A contrarian take on working long hours
allisonpickens.substack.com
A contrarian take on working long hours
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Re: A contrarian take on working long hours
#2I think this is a pretty mainstream view, not sure it would be considered contrarian at this point. Not to say it means that everyone has moved on from a culture of long hours. But I'd say quality over quantity is a pretty easy sell nowadays, the harder question is how to get to quality. Long hours seem more like the thing to do when you don't know what else to do.
Re: A contrarian take on working long hours
#3It's literally the mainstream view...
Re: A contrarian take on working long hours
#4I think this is a pretty mainstream view, not sure it would be considered contrarian at this point. Not to say it means that everyone has moved on from a culture of long hours. But I'd say quality over quantity is a pretty easy sell nowadays, the harder question is how to get to quality. Long hours seem more like the thing to do when you don't know what else to do.
Since I started working for myself, I do find periods of time where long hours are the norm. Most of the time I stick to a more regular schedule, but when I was building an MVP I put in long hours because taking a break meant having to re-learn how all the code went together. Once I had made the various breakthroughs, I backed off again.
Then later, when working with our first customers I found myself working long hours again.
Now I've backed off again somewhat.
So I don't think it's necessarily "when you don't know what else to do", for me it was driven by either not wanting to miss an opportunity or trying to hit some deadline.
Most of the time now I can choose when to do that, and often find it's more productive to be contemplative about things like new features rather than doing them in a hurry and having to do more refactoring later on. Then again, in some parts of your business cycle you simply don't have that luxury.
Re: A contrarian take on working long hours
#5It's literally the mainstream view...
Yeah this article definitely makes Silicon Valley look like a huge bubble - to the point where one feels "terrified" to write a post saying "maybe long working hours is unnecessary".
Re: A contrarian take on working long hours
#6I think this is a pretty mainstream view, not sure it would be considered contrarian at this point. Not to say it means that everyone has moved on from a culture of long hours. But I'd say quality over quantity is a pretty easy sell nowadays, the harder question is how to get to quality. Long hours seem more like the thing to do when you don't know what else to do.
Since I started working for myself, I do find periods of time where long hours are the norm. Most of the time I stick to a more regular schedule, but when I was building an MVP I put in long hours because taking a break meant having to re-learn how all the code went together. Once I had made the various breakthroughs, I backed off again. Then later, when working with our first customers I found myself working long ho…
That's fine when working for yourself, you clearly stand to gain by putting in longer hours from time to time.
I recently resigned from a job where it was becoming clear the business wanted to set unrealistic deadlines and just expected devs to work extra to meet them. This company didn't offer shares or even have a bonus structure in place.
It is not ok to expect your employees to work extra to meet your (frankly unreasonable) deadlines when they don't even stand to gain anything from it.
Re: A contrarian take on working long hours
#7Bragging about the long hours you work is a (ironically low effort) way many people self-promote how valuable/important they are. I've noticed these people often do not mention exact what they've accomplished with all these hours, just the hours themselves are mentioned.
Re: A contrarian take on working long hours
#8I think this is a pretty mainstream view, not sure it would be considered contrarian at this point. Not to say it means that everyone has moved on from a culture of long hours. But I'd say quality over quantity is a pretty easy sell nowadays, the harder question is how to get to quality. Long hours seem more like the thing to do when you don't know what else to do.
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Re: A contrarian take on working long hours
#9Outside of a certain circle that's described in the post, I think "working too many hours has diminishing returns in the short term and big problems in the long term" is pretty mainstream.
But I haven't seen other people promoting "take short hours as a positive signal and long hours as a negative signal for making investment decisions" like this post. It's usually more "that's not sustainable" then "that's a sign you might not have exactly the right fit."
I think that's a fairly novel take and worth further thought.
Re: A contrarian take on working long hours
#10I'm at a FAANG where people work really long hours (working on weekends/till 8 pm at night on weekdays are a normal occurrence) and we have some execs that really value butts-in-seats/gotta be in the office type mentality and are very excited for return to office.
I struggled with the culture for a long time because I naturally don't feel inclined to be in a distraction riddled office or work long hours. I find the stuff I work on outside of my job to be more interesting. I realized that the way I want to add value is by working smarter and by continuously focusing on high-leverage projects. If I get ostracized or penalized for not working long hours then so be it. I figure that I could always switch to a different team or company.
I'm glad the author is writing about this and I hope more places move away from glorifying working long hours.