Why I hate the weekends (2017) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#201

Post by muzani » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 1:56 AM UTC

Synaesthesia wrote: post #67

darkmighty wrote: post #58

What I don't understand here: Why can't we just work less ? I know it's not trivial, but it can't be impossible either. I doubt he would starve if he got a part-time dev job (are those easy to find? I have no idea). I agree wholeheartedly with all that he said. I think a life of work-home-work without breathing is almost meaningless unless you can have possibly unreasonable amounts of fun and freedom in the job (few…

The biggest reason is because bosses don’t want us to. They want to make as much money as possible, and that’s about it really. The good news is we have made progress, through mass action, people have won the right to weekends, fewer hours and other rights. The final battle is one to win control of the workplace itself, a self-managed and owned workplace.

Even when self employed I don't really want to. I know 5 days/week is unproductive, but it's difficult to scale down to 4. That's cutting down "potential" salary by 20% and with all the fixed costs out there, the potential income loss is much, much higher.

But the reality is that being constantly tired is unproductive and having 50% more time off is huge.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#202

Post by photoguy112 » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 1:57 AM UTC

throwaway713 wrote: post #90

The "no free time" issue for me is not due to work; it's due to being married — which is a choice I made knowing that I would lose a lot of "me" time. Every so often my wife visits family on the opposite coast for a week or two and suddenly it feels like bucketloads of time have appeared out of nowhere. I imagine once I have children (which I hope to have in the next few years), I will feel even more pressed for time…

We had a kid last year. My time went from some availability to NONE. Granted, we don't have a babysitter, both myself and wife stay at home (I work from home, she doesn't work). Despite both of us being available, just the daily chores and things that must be done with a little one are insane. Ours could be a unique case because my kid is kinda difficult, but it's definitely a huge change from not having kids. That being said I think anyone who recently had a kid and works from home can attest to forming new abilities to manage time super effectively. Before I would waste a lot of time on non-important things, now I know what my priorities are and get things done really fast. I am a lot more focused because of this.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#203

Post by coldtea » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:00 AM UTC

jniedrauer wrote: post #199

geodel wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misguided? Someone who is earning >80K is in richest 1% of the world population.

In the United States, the median household income is over 60k. Income is not the same thing as wealth. I will say that there is a significant reduction in stress and jump in wellbeing between 30k and 40k. Beyond that, there is very little actual difference. As my income increases, all it does is reduce my time until retirement.

>the median household income is over 60k

Household income is not the same as one person's wage. The media household income includes tons of couples where both are working.

And while "income is not the same thing as wealth", still making 80k in income (not wealth) puts you at the top 13%. You get into 1% of USA is 300K.

As for the world, 80K (net) income put you at 0.1% globally.

http://graphics.wsj.com/what-percent/

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#204

Post by muzani » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:01 AM UTC

screye wrote: post #174

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need to save a few million dollars to retire with $40-$80k in investment income. You need a lot less than a few million dollars if you're willing to live at a more reasonable retirement income. I mean, you won't have to commute anymore, or buy all those services that did things you never had time for, or pay for daycare, or live in an overpriced city, etc. Hell if you move to a country with a lower cost of livi…

Honestly, I am surprised that by now, places in SEA/ India haven't become retirement homes for low savings westerners. 2 people can easily live lavish life in India (something like Goa or a nice hill station) for ~$2000 a month. Healthcare is not as bad, especially in urban locations. People speak English well, and it isn't that far, given that people drive ~10 hours across states to meet family anyways. If no one el…

Australians have been retiring in Malaysia for a while. Good food, great climate, and the professionals can find easy employment or consulting gigs if they get bored (let's face it, nobody really wants to fully retire). Living costs are moderate, but far cheaper than something like Sydney. Healthcare and dental really is world class and plenty of people speak English well.

$2000/month here is about the salary of a senior PHP engineer with 15 years experience, so it'll take you far.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#205

Post by oulu2006 » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:07 AM UTC

gnulinux wrote: post #9

This resonates with me. I love my work, I really like what I do, I think it's mentally challenging, interesting, and important for our world and civilization and I believe I'm compensated well enough. But it's tiring ok? And all I can ever do on weekends is lying on my bed watching netflix. I work 9 to 6 and work out intensely for 2 hours every week day. By the time it's saturday I'm both physically and mentally exha…

I used to work out 1.5hrs 4 times a week -- it was so exhausting on-top of my normal day (I'm a dancer as well) that I was about to just let it all crash and walk away.

I since changed my schedule to 40 min, 3 times a week, 2 sets, maximum reps till failure with pyramids.

