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Is 40 hours a week too much?

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Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#171

Post by givemeethekeys »

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'll go a step further. If you're productive 40 hours a week, then you're a tool, in the pure sense of that word.

You'll be passed over for promotions because you're so good in your current position!

You'll be praised and then one day you'll get a new boss when your old boss moves on. And your new boss will have this need to prove themselves to their boss. And they'll do this by turning your 40 hour week into a 60 hour week. Why? Because you're a tool!

Don't be a tool. Do what your boss does - spend time talking to people around the company - thats what lunch meetings are all about - figure out how to get those expensed! Get to know everyone and follow up with them frequently. Invite them to non-work things. Go home early because you have a life.

Unless, of course, your work is your life. In which case, you're leaving the dream, bud!

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#172

Post by version_five »

brookst wrote: post #163
version_five wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a framework that we used to use for tim classification in manufacturing that was based around adding value to the product - in software that would be coding, testing, etc. Then there is necessary non-value add, like meetings and slack, that are needed (so are work as you say) but don't in themselves make the product directly, so you want to minimize time spent on them while still accomplishing whatever is ne…

The value-add model is interesting. How would you characterize: 1. An hour-long meeting where architecture is decided 2. Doing investigation/documentation of RCA for an incident 3. Spec reviews with stakeholders who will have to use the product

Right, examples like yours are where it gets interesting. What I think can work is minimizing who needs to be involved in these kind of activities (not to say as few as possible, but only those its relevant too), and looking at how important they are to the desired outcomes, basically understanding how much time they take up vs what the return on the time is. All easier said than done of course.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#173

Post by yboris »

feoren wrote: post #141
yboris wrote: post #35

4DWW - Four Day Work Week is the future. So many benefits for workers and the company! It's a win-win for many types of companies. Even if it's not a win for all companies, society would benefit greatly by mandating 4 days of 8 hours with no loss of pay as the standard. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/11/15/1136039542/the...

I wish I lived in the world where "obviously beneficial to everyone" implied "it will be the future!" Plenty of things just get worse, just because. People are fucking awful. I look forward to the day when AGI takes over the world.

An interesting book on this topic: https://equilibriabook.com/ - Inadequate Equilibria by Eliezer Yudkowsky.

Societies (and smaller groups like companies too) could get stuck in a shitty "equilibria" - where even a non-expert can spot the inefficiencies, suggest obvious improvements, and yet not have the change occur. A great analysis of the unfortunate gridlock we find ourselves in sometimes.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#174

Post by vsareto »

phphphphp wrote: post #97
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…

You’re describing what I’d understand as productive time: if someone says they’re not being productive, I interpret it to mean there’s zero value to be derived for their employer from their activities. For example, being asleep or browsing Reddit or watching YouTube videos… When I say I’ve only been productive for 20 hours in a week, I don’t mean I spent 20 hours programming and 20 hours in meetings, I mean I spent 1…

Being available is still useful to your employer on some level. Even if you are watching videos, you can close it the minute you get a ping that needs your attention.

The only completely unproductive state is if you're doing nothing for your job and also refuse to respond to communications.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#175

Post by CBarkleyU »

yboris wrote: post #35

4DWW - Four Day Work Week is the future. So many benefits for workers and the company! It's a win-win for many types of companies. Even if it's not a win for all companies, society would benefit greatly by mandating 4 days of 8 hours with no loss of pay as the standard. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/11/15/1136039542/the...

Disagree. Let me introduce you to 5DWWBO6HPD (acronym is subject to change). 5 days, 6 hours.

If I dont have any meetings past my 6th hour of being in work-mode (including lunch time), I'm not going to produce anything that won't anger me future-self. The 5DWWBO6HPD also helps you to be actually productive after the 6th hour when the need arises every once in a while and you have to be on "Elon is breathing down my neck"-mode.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#176

Post by coyotespike »

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…

I completely agree.

In fact, even just for specifically code-related work, think about code review. Really closely reviewing a big PR can take hours.

Here's a fun thought experiment. How many engineers in a team do you need before one of them could be employed full-time just reviewing others' code?

I don't know the answer, but it could be as few as 10 other team members, depending on the size and complexity of the PRs.

And reviewing code is extraordinarily productive - looking for correctness, code style and patterns, tool selection and usage, app structure, etc., etc. One of the best ways to mentor team members and help keep the codebase clean.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#177

Post by pcthrowaway »

nkozyra wrote: post #10
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.

> If you are actually doing 40 hours a week you are productive as hell. I disagree. But I think what we qualify as "work" is more rigid than it needs to be. Is spending 5 minutes looking at HN every few hours work? Most people would say no, but it absolutely helps developers to know what's going on or new or what other devs outside their company are saying. If I spend 20 minutes reading about a language/app that my c…

> If I spend 20 minutes reading about a language/app that my company doesn't use is that work? I think a lot of the "yes" answers would be accompanied by rolling eyes.

I think it's unfair to not count any of this as work. As engineers it's important for us to be on top of current trends and available tools.

Yes, your company might not use it today, but if no one reads about new developments in tooling/languages, your companies processes will always stay the same and (if better tools for the job emerge), will just be priming a market that new entrants using better technology will be better able to serve.

Some exploration of new technologies is really important for people in our field, and it's really unfortunate that (many) people working in the field feel they have to spend ~10-20 hours per week of their own time keeping abreast of new developments to stay competitive

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#178

Post by pcthrowaway »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #94
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.

> with the rest being a big void. There shouldn't be a 20-30 hour "void" in people's work week. If people are meeting, discussing work, building relationships within the company, or otherwise doing things around their work, I still consider that to be productive time. Nobody actually expects programmers to be writing code 40 hours a week. We know this. On the other hand, if people are spending 30 hours per week messi…

> I know I've had a few coworkers who curiously never seem to do much of anything. They've always been first to go when the layoffs arrive and their managers are forced to choose who stays and who goes.

I've heard that at Amazon, these people are referred to as "PIP fodder", which makes it sound like they're still able to contribute the fulfillment of business objectives, in their own way

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#179

Post by yrgulation »

yboris wrote: post #35

4DWW - Four Day Work Week is the future. So many benefits for workers and the company! It's a win-win for many types of companies. Even if it's not a win for all companies, society would benefit greatly by mandating 4 days of 8 hours with no loss of pay as the standard. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/11/15/1136039542/the...

That and remote work. But sadly too many yearn outside control of their lives and cant handle freedom. I bet you a lot will complain they miss working one extra day because they cant socialise with their colleagues or they will simply say they want to work extra because they have nothing better to do with their lives.

Re: Is 40 hours a week too much?

#180

Post by CBarkleyU »

davesque wrote: post #164

I've always felt a bit like an alien from outer space when trying to understand the work habits of modern humans. It seems we spend enough time doing what we think we have to do to survive that it feels like the only thing we actually do. Everything else in our life feels secondary. I'm not sure this is even normal in nature. Seems like a lot of animals spend much of their time just sort of hanging out. Does it hones…

"The lion never says "It took me 15 minutes to hunt the antelope, if I keep at it, I might hunt 4 more down -- wait I could actually take tomorrow off!" -- The lion isnt stupid, he didn't go to business school. Au contraire, lion is much smarter than the MBA, he knows that even if he hunted down 5 antelopes today, he still can't take tomorrow off: He has to build a fridge on his day off. On the day following his day off he has to somehow work to get the electricity working, then he has to build a house to protect the fridge and at the end of the day the lion will never have the time to lie in the sun and say "Man, that tasted so good, how lucky am I?".

Only a human can be tricked into thinking like that"

Volker Pispers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IysGB9yXE_g)

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