
 40 Hour Work Weeks Suck - wglb
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hugh3
I work 40 hour weeks. Nine to five. I got into the habit when I started my
PhD, because I knew that if I _didn't_ force myself to work to a certain
schedule, I'd probably slack off.

If I only worked when I _felt_ like it, on what I felt like working on, I
would never have finished my thesis because, _heck_ , who wants to do
proofreading when you could be at the beach? And if I ate whatever I felt
like, whenever I felt like eating it, I'd weigh three hundred pounds.

Anyway, the point of the story: if someone forced me to work nine to five, I'd
probably hate it. But since I get to pick my own hours, I've picked nine to
five.

~~~
lionhearted
Have you ever tried going earlier? If you want to do eight hours, try out
4:30AM to 12:30PM sometime. It's hard to stick on it (you've got to be
disciplined about going to bed early), but it's great for getting things done
while it's still super quiet and peaceful out, and it's awesome having
completed the workday at lunchtime.

~~~
rhizome
That's a good schedule for someone who doesn't really want to do things when
other people do them. I think it would be like if there was a such thing as
being a time-vegan.

------
wccrawford
"People who hate their jobs often work 40 hours weeks, why be one of them?"

Working 40 hours doesn't make you one of them. It's not even a symptom of the
real problem.

I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job. And I loved my last job. And I liked
all the jobs before that. That's because I have pride in doing my job well,
I've worked for people who appreciate it (even if that sometimes means the
customer, and not my boss), and general have a good disposition towards
getting things done.

There are things I dislike, like red tape, but in general, I accept them as
part of the process so that I can get to the good stuff, like coding the
backend of a complicated system.

~~~
cryptoz
> I work 40 hours weeks, and love my job.

Do you work exactly 40 hours? As in, start and 9am, leave at 5pm and never
arrive early or leave late? Never a week of 41 hours? Because if I worked at a
job I absolutely loved - as you describe - I would probably choose to work 50
or 60 hours. I think that the assumption here is that if you work 40 hours,
you're probably doing it because that's what is expected of you and you're not
willing to put in more.

It seems unlikely that most people who like their jobs so much would actually
stop at 40 hours.

~~~
acheron
If you're talking about working for yourself (that is, working for customers),
then sure, that makes sense.

If you're working for someone else who is paying you specifically to work 40
hours, then there's no reason to work more than that unless you consider your
time worthless.

~~~
jamesbritt
That's the difference between really liking your job and really liking the
money your job provides.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
I can really like my job and really like my family, hobbies and down time
_even more_...

------
kemiller
This seems like the perspective of someone without spouse and kids. Which is
fine, and I don't even disagree. But there are people for whom (and phases of
life in which) a steady pace is not a bad thing at all, and not necessarily
indicative of hating your job.

~~~
amjith
He is a professor at the University of Utah, married with two kids. I think
his post represents a set of people who work hard and play hard.

When you are passionate about your work, it's very hard to keep it within
40hrs/week. So your weeks look like periodic bursts of intense work
interleaved with excursions and vacations.

You don't have to be single without kids to have that lifestyle.

~~~
infinite8s
You do have to have a spouse willing to pick up the slack for you (kids don't
function in burst mode - especially in the early years they need the
familiarity of a regular routine). Although it is possible if you work a
regular 9-5 and then continue working for a few more hours after the kids are
sleeping.

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abbasmehdi
This article does not take into account that what happens _after_ that weeek.
A week of spent _with family, outdoors, video game spree, hacking spree_ with
no distractions all sound great, but when did the author come back to doing
the same thing again, over and over again? For instance, when did he/she feel
like spending another full, uninterrupted week with family/on the beach? Also,
how long can you keep repeating the @ 90 hr week?

Yea binging works, only when it is a once in a while thing. But if you have a
business, and customers, and a code base, and a team - shit is ongoing, you
just can't get things _over with_.

Think of it like food. Can you eat a week's worth of food and not come back?
If you have a child (a company is like a baby always keen to hurt itself), can
you dress them up once for the rest of the year?

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sbov
This post seems to be missing the point. When people say they work 80 hours a
week, they don't mean 80 hours one week, then 0 the next. They mean 80 hours,
then 80 hours, then 80 hours, then 80 hours... That is primarily what the
linked posts seem to be talking about avoiding.

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blakehill
Since I think we all agree the post is kind of missing the point, let me ask
it like this: He said he liked working a 90 hour week hacking away when he was
in grad school. Is it possible to have a hacking spree that is only 40 hours a
week and get the best of both worlds; spending the other 40 hours outdoors or
with your family?

I guess maybe this guy is the type of person who is all or nothing. We know
everyone's different in this way. But to really be devoted to a project and
getting it out the door, do you have to work 80 hours a week for 3 months so
you can ship, or can you work 40 hours a week for 6 months?

I have some thoughts, but I'm curious as to what others think.

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john_b
Saying that 20 hour and 60 hour weeks, depending on the situation, are better
than 40 hour weeks ignores one very common and important case: when the work
is boring but important. The author seems to assume that 20 hour weeks can
solve all boring work, but they can only really solve boring and unimportant
work. If it's important and boring, you'll probably need to spend more than 20
hours a week on it. I'll stereotype a little here and guess that the author
might be like a lot of professors I know, in that he assumes that boring work
is the definition of unimportant work.

But sometimes you need to get some boring thing done and it just takes a
while. It may not be fun, but in those cases it really helps to have the rock
solid habits and discipline that come with a regular work schedule (whatever
it is) to fall back on.

