
How I get my employees to work 80 hours a week - randomname2
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-growth/how-i-get-my-employees-to-work-80-hours-a-week/article27047497/
======
bgxor
I find it really hard to believe that anyone can actually "work" for 80 hours
a week. Especially in mentally taxing work like designing and implementing
software. That is something close to 9am-9pm 7 days a week. You pretty much
have to be heavily medicated to even make it out to the other side if that.
Maybe it's possible if you simply spend several hours a day in meetings or
wasting time, but that is another issue altogether.

I have a sneaking suspicion that these 80 hour work weeks people brag about
actually boil down to an anecdote about a terrible week they once had when
they needed to get the job done quickly or lose their company. People that
don't really understand what this kind of work entails just perpetuate these
ideas because of some perverse idea of work ethic they get from reading about
irrational people like Elon Musk.

I've got some breaking news for this "CEO" if he is for real and actually
thinks an 80 hour work week is in any way a decent idea; the thing you are
creating is not that important. You might think it is, but you are wrong. That
is the hard but certain truth, and I truly hope you learn that in the least
painful way possible.

If the Earth was suddenly going to be destroyed by an asteroid in just a few
weeks, you'd be right to sacrifice the physical and mental well being of your
brilliant team in ways like this to stop it. Even at that point you'd be
better off with rotating fresh minds to figure it out.

Long story short, you are lying or just kidding yourself. Either way, you are
doing a bad thing for the world.

------
notacoward
As Dr. Phil might say, how's that working out for you? I'm sure Mr. Sandhu
believes he's the most benevolent high-tech-sweatshop manager ever, but what
are the _results_? How productive are those 80-hour weeks? What's the
attrition rate? Health outcomes? Divorce rate? How about diversity, especially
when it comes to hiring and retaining older workers? How do alumni feel once
they've gained some distance?

It's easy to get a few kids to drink some Kool Aid. Whether they keep drinking
it, get any benefit out of it, or remember the experience fondly, are all very
different questions.

------
49531
I've worked at startups doing 80 hours a week, and currently keep myself
strictly under 50 and I really haven't seen much of a difference in the amount
of code I am able to ship.

Something about the feeling of having all the time in the world made me less
focused I guess. When I have a deadline, and know that I won't be working
through the weekend, I tend to still get it done on time.

Also, in my experience. The teams that work 40-50 hours/week seem to be more
stable and of a higher caliber than the 70-80 hours per week crowd, but that's
just from the 3-4 teams I've been a part of. I wouldn't say it's anything
conclusive.

~~~
HillRat
I've never seen a 60+ programmer workweek schedule that didn't start
generating negative productivity through reduced quality, technical debt and
poor design choices. In part, this is because high workloads are symptomatic
of poor project planning, but it's also because overworked programmers make
poor choices. Conversely, I've worked with companies that produced amazing,
very high profile work under ridiculous deadlines and still got everyone out
of the office by six. Obviously, limited crunch periods are unavoidable, but
if your project plan assumes more than six to seven hours of productivity a
day you're probably creating an unsustainable workload.

------
saryant
Am I correct in understanding that all this startup does is personal loans?

That's it?

That's going to "change the face of an entire industry"? I'm quite certain the
bankers at your local Wells Fargo/Citi/Chase branch work 9-5 and underwrite
personal loans all day long without working 80 hours a week. What on earth
could these guys be working on that requires such an absurd work schedule?

I've done the 12 hour days as an early employee of a startup (and one
significantly more interesting than this). I will never do it again. The math
just doesn't make sense—I make substantially more money working at a big tech
company and going home at 5 every day than I likely ever would at a startup.
Why should I give up my personal life _and_ make less money?

