
Bring back the 40-hour work week - callmeed
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/14/bring_back_the_40_hour_work_week/
======
jdietrich
I keep reading these sort of articles and wondering why the American people
seem so opposed to basic employment law.

Here in Socialist Yurop, the Working Time Directive means that no employer can
compel an employee to work for longer than 48 hours per week. All workers are
entitled to a legal minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid holiday.

You all seem to agree that you work too long and don't get enough holiday.
I've never once heard anyone say that they're happy with two weeks vacation
and unpaid overtime. I'm not asking rhetorically, I genuinely want to know why
the most basic sort of collective bargaining is absent from the political
culture of the US.

~~~
kibwen
_"All workers are entitled to a legal minimum of 5.6 weeks of paid holiday."_

Heh, at my current job I won't be eligible for paid holiday until _eighteen
months_ after my date of initial employment, at which point I will receive
five days of paid holiday for one year, and then ten days of paid holiday for
the next four years. That's a pretty stark difference, I'd say.

Is Europe hiring software developers?

~~~
ovi256
In Socialist Yurop as well, in most countries, there are different rules on
when and how much paid holiday you get in your first year, meaning you cannot
get hired and take a month paid holiday, it has to accrue. So you would get a
week after a few months, for example, then more, and so on. It looks fair to
me.

And yeah, in all tech hubs I know of, everybody's looking to hire, the market
is, maybe not red-hot like Silicon Valley, but pretty hot anyway.

------
Zakharov
_And it hurts the country, too. For every four Americans working a 50-hour
week, every week, there’s one American who should have a full-time job, but
doesn’t. Our rampant unemployment problem would vanish overnight if we simply
worked the way we’re supposed to by law._

The rest of the article says that 50-hour-a-week employees are no more
productive than 40-hour-a-week employees, and don't get paid any more. Where
do the extra jobs come from?

~~~
maushu
You are confusing productivity as a measure for the number of jobs.

We use man-hours as the measure for the number of jobs, so, if 4 people
working 50 (hours a week) start working 40 that leaves 40 hours to be filled
by another person (1 more job). Productivity actually increases even if the
man-hours are the same.

------
stusmith1977
...but I'm quite happy with my 35-hour week, thankyou.

There's a lot that's wrong with the UK, but being forced to work for free
thankfully isn't one of them.

I just can't imagine where people get the time for a 50-60 hour week. Once
I've been to work, played with my son, fed, bathed, and put him to bed, and
cooked, there isn't much time left in the day, surely?

~~~
bmuon
Exactly. Where I live (Argentina) we have a 40 hour week that usually turns at
least into 45 hours because most people work from 9 to 18 with an hour for
lunch in the middle.

Working part-time after a long time of full time work my eyes opened to the
possibility of the 36-hour week. I usually discuss with a lot of people how
they feel about their work schedule and what they think about working 6 hours
in 6 days instead of 9 in 5, and surprisingly most defend the 40-hour week
because they prefer two days of rest. In my experience, they're overrated. The
possibility of dedicating time to yourself, your projects, your family,
throughout the week is priceless.

------
jacobr
My standard work week is 37.5 hours, but Thursdays and Fridays I work half
days, and from home, to spend extra time with my son, so it's currently 30
hours a week. I asked my team leader if she thought it was going ok, and her
response was "it's not much more time away than a couple of unnecessary
meetings".

It has also given me some time to work on projects on my free time that
ultimately can be of benefit to the company, sort of unpayed 20% innovation
time. But since I am grateful for the company being so flexible and
understanding, I don't mind.

------
lrobb
_In the renowned 1993 study of young violinists, performance researcher Anders
Ericsson found that the best ones all practiced the same way: in the morning,
in three increments of no more than 90 minutes each, with a break between each
one. Ericcson found the same pattern among other musicians, athletes, chess
players and writers._

For Real Productivity, Less is Truly More:
[http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/05/for-real-
productivity-...](http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2010/05/for-real-productivity-
less-is.html)

.

