Working hours: Get a life

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/working-hours

by deusclovis • 13 years ago

98 160 13 years ago

henrik_w• 13 years ago

Related: Bring back the 40-hour work week. 150 years of research proves that long hours at work kill profits, productivity and employees: http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_...

capisce2• 13 years ago

Let's not stop there: http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/21-hours

toomuchtodo10• 13 years ago

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/rauch/worktime/

"An average worker needs to work a mere 11 hours per week to produce as much as one working 40 hours per week in 1950. (The data here is from the US, but productivity increases in Europe and Japan have been of the same magnitude.) The conclusion is inescapable: if productivity means anything at all, a worker should be able to earn the same standard of living as a 1950 worker in only 11 hours per week. "

pstack4• 13 years ago

If working fewer hours is better and increasing minimum wage is better, I don't see why we take stupid baby-steps? Why don't we just have a five hour work-week with a minimum of $500/hr?

arjunnarayan• 13 years ago

Not so fast:

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/12/low-status-workers-are...

EliRivers3• 13 years ago

40 hours? I'm guessing that's a US thing. I'd have to be really, really desperate before I did that many hours a week.

StavrosK• 13 years ago

The 8-hour workweek is pretty standard everywhere, where are you?

pstack4• 13 years ago

Yeah, it's one of those "evil US exceptionalism" things, where Americans work a heck of a lot. If you're working less than 40hrs/wk, you're working part-time. In most professional/knowledge type industries (tech of all kinds, at the least) 40hrs is a day-dream that people would love to work, rather than the 50-100 they actually work.

Of course, this is presuming you hate work. I spend more than a third of my life doing it and it's something I really enjoy. A man is defined by his hard/smart work.

The typical work-day in the US starts at 8am and ends at 5pm. Throw in at least an hour or two for commute in the morning and an hour or two for commute in the evening. Possibly throw in some work-from-home after you kick off your shoes and walk through the door at home, too.

nhangen23• 13 years ago

Working 40 hours per week would kill me. For me, work IS learning, and writing code is no different than a paintbrush on canvas.

The only thing that will turn my brain off is some sort of lean back entertainment, such as TV or video games. Otherwise, why read about how to do something when I can practice it?

It's a fallacy to believe that work and play can't be the same thing.

piyush_soni2• 13 years ago

Exactly. When people shout it online "Get a life", they really don't understand for some people the work we do might really be fun, as horse riding, gambling, or drinking and dancing in pubs is for them.

polskibus• 13 years ago

Just beware blurring the line - it's sometimes first step towards burnout. I wanted to give a reference, here's an article from forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/learnvest/2013/04/01/10-signs-yo...

There are studies that show that work preoccupation outside working ours can be a sign of burnout (incoming or undergoing). I know it's great to love your job, that's what flow state is all about, but there can be a darker side to it as well.

beaumartinez• 13 years ago

Work IS learning [...] it's a fallacy to believe that work and play can't be the same thing.

Come on. There's a big difference between being able to decide what to learn and at what pace, and being told by someone else to learn something as soon as possible so as to get work done.

AznHisoka3• 13 years ago

Agreed. Anyone that doesn't believe that either is doing his own gig, has financial independence, or is drinking the Kool-Aid.

segmondy2• 13 years ago

lucky you. what about those that flip hamburgers, janitors, there are lots of work out there that people perform to keep "the system/society" in order, and there is no learning/fun in those jobs. work can be fun, but it's not guaranteed to be fun, that's why it's good to have hobbies and life outside of work. working 40 hours per week will not kill you. people have done so for thousands of years and survived.

nhangen23• 13 years ago

For those people (I used to be one), I agree that 40+ hours is probably not productive unless they want to get ahead and escape that grind. But escaping and having hobbies are generally not compatible.

emiljbs• 13 years ago

Have you ever thought about getting a hobby or two outside of programming? Hobbies are good, they let you learn more about the world and lets you see things through new perspectives.

If you do have hobbies outside of programming, why wouldn't you like to spend some more time on those?

nhangen23• 13 years ago

I have a variety of hobbies. I hit the gym 3-4 days/week. I run 2/3 days/week. I coach 2 soccer teams, have tickets to local NFL team, read books, go out with friends, etc.

That said, the reason I spend more time programming than anything else is because there is no feeling of achievement like the feeling of having built something.

cliveowen• 13 years ago

Well, you write code working on your thing? Then it might be that you enjoy it and you classify it as "play" time. But what if you, like most software engineers, are working on a 20 year-old piece of spaghetti code where your 50 lines function needs to be inserted between pages and pages of complex code written by your grandpa's peers? That is not play, that's not even work, that's a straining effort in futility.

rietta• 13 years ago

It sometimes feels a bit like a exploring a cave with a small flashlight. It's also fun when you start referring to the codebase as a patient. "Well, we can try this approach and see how she responds to it!"

jakejake• 13 years ago

The best part is when the project you're working on is of absolutely zero interest to any of your friends or family so you can't really show anybody your hard work! My current situation is somewhat interesting to the general public, but in the past I've worked on back end system for insurance and health care. Try showing that off to your friends!

codex_irl• 13 years ago

Do you have a wife / kids?