Most gains in strength i have ever achieved with the least amount of work I have ever done.

Less time - more ROI

check out @maclulich on Insta -- I can back it up.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#206

Post by rbatty » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:10 AM UTC

photoguy112 wrote: post #195

nathan_f77 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A conservative "safe withdrawal rate" is about 3.5%, so you need around $1.1M invested in index funds in order to have $40k income per year. I'm living in Thailand, and $40k goes a long way. Many people would be happy with this lifestyle, but it's not quite enough for me, and I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life here. I'd much rather have $80-100k and live somewhere like Toronto. But to each their own.

I'm in Japan. Last year I remitted $16k. My residence is paid for and I spent an additional $12k cash. In total, I live on 28k / year. Add in a residence if I had to rent, down where I am it's $500/mo for a 3 br "home". It's really a shanty by western standards but enough for me. On 34k if you rented, one can live comfortably in Southern Japan. Of course, this is not possible without a valid visa. I have lived in Mid…

But you said it yourself: you need a visa. It's not simply a question of whether an American or anyone else finds it satisfying to live in another country. The government has to want/permit you to be there. And in the case of Japan in particular, that's a difficult situation to navigate, especially if you are looking for a place to live for your retirement years.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#207

Post by goldenchrome » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:15 AM UTC

underwater wrote: post #161

goldenchrome wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Earn 250k on average across 15 years. This is quite conservative for FAANG. In California, you'll take home about 150k. Each year, live frugally off 50k and put away 100k in index funds. Over 15 years, you'll gain 7% real annual returns from the stock market. In 15 years you'll go from $0 to $2.5m. At a very conservative safe withdrawal rate of 3.5%, you can withdraw about 85k per year for the rest of your life. If y…

You are describing an outlier of an outlier. To follow your advice our developer has to have well above average skills (250k salary would be relatively senior even at FAANG), be single and live in a share house for 15 years (50k would cover rent for a family in areas with high tech salaries, nothing else) and the tech sector has to remain strong for 15 years (looking back 2004 was 4 years before the financial crisis…

I agree that it's difficult to pull this off, but it's not as difficult as you say. 250k is the total comp for someone with one promotion at FAANG, i.e. a couple years out of school. My wife and I spend about 50k a year and we live in a 1-bed in the Bay Area.

Who knows what the future holds, but if you started at FAANG in 2004 you would have far more than a couple million by now. The financial crisis is a fantastic time to invest in index funds.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#208

Post by manigandham » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:23 AM UTC

When I was younger, I had a fulltime contractor job where I only worked 4 days a week, and also had flexible starting times. The freedom was incredible and having just 1 extra day made work vs personal time seem much more equal (4 work, 3 off). I also got more done because longer days allowed me to get into flow more and I suspect most salaried workers already spend more than 8 hours a day anyway.

I've yet to really see any other companies do it, and I'm thinking of instituting that policy in our current startup, but it deserves serious consideration.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#209

Post by ajmurmann » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:24 AM UTC

toomuchtodo wrote: post #169

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In tech in SV, so many stupid things happen because people work too much. Self-organizing is a challenge as well though.

So let’s legislate a four day work week. The productivity gains to justify it already exist, they’ve existed for decades.

I wonder if that would have to happen globally. We are still competing with companies in other countries. Chinese startups subscribe to the 996 schedule (9am-9pm, 6 days/week). I'm not sure if 954 allows us to compete.

Re: Why I hate the weekends (2017)

#210

Post by mindslight » Sun, Feb 17, 2019, 2:27 AM UTC

darkmighty wrote: post #58

What I don't understand here: Why can't we just work less ? I know it's not trivial, but it can't be impossible either. I doubt he would starve if he got a part-time dev job (are those easy to find? I have no idea). I agree wholeheartedly with all that he said. I think a life of work-home-work without breathing is almost meaningless unless you can have possibly unreasonable amounts of fun and freedom in the job (few…

It is the government's explicit policy to continually raise the price of housing (etc) so that most everybody is forced into working "full time" to keep up the "growth".

The elephant in the room is that all of those housekeeping tasks used to generally be done during the week by a second householder. So what happened?! Rather than double income households actually resulting in getting ahead, economic feedback simply made it the new normal!

Similar destruction of economic progress happened when Walmart (et al) gutted local business - a lot of high-margin employers went away, yet prices weren't allowed to go down. So rather than local economies' costs at least going down along with their pay, they only got the downside.

Taking into account women entering the workforce plus general technological progress, "full time employment" these days should be under 15 hours per week!