
Which Cities Sleep in, and Which Get to Work Early - adamnemecek
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/which-cities-sleep-in-and-which-get-to-work-early/
======
jasonkester
It varies a lot more by country.

I once rode a long distance bus in Vietnam that arrived in a remote part of
Danang late at night. One of the people I'd met on the bus invited me to stay
at his house for the night. Awesome experience, until he woke me up at 5:00
am.

He was in his suit, waiting for me to get up and leave so he could go to work.
He'd already given me an hour to be polite, but now he was quite late for work
and really needed to get going.

Contrast that to my experience trying to find somebody to sell me a cup of
coffee at 9:00 am on a Monday in Finland. Nobody was even planning to open
until 10.

~~~
sillysaurus3
It's pretty awesome that you've seen so much of the world. I've never been out
of America. Which country would you recommend visiting first?

~~~
lancewiggs
Canada or Mexico. Keep it simple, affordable and doable. And just go.
(Assuming by America you mean the USA) Else English speaking first world, (UK,
NZ) then change one of those things at a time as you gain experience.

~~~
freshyill
Most of Northern and western Europe are pretty easy for someone who only
speaks English too. An English speaker would have little trouble getting by in
Germany, Netherlands, Denmark, or Sweden, and probably a lot more countries as
well.

The languages are even similar enough that if you pick up a travel
dictionary/phrasebook, you could probably even do it without bothering the
locals too much.

------
ultimoo
SF starting at 8:17 a.m. caught me a little by surprise. I work in SF and have
a few friends who work at different companies (20-somethings and
30-somethings, working in tech).

Almost everyone I know comes in to work sometime from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
The Caltrains reaching SF from 9:05 to 9:30 are generally packed, so are the N
and KT muni lines; so I am guessing it isn't only my social circle that starts
their day early.

Of course I know a few people who start their day at 8:00 a.m. but it came to
me as a complete surprise that the average is 8:17 a.m.

~~~
edoloughlin
_SF starting at 8:17 a.m. caught me a little by surprise. I work in SF and
have a few friends who work at different companies (20-somethings and
30-somethings, working in tech).

Almost everyone I know comes in to work sometime from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m._

I think you've captured the essence of the HN bubble in three sentences.

~~~
Shivetya
since I am obviously not of that type, I am curious why the late start? I have
always been of the sort to start early and finish early. There is so much
wonderful time to spend outdoors and with friends, especially in summer hours.

We make jokes around here about getting out in time to get caught by school
buses or beat the kids home which results in having nearly half the day in
sunlight.

~~~
ANTSANTS
Not everyone is an early riser. I can guarantee you that being an early riser
and having some time to kill in the mornings is less of a problem than being a
late riser and never getting enough sleep because your stupid job mandates you
get in early to keep up appearances.

~~~
eshvk
You have to keep appearances everywhere. I have worked in tech for three years
across two different cities now. An old grad school habit of mine that has
carried over is waking up insanely early, getting to work and getting my shit
done and getting out around five. I have never had a job where I haven't got
shit for being the guy who leaves work on the clock at five when everyone is
going for their first burrito of the night.

------
chrisBob
The place I have seen with the strongest custom about work hours is Japan. I
spent a few days in Tokyo, and everyone always talks about the famous "Tokyo
Rush Hour", so we got up early and went for a walk through the city. My wife
and I went and looked at the fish market at about 7:30, and had breakfast
around 8 and the streets were empty. At about 8:20 there were a few people
out, but not many. Then around 8:30 it started to get crowded. By 8:40 the
streets were packed, people were cramming cheek to cheek on the subway, and we
had to find an out of the way place to watch so that we didn't get trampled.

Then, at 9am, everything went silent. The intersections that were filled with
people a few minutes earlier were vacant, and you could see just one or two
other people on the street, like a women carrying her shoes and sprinting down
the sidewalk, for example.

Japan has a very strict society, and it appears that part of that is 90% of
the people have to show up at work at _exactly_ 9am, and not a minute earlier
or later. I would much rather show up a half hour early and enjoy one of the
easiest commutes of any major city.

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pedalpete
Interesting anecdote living in Sydney Australia. I'm from Canada, and was
speaking to a friend who moved here from the UK. Going to work here people say
"what did you do this morning?" seems like a strange question in most other
places I've lived as the answer would be "I brushed my teeth and stumbled into
work", but here, everybody is out doing something in the morning. Running,
swimming, surfing, apparently even shopping. A very different beast in deed.

~~~
HenryMc
I recently moved to Melbourne from Christchurch, NZ. I've been living pretty
close to the freeway to the CBD, and it surprises me how early in the morning
traffic starts building. Two days a weeks I have to be up by 6:30, and by that
time there are already traffic jams.

I wonder whether because of the warmer climate, people don't have such a
problem with getting up early. In a Christchurch winter (I'm sure it's the
same in most of Canada) it will certainly be below 0°C at 6:30. The record low
for Melbourne city is only -2.8°C, versus -7.1°C for Christchurch.

