51–60 of 69 posts
Hence at 23 I think you should embrace longer work hours, as long as you also maintain a healthy social life in the balance.
'My company is my life' should be a red warning flag however, because for any number of foreseen and unforeseen reasons that company might not exist in the future.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I've read the research. It doesn't back up the claims made by the OP. 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. The research linked to shows that weekly product (which is not the same as hourly productivity) can be maximized by anything from 40-60 hours, depending on the nature of the work and the durati…
the majority based on 10-hour workdays and an overtime schedule of four consecutive weeks
FOUR WEEKS. Did you read that bit? Productivity continues to drop after 4 weeks (with some parts of it suggesting the productivity drop stops around week 16ish).
You're a lost cause.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
After 5 minutes of Googling. http://legacy.igda.org/why-crunch-modes-doesnt-work-six-less... http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Munster/Industrial/chap17.htm http://www.hcgexperts.com/scheduled-overtime-effect-on-const... http://history.nasa.gov/rogersrep/v2appg.htm http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2005/mar05/03-15th... http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2009/07/hours-of-labour-2.htm... (a translation of Sidney Chapm…
The nasa article is interesting, and hints that maybe long hours can increase error rates (which would be very bad if you are highly risk averse). It draws no conclusions.
The microsoft article is irrelevant. Your last link has no data.
Apparently it takes more than 5 minutes of google to find something that addresses these questions. And not a single link you provided even attempts to answer the question of whether some individuals can productively work 60 hour weeks. Every single study with data addresses the average person.
Me, I’m a 23 year old startup founder I think that people making the argument of 40 hours a week is not that is it impossible or not beneficial to work 60+ hours a week at a particular time. But that it's not sustainable. It's not the same living on ramen for two years than defending that living on ramen is actually great. Again, assuming that an exceptional situation (young startup founder with no commitments) is th…
Absolutely right. Just because a few driven individuals can survive Navy SEAL selection (BUD/S) doesn't mean that BUD/S is the optimal practice for everyone to have a productive, balanced, or happy life. Some people do fine on 60 hours a week. Some people burn out on 40 hours. Some people sleep 5 hours a night. Some people delude themselves into thinking that 5 hours a night is all they need and then sleep 14 hours o…
"All else being equal, why would I hire someone that works 40 hour weeks when there are a ton of other people willing to work 60?"
To which I'd ask, why would someone who isn't horribly naive work 60 hours to make you rich?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've read the research. It doesn't back up the claims made by the OP. 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. The research linked to shows that weekly product (which is not the same as hourly productivity) can be maximized by anything from 40-60 hours, depending on the nature of the work and the durati…
The quote accompanying those figures: the majority based on 10-hour workdays and an overtime schedule of four consecutive weeks FOUR WEEKS. Did you read that bit? Productivity continues to drop after 4 weeks (with some parts of it suggesting the productivity drop stops around week 16ish). You're a lost cause.
And again, basically all the research either you or I have found is in construction. Construction != Programming.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've read the research. It doesn't back up the claims made by the OP. 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. The research linked to shows that weekly product (which is not the same as hourly productivity) can be maximized by anything from 40-60 hours, depending on the nature of the work and the durati…
What about figure 9 that shows sustained 60+ hour work weeks drop productivity to 45% that of a 40 hour work week after week 4? Additionally, you are never going to find research that discussed the magical unicorns you describe and not averages. That's not how research works.
What about it? My only claim is that the answer is complicated. I'm not claiming that 60 hours/week is a magical long term answer perfect for everyone everywhere in every industry. It's the 40 hours/week people who are making that claim.
Additionally, you are never going to find research that discussed the magical unicorns you describe and not averages.
Yes, it clearly requires a wizard riding a narwhal to compute quintiles.
Without the quintiles/ventiles/etc it's impossible to conclude that an individual can't work 60+ hour weeks. That's a simple fact about distributions. If the 100+ years of research don't provide that, it simply means that more work needs to be done because we don't know the answer.
And the "single most prevalent argument against working long hours", supported by research, is that there is more to life than just work and humans require a balance between work and other things that, unlike the author, they find valuable, e.g. love, family, friends, travelling, exploring and learning about interesting things unrelated to what you do "at work". There is also evidence showing that creativity comes easier during play time, not work time.
Nevertheless, I worked long(er) hours until I was about 28, and also at 31 because of my startup. The bottom line, for me, is that you end up missing out on life; unless there's nothing in your life but work, of course, and that, for me, is quite sad. And, like mrcharles, given the level of stress work I've been experiencing, right now I too feel anxious just thinking about coding (thanks man, now I feel more normal).
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…
Me, I’m a 23 year old startup founder I think that people making the argument of 40 hours a week is not that is it impossible or not beneficial to work 60+ hours a week at a particular time. But that it's not sustainable. It's not the same living on ramen for two years than defending that living on ramen is actually great. Again, assuming that an exceptional situation (young startup founder with no commitments) is th…
Absolutely right. Just because a few driven individuals can survive Navy SEAL selection (BUD/S) doesn't mean that BUD/S is the optimal practice for everyone to have a productive, balanced, or happy life. Some people do fine on 60 hours a week. Some people burn out on 40 hours. Some people sleep 5 hours a night. Some people delude themselves into thinking that 5 hours a night is all they need and then sleep 14 hours o…
Oooh that sounds familiar.