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Software developer, 20 years experience, expat for 10 years in four different countries, mostly working for start-up companies. Without taking everything to th

Software developer, 20 years experience, expat for 10 years in four different countries, mostly working for start-up companies. Without taking everything to the extreme of comparing 100 vs. 15 hours a week, and of course out of my own experience, it seems that companies with 'lenient' schedules (say regular 4-6 hours work days) tend to deliver better products (as in quality, customer acceptance, even financially) but also portrait better working environments, suffering far less employee turnover, resulting in an overall win-win. Arguably it might be rather a consequence than a cause of having good, empathetic management, final success etc., but the point stands: with all the caveats, longer working hours have early diminishing returns, my own experience as both employee and contractor dismisses the whole 'you lose skills working three days a week' idea, and the secondary outcomes of it (better products, happier customers, less turnover, etc.) are indeed worth the investment. Edit: grammar

maxxxxx 10y ago
The problem is that the only easy to measure number is the number of hours worked. In the end you can't really measure output or quality so management will resort to the only concrete number they have. My output is highest when I work around 4-5 hours a day with occasional 24 hours marathons when things really flow. But I can see how this would make managers nervous because they can't really tell if I am just lazy or working at peak performance.
- notheguyouthink 10y ago
  I also imagine it would change workflows a lot for many companies. For example, my current company is very small and young (in experience). We're only now implementing meaningful workflows of builds, deploys, ci, etc... hell, even version control as previously an after thought. With that said, trying to increase staff heavily to compensate for 15h work weeks would mean a lack of workflows would impact us greatly, imo. Ie, some people here don't document their in progress work, and barely commit. How is someone else supposed to pick that up mid way through? Ie, the project still needs to get done in say, 2 weeks, but the original 40h/week dev will not be able to finish it in 2 weeks, so other people have to join in and work on it together. I'm not arguing against 15h weeks, just that it would mean single developers can't deliver the same product in the same timeframe most likely. So documentation, testing, and team communication would have to pick up the slack i imagine.
- noxToken 10y ago
  > with occasional 24 hours marathons when things really flow How on earth can you do that? A few weeks ago, I was in the office for 9 hours. I went home, goofed off of a little bit, then picked it back up for another 6 hours. I had been crushing it that day, and I was motivated enough to continue. In the wee hours of the morning, I was practically useless. I was hunting a bug that I had introduced with a small change. I reduced my statements to simple variables, created a truth table, then filled in the table to find equivalent statements. I was arguing with that damn truth table for half an hour. I lost of course. A truth table is a concept that can't be wrong. In fact, my conditional had been correct all along. It was a mapping that I had introduced elsewhere that was causing the conditional to evaluate differently.
  - maxxxxx 10y ago
    "How on earth can you do that?" I don't do this every week or month but sometimes you struggle with something for weeks or months and then suddenly everything clicks and it just flows.
tuna-piano 10y ago
I could see this being true. I have concerns of course, but it might make sense. Maybe instead of making $100k, people would rather make $50k and work much less. That would happen naturally, with article like this, discussions, and companies and people experimenting with new things. What scares me is when it goes from that to "the government should mandate / provide this". I would see no reason that would not lead to a bad outcome similiar to other socialist countries. And remember, when people say that we decrease our societies working hours by 1/2, 2/3, etc they are saying that we should halve the number of doctors, teachers, pilots, farmers, etc. This guy may think accountants, consultants, etc are fake make-work jobs, but I've never seen a company knowingly being someone on when they know that person won't add value to the company (and therefore the society as well).
- aninhumer 10y ago
  >when people say that we decrease our societies working hours by 1/2, 2/3, etc they are saying that we should halve the number of doctors, teachers, pilots, farmers, etc. No, they mean there should be twice as many of them working half as much (or less, if there are productivity improvements). Obviously that would be hard to achieve in the short term, because these jobs require training, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.
haywirez 10y ago
My week is currently split 2-4 days on my own projects (4 if counting weekends) vs. 3 days work for clients/companies. Never been more satisfied and productive. There's a lot of creative cross-pollination: both pursuits bring more value over to the other.
jasode 10y ago
>, it seems that companies with 'lenient' schedules (say regular 4-6 hours work days) tend to deliver better products (as in quality, customer acceptance, even financially) I see that you did qualify your claim with "it seems" but if you could list the companies you had in mind that are beating competitors on quality + customer acceptance + financials by having employees only work 20 to 30 hours per week, that would be extremely helpful evidence in this thread.
throwaway2016a 10y ago
My experience is the same. The 80 hour a week salary (no overtime) culture is also prone to people just goofing off. So sure you are in the office 80 hours but only 30 of those are productive hours (at most). If you know you're expected to work 80 hours you will be on the clock 80 hours but not all of it will be "work." I found that with shorter work days people stay more focussed and make better use of their time because they know they need to.

