5 ms·

I had this same kind of personality / mental condition, and I am going to say, if he is really of the same personality type, 5-hour days are not going to help t

by jblow 9y ago

I had this same kind of personality / mental condition, and I am going to say, if he is really of the same personality type, 5-hour days are not going to help this author in the long term. What is helping his mood is not really the shorter day, but the hope of having made a short-term structural change that might fix things. The thing is, it won't. He already mentions at the end that burnouts are back. Well, pretty soon the 5-hour days will be feeling too long and he will be 'unable' to do them. Then what? 3-hour days? The fundamental problem is that he doesn't actually want to be doing what he is doing, despite the rhetoric of "great team and awesome project". Come on, is that really how you feel about it deep in your heart, or is it empty SV rhetoric? Two things will help this author: (1) Strike out on your own, following your own motivation only. Yes you have to figure out how to make ends meet financially, but that is your lot in life. Fortunately it is easier to do this with computers than in most other fields. (2) Meditate, learn to observe your mind and why it does what it does, so that you don't feel powerless or subservient to things like burnout. It's hard to explain the transformation that takes place, but being able to stand next to or outside these mental processes is very powerful.

Danihan 9y ago
Exactly. If you love what you're doing and feel challenged in the _right_ way, 17 hour days will generally feel like a difficult but worthwhile gift. Back in the day, I used to love working 16-20 hour shifts (unlimited overtime) in a tech-support call center. I was in my early twenties, and while most people hated tech support, I felt like every call I took got people connected to the internet, where who knew what they could accomplish, look-up, research, etc. I was genuinely helping hundreds of people a day get online, it felt great. Versus, if you hate hate hate what you're doing, you'll feel burned out after a few hours a week. And you could fall anywhere in between too. I've felt both extremes working in the same position at different times, depending on the circumstances.
- jblow 9y ago
  I don't think it has to be explicit hate-of-the-job for burnout to occur. For me personally it was just lack of meaning in that job. I didn't, deep down, feel that it was very important, or the right thing for me to be doing. It was just the thing I was doing because I didn't have anything better to do.
dceddia 9y ago
I recognize myself in his comments as well, and I thought the exact same thing when he said the burnouts are back. Just like the status log from a zombie movie... "Day 24: subjects seem to be exhibiting odd behaviors. getting bitey. not sure what's going on..." I still have a day job, but I get a lot of satisfaction out of running a blog + small product business on the side. I think you're on to something with your Thing #1. Meditation has helped me too, but I don't think it has really stopped the burnout/boredom problem -- but I also haven't been very consistent with it.
dkural 9y ago
He also doesn't really think well from the company's perspective, here's an Employee FAQ to complement the Boss FAQ on what's not addressed: 1. There is a fixed cost to having an in-house employee no matter how many hours he/she works. Healthcare, Office Space, Parking, lunch, any subscriptions to systems per-head etc. So inherently it's a bad deal to lower % productivity because these cost stay same. Note that not only these costs don' decline, company now has to hire more people to replace lost time, and incur these costs for those people as if they're full-time. So instead of fixed cost going from 1x->.8, it actually goes to 1.25x to get same amount of work done!! (assuming 80% productivity at 5h) 2. Even if (1) wasn't an issue, splitting a project to a larger team is inherently less efficient. The communication overhead of a 2 person team (1 comm. channel to manage) is 1/3 of a 3 person team (3 relationships/channels). Communication complexity increases exponentially with team size. 3. Time & context are very important to competitiveness in technology. Doing the same project in the same #hours and same $ is irrelevant in the real world if Team1 did it in one 4 weeks real-world time and Team2 did in 6 weeks of real world time, even if total hours worked is same. Likewise, employees build company and project context faster, can iterate faster, acquire relevant domain knowledge faster, and thus become more productive in Team1. 4. Should your stock vest over 5-6 years now instead of 4? [ edited for paragraph breaks ]
- DanBC 9y ago
  You're making the mistake of saying fewer hours would be less productive, and there's considerable doubt about that.
  - jblow 9y ago
    I have run a company for 13 years and I don't have doubt about it at all. Dropping to 5 hours is for sure going to be less productive unless all your employees are terrible in the first place (in which case, just hire people who want to work more). I am not claiming that the standard 8-hour day is the maximum; but I think if a shorter day is better, I would guess the situation would peak around 7 or 7.5 hours. But again this depends on what kind of people you are talking about. I personally work 60+ hours a week, most weeks, and I prefer it that way.
wastedhours 9y ago
How long do you think you need to give it become aware of what you need vs a temporary state of mind? Was in my last position for 18 months, and the one before for 3 1/2 years, but now after only a couple of months am back to where I was feeling toward the end of both of those places. It is a great company, and a fantastic opportunity, but do mentally seem to be struggling.
kristerv 9y ago
I guess this hits a nerve. I am serious about liking the company and team. I've made many of my own startups and many thing I've missed there are here now - that's what I mean. I really wish I could be contempt with what I have. Trying to strike out on my own has also caused a lot of stress. Yes, I get the full-on power and passion for 3 days straight, but since none of my projects have gotten anywhere (so far) I've kind of lost motivation there as well. Meditation? Yeah Vipassana is my friend. Can't say I follow Goenka's daily schedule, but it's here. Thanks for the thoughts, I shall keep them in mind.
curun1r 9y ago
> The fundamental problem is that he doesn't actually want to be doing what he is doing That was my thought as well. It may sound like trite management-ese, but autonomy, mastery and purpose can be important considerations for employees too. Every time I've burnt out, I looked at the situation through that lens and realized all the things I liked about my job were outside of those intrinsic motivation categories. You can be well paid, on a team you love and actually enjoy the work you do, but if you don't feel you're improving in your craft, don't feel like you have enough control over what you're working on and can't connect deeply with the reason you're doing the work, you may still burn out.

