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"Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

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Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#91

Post by mellery451 »

T-hawk wrote: post #49
dave_sullivan wrote: post #9

I know a lot of people who seem to like working long hours. It allows them to think they're getting more done, but I suspect that many of the processes involved could be optimized if they thought about it a bit. For me, I work long hours but it's spread out over the course of a day (so removing breaks/bs it's probably not much more than 40 hours p/wk), and I love what I do, so I do get a lot done (and it feels less l…

I've known at least a few guys who did indeed like working long hours in the office, since that was less stressful than going home to a house full of cranky kids at bedtime. One co-worker even relished his 1.5 hour commute as the only relaxing parts of his day. I often like to hang around the office to take care of personal business-but-not-work stuff between 6 and 7 pm. Things like personal finance, doing accounting…

I would call that selfish (avoiding the kids at home, that is). Sure, there are plenty of days I'd probably just rather hole-up in my cube and code late into night, but I don't because it's more important that I be an engaged parent. It's not like my kids are going to get a do-over on childhood.

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#92

Post by ptman »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #18

To start with working 40 hours in itself is probably too much. I do not have studies to back this up, but I think after 5 working hours it is best you stop for the day.

I have this vague recollection of reading a study that claimed people in research and development should be working around 25 hours per week for best productivity. And I've never been able to find that study after that =( I think it was German. I keep wondering if I dreamed about it...

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#93

Post by MisterMerkin »

edw519 wrote: post #13

What do long hours often represent? Enterprise: Incompetent management, lazy co-workers, and spoiled users. Small Business: Tough competition and limited resources. Startup: Taking advantage of opportunites that may not pass this way again.

Question, what do the long hours that are part of investment banking fall under. I haven't worked in it but might yet so I'm curious. I know there's a lot to do in a short amount of time in terms of the mood of the stock market like a small business, but c'mon, these are smart people, surely they can streamline some of these processes.

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#94

Post by silverlake »

dave_sullivan wrote: post #9

I know a lot of people who seem to like working long hours. It allows them to think they're getting more done, but I suspect that many of the processes involved could be optimized if they thought about it a bit. For me, I work long hours but it's spread out over the course of a day (so removing breaks/bs it's probably not much more than 40 hours p/wk), and I love what I do, so I do get a lot done (and it feels less l…

Law firms are changing. They are moving away from billable hours and towards fixed price contracts. They are making better use of non-partner track lawyers to handle routine stuff, and those lawyers get sane hours and lower salaries.

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#95

Post by chrisbennet »

Duff wrote: post #23

The amusing thing to me is that the question was closed as offtopic. Stackexchange is slowly turning into a Usenet/Wikipedia hybrid.

Um, that's what is supposed to be. It is not a chat room. It's a place to get answers (or give them).

"All questions on Stack Exchange are expected to be objective and have concrete answers; we’re not a place for conversation, opinions, or socializing. We also expect questions to represent real problems, not just imponderables, hypotheticals, or requests for opinions."

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#96

Post by malkia »

MartinCron wrote: post #76
malkia wrote: post #6

This broken process ships a lot of games :(

It ships a lot of derivative and buggy games while chewing up game developers like consumables.

But still makes money, and that seems to matter most for certain people.

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#97

Post by famousactress »

swombat wrote: post #30
edw519 wrote: post #13

What do long hours often represent? Enterprise: Incompetent management, lazy co-workers, and spoiled users. Small Business: Tough competition and limited resources. Startup: Taking advantage of opportunites that may not pass this way again.

That's very succinct, witty, and more or less diametrically opposed to the point of the OP on StackOverflow. Did you read it? :-) He's making the point that regular long hours are always a sign of bad management. I'd tend to agree. Any business can be run in balance with a reasonable lifestyle. If you're working overtime very often on your own business, it's either because you're incompetent, or lazy, or greedy, or f…

I think that's generally true, but let's accept that startups aren't businesses. They're potential businesses. I suppose they fall into the 'failing' category in your example, except that's not very fair.. they haven't had much of a shot yet.

Until something gets off the ground, I wouldn't say working long hours doesn't make you lazy, greedy, incompetent or stupid. That said, it can certainly be counter-productive if done for too long.

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#98

Post by InclinedPlane »

edw519 wrote: post #13

What do long hours often represent? Enterprise: Incompetent management, lazy co-workers, and spoiled users. Small Business: Tough competition and limited resources. Startup: Taking advantage of opportunites that may not pass this way again.

This is the fallacy of long hours. You spend so many hours at work every day and every once in a while you have some late night inspiration or collaborative breakthrough or take advantage of some other opportunity, and then like any gambling addict you associate working long hours with the rewards. You ignore all the costs (stress, family strain, sleep deprivation, lower productivity, higher defect rates, etc.) It's classic confirmation bias.

Add to that the machismo notions that working long hours is working "harder" than otherwise and that working fewer hours shows less commitment and less strength. In reality it takes more focus, more smarts, and more discipline to work shorter hours effectively (sure, you can slack off by working fewer hours, but you can also slack off by working more hours too)

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#99

Post by rick888 »

I've seen this at companies where the boss or manager either doesn't understand the development process or just wants to make money and doesn't care. So you have situations where a feature should take 2 weeks to implement, but they want it in a week (so you need to work extra hours to make up for it).

This is one of the reasons I hate working for other people. If I'm going to be wasting my youth away for something, I'm going to be getting all or the majority of the profits.

Re: "Any time you have worked long hours, it is a sign of a broken process."

#100

Post by nostrademons »

webwright wrote: post #46
swombat wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very succinct, witty, and more or less diametrically opposed to the point of the OP on StackOverflow. Did you read it? :-) He's making the point that regular long hours are always a sign of bad management. I'd tend to agree. Any business can be run in balance with a reasonable lifestyle. If you're working overtime very often on your own business, it's either because you're incompetent, or lazy, or greedy, or f…

"If you're working overtime very often on your own business, it's either because you're incompetent, or lazy, or greedy, or failing (see 'incompetent')." Of all of the successful people I've met (measured in cash, influence, etc), I can't think of ANY who weren't pretty seriously married to their work. I guess many of those people fall into the "greedy" camp and are doing it for the money. But I think most of them do…

I can think of a few with ~$1B net worth that still find time to indulge their passions and still remain a regular human being.

The people I know who are highly successful work hard, and they take their work seriously. But they don't let their work consume them. There is still time for hobbies, passions, and human relationships once all the code has been written.

Continuous improvement, seeking out things you're doing wrong and fixing them, and generally paying attention to what you're doing and why you're doing it tend to trump raw hours any day.

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