
You really don’t need to work so much - sinak
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/you-really-dont-need-to-work-so-much
======
Animats
Much of this is the overhead of competition. Consider athletics. The amount of
training and effort required increases steeply as you approach world-class
performance levels. Yet those levels are maybe 20% beyond reasonable
performance levels. A good high school mile run is 5 minutes; 4 minutes is
world class, and the world record is 3:43:13. The level of effort to get the
last 20% is huge.

Manufacturing isn't like that at all. In manufacturing, if you double your
inputs, you get at least twice as much stuff out, and through economies of
scale, may get more. This works so well that manufacturing employment is only
7% of the US workforce, yet the US produces more stuff than ever. (Yes, even
with importing a lot of stuff.) This also applies to construction, mining, and
agriculture - all the real stuff.

Finance, however, isn't like that at all, because it's mostly zero-sum.
Winning matters. Avoiding losing matters more. In subsystems where winning
matters, there is an incentive to put excessive resources in to avoid losing.
This is also true of advertising, startups in crowded fields, and businesses
with high brand recognition.

The reason people in the US are working so hard is that there's no effective
pushback against this in the zero-sum sectors.

~~~
steilpass
How could an effective pushback look like?

~~~
Animats
Removing most of the exemptions to the overtime requirement of the Fair Labor
Standards Act would be a good start.[1] Bigger penalties for non-compliance,
like triple damages, would help, too.

[1]
[http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs23.pdf](http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs23.pdf)

~~~
hwstar
Exactly. Adopting a world wide standard based on the European Working Time
Directive would be a step in the right direction.

They need to negotiate things like this in trade agreements. Labor standards
need to be the similar worldwide and not be a race to the bottom.

~~~
poikniok
Why would any country agree to this if others do not? And it is a big
advantage to be able to outwork your competitors so there will always be
holdouts.

~~~
hwstar
In the context of a trade agreement.

If they don't agree to harmonized rules, then they aren't part of the trade
agreement, and they pay a tariff on all exported goods to balance it out.

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bkjelden
One thing I haven't seen much of in the Amazon discussion of the last week is
the fact that there is little evidence showing chronically overworked
employees are more productive than well-balanced ones.

Why has every article in the last week assumed that the Amazonians working 80
hr weeks are getting twice the work done? Has every journalist and blogger in
the country collectively forgotten the concept of diminishing returns on hours
worked?

~~~
strathmeyer
If they worked their employees less, the jobs would be more desirable, and
they'd have to pay them more.

~~~
bkjelden
Wouldn't they be able to get away with paying them less, because a more
desirable job has a larger pool of people willing to take it?

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InclinedPlane
One thing that is difficult to appreciate and hasn't been studied much is the
drastic differences between what constitute a "high workload" for manual labor
and for cognitive labor. All of our labor laws and all of our cultural
intuition has been calibrated to manual labor, which leads to incorrect
conclusions when we try to apply those same norms and boundaries to cognitive
labor. You can work less than 40 hours a week and still be overburdened when
it comes to cognitive labor due to the high amount of stress and the
difference in workload capacity.

From my experience and observation I'd say that getting even 4 hours a day for
5 days a week of cognitive labor is near the high end of the normal range of
what might be long-term sustainable. Also, I suspect that people in the tech
industry switch jobs and switch companies on a comparatively short time scale
partly because doing so helps reset the cognitive load burden to some degree.
Partly because often it involves taking a bit of time off in between jobs,
partly because it involves being granted a "grace period" where taking extra
time to get stuff done and being allowed to make mistakes is allowed.

It makes me wonder what a truly "sustainable" environment for software
development or other cognitive work would look like. And how different it
would be from the norms we accept for such work today.

------
lordnacho
Overwork is directly related to the impossibility of measuring performance,
and the cargo cultish attempt to increase output.

Say you're doing some white-collar job, like managing a set of accounts for a
large corporation. In all likelihood, you didn't build that business. You
inherited it from some other guy. You can't say to your boss you're
responsible for 100M in sales, because a good chunk of that would have been
there regardless. There's also the noise: other firms are doing things too,
there's an economy that goes up and down, customer orders may be lumpy. So how
much did you make? Hard to say.

What you can do is to look like you really care.