~~~
sportanova
The entire concept of 12 hour days working in front of a computer screen is a
joke - the vast majority of people are going to spend 40-50% of that not
working, and the remainder are going to be so unproductive from fatigue that
they may as well have only worked 6 hours

------
dang
From my perspective the startup world turned a corner on this a few years ago.
Bragging or signalling about hours worked is no longer fashionable. That's why
an article like this one produces an instant rage-thread with literally zero
favorable comments: we're looking at light from a star that actually left
several years ago, though the current article would probably have sounded
tone-deaf even then.

It would be interesting to see accurate data on whether startup employees work
fewer hours than they used to. I'd be surprised if they were by much; self-
reported numbers were chronically inflated in the first place because it was
fashionable to do so. What's new is the cultural consensus that maximizing raw
hours is wrong and that raw hours don't equate to productivity. Those were
always truisms, but they're truisms that the culture has now settled on, which
seems good.

Edit: one trend that doesn't get commented on as much is the fragmentation of
the workday: i.e. working hours are less likely to be in a single contiguous
block and more likely to be scattered through the day, evenings, and weekends,
even if total hours worked are no higher. The problem in this case isn't raw
quantity, it's not getting away from work for a long-enough stretch and so not
getting any regenerative context switch. Hopefully this will get discussed
more and studied.

------
engi_nerd
I'd love to know how much he pays his employees.

Doing something you believe in is really fantastic but it's higher on the
hierarchy of needs than "put food on my table" and "keep my spouse from
resenting me for never being around". If you're working 80 hours a week, then
you should be compensated for that. Financially.

A few months ago, a USAF Colonel came and gave an address to the employees at
my job site. "I know you all do this for patriotism and love of your country,"
he said. Sure, those are reasons...#9 or #10 on my list, maybe, for dealing
with the insanity of flight test. #1, as the great Randy Moss would have said,
is "Straight cash, homie."

I wonder how highly Mr. Sandhu's employees would rate the mission to "truly
reinvent banking" on their list of reasons for coming to work?

~~~
sportanova
It's idiotic how companies always want people who are "insanely passionatiate"
about their mission. It makes (slightly) more sense when you have 1-2
employees, but good luck finding 20+ people who have the skills you need AND
are insanely passionate about empowering X to do Y through [buzzwords].

Actually it's not idiotic, it's dishonest. The reason they do it is so they
can later frame everything in moral terms around the mission. Only working 60
hours? Not happy making 50% of market with .35% equity? You must not really
believe in the mission!

~~~
nickpsecurity
"Only working 60 hours? Not happy making 50% of market with .35% equity? You
must not really believe in the mission!"

Exactly. Now, there might be more money to make the goal happen and better if
only the founders and VC's were similarly passionate rather than profit-
motivated. ;)

~~~
sportanova
That's the hippocracy of it. You can't have the "money is so unimportant to
us, we're changing the world!" attitude while simultaneously screwing over
your employees and taking the vast majority of the rewards

------
jonesb6
I entertained a business minor while I was in school by taking a few intro
courses. I ultimately chose against it because of a general ethos I felt that
was also present in this article:

Given a large lecture hall of ~500 students, how many would agree that working
your employees 80/hrs a week in an underpaid fashion is a stroke of genius
that proves you to be a successful businessman/businesswomen?

I don't think their is a difference in character or morality between majors,
passions, or what have you. I believe we teach a brand of capitalism in
regards to business that is highly detrimental to society.

Furthermore I think this methodology is inferior to that of other models,
models where workers are fairly compensated, maintain work balance, and
ultimately are significantly more productive per/yr.

~~~
eropple
FWIW, I have one of those business minors, and I never got that feeling in
them. But I went to a school that's fairly left-wing in general, even in the
business department.