I don't expect 'managers' to understand this... Mythical Man Month is nearing
on 40 years old, and apparently the current crop of tech leaders haven't
bothered to read it.

~~~
kamaal
This is true provided you have to master the instrument. Not when you compose
music. They are two different things.

Typing is not the same as programing. I learned to type real fast long back.
But I'm still learning the art of programming.

~~~
lrobb
You obviously didn't bother to read the article or it's references.

------
ChristianMarks
One of my thesis committee members told me after I finished that I did not
like working for bosses unless they were very very smart. This article reminds
me that working as a consultant beats working as an employee. It also reminds
me why I generally detest bosses. The thought of being stuck with a brain that
could think approvingly about "keeping butts in chairs" in those smug
unlettered terms fills me with pity and horror.

------
tricolon
This is the original article:
[http://www.alternet.org/visions/154518/why_we_have_to_go_bac...](http://www.alternet.org/visions/154518/why_we_have_to_go_back_to_a_40-hour_work_week_to_keep_our_sanity/)

------
danmaz74
I agree with the general thesis of the article, but at least in the software
industry there are two big problems with this reasoning.

The first is that, notoriously, if one programmer working 50% more time won't
advance the project 50% faster, that is even more true if you try to increase
by 50% the number of programmers. Software development is incredibly non-
linear (and as a project manager I always have to struggle with my manager
about this - it is incredible how much linear thinking is ingrained in so many
people's minds).

The second problem is that, also notoriously, software developers vary
incredibly in individual productivity, much more than hourly wages do.

So, where engineering (not just software) work prevails on other kinds of
work, a few geeks working very long hours can really be more productive than
more people working less hours. But this does NOT work in most other
environments, and even in software development:

\- there is a lot of repetitive work to do that real geeks aren't going to do

\- there aren't enough geeks to do all the software development that our
societies require

In the end, one size doesn't fit all, and solving this situation with
regulation would be very difficult (even if some better regulation could help,
especially if it could make unpaid overtime much more difficult/risky for
employers). The best chance would be to have one or more very convincing
examples, like Ford was almost a century ago. Any candidates?

~~~
DanBC
You have a programmer who works for 13 hours a day. That programmer does three
days in a row of 13 hours. That's 39 hours, not including any travel etc.

Give / force them some time off before they can start another block of 40 hour
work.

"Flow" is mentioned so often, but I'd really like to see some good quality
research to back it up. For sure people feel like they're in a zone, but how
much of the code produced in that time is great quality, and how much is
error-strewn garbage?

The need for standard weeks is still pretty strong, but that's not
insurmountable problem. Really, when people talk of weeks they mean
"continuous chunk of work with no 48 hour break".

A bigger problem is making people think that 60 hour weeks is normal, or
honourable, and that a 40 hour week is lazy or disloyal or unproductive or
harmful to the company. That's not true, and it's possibly leading to early
death of some people. It's certainly making some people miserable.

~~~
kamaal
_A bigger problem is making people think that 60 hour weeks is normal, or
honourable, and that a 40 hour week is lazy or disloyal or unproductive or
harmful to the company. That's not true, and it's possibly leading to early
death of some people. It's certainly making some people miserable._

I like working a lot, making great stuff. Some people don't. But that's not my
problem.

Asking me not to work, just because some body else doesn't want to, is
injustice.

I have faced this situation in the past. I used to get a lot of work done in
my last company(I was productive and used to push crazy hours) and by that
definition I was learning, making and getting a lot of recognition.

Soon a bunch of girls went and complained to the manager its becoming a one
sided game. And the suggestion they gave to solve their problem was to stop me
from putting those extra works. Now here is my problems, for whatever reason
if you can't/don't want to do something big in life. I doesn't mean everyone
should do the same to make you feel good.

This is more or less like socialism. You force the rich to become poor just
because the poor don't want to be rich.

EDIT: C'mon guys why would you downvote this? Choice to choose a worklife
style is upto to the individual. Stopping Individual from achieving their
goals is in direct contradiction to _freedom to pursuit of happiness_.