When your with the right women & have some kids, I find it is difficult not to want to get out of work to spend more time with them.

nhangen23• 13 years ago

I have a wife and 3 kids.

workhere-io• 13 years ago

It's a fallacy to believe that work and play can't be the same thing.

It's also a fallacy to believe that the majority of workers are lucky enough to get paid for something they truly think is fun.

NTDF92• 13 years ago

> Working 40 hours per week would kill me. For me, work IS learning

I thought the same when I was in school (a year ago) and was completely into programming and computers. I took all the hard classes and spent 60-70 hours a week studying and doing projects.

But that came at the expense of a social life. Now, I'm in the workforce doing a cool programming job. But, I have exactly no cool friends and no social life to speak of. I had exactly 3 dates in the last year, all leading to nowhere. The loss of social skills and exposure to diverse people (most of my friends are programmers), seems to be quite narrow-minded way to live.

As the old adage goes "Work-life balance: Live to work or work to live"

reledi2• 13 years ago

“There is no real difference between work and play – it's all living.” -Richard Branson

alter_ego• 13 years ago

I would love to see a mandatory scheme whereby employees are free to work more than forty hours per week should they wish to do so, or are required to do so, but overtime payments are guaranteed, on an increasing scale, so by the time the employer has their staff working 100 hours per week they have had to pay more than say 6 weeks salary, possibly 8. This would quickly shake out the bulk of big corps who simply encourage presenteeism and other negative cultures.

nhangen23• 13 years ago

As an employer in the tech industry, I would never hire someone that complained that more than 40 hours/week was too much, and I don't own a Fortune 500 company.

toomuchtodo10• 13 years ago

And hence the need for labor laws to rein in employers.

EDIT: If you don't like the rules, go open a company in another country. The ability to employ people is a privilege, governed by labor laws. You don't make the rules, you simply have to play by them.

capisce2• 13 years ago

Aren't you worried about missing out on the best performing hires then? Why would a person who can pick and choose work at a place where ass-in-seat time is used as a metric?

frenchy• 13 years ago

Would you mind explaining why? I have no problem working overtime if the conditions necessitate, but an employeer with these sorts of opinions is something that I would try hard to avoid.

adeaver2• 13 years ago

I suggest you examine why they are complaining. Are they being forced to work that many hours because of your process? Might want to rethink that.

Do you have so much work that it can't be done with your current staff in 40 hours/week? Hire more.

Is your management so inept that your employees are forced to work more to keep up? Training will help.

Many people will willingly work extra when they need to (trying to squash that one last bug or trying to squeeze in that new feature) but rail when it's expected and demanded for no legitimate reason.

segmondy2• 13 years ago

I would if they worked well, but they will be paid for only the time they worked. I'm kinda not a fan of salary, people slack off, and companies think they can get more productivity by making them work more. However, if you paid them hourly and micromanaged them to hell. You can get more out if you only hire them for 10-20hours a week.

anonymoushn• 13 years ago

It must be terribly expensive to pay overtime every week!

beat2• 13 years ago

As a rational person, I would never (again) work for an employer that regularly insisted on more than 40 hours a week of my time.

Then again, I like to do things other than make money for someone else.

Touche• 13 years ago

Please let us know what company you work for so I can avoid interviewing there.

eterm• 13 years ago

As an employee in the tech industry I would never work for a company that thought more than 40 hours a week was reasonable.

Oh, and I hate clocking in/out, I wouldn't work for a company that time-tracked like that either. Trust me to get the work done, don't worry about my hours.

I won't be an ass and leave at 5pm while there's something that needs to be finished today because "it's my hours" and you don't be an ass if I turn up after 10am.

My current company is great, flexible working hours and a lot of trust around working hours and working conditions. You on the other hand sound like you run a terrible place to be employed.

Edit: "My" as in the company for which I work, I just re-read this and it sounded like I run a company which isn't the case.

bowlofpetunias• 13 years ago

It's a good thing not all employers have this stereotypical exploitative attitude, or socialism would have won a long time ago.

jthol• 13 years ago

I'm an idea guy learning how to code and build better products. I'm the co-founder of Virtuous Giant, where we make WordPress plugins like Ignition Deck, and iPhone apps like Santa Strike.

My passion to work overtime for you is absolutely overflowing! What a visionary! What Ideas! WordPress and Santa Strike!?!? Who wouldn't want to put in 60hrs/wk to be part of something so glorious?

nness• 13 years ago

If we put aside all of the valid concerns about burn-out, work-place satisfaction, work-life balance, buy-in\equity, and flexibility that have been raised here by others, it looks like there is another problem:

It sounds like the effort you require does not match what you can\are happy to spend.

