
Ask HN: Have your weekends evolved into “workends”? - newshorts
I used to view weekends as my &quot;free time&quot; to relax&#x2F;enjoy.<p>However, within the past couple of years I&#x27;ve noticed my weekends filling up with unfinished work tasks from the week before. I now spend most weekends in (more or less) a &quot;work from home&quot; state.<p>On the one hand it&#x27;s nice because I have fewer interruptions.<p>On the other hand I have very little time that isn&#x27;t spent working.<p>Has your definition of weekend changed as well?
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Raed667
When you work you're selling your effort and time for money. When you work
during the weekend without compensation you're just giving your employer free
labor.

Lots of people do this because they want to appear reliable, competent or
dedicated. But usually it ends up just becoming an expectation of you and
people around you.

The day you won't do it anymore you will be criticized (maybe not in your
face) for it. And it would become expected of you.

If the workload is consistently overflowing to your weekend that means you are
having issues estimating the time/effort it takes to finish your tasks.

~~~
bonyt
> If the workload is consistently overflowing to your weekend that means you
> are having issues estimating the time/effort it takes to finish your tasks.

It could also mean that your employer is having issues estimating the
time/effort it takes to finish your tasks. Or that they aren't, and just don't
care.

~~~
Raed667
From my (limited) experience teams usually estimate tasks themselves à-la
"agile".

Overconfidence or people trying to show-off can have you underestimating the
time it takes for things to be delivered thus causing these kind of
situations.

~~~
muzani
I've seen it go bad both ways. Inexperienced leaders often pressure them to
push their estimates down.

Also working excess hours tends to screw with estimates as something in the
head clicks that you can always work longer if the estimates are off. My
estimates are strictly 40 hours/week, no more.

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ziddoap
I've gone out of my way, likely at the detriment of my career, to make sure my
personal time stays personal. Obviously in a few extenuating circumstances
there are exceptions - but other than that I don't even check email once I'm
done for the day.

I watched my father work weekday and weekend throughout his life and never
seeming to enjoy a minute of it. I knew that wasn't the life for me.

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auslegung
I have a young family, there’s no way I’m working more than 40 hours a week
unless a rare emergency comes up. Raising healthy children and having a happy
wife are far more important to me, my family, and society.

If I were single I’d be less of a stickler about this, but would still not be
ok doing more than 45 on a regular. After 30-40 hours, more working hours
rarely translates to more productivity.

~~~
muzani
I find about 20 hours/week to be the cap. The remaining 20 hours is just
sitting around the office recovering from the intensity of flow. Working a
full 40 hours usually translates to _less_ productivity and my workplace has
recognized that.

~~~
auslegung
I suppose it depends on the type of work, but as a web developer I’d be very
unsatisfied with my team if we only got 20 real hours of work. On my previous
team we did pair programming and had a very sustainable 30-32 hours a week.
Now this did include ~3 hours of meetings, but they were always productive,
good meetings.

Our trick was to work in 90-minute bursts, with 30 minute breaks where we
actively stepped away, took a walk, played ping pong or Nintendo, got coffee,
stretched, etc.

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peruvian
No. I leave my work laptop in the office Friday at 4pm and don't open it or
think about it until Monday at 9:30am.

Unless you're self-employed or at a bootstrapped startup, why give your
employer your free time?

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astrodev
I am fortunate enough to work remotely, so I can have a very productive
environment during the week, too.

And what's not done by Friday, is not done, not my problem really since I'm
paid by the hour.

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fractallyte
I work some weekends, but only because the job is so interesting.

Here's an example: our R&D team needs various national ID documents to train
their AI (text recognition). But they hit a wall - where does one obtain 10s
or 100s of IDs? Governments aren't handing out specimens. You can't walk up to
random people on the street and ask to scan their ID card. Friends and family
- too few!

So the only solution is to 'forge' documents... That's what I've been having
fun with over the last few weekends!

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avl999
Anyone reading this who finds themselves in this situation- Quit that job and
find a new one. There are too many opportunities in this industry to spend
your time in a situation like this. Especially if you find yourself regularly
working weekends and it's for someone else... not even your own startup.

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Freak_NL
Where are you from? Is it culturally expected of you to donate your time off
to your employer?

My employer gets 36 hours a week as per the contract agreed between us.
Incidental favours aside, any structural deviation of those hours comes at a
significant cost to my family and my personal welfare (e.g., not getting round
to odd jobs around the house, domestic chores, hobbies, leisure, sex, and
raising a child).

So why are you working in your weekends?

If you enjoy working with distractions and it benefits your work, why not
figure out a way to work from home on certain days in the week?

It is not normal to keep on working beyond the agreed upon hours if you are a
salaried employee. You're life is simply too short to throw it away like that.

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demygale
You’re paid by the hour and getting time and a half, right? If not you are
devaluing the labor pool for your coworkers. They make less money because of
you. Maybe you think worldwide income inequality hasn’t grown large enough and
it’s your job to push money upward toward ownership at the expense of your
coworkers. If so, keep it up.

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CyberFonic
Are you asking as salaried staff, a contractor or startup founder?

Seems to me that many managers will extract as much work out of you as they
can get away with. In some companies you are simply expected to work 70-80
hours a week - not only in programming, but in accounting and law firms too.

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NZ_Matt
No I intentionally only work the 37.5hours I'm contracted to and no more,
hoping to get it down to 30hours this year. I'd only ever make an exception to
that if I was working for myself.

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sidthekid
What's your age? I've noticed in my circle that single unmarried people have
less pressing things to do after work, thus are open to working in the
weekends, unlike people with families.

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toomuchtodo
No weekends, no work outside of business hours.

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thedevindevops
Evolved? I think you mean de-evolved!