HN is becoming like reddit, things get up/downvoted on mood not on merit.

~~~
Bullislander05
"Choice to choose a worklife style is upto to the individual. Stopping
Individual from achieving their goals is in direct contradiction to freedom to
pursuit of happiness."

Some might have goals similar to you. Others might aspire to work a 40-a-week
job, be there for their spouse and children and not feel burnt out every day.
Yes, there are people like you who might enjoy working crazy hours and being
super productive. However, the person who is truly most productive in a
40-a-week job should also be able to achieve their goals without this cultural
stigma around working a _normal_ amount of time.

~~~
kamaal
Please note the person who works 8 hours a day sincerely is getting what he is
supposed to get.

Also the person who works for 8 hrs + x hrs is getting what he is supposed to
get.

If you are saying despite working for ( 8 + x ) hrs he must not get anything
extra or he and the guy who works for 8 hrs must both get the same, defeats
the very laws of karma.

Besides, The 8 hrs guy has a problem only if gets into _comparisons_ with the
( 8 + x ) hours guy.

The expectation that one must get paid the same but do little work compared to
somebody else generally makes a classic case when the individual blames others
for merely being _lucky_ for the comparative success.

~~~
DanBC
The 8hour worker is getting what they're supposed to get.

The 8 + x hours worker is getting less than they're supposed to. Often they're
doing x hours for free.

There can be several problems with that. Sometimes the company gets a lot of
value from the x hours, and sells lots of product for lots of money, but
doesn't give any money to the worker.

Or sometimes the worker is doing poor quality work, but getting personal value
from the x hours (perhaps seen by managers as being more productive) and the
other workers have to fix the errors, but are not seen as productive.

> _The expectation that one must get paid the same but do little work compared
> to somebody else_

Quite often overtime is unpaid, or is paid at low rates.

------
kamaal
Fact is, I'm productive with a 8 hour a day schedule if and only if:

    
    
        1. What I need to do is clear and known.
        2. I've been doing the is same everytime or something of similar pattern.
        3. No meetings and distractions in between.
    

But the fact is, none of this is true in our area of work. To some extent even
if something similar exists it wont work for many reasons.

For every person who wants to go back home, there is always a peer who is
putting in extra hours innovating, building and learning. By the well known
rate of success coming at an near exponential rate to people to work hard and
are productive, the rate becomes exponential if they add crazy work hours to
it.

Building stuff requires a goal. Then implementation, experimentation, test a
feed back loop and then back to implementation. And then this cycle goes on in
iteration.

This requires tuits(Uninterrupted large workable free chunks of time) to allow
a degree of focus and flow seep into the person. And most of tuits are
generally available only early in the morning or in the night. This by default
means you already agree to work crazy hours.

So in summary, I can't do a 40 hour work week because

    
    
        1. I will loose out to my peers in the long term race.
        2. Meetings.
        3. My work requires genuine supply of atleast two big tuits a day to remain competitive and have a good growth both money and career wise.

~~~
DanBC
> _there is always a peer who is putting in extra hours innovating, building
> and learning_

For every peer putting in stupid hours innovating, building and learning there
are > 1 peers putting in stupid hours fixing errors of other overworked
colleagues or just grinding through the stuff they could have done in 40 hours
if they didn't have an asshole boss / broken business culture.

~~~
kamaal
I don't know why you consider working hard as a broken culture.

~~~
maushu
It is broken if that "working hard" is not productive.

------
scrrr
I think overtime is often the consequence of managers that don't know when or
how to say "no" to client's demands.

------
nasmorn
I really like days where I put in those 5 to 6 perfect hours and then instead
of the meetings and email I just go hone.

~~~
gedekran
What are you honing?

~~~
jimfl
Typing skills.

------
zeroonetwothree
I find I get about as much done "working" 60 hours as 30.

------
mathattack
Any contention on this topic should be solvable in the market. Companies and
managers that believe in the 40 hour week fight it out with companies and
managers who don't. (This decision is made by managers - though employees have
to agree) Different people have different amounts to give at different stages
in their life. Let the market decide which approach is more enlightened, and
let people decide how much they want to work.