If you need more effort-hours against your development, you need to hire more developers. If you can't afford to hire additional developers, other considerations are necessary. One of which you've explored, and that is to require everyone to work 40+ hour weeks. But as you're seeing here, that's not always desirable.

Its a old-school concept, but the Iron Triangle is always relevant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_triangle.

angersock• 13 years ago

You know, this:

"As an employer in the tech industry, I would never hire someone that complained that more than 40 hours/week was too much"

...may be the cause of this...

"and I don't own a Fortune 500 company."

Toenex• 13 years ago

Are you paying by the hour?

jdavid• 13 years ago

There is more to a person than the hours they spend at work. A whole person has taken the time to consider the grander things in life, they plan ahead and are considerate. They take care of their family and friends, and they participate in the community.

There are companies out there like 37signals that feel that working too many hours a week actually injures productivity. For years I worked at startups working 50-60 hours a week, but recently I started working at a consulting company where I might have 35-40 billable hours a week of work and I have never felt more productive. I think there are ways management can increase productivity without asking people in the information age to work more hours. The truth is, if you are a programmer and you love to solve problems those challenges sit with you after you 'clock-out' you think about them on your commute home and while you prepare dinner while you relax and unwind.

Archenemies even invented volumetric math while in a bath tub, and many people claim to have brilliant ideas in the shower. I think the notion of confining someone to an office or a chair to work is the least productive thing you can do.

Give your team the space to let their mind expand into and inspire them to solve good problems. Focus your efforts on the right tasks and you will see your productivity increase. Provide people with good tools and you can see their craftsmanship improve. Acting as a manager, your job is to tackle the challenges that are holding back your team.

I think a lot of the stagnation of this nation is based on Americans overworking themselves, and in exchange we have sold short our family, friends, and community. We have sacrificed short term gains for the long term security of our culture. Imagine if we had more time to spend in our communities articulating our needs to our peers, working out our differences and solving problems. We would have stronger communities and greater accord with our neighbors. We could become a united nation again that was empathetic with our local needs. We would have the margin and freedom to explore big things as a nation and we could take ownership in what our nation sets out to achieve.

ctdonath4• 13 years ago

Reality has a better scheme: you can quit any time and work somewhere preferable.

ctdonath4• 13 years ago

overtime payments are guaranteed, on an increasing scale

Shades of Dilbert's "I'm gonna write me a new minivan!" http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1995-11-13/

You're encouraging workers to slack their 40 hours to compel the employer to require overtime. National productivity would crash.

Kluny• 13 years ago

I disagree... it would take much more than money to persuade me to spend more than 40 hours a week at the office. And I like my job.

thejteam• 13 years ago

One takeaway from the article is the importance of proper scaling on your graphs. The chart does not convey the real difference between the countries in any meaningful way except pointing out that Korea is an outlier. It should be scaled between 1000 and 2000 (with the caveat that Korea is off the scale) to convey the real difference between the countries. Otherwise it doesn't look at a glance like we work a whole lot more in America.

jessepollak• 13 years ago

I'd be really interested to know what kind of work this analysis is done on. Is it manual labor? Or repetitive data entry? Or writing code? I'd be interested to see a breakdown between these different categories.

On this note, does anyone know the original paper where those graphs came from? I clicked through to the linked paper at the end, but no such graphs appeared.

jmduke• 13 years ago

A big distinction for me is "programming as work" and "programming as play". I can spend eight hours at work and be absolutely drained when I get home, but still leap at the chance to say, take a bite out of my functional programming course (https://www.coursera.org/course/progfun -- it's awesome, and taught by the guy who designed Scala, so he knows a thing or two) because its a completely different context for me, or scroll idly through GitHub issues as I eat dinner.

redblacktree2• 13 years ago

Taking that class now. As a professional developer, it pains me to say: That class is fucking hard. I haven't managed a perfect score on an assignment yet, though I'm still working on Week 2. Good luck to you! It should be a great adventure regardless.

umsm• 13 years ago

After working in front of a computer for 8+ hours a day, you need to have a good work/life balance.

When I get home, I stay away from computers. I even contemplated not having a PC at home.

4hthth43• 13 years ago

I got rid of my TV, but not my computer.

diminoten• 13 years ago

Why must I stop working because other people don't like their jobs? The title tells me to "get a life", but maybe I like working 50 hours a week.

I'm getting incredibly sick of people defensively justifying their own perceived laziness and then trying to tell me to work less. No, I fucking like my job, work is play for me.

pstack4• 13 years ago

As someone who loves his job and loves to work, these articles always strike me as "I'm lazy and want to whine about it, because I would rather be sitting by the side of a pool somewhere, doing nothing".

I'm sure it is a justifiable complaint if your job sucks and you hate everything about it, but the solution is to do what you can to find a better match between what you enjoy and what you do for a living rather than somehow demonizing "too much work". What almost everyone does who is posting here is not digging ditches or flipping burgers for 40hrs per week and we need to quit acting like it is.

Working hours: Get a life

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