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Bring back the 40-hour work week

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Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#21

Post by danmaz74 »

I agree with the general thesis of the article, but at least in the software industry there are two big problems with this reasoning.

The first is that, notoriously, if one programmer working 50% more time won't advance the project 50% faster, that is even more true if you try to increase by 50% the number of programmers. Software development is incredibly non-linear (and as a project manager I always have to struggle with my manager about this - it is incredible how much linear thinking is ingrained in so many people's minds).

The second problem is that, also notoriously, software developers vary incredibly in individual productivity, much more than hourly wages do.

So, where engineering (not just software) work prevails on other kinds of work, a few geeks working very long hours can really be more productive than more people working less hours. But this does NOT work in most other environments, and even in software development:

- there is a lot of repetitive work to do that real geeks aren't going to do

- there aren't enough geeks to do all the software development that our societies require

In the end, one size doesn't fit all, and solving this situation with regulation would be very difficult (even if some better regulation could help, especially if it could make unpaid overtime much more difficult/risky for employers). The best chance would be to have one or more very convincing examples, like Ford was almost a century ago. Any candidates?

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#22

Post by DanBC »

danmaz74 wrote: post #21

I agree with the general thesis of the article, but at least in the software industry there are two big problems with this reasoning. The first is that, notoriously, if one programmer working 50% more time won't advance the project 50% faster, that is even more true if you try to increase by 50% the number of programmers. Software development is incredibly non-linear (and as a project manager I always have to struggl…

You have a programmer who works for 13 hours a day. That programmer does three days in a row of 13 hours. That's 39 hours, not including any travel etc.

Give / force them some time off before they can start another block of 40 hour work.

"Flow" is mentioned so often, but I'd really like to see some good quality research to back it up. For sure people feel like they're in a zone, but how much of the code produced in that time is great quality, and how much is error-strewn garbage?

The need for standard weeks is still pretty strong, but that's not insurmountable problem. Really, when people talk of weeks they mean "continuous chunk of work with no 48 hour break".

A bigger problem is making people think that 60 hour weeks is normal, or honourable, and that a 40 hour week is lazy or disloyal or unproductive or harmful to the company. That's not true, and it's possibly leading to early death of some people. It's certainly making some people miserable.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#23

Post by batista »

Zakharov wrote: post #14

And it hurts the country, too. For every four Americans working a 50-hour week, every week, there’s one American who should have a full-time job, but doesn’t. Our rampant unemployment problem would vanish overnight if we simply worked the way we’re supposed to by law. The rest of the article says that 50-hour-a-week employees are no more productive than 40-hour-a-week employees, and don't get paid any more. Where do…

So, it's not one in four, it's one it ten. How about that?

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#24

Post by kamaal »

DanBC wrote: post #22
danmaz74 wrote: post #21

I agree with the general thesis of the article, but at least in the software industry there are two big problems with this reasoning. The first is that, notoriously, if one programmer working 50% more time won't advance the project 50% faster, that is even more true if you try to increase by 50% the number of programmers. Software development is incredibly non-linear (and as a project manager I always have to struggl…

You have a programmer who works for 13 hours a day. That programmer does three days in a row of 13 hours. That's 39 hours, not including any travel etc. Give / force them some time off before they can start another block of 40 hour work. "Flow" is mentioned so often, but I'd really like to see some good quality research to back it up. For sure people feel like they're in a zone, but how much of the code produced in t…

A bigger problem is making people think that 60 hour weeks is normal, or honourable, and that a 40 hour week is lazy or disloyal or unproductive or harmful to the company. That's not true, and it's possibly leading to early death of some people. It's certainly making some people miserable.

I like working a lot, making great stuff. Some people don't. But that's not my problem.

Asking me not to work, just because some body else doesn't want to, is injustice.

I have faced this situation in the past. I used to get a lot of work done in my last company(I was productive and used to push crazy hours) and by that definition I was learning, making and getting a lot of recognition.

Soon a bunch of girls went and complained to the manager its becoming a one sided game. And the suggestion they gave to solve their problem was to stop me from putting those extra works. Now here is my problems, for whatever reason if you can't/don't want to do something big in life. I doesn't mean everyone should do the same to make you feel good.

This is more or less like socialism. You force the rich to become poor just because the poor don't want to be rich.

EDIT: C'mon guys why would you downvote this? Choice to choose a worklife style is upto to the individual. Stopping Individual from achieving their goals is in direct contradiction to freedom to pursuit of happiness.