------
dead10ck
Wow this guy is fucking delusional. I can't believe he seriously thinks his
employees are smiling every day, and that they aren't burnt out because they
"believe in the mission"

------
endymi0n
And again for all the people who seriously think this is a good idea:

[http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons](http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons)

> There's a bottom-line reason most industries gave up crunch mode over 75
> years ago: > It's the single most expensive way there is to get the work
> done.

~~~
chejazi
(from the article)

 _working over 21 hours continuously is equivalent to being legally drunk_

Specific to the realm of programming, I wonder if the conclusion factors in
Ballmer peak performance gains ;)

------
raverbashing
Here's a challenge to the entrepreneurs. Make your employees work 4h/6h per
day.

Reduce distractions, reduce meetings, make communication asynchronous,
optimise tasks.

Some people would be happier to work from 1pm to 6pm. Some others from 6am to
Noon. Emails (or preferably something smarter) can be dealt with at other
times

Make decisions depend on the least amount of people possible.

~~~
eropple
_> Make decisions depend on the least amount of people possible._

I would suggest an alternative: make decisions depend on the right people,
regardless of their number, and make the necessary information easily
available and communication channels not require being face-to-face in all
cases, but only the ones where it makes sense. (Which is not to embrace the
techno-fetishistic idea that asynchronous communication is the be-all and end-
all, but to use it appropriately. Meetings are not an inherent negative.)

------
secfirstmd
Wow, just wow.

Please someone do some journalism and go ask the employees what they think of
this policy...

------
dahart
As much as this headline is kind-of horrible, there are a couple of worthwhile
points in there. It is true that believing in the company mission makes more
hours tolerable. This is the main reason its easier to work long hours for
yourself or your own startup than it is to work long hours for a company you
don't own, and why the larger a company gets, the more demoralizing severe
overtime can be.

But - people throw around numbers like 80 and 100+ easily, I'm not always
convinced real-world numbers are as high as people claim they are. Having done
some extended 80 hour crunches, I know first-hand that all life outside of
work stops above 65-70 hours/week. At 80, you can still get 8 hours of sleep
per day and have one meal away from work, maybe watch a single 30 or 45 minute
TV show to relax, but almost nothing else. While it happens, it is not
particularly sustainable. 100+ hours means you're eating into your sleep
schedule.

I know first-hand that many people exaggerate their long hours in crunch
times, and most crunches where people claimed 80, they were pulling more like
65-70. And I don't believe they are lying intentionally, its just that extra
hours can be harder than you think, and the perception is you work more than
you think you do. A studio I worked at measured work hours during crunch time
and found most people work 10-20 hours less than they thought they did. I
discovered that I wasn't working as many hours as I thought I was.

------
SixSigma
0.2 + 4.5n + 0.3n^2

Percentage loss of productivity where n is the number of hours over 8 per day,
for a 5 day week.

e.g. for prolonged use of an 11 hour day :

0.2 + 4.5 x 3 + 0.3 x 9 = 16% loss of productivity over the whole week.

According to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics - Bulletin No. 917 [1]

for more info see this research :
[http://www.weblem.org/upload/OT1.pdf](http://www.weblem.org/upload/OT1.pdf)

[1]
[https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?title_id=4359&filepath...](https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?title_id=4359&filepath=/docs/publications/bls/bls_0917_1948.pdf#scribd-
open)

~~~
jschwartzi
I'm going to cite this the next time I'm asked to work weekends.

~~~
SixSigma
Try it but it is only for prolonged overtime (I have just edited to link to
the actual report)

------
kaeawc
Wow. That is insane. Hopefully his employees find a better place and he is
never given a position of power again. How the hell does someone get away with
not only doing this but advertising it?

------
eropple
_> While the work can be challenging, the rewards are endless._

The rewards are entirely endful for the people actually doing the work. What a
_tool_.

------
squidlogic
Keeping everyone on mission is incredibly valuable, but there is a finite
amount of work you can and should extract from your employees.

Employers have a disproportionate amount of influence over the lives of the
people under their employ. This should carry with it a sense of duty, or
responsibility, to the well-being of their fellow human.

------
rootedbox
I won't work at a company with an 80 hour work week; nor can I support a
company that asks that of their employees.

------
chrismcb
How do you get your employees to work 80 hours a week? Obviously you pay them
now. Wait, you are paying then less? Then the title should be "how to take
advantage of people."

