4 ms·

I think I read a couple of hours of news etc. at work. Here I am on HN. It's very individual, but I would not be surprised if it's true for most office workers

by flexie 9y ago

I think I read a couple of hours of news etc. at work. Here I am on HN. It's very individual, but I would not be surprised if it's true for most office workers that they work efficiently for 3-4 hours a day. And for a lot of people, some of that time is spent in a meeting...

sigi45 9y ago
And how do you justify your behaviour? oO? You could use your time you get paid for for better things. Doing something for the company you get paid from? Here have a read: http://bookofhook.blogspot.de/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity-pitfalls.html http://bookofhook.blogspot.de/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity...
- ndh2 9y ago
  Thank you for the link.
- flexie 9y ago
  I don't have to justify that to anyone, except maybe my family. I work for myself.
  - sigi45 9y ago
    And do you write down your ours or do you talk jobs and tell them up front how much it is, independend from hours worked?
    - flexie 9y ago
      Both, and when I bill by the hour I only bill the hours I work. Billing for my breaks would quickly lead to a loss of clients when they saw how much time I spent (and if discovered, I could be disbarred). But if I had made sure to explain that my hourly rate included breaks, as some do, it actually wouldn't be illegal.
- DanBC 9y ago
  > And how do you justify your behaviour? oO? If you're productive for 4 hours a day you need to avoid causing harm for the other 4 hours. Noodling around on code when you're not productive carries greater risk of introducing errors. I hope most programmers are not being paid per hour, but for the quality and quantity of their output. But I accept that many managers see those unproductive hours and imagine they could be productive if the employee just did more work.
  - sigi45 9y ago
    I, what? You can write tests. You can cleanup a small save portion after you wrote tests. You can help a work collegue. You can optimize your teams workflow. Quality and Quantity are still connected. Do you think anyone would pay me a dime for a perfect and beautiful small feature x which i worked a year on and any one else would only need a day for it?
- consz 9y ago
  What if you're required to be there physically for 8 hours, and you also don't get paid any more for better work then you currently produce? I suspect that would describe the majority of jobs.
  - sigi45 9y ago
    In my contract there are 8hours a day written down. You probably don't get paid for feature x, you get paid for 40 hours (or whatever). If you get paid to do feature x, you would be a contractor with an contract stating that you do feature x for payment y. I do make quality code because that is my standard. I do not care what others get paid for the same work. If they do, i will switch company and or will talk about my salary. If i work in a company with labor contract, than it was my choice and i still produce my quality and not reduce the quality on purpose to read HN for an our every day.
    - consz 9y ago
      (I do get paid directly based on my work, so my original description for the 'majority of jobs' does not describe my own, so here I'm only speculating) I don't think anyone is reducing their work hours specifically to read HN for an hour every day. Like the study describes, most people don't and aren't capable of working for 8 hours an entire day; if they choose to spend the unproductive hours reading HN instead of working on some ancillary project, I don't see any reason they'd have to go out of their way to justify it to themselves.

by flexie 9y ago

sigi45 9y ago

And how do you justify your behaviour? oO? You could use your time you get paid for for better things. Doing something for the company you get paid from? Here have a read: http://bookofhook.blogspot.de/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity-pitfalls.html http://bookofhook.blogspot.de/2013/03/smart-guy-productivity...

ndh2 9y ago
Thank you for the link.
flexie 9y ago
I don't have to justify that to anyone, except maybe my family. I work for myself.
- sigi45 9y ago
  And do you write down your ours or do you talk jobs and tell them up front how much it is, independend from hours worked?
  - flexie 9y ago
    Both, and when I bill by the hour I only bill the hours I work. Billing for my breaks would quickly lead to a loss of clients when they saw how much time I spent (and if discovered, I could be disbarred). But if I had made sure to explain that my hourly rate included breaks, as some do, it actually wouldn't be illegal.
DanBC 9y ago
> And how do you justify your behaviour? oO? If you're productive for 4 hours a day you need to avoid causing harm for the other 4 hours. Noodling around on code when you're not productive carries greater risk of introducing errors. I hope most programmers are not being paid per hour, but for the quality and quantity of their output. But I accept that many managers see those unproductive hours and imagine they could be productive if the employee just did more work.
- sigi45 9y ago
  I, what? You can write tests. You can cleanup a small save portion after you wrote tests. You can help a work collegue. You can optimize your teams workflow. Quality and Quantity are still connected. Do you think anyone would pay me a dime for a perfect and beautiful small feature x which i worked a year on and any one else would only need a day for it?
consz 9y ago
What if you're required to be there physically for 8 hours, and you also don't get paid any more for better work then you currently produce? I suspect that would describe the majority of jobs.
- sigi45 9y ago
  In my contract there are 8hours a day written down. You probably don't get paid for feature x, you get paid for 40 hours (or whatever). If you get paid to do feature x, you would be a contractor with an contract stating that you do feature x for payment y. I do make quality code because that is my standard. I do not care what others get paid for the same work. If they do, i will switch company and or will talk about my salary. If i work in a company with labor contract, than it was my choice and i still produce my quality and not reduce the quality on purpose to read HN for an our every day.
  - consz 9y ago
    (I do get paid directly based on my work, so my original description for the 'majority of jobs' does not describe my own, so here I'm only speculating) I don't think anyone is reducing their work hours specifically to read HN for an hour every day. Like the study describes, most people don't and aren't capable of working for 8 hours an entire day; if they choose to spend the unproductive hours reading HN instead of working on some ancillary project, I don't see any reason they'd have to go out of their way to justify it to themselves.