maxxxxx 10y ago

The problem is that the only easy to measure number is the number of hours worked. In the end you can't really measure output or quality so management will resort to the only concrete number they have. My output is highest when I work around 4-5 hours a day with occasional 24 hours marathons when things really flow. But I can see how this would make managers nervous because they can't really tell if I am just lazy or working at peak performance.

notheguyouthink 10y ago
I also imagine it would change workflows a lot for many companies. For example, my current company is very small and young (in experience). We're only now implementing meaningful workflows of builds, deploys, ci, etc... hell, even version control as previously an after thought. With that said, trying to increase staff heavily to compensate for 15h work weeks would mean a lack of workflows would impact us greatly, imo. Ie, some people here don't document their in progress work, and barely commit. How is someone else supposed to pick that up mid way through? Ie, the project still needs to get done in say, 2 weeks, but the original 40h/week dev will not be able to finish it in 2 weeks, so other people have to join in and work on it together. I'm not arguing against 15h weeks, just that it would mean single developers can't deliver the same product in the same timeframe most likely. So documentation, testing, and team communication would have to pick up the slack i imagine.
noxToken 10y ago
> with occasional 24 hours marathons when things really flow How on earth can you do that? A few weeks ago, I was in the office for 9 hours. I went home, goofed off of a little bit, then picked it back up for another 6 hours. I had been crushing it that day, and I was motivated enough to continue. In the wee hours of the morning, I was practically useless. I was hunting a bug that I had introduced with a small change. I reduced my statements to simple variables, created a truth table, then filled in the table to find equivalent statements. I was arguing with that damn truth table for half an hour. I lost of course. A truth table is a concept that can't be wrong. In fact, my conditional had been correct all along. It was a mapping that I had introduced elsewhere that was causing the conditional to evaluate differently.
- maxxxxx 10y ago
  "How on earth can you do that?" I don't do this every week or month but sometimes you struggle with something for weeks or months and then suddenly everything clicks and it just flows.

tuna-piano 10y ago

I could see this being true. I have concerns of course, but it might make sense. Maybe instead of making $100k, people would rather make $50k and work much less. That would happen naturally, with article like this, discussions, and companies and people experimenting with new things. What scares me is when it goes from that to "the government should mandate / provide this". I would see no reason that would not lead to a bad outcome similiar to other socialist countries. And remember, when people say that we decrease our societies working hours by 1/2, 2/3, etc they are saying that we should halve the number of doctors, teachers, pilots, farmers, etc. This guy may think accountants, consultants, etc are fake make-work jobs, but I've never seen a company knowingly being someone on when they know that person won't add value to the company (and therefore the society as well).

aninhumer 10y ago
>when people say that we decrease our societies working hours by 1/2, 2/3, etc they are saying that we should halve the number of doctors, teachers, pilots, farmers, etc. No, they mean there should be twice as many of them working half as much (or less, if there are productivity improvements). Obviously that would be hard to achieve in the short term, because these jobs require training, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

haywirez 10y ago

My week is currently split 2-4 days on my own projects (4 if counting weekends) vs. 3 days work for clients/companies. Never been more satisfied and productive. There's a lot of creative cross-pollination: both pursuits bring more value over to the other.

jasode 10y ago

>, it seems that companies with 'lenient' schedules (say regular 4-6 hours work days) tend to deliver better products (as in quality, customer acceptance, even financially) I see that you did qualify your claim with "it seems" but if you could list the companies you had in mind that are beating competitors on quality + customer acceptance + financials by having employees only work 20 to 30 hours per week, that would be extremely helpful evidence in this thread.

throwaway2016a 10y ago

My experience is the same. The 80 hour a week salary (no overtime) culture is also prone to people just goofing off. So sure you are in the office 80 hours but only 30 of those are productive hours (at most). If you know you're expected to work 80 hours you will be on the clock 80 hours but not all of it will be "work." I found that with shorter work days people stay more focussed and make better use of their time because they know they need to.