by jblow 9y ago

Danihan 9y ago

Exactly. If you love what you're doing and feel challenged in the _right_ way, 17 hour days will generally feel like a difficult but worthwhile gift. Back in the day, I used to love working 16-20 hour shifts (unlimited overtime) in a tech-support call center. I was in my early twenties, and while most people hated tech support, I felt like every call I took got people connected to the internet, where who knew what they could accomplish, look-up, research, etc. I was genuinely helping hundreds of people a day get online, it felt great. Versus, if you hate hate hate what you're doing, you'll feel burned out after a few hours a week. And you could fall anywhere in between too. I've felt both extremes working in the same position at different times, depending on the circumstances.

jblow 9y ago
I don't think it has to be explicit hate-of-the-job for burnout to occur. For me personally it was just lack of meaning in that job. I didn't, deep down, feel that it was very important, or the right thing for me to be doing. It was just the thing I was doing because I didn't have anything better to do.

dceddia 9y ago

I recognize myself in his comments as well, and I thought the exact same thing when he said the burnouts are back. Just like the status log from a zombie movie... "Day 24: subjects seem to be exhibiting odd behaviors. getting bitey. not sure what's going on..." I still have a day job, but I get a lot of satisfaction out of running a blog + small product business on the side. I think you're on to something with your Thing #1. Meditation has helped me too, but I don't think it has really stopped the burnout/boredom problem -- but I also haven't been very consistent with it.

dkural 9y ago

He also doesn't really think well from the company's perspective, here's an Employee FAQ to complement the Boss FAQ on what's not addressed: 1. There is a fixed cost to having an in-house employee no matter how many hours he/she works. Healthcare, Office Space, Parking, lunch, any subscriptions to systems per-head etc. So inherently it's a bad deal to lower % productivity because these cost stay same. Note that not only these costs don' decline, company now has to hire more people to replace lost time, and incur these costs for those people as if they're full-time. So instead of fixed cost going from 1x->.8, it actually goes to 1.25x to get same amount of work done!! (assuming 80% productivity at 5h) 2. Even if (1) wasn't an issue, splitting a project to a larger team is inherently less efficient. The communication overhead of a 2 person team (1 comm. channel to manage) is 1/3 of a 3 person team (3 relationships/channels). Communication complexity increases exponentially with team size. 3. Time & context are very important to competitiveness in technology. Doing the same project in the same #hours and same $ is irrelevant in the real world if Team1 did it in one 4 weeks real-world time and Team2 did in 6 weeks of real world time, even if total hours worked is same. Likewise, employees build company and project context faster, can iterate faster, acquire relevant domain knowledge faster, and thus become more productive in Team1. 4. Should your stock vest over 5-6 years now instead of 4? [ edited for paragraph breaks ]

DanBC 9y ago
You're making the mistake of saying fewer hours would be less productive, and there's considerable doubt about that.
- jblow 9y ago
  I have run a company for 13 years and I don't have doubt about it at all. Dropping to 5 hours is for sure going to be less productive unless all your employees are terrible in the first place (in which case, just hire people who want to work more). I am not claiming that the standard 8-hour day is the maximum; but I think if a shorter day is better, I would guess the situation would peak around 7 or 7.5 hours. But again this depends on what kind of people you are talking about. I personally work 60+ hours a week, most weeks, and I prefer it that way.

wastedhours 9y ago

How long do you think you need to give it become aware of what you need vs a temporary state of mind? Was in my last position for 18 months, and the one before for 3 1/2 years, but now after only a couple of months am back to where I was feeling toward the end of both of those places. It is a great company, and a fantastic opportunity, but do mentally seem to be struggling.

kristerv 9y ago

I guess this hits a nerve. I am serious about liking the company and team. I've made many of my own startups and many thing I've missed there are here now - that's what I mean. I really wish I could be contempt with what I have. Trying to strike out on my own has also caused a lot of stress. Yes, I get the full-on power and passion for 3 days straight, but since none of my projects have gotten anywhere (so far) I've kind of lost motivation there as well. Meditation? Yeah Vipassana is my friend. Can't say I follow Goenka's daily schedule, but it's here. Thanks for the thoughts, I shall keep them in mind.

curun1r 9y ago

> The fundamental problem is that he doesn't actually want to be doing what he is doing That was my thought as well. It may sound like trite management-ese, but autonomy, mastery and purpose can be important considerations for employees too. Every time I've burnt out, I looked at the situation through that lens and realized all the things I liked about my job were outside of those intrinsic motivation categories. You can be well paid, on a team you love and actually enjoy the work you do, but if you don't feel you're improving in your craft, don't feel like you have enough control over what you're working on and can't connect deeply with the reason you're doing the work, you may still burn out.