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Ask HN: What does a sane workweek mean to you?

• lucideer 10y ago
  "If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody and no unemployment -- assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization." [0] This is - I think - an arbitrary question. What is "sane" in this context is simply what's culturally normative: it varies from place to place, and has no practical or logical reason for being set at any certain number other than the cultural history of that place and happenstance. People are very good at adapting to and becoming comfortable with what is considered normative. [0] http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
• AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  To me: - 40 hours for almost all weeks. If there's a crisis, that's different, but there better not be a crisis all the time. - Most of the time, I can actually get work done. I'm not in meetings all week. - My coworkers' personalities do not need too much debugging. The work culture is not highly dysfunctional.
• bbcbasic 10y ago
  I'd prefer to work 20 to 30 a week. 40 is ok if work is stimulating and there is no commute
• kzisme 10y ago
  Flexible hours would be nice, but I would dislike the difference in pay. Although the commute and downtime play a factor into time wasted during my day - I can't really justify a pay cut to work less hours. I've heard working in chunks of time throughout the week is useful, but also only 4-6 hours a day could be nice. I doubt any place would pay you the same rate to work less though (most places seem like butt's in chairs types of places)
• dtnewman 10y ago
  Some various work cultures I've worked in: 1) 70-80 work weeks. Get in at 8:30 leave at 11. Sometimes work weekends. This is typical for some of the more competitive jobs in law or finance. Definitely also applies to some startups, especially for founders and early employees. 2) 40 hour work weeks. People get in strictly at 9 and leave at 5. Much of the workforce operates this way. 3) Variable workweeks going from 40-60 hours. Most startup employees seem to be in this bucket from what I've seen. In my first job, I did 70-80 work weeks almost every week (a bit lighter around holidays) and it was brutal, but by far the hardest thing were the unpredictability of my hours. I never knew whether I was gonna get out of work at 9pm or 2am or if I would have to work over the weekend, so I could never make plans. This was harder than the long hours themselves. I worked at a company where people were pretty strict about the 9-to-5 thing. The work-life balance was great, but sometimes it's a hassle if people don't work at all outside of work hours; for instance, when you need something from someone and they don't check their emails. In general, I think that flexibility and predictability is the most important thing for me in what I consider a sane workweek. I wanna know that if I make dinner plans with my wife, I can keep them. If I need to go to the doctor in the morning that it's not a problem. I don't mind going online for a few hours at night afterwards to make up for time missed, but I hate having to cancel plans.
• avitzurel 10y ago
  Here's mine This week: http://assets.avi.io/screen-shot-2016-11-15-nxdbb.png http://assets.avi.io/screen-shot-2016-11-15-nxdbb.png Last week: http://assets.avi.io/screen-shot-2016-11-15-cf4x3.png http://assets.avi.io/screen-shot-2016-11-15-cf4x3.png The week before: http://assets.avi.io/screen-shot-2016-11-15-p3gt7.png http://assets.avi.io/screen-shot-2016-11-15-p3gt7.png I typically work around 40-45 hours a week, flexible hours when I work from home and normal hours when I'm at the office (twice a week). When I am not injured (like now), I have 10-15 hours on the bike a week doing anywhere between 150-250miles a week and racing over the weekend. I never work weekend, ever. I do however sometimes hack weekend nights after the kids are in bed and I am inspired.