~~~
tikhonj
Or you could try to minimize, delegate and automate the boring work away as
much as possible.

Of course, this really depends on what exactly you're working on and what you
find boring, but I think there are almost always alternatives to most boring
work in professions like programming.

I might think this just because I find almost every facet of development
interesting now--I like designing and programming, but I also usually enjoy
testing, debugging, polishing and sometimes even just maintaining/refactoring.
And because I'm probably not nearly as disciplined as you so I grab at any
excuse to not do boring work ;)

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tmh88j
I feel like these types of articles where the author attempts a deft
explanation as to why work isn't work when you enoy it, are just annoying.

Surely as engineers, hackers, tech-minded people, we all know what the
definition of work is. Nowhere in the definition of work does emotion come
into play (unless your job description is to achieve a specific emotion).

This reminds me of a high school teacher of mine who used to heckle the
football players asking them why they lifted weights and would say they're not
actually accomplishing work(unless you're deadlifting, I guess). Most of them
didn't understand which made it even more amusing.

~~~
Jach
I'd imagine most high-school level physics teachers make those kind of jokes,
I know mine did. I never really liked them, or things like this:
<http://xkcd.com/123/> Regarding the jocks, they're still struggling with the
fact that words don't have meanings, as properties of the words themselves;
let alone the secondary problem of the same word having drastically different
meanings.

------
mcantor
I know this is utterly mad, but, maybe some people enjoy working 40 hours per
week, and some people don't.

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stevenp
My personal rule of thumb has always been: "When it stops being fun and starts
being work, it's time to find something new." I try to keep my count at "zero"
hours as much as possible.

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WeWin
A rather confusing post: does the author want to work only 20 hours? Or work
40 hours but be rewarded the same as someone who works 60 hours? Or work 60
hours doing something they love all the time? All of these seem quite
unrealistic but for different reasons.

The 40 hour week was brought to America in 1938, brought about primarily by
unions - the word 'weekend' didn't even exist until the 1870s. Enjoy the
freedom that so many worked so hard to provide you.

~~~
latch
I don't know how you found that post confusing. It's pretty clear: a fixed-
length work-week for any type of creative, rewarding or challenging job isn't
ideal. (I added the creative, rewarding and challenging part, because I'm sure
it's implied).

The op's point is that the freedom you think we ought to enjoy, isn't
freedom...it's a rigid pre-defined template. Real freedom, when it comes to
work-life balance, is working the amount of hours in a week which you want and
is appropriate.

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philwelch
I enjoy intense working binges followed by days of slacking off as much as
anyone, but aside from a handful of jobs you can't get much done that way. 40
hours a week gives you eight hours of rest, eight of work and eight to live
the rest of your life every workday with two days to recharge. That's probably
a fairly sustainable rate.

It's an interesting question what jobs _can_ be done that way. I don't think
many programming jobs can--startups don't seem to allow for the slacking, and
working for someone else probably doesn't have that much flexibility either. I
guess the old days of desktop software were somewhat like that, with intense
crunch periods up to release followed by long stretches of time off after
release. But now that software is released continuously that's gone away.

It's interesting to think of what jobs you can get done that way, though. Off
the top of my head, grad students without assistantship obligations,
filmmakers (in fact, anyone in the filmmaking process), writers, in-demand
freelancers, proprietors of fairly undemanding online businesses, and actual
rock stars all work that way.

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lionhearted
Great post. I worked 30 hours of the last two days, slept 9 hours total, and
spent the other 9 hours in deep relaxation (2 hours getting massage, 2 hours
walking, 2 hours having relaxed nice meals, 3 hours hanging out with my
friends who have a cute newborn baby).

