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Is 40 hours a week too much?

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Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#121

Post by cmh89 »

danabrams wrote: post #85
mkl95 wrote: post #7

Many companies think their employees are being productive for 40 hours a week, while it's actually somewhere between 10 and 20, with the rest being a big void. If you are actually doing 40 hours a week you are productive as hell.

My fear is that if you’re being productive 20 hours and unproductive 20 hours a week and the work week is reduced, how do we know you won’t just end up being productive 10 hours and unproductive 20. That said, we should definitely be experimenting. If people are equally productive at 40 hours and 20 hours, we shouldn’t keep them in the office just for aesthetics.

>My fear is that if you’re being productive 20 hours and unproductive 20 hours a week and the work week is reduced, how do we know you won’t just end up being productive 10 hours and unproductive 20.

Unless you are a cashier or some other customer service position, the time you spend working should be matter very little compared to your output.

If you a job that takes you 20 hours, you can either do it in 20 hours and get a huge chunk of your life back, or you can do it in 40 hours and spend a lot of time chatting with your coworkers making them unproductive.

It's up to management to understand how much time it takes to complete tasks and to staff accordingly.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#122

Post by bitL »

dbetteridge wrote: post #117
bitL wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are companies in the SW industry that require 40h/week and actually monitor that (e.g. collecting metrics in 10-minute intervals and rejecting intervals with low intensity levels).

Got a list? Just so I know which companies to avoid like the plague. Sometimes I'll wander round the house and read docs or make notes on my tablet while doing housework, still contributing to future work/planning but definitely would show as 'inactive'.

I am sure those companies won't pop on your radar but they will for Indians and other foreigners that want to earn average US salary in their own countries. And yes, you should completely avoid them, they have typically terrible reviews and treat devs as machines.

I know one UK dev who took a job in one of those, moved there from some hotel booking company, earned $200k, lasted almost 2 years and then got unceremoniously sacked right when one of his close family members passed away due to missing required metrics.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#123

Post by scaramanga »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #88
bitL wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are companies in the SW industry that require 40h/week and actually monitor that (e.g. collecting metrics in 10-minute intervals and rejecting intervals with low intensity levels).

In the US? That sounds bananas to me.

Not to mention illegal in the EU.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#124

Post by tluyben2 »

sbf501 wrote: post #65

8-to-5 is 45 hours a week. I'm still in the office, even for lunch. Considering travel, it bumps up to 50 hrs/week. I hate how this 10-hour "work tax" is always dismissed as part of 40 hour work week.

Do you go to the office because you need to or want to? Seems there is some difference there.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#125

Post by LightG »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #116
shagie wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While the "I'm sitting down and writing things that are going to be productive" is likely in the 10-20h/week range, there is still a lot of * Meetings * Mentoring * Answering random questions * Continuing education (Hey, Spring 6.0 was just released, what's in that?) * Support (and being available for support) Those can easily fill in a lot of the 'void'. I can point to 5h/week that are standing 'meetings' where it i…

Most of these conversations seem to come down to weird definitions of "productive time". Most of us managers would consider meetings, mentoring, work-related Slack conversations to be productive time. Yet I read a lot of the comments here where people don't consider anything to be productive time unless they're actively writing code, which ignores the realities of working in a team environment. A better metric might…

But those weird definitions of productive almost never get spoken of or considered when it comes to timelining a project or KPI, etc

So while it may be important, it's just wasted time for many.

Says more about the organisation than the definitions, but still.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#126

Post by bitL »

scaramanga wrote: post #123
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US? That sounds bananas to me.

Not to mention illegal in the EU.

Not if they only do business in the EU with legal entities like freelancers or small limited-liability pass-through companies where there is no weekly time limit for the owner nor the "no monitoring" requirement.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#127

Post by bearjaws »

hesdeadjim wrote: post #119

Employee? Sure, aim to get your workweek as close to 0 hours as possible unless you genuinely love what you are doing, then clamp it at 40. Startup/founder/significant equity holder? Sorry, no -- at least in the first year or three. Working 50 hours a week vs. 40 can be the difference between success and failure in the first few years of a company. I work anywhere between 40 and 60 hours depending on how critical a l…

Always need to keep in mind value of work.

Working at Joe Widget Co. and get a tight deadline for a new feature? Value of the work was already low, value of your extra effort is pretty much unknowable, why would anyone work overtime?

Early stage startup its much easier to draw a line straight from work -> value.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#128

Post by scaramanga »

Chinjut wrote: post #56

There is a frequent pattern which concerns me of primarily justifying the desire for reduced work hours in terms of the alleged increase in productivity this will bring about (by allowing recharging, preventing burnout, etc.). I worry that this already concedes too much. This allows for just as much stressful dominance of work over the rest of life, and shame over any deviation from this script, as maximizes producti…

Right, for me it'd ideally be zero, so i can spend some of the free time doing productive, socially constructive work, that I consent to do without threats, inducements, or coercion.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#129

Post by dahdum »

hulitu wrote: post #42
mkl95 wrote: post #7

Many companies think their employees are being productive for 40 hours a week, while it's actually somewhere between 10 and 20, with the rest being a big void. If you are actually doing 40 hours a week you are productive as hell.

I heard Elon does 120 hours a week. /s I haven't seen anyone doing 40 hours a week. At least not more than a week.

> I heard Elon does 120 hours a week. /s

It's not exactly hard at his level. He can delegate absolutely everything and cannot be obliged to do anything. He can pick who is around him at all times, and they are usually obligated to cater to his wishes. 120 hours of casual chats, meetings, presentations, shared meals, and travel count as long as it's related to any of his 3 major businesses.

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