------
leed25d
Eighty hours a week == "Burn 'em and turn 'em"

~~~
FLUX-YOU
Eventually startups are going to screw the wrong guy and someone's going to
walk back inside with a gun and nothing to lose.

At first I laughed, then I went back to look for a punch line, then I felt
sorry for everyone at this company.

~~~
ojbyrne
It's a Canadian company. Gun laws make that much less likely.

~~~
hwstar
In Canada, employers can't fire as easily as the US, (just-cause vs. at-will
employment) they actually have to document a nonperforming employee's
performance to a much higher standard than necessary in the US.

So even though they don't have ready access to guns, the employment system is
much fairer in Canada than the US, and therefore this also contributes to less
workplace violence.

------
jakebasile
I am truly sorry for anyone that is working 80 hours (with admittedly low pay)
and has been convinced it's worth it because of how they're changing some
industry. The industry will wait, your family won't.

------
linohh
In Germany he would be committing a crime.

~~~
6t6t6
Actually, in most of European countries, AFAIK.

------
dlitz
Employees: Don't sign a non-disparagement or release agreement when your
employer burns you out.

It takes time to realize the true cost of a past employer's abuse on your
career and your mental health. I've heard it can take multiple years to
recover in some cases.

------
username223
> In the early days, the first task every new Grouplend employee had to
> complete upon joining the team was assembling their own desks.

Really? Gropeland could have hired someone to assemble Ikea desks for $5-10
apiece, but instead they chose to haze new employees and waste their time. The
previous tech boom did things better: when I showed up for a job, the desk was
already there, the sysadmins slotted in a drive with the stuff I needed, and I
was ready to do what I was hired to do in 5 minutes. People did what they did
best, and we all went home for dinner.

------
chejazi
People criticize 80 hours and then I wonder about all the financial analysts
in investment banking... aren't they putting in 100+ hour work weeks, at least
for the first year or two?

~~~
notacoward
Yes, they often are, but it's for a promise of money that would make even a
Googler feel like a pauper. There's also less chance of the company
disappearing out from under you, and there's a mostly-known end point. It's a
very different risk/reward scenario, in which "paying dues" for a few years
might make a lot more sense.

------
brianmcconnell
Let's see how the employees feel about sacrificing all that time when the
founder has a rich exit, and the employees get crap while he retires in
luxury.

------
csomar
No jokes, but at first I was thinking it was a sarcastic blog post. I can't
believe this is happening.

I won't really delve to talk about the employer, the company, the mentality
and that other stuff. I'll keep it simple:

If you are working hard (like 80hours+) and doing anything to succeed (like
assembling Ikea furniture), then maybe you should start your own business or a
one-man consulting.

It pays off much better on the long run.

------
suprjami
If you have anyone working 80 hours a week, let alone people with families,
you're a disgusting human being and I hope your startup fails.

------
Overtonwindow
I worked on Capitol Hill and routinely worked 75-80 hour weeks. I did it
because I was expected to, and I was expected to because it's Capitol Hill.
The pay was laughable and I couldn't do it today, but looking back, sometimes
working 80 hours is worth. In my humble opinion, most cases, it's not.

~~~
secfirstmd
Ditto, I worked in Westminster Parliament for a bit and I can say, it was one
of the few jobs where I actually relished going it at 6am and coming out at
10pm.