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brunnsbe
At my workplace in Helsinki, Finland we have a flex time. You can come in
between 7.00 and 10.00 in the morning and leave between 15.00 and 18.00.
Meetings are allowed only between 10-15 if otherwise not agreed with the
participants. The time spans are set by Finnish law which says that you need
to be working at least 5h per day and max 10h, overtime must separately be
agreed with your manager. Some of our coders come in at around 8 in the
morning, others at 10.

~~~
laxatives
Interesting that this is basically the de jure practice of my company (in the
US) as well. I think a few meetings are outside that frame, but only to sync
with global offices.

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murbard2
New York is all the way to the east of its timezone, which may explain why it
starts "late". There are two effects at play here. 1)the official time, which
affects hours of operations for businesses 2)the mean solar time, which
affects sleeping cycles

What you'd want is to predict starting time as a function of the difference
between these variables and _then_ rank the cities by their residuals.

~~~
zxexz
Boston, too. I wonder if Nate thought about this at all...I'd be surprised if
he didn't...

------
cwal37
I thought it would be interesting to see what the commute time trends look
like for cities on each end of the arrival times (early vs. late), so I
grabbed some data from the Census Bureau and guessed at rough metro areas
(since Nate doesn't clarify what each one consists of, could be MSA, could be
city limits, etc.) using county-level data.

I only took the top 5 metros on each end because I had to do a fair chunk of
this by hand and I wasn't feeling doing any more. I also threw in a bar of
relative densities just for fun.

Here are those results (pardon my excel, for it was not worth opening IDLE):
[http://imgur.com/a/qCmwB](http://imgur.com/a/qCmwB)

A couple notes:

1\. Big cities are certainly skewing this, both in terms of traffic issues and
population density.

2\. My metro areas could be totally wrong.

3\. This is only calculating the commute of people within the areas I defined,
while the article is talking about arrival time at work in (hopefully) the
same areas.

4\. Yes, I have the word "Average" too many times in the title of the first
graph, sorry.

Still, I think the graph paints a neat picture of opposite trends.

------
danohuiginn
You could likely better understand this by looking at electricity consumption
data. i.e. people use less electricity when they are asleep.

I know a lot of this data is publicly available for the UK
([http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php](http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/index.php)).
Presumably you could get something similar for the USA, perhaps via
[https://www.smartgrid.gov/](https://www.smartgrid.gov/)

------
dingaling
There wasn't really any evidence provided in this article that the late-start
cities 'sleep in'. Perhaps people in SF just enjoy a leisurely breakfast on
the balcony, watching the Sun rise, rather than rushing into the office?

Personally I have to be up at 05:30 to take care of the dog / kids / housework
/ exercise / have some personal time but don't start work until 11:00.

Better to have the bright mornings to myself than the dark evenings when I'm
tired.

------
hengheng
It's be interesting to compare these results to apparent time, e.g. the offset
between what the watch says and the position of the sun. I'd wager these
distributions would overlap a lot more if you based them on apparent time, and
I'd suspect a strong correlation between the outliers in this study and the
offset between apparent time and wall time.

------
ekianjo
Too bad this is only US centric, I would have liked to see a similar kind of
comparison between major cities around the world.

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Elepsis
I wish the article went more in depth on potential causes.

I suspect the dominant factor is the expectations of the largest industries in
the city, but that's only mentioned for military towns.

To give an example: as a Seattleite, I was initially surprised to see how much
earlier the average starting time is compared to San Francisco or San Jose.
However, I think the relatively early start times at, say, Boeing are an
effective offset to the later start times at Microsoft and Amazon, and this
likely accounts for most of the difference.

------
Serow225
Interesting that it mentioned Bakersfield California as one of the early
risers... I lived there for a while and worked in the oil industry, and the
parking lot was full by 7:30. I had a ton of meetings at 7:00, and 6:00 ones
too. My boss started work at 5:00 and left by 2:00. I figured a lot of it was
because the operator shift change was at 6AM, so people were just used to the
idea that the work day starts early. Plus it gets darn hot in the afternoons
in Bakersfield :)

------
blueskin_
Those hours sound horrible. Over here (UK), 9 is fairly common, 8 is an
'early' common start, and many other people have 8.30, unless you work in
retail or something. No way I'd do anything before 8 as that is a struggle
enough.

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NAFV_P
Most jobs occur during the day, but would data on night workers reveal
anything? It is still a significant slice of the workforce, often in vital
areas:

    
    
      Medical staff working long shifts
      Firemen
      Security guards, military personnel and police
      Bar and pub staff
      Cleaners
      Heavy industry such as car manufacturing
      Astronomers and astronauts
    

My grandfather worked as a steeplejack at Port Talbot in South Wales. The
steel mill there followed the European shift: 06:00 - 14:00, 14:00 - 22:00,
22:00 - 06:00. There would have been very little variance in starting times,
the work load was simply too high. Sometimes my grandfather would spend a
whole shift working in the furnace, wearing a hot, sweaty protective suit.
After the shift, if the pubs were still open, he would line up four pints of
beer on the bar and down them all within about five minutes.