~~~
ZenoArrow
I agree, performance-led cultures can lead to overwork, but non-performance-
led cultures can do the same. Let's just say I've worked in companies where
the level of bureaucracy and inefficiency has been sizeable... copious amounts
of meetings, work that could easily been handled automatically been done
manually, etc... I didn't say anything because I didn't want anyone to lose
their job, the company was still stable enough to support the people they
employed, and whilst I don't regret that decision, there's no doubt it added
to people being overworked.

~~~
lordnacho
This is true as well. In something like a government bureaucracy things need
to be done in a specific way so that nobody thinks anyone is being favoured,
there's no perception of corruption, and everyone who encounters the system
gets an equal treatment.

In practice it means a lot of procedures that don't seem to make any sense and
a lot of work complying with those procedures. Quite stressful for the people
doing it actually.

------
hliyan

       Once upon a time, it was taken for granted that the
       wealthier classes enjoyed a life of leisure on the backs
       of the proletariat. Today it is people in skilled trades
       who can most find reasonable hours coupled with good pay;
       the American professional is among those subject to
       humiliation and driven like a beast of burden.
    

This is very reminiscent of Orwell's 1984, where the "proles" [1], while
suffering under poor living conditions, had more freedom than party members,
who were constantly under watch and had their behaviors strictly controlled.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proles)

------
mmagin
"They may be the byproduct of systems and institutions that have taken on
lives of their own and serve no one’s interests. That can happen if some
industries have simply become giant make-work projects that trap everyone
within them."

------
Thriptic
Is it possible that some of this overwork is being driven by general
existential malaise? Having a lot of free time without purpose (and especially
without meaningful relationships to occupy it) is actually pretty boring and
depressing after a few days.

I've found myself working many more hours / weekends during points of my life
when I didn't have many friends around just so I didn't have to sit at my
apartment by myself and feel bored or feel like drinking. The work wasn't
incredibly productive, but at least it was interesting and filled me with some
sense of meaning.

~~~
ianlevesque
That's definitely a real phenomenon, but more sustainably less work time /
more free time is more time to develop meaningful relationships & hobbies, in
turn reducing existential malaise. All of that is much easier said than done
of course.

------
rdlecler1
If we were more efficient we'd full that extra time with more work. And if we
didn't, someone else would. Ultimately that's sort of the problem. We need to
work really hard and long to pay off student loans, buy a house, pay for good
schools. If we don't we don't get those things. It's an arms race where there
are fewer high paying jobs than there are people to fill them generations
ahead limit upward mobility.

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asr0
The title is misleading. You really DO need to work so much and probably even
more. Two observations: 1.The competition about less and less jobs gets
stronger 2.The people don't believe in unions anymore, which is the only way
to negotiate for better working conditions and less hours. So this is a I
versus You race to the bottom. This is going to be fun. :-)

------
ef4
> If we assume that there is, to a certain degree, a fixed amount of work
> necessary for society to function...

That is a terrible assumption. The scope of work that is both physically
possible and economically feasible is constantly shifting.

To believe that we're "out of work to do" you have to believe every human need
is already being met.

