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Is full-time work bad for our brains?

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

#91

Post by theAnonMe »

stevenwiles wrote: post #75
cubano wrote: post #64

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 th…

Yep, I'm just like you. About to turn 60, been a daily hardcore drug user for most of my life, and I've been picking up new languages and technologies every day, all while working 60 hours a week. I find it quite hurmorous indeed that there are those that would suggest that we are not intellectually capable. Glad to know there is someone else like me out there. :)

Just registered this account to discuss. This is something I worry about, I am a 31 year old dev, only learned to code 5 years ago. I smoke around 28 grams of strong cannabis (kush and haze) a week. Between the ages of 17-25 every weekend consisted either cocaine, ecstasy, mdma, ketamine or whatever really. I currently feel as although I'm playing with as much tech as ever I can't hold as much state in my head when developing and resort to the debugger a lot more. My cannabis intake has gone up in the past year probably. You think its the bud?

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

#92

Post by MichaelBurge »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #61
lj3 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I wonder if it would be more economically efficient for security teams to turn into insurance companies. So companies selling books over the internet would fire their security teams and instead buy a insurance policy against any intrusions, have the security company scour their systems for vulnerabilities during underwriting, and then pay a monthly fee and upkeep while the security company is held liable for any security intrusions.

The book company could then buy a standard product as a simple cost, while the security company attaches direct revenue to effective security.

I guess the IT/security company would need to run your infrastructure to be able to set up monitoring and such?

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

#93

Post by ashark »

Nadya wrote: post #86
ashark wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If results-based work actually gains employees any extra free time, companies that find a way to fit more work into that time (say, by assigning more tasks) will outcompete those that do not. Goodbye, glorious results-based-work free time. Either that or results-based work doesn't actually help us get things done faster than traditional work (_i.e._ it's snake oil) and at best it'll limp along providing little benefi…

If this were entirely true, businesses wouldn't be open from 9am-5pm but would have three 8-hour shifts throughout the day and run 24/7 and simply outcompete companies that are only open 9-5. The "best" companies would have even longer shifts and more complex schedules, with fewer employees. 9-5 isn't the 'optimal'. It's simply what is 'most common' for a diurnal society. Nobody is driving around town looking to get…

Sure, there are lots of reasons beyond Homo Economicus thinking for why we work the way we do. Laws, cultural expectations, and so on. I just don't see results-based work displacing the current norms broadly enough to make a difference, and if it does in fact result in better productivity I expect that to be eaten by competition/profit rather than going to workers as free time, in the long (medium, even) run, absent some pretty massive shifts in culture, especially with international competition in the mix.

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

#94

Post by yyyuuu »

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.

The problem might be of lack of trust between a manager and his team. He assumes that most would shirk work given the slightest chance.

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

#95

Post by groby_b »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #74
madaxe_again wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"confounder", ha. In my experience, what does a manager do if there's no one around to manage? And how do employees get recognized for their contributions if there are no managers to track it? It's a catch-22. My thought is that if companies simply paid people as much as they could, all of this would go away. You wouldn't even _need_ managers anymore. One of managers' more important roles, liaising between department…

Forgetting the other most important role, coaching people on the team. And yet another one, shelter from outside unrest. Oh, and blame-absorber. And coordinating efforts, when yet again three engineers in three different places work on the same issue.

You know, this is starting to resemble the "what have the romans ever done for us" skit :)

I'm not disagreeing that many managers don't do this. Or that they do it badly. But managers, when they work properly, do a lot more than liaising.

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

#96

Post by ktRolster »

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…

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.

Because managers up a level have no other way of knowing if you're being productive or not. So they look and see if people are ferociously typing. This is not a joke.

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

#97

Post by ktRolster »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #74
madaxe_again wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"confounder", ha. In my experience, what does a manager do if there's no one around to manage? And how do employees get recognized for their contributions if there are no managers to track it? It's a catch-22. My thought is that if companies simply paid people as much as they could, all of this would go away. You wouldn't even _need_ managers anymore. One of managers' more important roles, liaising between department…

In my experience, what does a manager do if there's no one around to manage?

Deal with weird interpersonal issues of members on the team. Seriously, if you've never been a manager before, it will shock you some of the childish things people complain to you about.

I do agree with you that the ideal is to have the team be self-managing, but there is usually some maturing that needs to happen among the team to reach that goal.

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

#98

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

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…

> 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.

Don't be at a loss. Political games (or politics) are best played in person. It's the reason for campaign trails among other things.

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

#99

Post by cowpewter »

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?

Yeah, if you're consistently crashing after lunch, you should probably have your blood sugar checked. High blood sugar will make you sleepy and brain foggy and crave a nap. The earlier you catch diabetes, the easier it is to prevent complications in the future by modifying your diet to include less sugar.

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

#100

Post by nawitus »

maxwelljoslyn wrote: post #73
superuser2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The 3pm crash" is well documented and extremely common. Personally, I set up my schedule so I am not trying to do intellectual work between 3 and 4. Eat a snack, walk to the Starbucks down the street, go to the gym, take a boring meeting - anything, and then resume programming when my body is ready (usually around 4/4:30). The Spanish have siestas. There is nothing wrong with you - this is human nature. It's in the…

The Chinese also practice the afternoon nap. Lunch break at work in China is two hours: one for eating, one for sleeping. White-collar workers all get this long of a break. As for blue-collar, I don't know if factory workers do, but it certainly applies to shop owners, street vendors, and many moped/tricycle drivers.

Where do they sleep?
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