------
Shivetya
I believe hours worked is only relevant to the type of work being done. Yet I
think it is overall unrealistic to expect a forty hour week. Having been
raised on a farm I know that forty hour weeks are a vacation to some, even now
self employed people would scoff at forty hours. We have great examples of
what happened to many of these prized union jobs that limited work to forty
hours on top of rules that prevented people from doing "other people's work".
Not many of them are good, hence they moved into government jobs where there
it is much harder to bankrupt the employer for lack of production.

You work forty hours a week to be average. No one I know who is well off works
only forty hours a week. Now they don't do the same tasks all those hours but
they are doing something. The key is making sure the hours you put in are
beneficial not just "doing work".

The rest of the world certainly isn't going to work just forty hours a week.
They upcoming economies are going to put in whatever it takes to get where
they want to be. Those of us who sit back and claim enlightenment by
denouncing such hours are only going to end up being passed by.

~~~
jwingy
These concerns are addressed in the article.

tl;dr Working hours longer than 40 leads to counter productivity in the short
and long term. 40 hour workers are more productive in all situations except
those where workers have an abnormal singular focus (apparently symptoms of
aspergers).

------
namenotrequired
Personally, I used to work 40 hours a week, and felt that was enough and I
shouldn't have taken on more. Then again I do a lot of volunteer work as well
besides that, but it's something I love, and something I can do from home
whenever I want and have the time. And as I live with my parents, I don't have
a family to look after or anything, so it feels like that comes in the place
of looking after my house and family etc.

Now they cut hours at my job and I work only 30, and I'd like to work 40
again. I find I often don't really do anything with those 10 extra free hours
and I get less money.

------
functionoid
If it bothers someone to work extra they should not be doing that work.
Because it means you are doing something you do not love. I do not mean to say
you have to slave for 80 hours week but let's be honest when you want to
create something you have to dig down and put efforts more than others that
could mean working smart and putting more effort than others.

This just does not apply to developers it is same at wall street. Those who
want to be at the top of their game are not there for money only they take
satisfaction in their achievements and achieving goals.

------
swampthing
The 'knowledge worker' section would be a lot more convincing if it provided
citations.

~~~
einhverfr
A larger question would be whether integrative living (i.e. working from home,
spending your coffee breaks with your kids) impacts the optimal level of work.

I would bet that knowledge workers burn out FASTER from being overworked than
manual laborers. Knowledge work, particularly the inductive side, relies on
downtime in order to stay productive.

~~~
steve-howard
Overtime and burnout were covered in Peopleware back in 1987. Looks like we're
doomed to relearn our lessons again and again...

~~~
einhverfr
But my experience is that I burn out a lot slower if I am working at home and
taking my breaks with my family. So that is a different circumstance not
covered in such work.

------
robinduckett
Sorry, when did they ever go away?

------
michaelochurch
In technology, I actually think it makes sense for metered work demands (i.e
things a person is told to do by management or clients, as opposed to learning
new technologies, going to conferences, contributing to open-source) to top
out around 25 hours per week. Even that's pushing it. The other 15-30 should
be more open, long-term focused, and self-directed (because this component of
the workweek is more autonomous, people can sustainably total 50+ hours
without ruining their health, _if_ these autonomy conditions at met).

The reason that management in most companies doesn't recognize this is that,
although the average worker could achieve as much in his or her best 4 hours,
managers are afraid that if they did officially relaxed "metered" demands,
people would use their best hours on side projects or career-focused efforts
and throw the scraps to their metered work (and, in many environments, they're
right). The reason for the 8 to 11 hour metered workday is to maximize the
likelihood that these 3-4 peak hours per day occur somewhere in that window.

------
Jebus
If the boss asks me to work 50 hours, I work 30. True story

~~~
markokocic
But you still sit at work 50 hours, or you go home after 30 hours?

It's true that I'd rather go home after 30 hours instead after 50 hours, but
it's also true that I would be bored to death just sitting at work and doing
nothing those extra 20 hours.

~~~
danmaz74
[Irony]Isn't that what Hacker News is for??[/Irony]

