Is full-time work bad for our brains? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#61

Post by TorKlingberg » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 4:08 PM UTC

lj3 wrote: post #50

whack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What did you deliver this week? This month? This quarter?", should be the only relevant question in the workplace, managers included. Unfortunately, there's another camp that (with credible arguments) claims that task-estimates are almost always meaningless. If you buy into that camp, and if someone under-delivers, it doesn't tell you anything about whether or not they are performing poorly. They could simply be t…

What if you judge a team based on the revenue it brought in vs the cost of the employees in the team? Since profit is the real measure of success, it makes sense to use that as the metric. Measuring individual contributions is problematic, no matter the system you use. Measuring based on the entire team is much easier.

You would notice that the IT and security teams brought in zero revenue and fire them all.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#62

Post by kamaal » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 4:11 PM UTC

whack wrote: post #37

up_and_up wrote: post #7

This is why companies need to be "results driven" vs "face-time driven". "What did you deliver this week? This month? This quarter?", should be the only relevant question in the workplace, managers included.

> "What did you deliver this week? This month? This quarter?", should be the only relevant question in the workplace, managers included. Unfortunately, there's another camp that (with credible arguments) claims that task-estimates are almost always meaningless. If you buy into that camp, and if someone under-delivers, it doesn't tell you anything about whether or not they are performing poorly. They could simply be t…

>>Unfortunately, there's another camp that (with credible arguments) claims that task-estimates are almost always meaningless.

This is largely because people cook up all kind of bull-crap work just to keep busy and have it look like the equivalent of 'moon-landing' just happened.

Over years I have seen this phenomenon play out in every major company. The absolute worst I have seen is a whole team of 10-20 members dedicated to build that would be the equivalent of cron + ftp, implemented in super verbose java written and rewritten to make class hierarchies as complicated as possible to make it look big, and then have it projected as the biggest project ever. The team went to bag a lot of bonuses and promotions. Stuff like this is why goal based evaluation don't work.

Also look at: http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#63

Post by Kluny » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 4:16 PM UTC

jdc0589 wrote: post #27

My brain usually goes in to "prepare to shut-down" mode every day at about 3:30pm (having started work at ~9am). I tend to have slow mornings, and stay pretty busy/head-down for the last half of that time. The funny thing is, it doesn't really matter if I was busy working on hard technical challenges all day, or just reading articles/browsing the web; my brain shuts down the same time regardless.

3:30 is siesta time.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#64

Post by cubano » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 4:17 PM UTC

I'm 50yo and am still learning new shit everyday...just a month ago I bit the bullet and learned enough javasc...excuse me ECMAScript, to be pretty damn dangerous :)

Over the past weekend I learned docker and am now running containers all over the place...these aren't trivial things and the speed of which I'm picking stuff up is as fast, if not faster, then it has ever been for me.

The point is I am 10 years older then the age this study targeted, and I find it humorous that they are telling me I am AT LEAST 25 IQ points dumber because I work 50-60 hour weeks.

Plus, where do I tick the box about my lifetime of pretty hardcore drug use and its supposed effects on my IQ?

Now I do get tired...physically tired...from the efforts required to keep up but besides that, my anecdotal experience goes against this research.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#65

Post by tonmoy » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 4:27 PM UTC

BjoernKW wrote: post #54

quantumhobbit wrote: post #5

Stretching 2 hours of work into an 8-9 hour day through meetings and sneaky Reddit/hn usage is certainly bad for our brains. But this is the norm as long as managers interpret productivity as butts in seats.

As much as I agree with that I'm still at a loss as to why butts in seats management is still so dominant today. It's almost as if everybody wakes up, reads Dilbert every morning thinking "Wow, that PHB guy certainly is a role model to aspire to." It's not as if these patterns can't be changed: The required technology has been available for more than a decade now. There are tried and tested approaches for organizing…

Can you name a few companies where this is practiced? Maybe if we all start going to those places (I would happily take less pay for a healthier/happier work life) then maybe our managers would start following them

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#66

Post by Kinnard » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 4:30 PM UTC

Moshe_Silnorin wrote: post #58

Kinnard wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've gotten this sentiment before. Does it appear to be improving at all in Korea?