------
marak830
I think the article is missing a certain point. I work 40 hours a week as an
english teacher, my wife works full time. Thats the only way we can save
money, im soending over 80% of my free time coding to try and get sales so we
can buy a house . I dont know if im missing the point of the article, i may
be.

~~~
sokoloff
> Thats the only way we can save money

Please take this in the constructive manner in which it is intended:

Do you drive 2 cars newer than 2009? Paying a loan payment on both (or worse,
leasing)?

Do you eat out at restaurants more than once a month [for very special
occasions]?

Do you regularly buy Starbucks or the equivalent?

Do you pay $100 to your cable company and $120 to your cell phone company
every month?

If you're anything like the average American, you are leaking a large amount
of consumption that's on autopilot. Expensive, nearly new cars, in multiples,
upgraded frequently, each with a loan or lease payment and expensive collision
insurance required by the bank, paying an army of servants to cater to your
food needs, buying $5 cups of hot water poured over roasted beans, etc.

"But, but, I need all of those things to get to our jobs reliably, to de-
stress after so much work, etc!" No, no, you don't, but American marketers
have convinced you that you do, and you see it reinforced by most of your
peers, so you do.

For those who want to learn more, start with:
[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-
clown-...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-clown-like-
car-habit/) and [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-
sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math-
behind-early-retirement/) and then randomly click around his blog)

Even if you don't want to buy a bike to commute with immediately, you can make
small changes, like keeping your sensible, reliable car for 12 years instead
of 4, cutting out $5 coffee runs entirely, switching to a $50/mo plan for 2
cell phones, cook at home more, etc.

(I have no connection to MMM and I don't follow all of his guidance, but I
find his perspective to be amazingly helpful in challenging auto-pilot
consumption. I use Ting [Sprint reseller] as my cell phone plan; wife and I
pay $45-55/mo for 3 phones, two iPhones and a Nexus. www.ting.com is the non-
referral link, [
[https://z9prmb2f3t5.ting.com/](https://z9prmb2f3t5.ting.com/) is my referral
link, but I care more about you saving money than getting a referral credit,
so I listed the other first ])

~~~
marak830
Gods i wish.

I dont own a car, we have talked about renting one, but it hasnt come about
yet.

We eat at a restaurant maybe once every month, and we try to keep it under
$50.

I take my own coffee to work(nice big starbucks mug though! haha... sigh)

No cable TV, we do have internet, thats $50 a month.

We dont live in america, its easier here in Japan compared to Australia where
i came from, i get a comparable wage(about 2k per month AUD approx), and
instead of paying 1200 per month in rent, i pay 870, so we can save now.

But we have public transport costs, food bills etc. Honestly i have no idea
how anyone could _survive_ if they had cable tv, starbucks coffee, restaurants
too often AND a car. We could pick one, maybe two if we didnt want to save.

I think their idea of a standard wage is not accurate. IF you are programming
in some big company, yeah maybe, but i earn less than 40k US per year (which
btw is more than i was earning as a fully qualified chef in Australia, with
over 10 years experience - when you consider the hours 50+ hours then vs 40
now).

As i said originally, i may be missing the point of the article, but for me,
if i was earning enough to get what you mentioned, id be quite happy. Id have
my house very quickly.

Side note: My apartment/house is my goal, a shitty little place that will
allow me to save half my rent a month towards another shitty little apartment
that i can rent out.

Again, maybe im missing something here?

~~~
stevoski
My cousin in Perth was earning AUD$100K+ driving a bus. But...you guessed
it...as a fly-in, fly-out employee of the mining industry in Western
Australia.

I've come to think of that as a typical wage for an uneducated person in
Australia...then I read what you earn as a qualified chef, and realize that
Perth's economy is a bubble.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "My cousin in Perth was earning AUD$100K+ driving a bus. But...you guessed
> it...as a fly-in, fly-out employee of the mining industry in Western
> Australia."

I wonder what the pay would be if the Australian mining industry wasn't so
corrupt (this isn't a slight on your cousin in any way, it's those who arrange
the tax breaks and lie about the economic impact of mining in Australia that
are at fault)...

[http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-25/nrn-dist-mining-
sub...](http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-25/nrn-dist-mining-
subsidies/4778042)

[http://m.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-
energy/mining-...](http://m.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-
energy/mining-workforce-numbers-are-exaggerated/story-e6frg9df-1226131735022)

------
fallingfrog
Where's the second half of the essay? He just drops off in mid thought without
making any suggestions or deeper analysis. Just lazy.

