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In Defense of the 60+ Hour Work Week

blog.lawnstarter.com

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Re: In Defense of the 60+ Hour Work Week

#31

Post by raverbashing »

lostcolony wrote: post #3

So at 23 this person feels he has enough anecdotal experience to trump 100+ years of research. Let's see...he states he has no life outside of work, that he forced himself to pull those hours even when there wasn't work enough to demand it, that he was working those hours without remuneration of any kind, and while conflating 'working' with 'learning', leading me to question if he was really being productive, rather…

"that he forced himself to pull those hours even when there wasn't work enough to demand it, that he was working those hours without remuneration of any kind..."

I think that's the definition of workaholic

Re: In Defense of the 60+ Hour Work Week

#32

Post by RyanZAG »

mdmarra wrote: post #19
lostcolony wrote: post #3

So at 23 this person feels he has enough anecdotal experience to trump 100+ years of research. Let's see...he states he has no life outside of work, that he forced himself to pull those hours even when there wasn't work enough to demand it, that he was working those hours without remuneration of any kind, and while conflating 'working' with 'learning', leading me to question if he was really being productive, rather…

The HN crowd baffles me sometimes. It seems to move between "This person is too old. They are disconnected from today's generation," and "This person is too young. They don't have the experience to share meaningful anecdotes." At what age would this person's comments hold water? 25? 28? 30?

When someone is making statements about a global truth, such as the ability to be productive, experience is paramount. We all know you can pull off 80 hour weeks for a little bit before bad stuff happens, etc. It takes a bit of experience to learn what happens after a couple years of that.

When someone is talking about fashions or the popularity of new technologies etc, then being too old is going to make your opinion less useful as it's going to be harder for you to unlearn what you've already learned. This is generally far less of a problem and I really haven't seen much "This person is too old" on HN, but you do see it a lot on reddit as reddit attracts a very young crowd.

Re: In Defense of the 60+ Hour Work Week

#33

Post by ulfw »

RyanZAG wrote: post #20

This guy is going to read this in 10 years time and be appalled at how naive he was. > (yes, I am passionate about lawn care) > As long as your net contribution3 per hour is positive, what is the harm in working more? Look, if people who have done this exact thing before tell you it doesn't work, maybe listen a bit? But I guess there is nothing quite like a lesson you learn for yourself.

I give him 5 max.

Re: In Defense of the 60+ Hour Work Week

#34

Post by watwut »

The thing about people that have no life outside of work and claim to be happy is that they bring their communication and socialization needs to work all too often. Which means a lot longer meetings and a lot more small talk or playing games together etc.

As in, every single one I worked with that stayed in work that much without being burned out or tired did that.

Re: In Defense of the 60+ Hour Work Week

#35

Post by mattmanser »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #13
lostcolony wrote: post #3

So at 23 this person feels he has enough anecdotal experience to trump 100+ years of research. Let's see...he states he has no life outside of work, that he forced himself to pull those hours even when there wasn't work enough to demand it, that he was working those hours without remuneration of any kind, and while conflating 'working' with 'learning', leading me to question if he was really being productive, rather…

Please cite the 100+ years of research. I've looked into it, and found very little. All I've found is a few results like the average construction worker can only productively work 60 hour weeks for about 6 weeks in a row before fatigue sets in. For example: http://www.danzpage.com/Construction-Management-Resources/Ca... (Hourly productivity is lower during the 60 hour weeks, but weekly product is higher.) I have neve…

You keep popping up on these threads making wild claims like this. You're like an evolution denier, you keep pushing this weird agenda, but I just don't understand why.

People keep giving you the research and yet somehow you don't read it and then claim there is none.

It is simple to find research about manual work showing 40 hours per week is optimal. It is simple to find research showing that for knowledge workers the optimal is even less.

Last time you you were trying to claim 40-60 hours was an 'optimal' working time for manual labour and linked research yourself which showed that it wasn't.

Why is the concept so antithetical to your world view that you can't accepted it?

There is a huge body of research proving directly the opposite of what you claim, that working long hours leads to an ever increasing drop in overall productivity and leads to more and more mistakes (even deaths). From the 1800s to today, many companies and institutions have researched this and 40 hours keeps being the result. And even less for knowledge workers!

Here's an example of people giving yummy primary research before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7089557

Re: In Defense of the 60+ Hour Work Week

#36

Post by robinduckett »

mrcharles wrote: post #6

I used to think it was possibly to work 60 hour weeks just because I loved what I was doing. When I was shipping Assassin's Creed 2 and being both the team lead and main programmer on the combat system, I worked sustained 60 hour weeks for somewhere in the range of six months. Just before shipping, I realized I was making so many ridiculously obvious mistakes that I requested someone shadow all my code commits. And t…

Ahah! So it's your fault! Nah, I'm only kidding. I love AC2.

Re: In Defense of the 60+ Hour Work Week

#37

Post by mtrimpe »

mdmarra wrote: post #19
lostcolony wrote: post #3

So at 23 this person feels he has enough anecdotal experience to trump 100+ years of research. Let's see...he states he has no life outside of work, that he forced himself to pull those hours even when there wasn't work enough to demand it, that he was working those hours without remuneration of any kind, and while conflating 'working' with 'learning', leading me to question if he was really being productive, rather…

The HN crowd baffles me sometimes. It seems to move between "This person is too old. They are disconnected from today's generation," and "This person is too young. They don't have the experience to share meaningful anecdotes." At what age would this person's comments hold water? 25? 28? 30?

I think in this case it's actually relevant to mention age, because I'm more and more inclined to believe that while 60+ hours can be a good thing to do in your twenties, especially if your digital life is your social life, but that it rarely ever is a smart thing to do after you're thirty.

Young coders don't have that much experience yet and will often have to rely on their brawn rather than their wit which could perhaps make the 60+ hours thing a solid strategic choice.

As I've grown older I've found that I can deliver much more value with much less effort by being well rested and taking a step back to see what's actually the important thing to do.

Whether I'm doing so because I've become wiser or because I've become less effective in those long hours is a different question altogether of course.

Re: In Defense of the 60+ Hour Work Week

#38

Post by ulfw »

The problem about 60+ hour work weeks is that it's nothing but utter cheating by employers.

It means they are too cheap to pay you what you are really worth (you are being paid for 40 hours of work, but work over 50% more thus severely constricting your 'hourly' rate) and too cheap to hire enough people to do the job (i.e. 2 people need to do the work that 3 people are supposed to do). Nothing more, nothing less.

Re: In Defense of the 60+ Hour Work Week

#39

Post by parasight »

[deleted] wrote: post #30

[deleted]

I don't think the price is worth it. A serious burnout is nothing to be solved by 'hitting the reset button every now then'. Burn out may include depression and that's something you really don't want to have I guess.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burnout_(psychology)

Re: In Defense of the 60+ Hour Work Week

#40

Post by mcv »

mdmarra wrote: post #19
lostcolony wrote: post #3

So at 23 this person feels he has enough anecdotal experience to trump 100+ years of research. Let's see...he states he has no life outside of work, that he forced himself to pull those hours even when there wasn't work enough to demand it, that he was working those hours without remuneration of any kind, and while conflating 'working' with 'learning', leading me to question if he was really being productive, rather…

The HN crowd baffles me sometimes. It seems to move between "This person is too old. They are disconnected from today's generation," and "This person is too young. They don't have the experience to share meaningful anecdotes." At what age would this person's comments hold water? 25? 28? 30?

> At what age would this person's comments hold water? 25? 28? 30?

39.

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