If you look at the younger generation, I doubt it. Korea is a wonderful country full of extremely bright and nice people. But they're caught in an education arms race that is legitimately terrifying. Kids are schooled with incredible tenacity from 9 to 5 and then once they are finished school they attend night classes and weekend classes. I think putting a much higher weight on fluid intelligence over crystallized in…

I wonder what impact Korean reunification would have. I imagine it would create a large leisure class, supported by a new North Korean cheap-labor underclass, with which would come a leisure culture which could impact the overall culture. Some bad, with some good.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#67

Post by madaxe_again » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 4:30 PM UTC

BjoernKW wrote: post #54

quantumhobbit wrote: post #5

Stretching 2 hours of work into an 8-9 hour day through meetings and sneaky Reddit/hn usage is certainly bad for our brains. But this is the norm as long as managers interpret productivity as butts in seats.

As much as I agree with that I'm still at a loss as to why butts in seats management is still so dominant today. It's almost as if everybody wakes up, reads Dilbert every morning thinking "Wow, that PHB guy certainly is a role model to aspire to." It's not as if these patterns can't be changed: The required technology has been available for more than a decade now. There are tried and tested approaches for organizing…

Because those of us who believe otherwise usually get beaten out and decide to not run businesses any more.

My confounder doesn't like hiring, likes to have a huge pile of cash in the bank to no particular end, and sends people shitty emails if they're late in the morning.

He's successfully killed off enthusiasm and passion for getting things done (mine included), and now people are either making time or leaving.

We got crazy amounts done back when I wasn't cto and was still allowed to lead the tech team - because we'd work from 1pm until the early hours, myopically working on stuff because it was fun to create. That got slowly but surely strangled by timekeeping, requiring people to be in for 0900 (even if they were up half the night working support), and requiring that people only work from the office.

It's impossible to push back against without continuous effort, and eventually one throws the towel in.

Conservatism is easy as it requires you to just maintain the status quo, hence it is the norm in business - whereas change requires effort. It then turns into an endurance race, which can only go one way.

Edit: I don't know why I bother commenting here any more.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#68

Post by st3v3r » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 4:32 PM UTC

lj3 wrote: post #50

whack wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What did you deliver this week? This month? This quarter?", should be the only relevant question in the workplace, managers included. Unfortunately, there's another camp that (with credible arguments) claims that task-estimates are almost always meaningless. If you buy into that camp, and if someone under-delivers, it doesn't tell you anything about whether or not they are performing poorly. They could simply be t…

What if you judge a team based on the revenue it brought in vs the cost of the employees in the team? Since profit is the real measure of success, it makes sense to use that as the metric. Measuring individual contributions is problematic, no matter the system you use. Measuring based on the entire team is much easier.

So how do you judge the revenue brought in by internal facing teams? IT teams? QA? Basically, anything that isn't a revenue center, or is a cost center?

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#69

Post by personlurking » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 4:33 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #28

jdc0589 wrote: post #27

My brain usually goes in to "prepare to shut-down" mode every day at about 3:30pm (having started work at ~9am). I tend to have slow mornings, and stay pretty busy/head-down for the last half of that time. The funny thing is, it doesn't really matter if I was busy working on hard technical challenges all day, or just reading articles/browsing the web; my brain shuts down the same time regardless.

This sounds like it could be a diet thing. Have you tried eating different things for lunch to see if that affects your mid-afternoon mood?

I also habitually got the 3/3:30 shutdown until I played with diet and times.

Living in Southern Europe and working from home, my meal times vary but they'd be considered late for US standards (with the exception of breakfast). A late lunch (around 3PM) seems to do away with the mid-afternoon shutdown.

Also, at the start of the year, I changed from a healthy-leaning diet to one that consists almost entirely of muesli, lean meat, brown rice, fruits & veggies, eggs, trail mix, rice cakes, water, juice, and things of the like. I even switched to wine (instead of beer), whenever possible.

Re: Is full-time work bad for our brains?

#70

Post by madaxe_again » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 4:35 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #28

jdc0589 wrote: post #27

My brain usually goes in to "prepare to shut-down" mode every day at about 3:30pm (having started work at ~9am). I tend to have slow mornings, and stay pretty busy/head-down for the last half of that time. The funny thing is, it doesn't really matter if I was busy working on hard technical challenges all day, or just reading articles/browsing the web; my brain shuts down the same time regardless.

This sounds like it could be a diet thing. Have you tried eating different things for lunch to see if that affects your mid-afternoon mood?

Actually, I find the most effective means to not fall asleep after lunch is to just not eat lunch. When and if I do, I'm intolerably tired for the afternoon.

It's your body's natural response to having been fed - conserve energy until the next hunt.