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40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

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Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#41

Post by tikhonj »

cryptoz wrote: post #11
wccrawford wrote: post #3

"People who hate their jobs often work 40 hours weeks, why be one of them?" Working 40 hours doesn't make you one of them. It's not even a symptom of the real problem. I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. And I loved my last job. And I liked all the jobs before that. That's because I have pride in doing my job well, I've worked for people who appreciate it (even if that sometimes means the customer, and not my bos…

> I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. Do you work exactly 40 hours? As in, start and 9am, leave at 5pm and never arrive early or leave late? Never a week of 41 hours? Because if I worked at a job I absolutely loved - as you describe - I would probably choose to work 50 or 60 hours. I think that the assumption here is that if you work 40 hours, you're probably doing it because that's what is expected of you and yo…

The way it worked for me--during a summer job--was that days when I had something cool going I'd stay as long as I felt; if I was bored or unoccupied, I just left early. As far as I could tell, almost all of the developers worked this way.

In practice, I'd average maybe 45 hours a week. However, this was mostly because I didn't wake up early and, since I was biking, tried to leave before dark as often as possible (although sometimes I was too occupied to notice).

Overall, I think that was basically a perfect schedule for me.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#42

Post by tikhonj »

john_b wrote: post #30

Saying that 20 hour and 60 hour weeks, depending on the situation, are better than 40 hour weeks ignores one very common and important case: when the work is boring but important. The author seems to assume that 20 hour weeks can solve all boring work, but they can only really solve boring and unimportant work. If it's important and boring, you'll probably need to spend more than 20 hours a week on it. I'll stereotyp…

Or you could try to minimize, delegate and automate the boring work away as much as possible.

Of course, this really depends on what exactly you're working on and what you find boring, but I think there are almost always alternatives to most boring work in professions like programming.

I might think this just because I find almost every facet of development interesting now--I like designing and programming, but I also usually enjoy testing, debugging, polishing and sometimes even just maintaining/refactoring. And because I'm probably not nearly as disciplined as you so I grab at any excuse to not do boring work ;)

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#43

Post by dman »

cryptoz wrote: post #11
wccrawford wrote: post #3

"People who hate their jobs often work 40 hours weeks, why be one of them?" Working 40 hours doesn't make you one of them. It's not even a symptom of the real problem. I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. And I loved my last job. And I liked all the jobs before that. That's because I have pride in doing my job well, I've worked for people who appreciate it (even if that sometimes means the customer, and not my bos…

> I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. Do you work exactly 40 hours? As in, start and 9am, leave at 5pm and never arrive early or leave late? Never a week of 41 hours? Because if I worked at a job I absolutely loved - as you describe - I would probably choose to work 50 or 60 hours. I think that the assumption here is that if you work 40 hours, you're probably doing it because that's what is expected of you and yo…

I love sweets but that does not mean I fill my plate with them.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#44

Post by stevenp »

My personal rule of thumb has always been: "When it stops being fun and starts being work, it's time to find something new." I try to keep my count at "zero" hours as much as possible.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#45

Post by kmuzykov »

hugh3 wrote: post #12

I work 40 hour weeks. Nine to five. I got into the habit when I started my PhD, because I knew that if I didn't force myself to work to a certain schedule, I'd probably slack off. If I only worked when I felt like it, on what I felt like working on, I would never have finished my thesis because, heck , who wants to do proofreading when you could be at the beach? And if I ate whatever I felt like, whenever I felt like…

Totally agree. Another thing is that your task is not always creative and flaring. Yes you've completed the proof of concept for the task everybody thought undoable, whooray, but now you have to cleanup the mess in the code, refactor everything and deliver something to the client or your boss. And this task involves doing some routine job like writing logs in exceptional cases, making application fool proof and etc.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#46

Post by kingkawn »

it's not about amount of time, it's circumstance. When doing independent projects I regularly put in 80 hours a week. That's fine, it's my own schedule and decision. 40 hours having a supervisor breathing down your neck sucks, but 5 hours of having a supervisor breathing down your neck does too. The amount of time is irrelevant.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#47

Post by zerostar07 »

kingkawn wrote: post #46

it's not about amount of time, it's circumstance. When doing independent projects I regularly put in 80 hours a week. That's fine, it's my own schedule and decision. 40 hours having a supervisor breathing down your neck sucks, but 5 hours of having a supervisor breathing down your neck does too. The amount of time is irrelevant.

That's true. Also i don't understand how a week with family or a week outdoors never gets boring.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#48

Post by wccrawford »

cryptoz wrote: post #11
wccrawford wrote: post #3

"People who hate their jobs often work 40 hours weeks, why be one of them?" Working 40 hours doesn't make you one of them. It's not even a symptom of the real problem. I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. And I loved my last job. And I liked all the jobs before that. That's because I have pride in doing my job well, I've worked for people who appreciate it (even if that sometimes means the customer, and not my bos…

> I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. Do you work exactly 40 hours? As in, start and 9am, leave at 5pm and never arrive early or leave late? Never a week of 41 hours? Because if I worked at a job I absolutely loved - as you describe - I would probably choose to work 50 or 60 hours. I think that the assumption here is that if you work 40 hours, you're probably doing it because that's what is expected of you and yo…

I'm sad that people voted you down for saying that.

Yes, I work pretty close to 40 hours each week. Honestly, I tend to come in too early, and leave a little early from the schedule I told them I'd work. In the end, it probably is more like 41 hours.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#49

Post by xarien »

I see a lot of posts disagreeing with the OP in one form or another and I think I know why. It takes a bit of OCD and a dash of perfectionism to emphasize with the OP. Unfortunately, I know exactly how the OP feels.

Re: 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck

#50

Post by sliverstorm »

wccrawford wrote: post #3

"People who hate their jobs often work 40 hours weeks, why be one of them?" Working 40 hours doesn't make you one of them. It's not even a symptom of the real problem. I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. And I loved my last job. And I liked all the jobs before that. That's because I have pride in doing my job well, I've worked for people who appreciate it (even if that sometimes means the customer, and not my bos…

"People who hate their jobs often work 40 hours weeks, why be one of them?"

The quote smacks of truisim. Most people work roughly 40 hour weeks, so it sounds to me like saying "Most people who hate their jobs have jobs. Ergo, don't have a job".

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