------
rrecuero
For me it is not about the number of hours. You can be burnt working 10am to
5pm at a corporation and you can be extremely happy working on your own thing
and doubling the hours. Ben Horowitz says that the difference between working
for a good company and the rest relies on how you feel when you wake up in the
morning. In a good company, you know that if you put good work, it is going to
make a difference for you, for the company and hopefully for society in
general. As long as there is a shared destiny (equity is split reasonably) and
people believe in the mission, the work should be fulfilling.

~~~
jschwartzi
And in a bad company, you wake up and wonder if anyone would notice if you
took the day off.

------
charlesholbrow
I wonder if his employees read hacker news.

------
krapp
Any answer to this is question besides "if they don't, they're fired" is being
fundamentally dishonest about the nature of employment.

------
ImTalking
As an entrepreneur, it took me a long time to realise that employees just
don't care about the mission. They want to begrudgingly do their day's job,
finish-up at 4:59PM, and then go home and do what they really want to do. They
want the company to continue only so it will continue to pay their wage.

------
13of40
Hmmm. It's almost as though they tailored the headline, pic, and article to
piss off the working class Joe.

------
geoffbrown2014
Answer: Make sure your employees are of such low quality that their lack of
experience and self-esteem ensures that they have few other choices.

------
chrisra
I hope this isn't a ridiculous question, but why not hire more people instead?

------
tekromancr
New startup idea: Personal security for sociopathic CEOs like this when they
inevitably cash out and burn all of their employees on their equity. They will
be rich, but will have a huge list of people who they conned into destroying
their lives that want them dead.

------
wenbert
Does he work 80 hours a week?!

~~~
hwstar
Most likely. He probably sits at his desk and watches a bunch of CCTV monitors
or the time clock management server making sure no one leaves early

------
draw_down
Hey, it's your funeral!

------
seans887
Translation for those who aren't used to the distorted language of arrogant
assholes:

> "...it’s not about work-life balance. Rather, it’s about optimizing work-
> life imbalance"

Translation: If I use the word "optimizing" in this sentence, the crushing
work load I'm about to give you will seem like a rational choice rather than
bare exploitation.

> "Long nights and weekends spent away from families are the norm in the
> startup world. We often chuckle at glamorized notions of the startup
> lifestyle: table tennis games, fully stocked kitchens and generous stock
> options."

Translation: We know what it's _really_ like to work in a startup - having
families and fair pay are luxuries we know don't really exist. Anyone who
expects otherwise is lazy and doesn't fit with our "culture".

> "We work long hours, we are not paid much, and even after raising over
> $10-million within our first year of operations, we still have a mountain to
> climb in our efforts to expand this company."

Translation: While _you_ might not be paid much, _I_ hold a majority stake in
the company and will be handsomely rewarded for your hard work when the
company gets bought. And just because we raised $10 million doesn't mean any
of you are getting a raise.

> "We have also ensured that each employee has an unyielding belief in the
> company’s mission. If anyone in the office doesn’t believe they’re a part of
> something incredibly meaningful that will truly reinvent banking, they’ll
> likely struggle to relate to their co-workers and eventually “burn out.”

Translation: I mean... they're going to burn out anyway after working 80 hours
every week, but forced belief in the "mission" of the company allows us to
squeeze a couple more months of hard work out of them before they finally
quit, feeling guilty and ashamed of their perceived failure.

> "Our husbands and wives help pick up the slack on our long days, and our
> kids put a smile on our faces after stressful meetings. Many of our team
> members have young families, and we do our best to respect their needs
> through flexible hours and by encouraging the ability to work from home when
> needed."

Translation: I mean, I'm not a _monster_ \- if someone wants to spend a
portion of their 14 hour work day at home, using their own computer and
resources, of course we'll accommodate them. Far be it from me to prevent my
employees from bringing all the stress of their work lives into their homes.

> "While the work can be challenging, the rewards are endless."

Translation: The rewards for me, that is. For you, the rewards are very much
finite.

> "Having said that, it takes a special kind of personality to seek out (and
> succeed in) such an uncertain and risky environment. At the end of the day,
> I guess you still need to be a little nuts to succeed in a startup."

Translation: Young, well-off techies without families or hobbies who can
afford to live on breadcrumbs and are healthy enough to keep our insurance
costs minimal to the front of the line.

------
s73v3r
The answer is by being a complete and utter asshole. Any employer who expects
that much is not someone who should be managing the night shift at a Denny's,
let alone a whole company.

------
stefantalpalaru
The answer is "cocaine", isn't it?