It's been an awesome couple days. Being able to gear up and gear down on
workload is one of the nicest things about running your own show.

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liljimmytables
I work in a very ad-hoc sort of way, but I find the idea of an n-hour work
week very useful. If I work _n+d_ hours and feel exhausted, or I work _n-d_
hours and miss a deadline, I have an immediate and intuitive insight into what
the problem is (the sign) and how big it is (the delta). Essentially it's a
metric that I don't have to think too hard about.

I don't work rigid hours. My n-hours approach is a patch for the otherwise
vague system in which I do stuff. And I (at least theoretically) don't beat
myself up if d gets too large in either direction; if I'm overworking it's a
sign that my planning process is out of whack, and if I'm underworking it's a
sign that I need to find a way to get motivated or get out.

I view these "do x" blog posts as interesting things to try based on other
people's life experience. It might not work for everyone, but I wouldn't pull
the "x sucks" card because it's a pretty subjective problem.

------
yuhong
Measuring work in terms of hours is fine for some jobs, but not others like
programming. But the main problem is that most of them are using fear-based
top-down command and control and treating people as dumb automata, which is
basically suitable only for industrial manufacturing (the term "corporate
drone" was created for a reason).

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hkarthik
Once you start to have more of a personal/family life, the 40 hour (or
slightly more) work week becomes a lot more essential.

Kids need more consistent time from you, they can't take 20 hours one week and
zero hours the next. Same with spouses/significant others.

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rdtsc
> If I’m working on interesting things, 40 hours is not enough. If I’m working
> on boring things, 40 hours is far too many.

If you like you can always work more. You enjoy it after all. Hopefully you
work in a place where that will be noticed and will be rewarded with
promotions and bonuses.

If you _consistently_ work on boring things, then it might be a sign that
something else is wrong and you need to find a new project, new company.

Some companies have 40 hours but they are flexible, can come in anytime, work
from home if needed. It is good though to have core hours when most people are
in (say 11 to 3 or something like that).

~~~
comm_it
> If you like you can always work more.

This is what I came here to mention.

I could quite easily coast along and pull the bare minimum in 40 hour work
weeks, but I thoroughly enjoy what I do, and 50 hour weeks are the norm for me
now, out of choice.

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cateye
40 hour work week was a reaction on the employers with too much power. They
pushed their employers to work beyond their physical health limits. As a rule,
a more balanced work structure was introduced that protected both partys on
the long run.

There have been a lot of research about most productive work rythm. But it
differs a lot depending on the kind of work. But 40 hours is a general avarage
for most people.

The end conclusion is, depending on the work and your personal context, you
have to find a balanced life where.

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gawker
There's always a point where we all feel bored about a job - even if we love
the job. I think the challenge is trying to find things that you love within
your current job and it helps guide towards something you feel more passionate
about. Bad job or good job - I think there's always something you can learn
about yourself. A job is just something that you do that helps you figure out
yourself.

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dilap
A lot of this comes down to personal preference.

But for me, it really resonates. I'd really like to try a job where I worked,
say, 60 hours one week, and zero the next. (Yeah, that's not quite a full-time
average.) And, let's say, every 5th month worked every week, and took the next
month as vacation.

I think I could actually be really productive this way, but I've never had the
chance to try it.

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kapilkaisare
I recall reading someplace recently that it isn't about working only eight
hours a day before rushing home, but rather about doing as much as you can in
eight hours before devoting the remainder of your time to other pursuits you
may find meaningful.

There are so many interesting things in the world; how can you shut yourself
out to all of them but one?

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kingkawn
it's not about amount of time, it's circumstance. When doing independent
projects I regularly put in 80 hours a week. That's fine, it's my own schedule
and decision. 40 hours having a supervisor breathing down your neck sucks, but
5 hours of having a supervisor breathing down your neck does too. The amount
of time is irrelevant.

~~~
zerostar07
That's true. Also i don't understand how a week with family or a week outdoors
_never_ gets boring.

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xarien
I see a lot of posts disagreeing with the OP in one form or another and I
think I know why. It takes a bit of OCD and a dash of perfectionism to
emphasize with the OP. Unfortunately, I know exactly how the OP feels.

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dendory
My ideal work week is 1-2 hours a week!

Seriously though, 40 hours doesn't have to mean 9-5. It could be 6pm to
midnight, 7 days a week.

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kai-zer
40 hours a week sounds great!

