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It seems that professional programmers have little understanding about the limits of human endurance in skilled labor. Junior doctors work 100 hour weeks and 36

by hawkice 10y ago

It seems that professional programmers have little understanding about the limits of human endurance in skilled labor. Junior doctors work 100 hour weeks and 36 hour shifts so busy they often don't have time to visit the bathroom. It may slightly harm your productivity by working more (almost certainly will) but to say you can't do anything on your own time except for watching Game of Thrones is overly pessimistic.

lgieron 10y ago
The doctor's job is not exactly equivalent. After a day of programming, I feel I could still put in a couple hours of light manual labor or say drive for Uber, but I'm unable to focus intensely any longer. Doctors probably use a much greater variety of skills (and not just intense focus on 100% abstract problems for 8 hours), hence I think their resources deplete slower. I know that when I've worked at jobs which weren't all about focusing on abstract problems (such as an analyst or a consultant or a project manager), I could definitely put in more hours. EDIT: Also, air traffic controllers (a job that I feel is more similar to programming than being a doctor) are restricted by law to work no more than 6 hours. From what they say, after their shift is done, their brain is often completely fried.
- mac01021 10y ago
  Do you really focus intensely for several hours at a time during a typical workday? What industry/domain are you working in? In my experience, most software jobs mix bits of intense abstract reasoning, distributed throughout the day, with an at-least-equal amount of tedious gruntwork or meetings.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - lgieron 10y ago
    For jobs, I do rather typical Java/Scala/BigData development. I agree that the there's a bit of mindless tediousness in the jobs, although a lot of it can eventually be automated. However, IMO, when working on a large code base which you didn't author (so, pretty much the most typical case), if you want to do a good job - i.e. think through potential consequences of your changes, weight the pros and cons of alternative approaches etc. - you still need a ton of cognitive resources.
- rmc 10y ago
  OTOH doctors are literally working with life and death scenarios.
laichzeit0 10y ago
An interesting anecdote I remember reading that Henri Poincare, one of the greatest mathemetians of all time, only worked 4 hours a day because he couldn't sustain more than that amount of time in deep concentrated work. He'd then go play cricket and read for the rest of the day. You need to find your own "sweet spot".
galdosdi 10y ago
Or is it the other way around? Maybe it's the junior doctors that don't understand something that professional programmers _do_ about the limits of human endurance in skilled labor? There's no way those 100 hour weeks and 36 hours shifts don't lead to a measurable increase in errors. Given that in medicine, errors can cost lives, it's morally reprehensible that anyone allows this kind of thing to go on in medicine today as a matter of course (outside of a true one-off emergency)
- barry-cotter 10y ago
  Errors do increase with length of shift but they also increase when continuity of care is disrupted by shift change. When you look at patient outcomes it's a wash. This probably speaks more to awful shift change procedures than anything else but reducing the hours junior doctors are fostered for has not lead to any improvement for patients. http://healthland.time.com/2013/03/26/fewer-hours-for-doctors-in-training-leading-to-more-mistakes/ http://healthland.time.com/2013/03/26/fewer-hours-for-doctor... I seem to recall surgery being an exception in that shorter shifts lead to more patients dying but I can't find anything quickly.
  - robryan 10y ago
    Perhaps this is just convenient for employers. The real problem could be in shift change procedures but they aren't incentivised to fix this and lower shift times.

by hawkice 10y ago

lgieron 10y ago

The doctor's job is not exactly equivalent. After a day of programming, I feel I could still put in a couple hours of light manual labor or say drive for Uber, but I'm unable to focus intensely any longer. Doctors probably use a much greater variety of skills (and not just intense focus on 100% abstract problems for 8 hours), hence I think their resources deplete slower. I know that when I've worked at jobs which weren't all about focusing on abstract problems (such as an analyst or a consultant or a project manager), I could definitely put in more hours. EDIT: Also, air traffic controllers (a job that I feel is more similar to programming than being a doctor) are restricted by law to work no more than 6 hours. From what they say, after their shift is done, their brain is often completely fried.

mac01021 10y ago
Do you really focus intensely for several hours at a time during a typical workday? What industry/domain are you working in? In my experience, most software jobs mix bits of intense abstract reasoning, distributed throughout the day, with an at-least-equal amount of tedious gruntwork or meetings.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- lgieron 10y ago
  For jobs, I do rather typical Java/Scala/BigData development. I agree that the there's a bit of mindless tediousness in the jobs, although a lot of it can eventually be automated. However, IMO, when working on a large code base which you didn't author (so, pretty much the most typical case), if you want to do a good job - i.e. think through potential consequences of your changes, weight the pros and cons of alternative approaches etc. - you still need a ton of cognitive resources.
rmc 10y ago
OTOH doctors are literally working with life and death scenarios.

laichzeit0 10y ago

An interesting anecdote I remember reading that Henri Poincare, one of the greatest mathemetians of all time, only worked 4 hours a day because he couldn't sustain more than that amount of time in deep concentrated work. He'd then go play cricket and read for the rest of the day. You need to find your own "sweet spot".

galdosdi 10y ago

Or is it the other way around? Maybe it's the junior doctors that don't understand something that professional programmers _do_ about the limits of human endurance in skilled labor? There's no way those 100 hour weeks and 36 hours shifts don't lead to a measurable increase in errors. Given that in medicine, errors can cost lives, it's morally reprehensible that anyone allows this kind of thing to go on in medicine today as a matter of course (outside of a true one-off emergency)

barry-cotter 10y ago
Errors do increase with length of shift but they also increase when continuity of care is disrupted by shift change. When you look at patient outcomes it's a wash. This probably speaks more to awful shift change procedures than anything else but reducing the hours junior doctors are fostered for has not lead to any improvement for patients. http://healthland.time.com/2013/03/26/fewer-hours-for-doctors-in-training-leading-to-more-mistakes/ http://healthland.time.com/2013/03/26/fewer-hours-for-doctor... I seem to recall surgery being an exception in that shorter shifts lead to more patients dying but I can't find anything quickly.
- robryan 10y ago
  Perhaps this is just convenient for employers. The real problem could be in shift change procedures but they aren't incentivised to fix this and lower shift times.