definitely right that under the right motivation and for certain bursts of time you can work for 12-14 hours of time, but there has been a good amount of research and studies showing long term damage from overworking and undersleeping:

http://devopsangle.com/2012/04/18/what-research-says-about-w... http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/09/12/why-work... http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/why-the-...