EDIT: made the list more, readable.

~~~
Guvante
The problem is you almost need to consider 100% coverage jobs as a separate
category. Late shift starting time is more decided based on when they want the
early shift coming in than their own preferences.

Similarly for "after hours" jobs such as cleaners or pub staff. They are
required to start after everyone leaves so kind of get limited based on that
(although that is only a one sided limit, so you could see if some started
later).

However I think you do have a point, there are a significant number of jobs
where this is still valuable, such as those that want heavy coverage but
overlap shifts enough for there to be flexibility, or jobs that want night
time (vs after hours) such as astronomy.

------
hristov
A lot of new yorkers owe their life because they did not get too early to work
on 9/11\. This number includes a friend of mine that was in a subway train on
the way to the towers when the attack happened. Luckily the train stopped
short of its destination.

------
jonemo
I always thought only the Germans are crazy to start work (and school)
extremely early in the day. Turns out it's the same in the US but I've only
lived in two of the top 5 cities on that list (Ithaca, NY and SF Bay Area)...

~~~
junto
By starting the day early, Germans start 'Feierabend' earlier too. It isn't
uncommon for people in full time jobs to finish at 4:30pm, giving them time to
enjoy the end of the daylight.

That being said, I live in Germany but work UK hours, which means I start at
9:30-10am and finish after 6:30pm local time. I have a vitamin D deficiency.
Go figure!

------
pyrrhotech
10 to 4 with a one hour lunch is my preferred working hours if I'm going to be
selling my labor to someone else at least. Unfortunately, American culture
doesn't agree with me. Perhaps I should move to France :)

------
freshyill
I'd like to see this adjusted for types of work. Comparing the people sitting
in offices to the people working in the service industry, flipping eggs or
handing out newspapers, can probably skew things considerably.

------
chrisBob
I bet the industry makes a lot of difference too. I worked in an MDF factory
in North Carolina for a while, and everyone there agreed on 0700 to 1530 for
the standard work day. My impression is that people with desk jobs like to
sleep in a little later.

Now, as a graduate student in Boston I get in by 0730 every day mostly to
avoid traffic. If I sleep in by a half hour it takes twice as long to get to
work.

~~~
cafard
In the old days, when any moderately sized city had at least two newspapers,
it was common to find a conservative morning paper for the white collar folks,
who read it over breakfast, and a liberal one for the factory workers, who
read it once they got home. (Liberal and conservative here being defined
economically.)

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dalek2point3
I wanted to point out out that the source of the data is pretty limited. There
must be a better way to do this -- eg. looking at sybway traffic, internet
searches? I dunno, something that would pick up signals from more people and
do so on a global scale rather than the national scale. Surely we think the
global variation is more interesting than the national one.

------
saraid216
Oddly relevant is a city that's explicitly designed around sleep:

[http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2014/02/town-s-
build...](http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2014/02/town-s-building-
life-around-sleep/8312/)

------
epaladin
How many of these people get to work early and then talk over coffee for three
hours?

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inthefray
SF sounds so great ... get up late to a leisurely breakfast served to you by
others before communing with nature. The rest of the world is really missing
out.

------
anentropic
7:30am...?! fuck that

~~~
mhurron
Sometimes it's amazing if I'm out of bed by 7:30.

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icantthinkofone
I know he's talking about averages but his story can confuse you when he talks
about when people start work and when they arrive.

I'm immediately suspect of his numbers when he says the typical starting time
in St. Louis is 7:50AM. I've lived in St. Louis all my life and only had one
short-lived job that started before 8AM. Every other job I had started at 8AM
to 8:30AM. I don't know anyone who has a normal, every day job that starts
earlier than that and I wouldn't even think to call someone at their business
earlier than that.

~~~
_delirium
There are plenty of restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stories, and schools in
St. Louis that open before 8am, and they make up a substantial proportion of
St. Louis's total employment, as do other early-rising occupations like
construction and healthcare. I could believe that corporate office jobs
typically start around 8:00 to 8:30, but the median could still be earlier
than that if you include all jobs.

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area51org
Why on earth does the time you start work matter? Are we showing up in suits
and ties, too? Or is this about actually getting business done?

~~~
enjo
I always find it bizarre to see harsh reactions to interesting data. It
doesn't seem very hacker-like to me. Isn't it enough just to be interesting
data? Maybe you can spot patterns here that help you understand the types of
industry in a city. Or some kind of collective cultural phenomenon. Who knows?
That's why data is fun!

Oh, and many people still go to work in a suit every day. They even like it
that way.

~~~
greggman
It's not just data though it's a judgement.

See the titles of the charts "Not getting the worm" / "Getting the worm".

The data is interesting. For me, all other things being equal, I'd prefer a
later start, 10am ~ 11am. Being in video games I've worked at companies that
effectively started as late as 2pm :P

~~~
vog
_> "Not getting the worm" / "Getting the worm"_

Yeah, I would have preferred "Getting the cheese" / "Getting the worm".

(Referring to the old saying: The early bird gets the worm, but the second
mouse gets the cheese.)