HN is becoming like reddit, things get up/downvoted on mood not on merit.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#25

Post by mathattack »

Any contention on this topic should be solvable in the market. Companies and managers that believe in the 40 hour week fight it out with companies and managers who don't. (This decision is made by managers - though employees have to agree) Different people have different amounts to give at different stages in their life. Let the market decide which approach is more enlightened, and let people decide how much they want to work.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#26

Post by bmj »

DanBC wrote: post #22
danmaz74 wrote: post #21

I agree with the general thesis of the article, but at least in the software industry there are two big problems with this reasoning. The first is that, notoriously, if one programmer working 50% more time won't advance the project 50% faster, that is even more true if you try to increase by 50% the number of programmers. Software development is incredibly non-linear (and as a project manager I always have to struggl…

You have a programmer who works for 13 hours a day. That programmer does three days in a row of 13 hours. That's 39 hours, not including any travel etc. Give / force them some time off before they can start another block of 40 hour work. "Flow" is mentioned so often, but I'd really like to see some good quality research to back it up. For sure people feel like they're in a zone, but how much of the code produced in t…

A bigger problem is making people think that 60 hour weeks is normal, or honourable, and that a 40 hour week is lazy or disloyal or unproductive or harmful to the company. That's not true, and it's possibly leading to early death of some people. It's certainly making some people miserable.

This. My experience in the software industry has generally been positive (aside from stints at start-ups)--I've been judged on the quality of my work, and my ability to produce given reasonable time lines. When I dabbled at an interactive agency, though, all of that was thrown out the window--the print folks, especially, where just expected to work 10-12 hours a day, and it would be a matter of pride to pull an all-nighter to meet a silly deadline. At one point, the agency's owner had a mural put in a common area--it was a comic about a superhero who could manage to do anything with a ridiculous time crunch. That's when I decided that industry was not for me.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#27

Post by jacobr »

My standard work week is 37.5 hours, but Thursdays and Fridays I work half days, and from home, to spend extra time with my son, so it's currently 30 hours a week. I asked my team leader if she thought it was going ok, and her response was "it's not much more time away than a couple of unnecessary meetings".

It has also given me some time to work on projects on my free time that ultimately can be of benefit to the company, sort of unpayed 20% innovation time. But since I am grateful for the company being so flexible and understanding, I don't mind.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#28

Post by michaelochurch »

In technology, I actually think it makes sense for metered work demands (i.e things a person is told to do by management or clients, as opposed to learning new technologies, going to conferences, contributing to open-source) to top out around 25 hours per week. Even that's pushing it. The other 15-30 should be more open, long-term focused, and self-directed (because this component of the workweek is more autonomous, people can sustainably total 50+ hours without ruining their health, if these autonomy conditions at met).

The reason that management in most companies doesn't recognize this is that, although the average worker could achieve as much in his or her best 4 hours, managers are afraid that if they did officially relaxed "metered" demands, people would use their best hours on side projects or career-focused efforts and throw the scraps to their metered work (and, in many environments, they're right). The reason for the 8 to 11 hour metered workday is to maximize the likelihood that these 3-4 peak hours per day occur somewhere in that window.

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#29

Post by danmaz74 »

DanBC wrote: post #22
danmaz74 wrote: post #21

I agree with the general thesis of the article, but at least in the software industry there are two big problems with this reasoning. The first is that, notoriously, if one programmer working 50% more time won't advance the project 50% faster, that is even more true if you try to increase by 50% the number of programmers. Software development is incredibly non-linear (and as a project manager I always have to struggl…

You have a programmer who works for 13 hours a day. That programmer does three days in a row of 13 hours. That's 39 hours, not including any travel etc. Give / force them some time off before they can start another block of 40 hour work. "Flow" is mentioned so often, but I'd really like to see some good quality research to back it up. For sure people feel like they're in a zone, but how much of the code produced in t…

I completely agree that promoting the concept that "only" working 40 hours is lazy is completely wrong. But forcing everybody to always only work 40 hours a week would be wrong too. In Italy, theoretically, overtime hours have to be paid more than normal hours, which I think would be fair and good - this alone would make managers really think about the productivity of those extra hours.

In practice, though, there is often a lot of unpaid overtime, at least in the software industry, and the situation isn't different from what the article says about the US (only, with lower salaries).

Re: Bring back the 40-hour work week

#30

Post by kamaal »

DanBC wrote: post #20
kamaal wrote: post #18

Fact is, I'm productive with a 8 hour a day schedule if and only if: 1. What I need to do is clear and known. 2. I've been doing the is same everytime or something of similar pattern. 3. No meetings and distractions in between. But the fact is, none of this is true in our area of work. To some extent even if something similar exists it wont work for many reasons. For every person who wants to go back home, there is a…

> there is always a peer who is putting in extra hours innovating, building and learning For every peer putting in stupid hours innovating, building and learning there are > 1 peers putting in stupid hours fixing errors of other overworked colleagues or just grinding through the stuff they could have done in 40 hours if they didn't have an asshole boss / broken business culture.

I don't know why you consider working hard as a broken culture.
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