6 ms·

I agree that the ideas aren't necessarily generalizable, but what if we shifted to an idea that people's individual schedules reflect when they specifically are

I agree that the ideas aren't necessarily generalizable, but what if we shifted to an idea that people's individual schedules reflect when they specifically are most productive. Someone else who replied said they were most productive in the morning. Great! Let them have and earlier start time. For me, I'm completely useless in the morning. Sure, I can be in the office at 8:00am, but you're not getting any meaningful work out of me until late morning or noon-ish. So let me come in at noon and work until 6:00. And for someone else who is super productive in the evening hours, if they want to come in a 8:00pm and work until 2:00am, why not? I get that there are issues of collaboration or interaction that may be necessary. But in general, it seems like, as long as your job doesn't depend on customer interaction or some other constraint, why not let people work a schedule that suits their lifestyle, and lets them work when they are most productive?

nitrogen 9y ago
...if they want to come in a 8:00pm and work until 2:00am, why not? Part of the "why not" is a deeply ingrained belief in at least American culture that morning people are just "better" than night people. It's so ingrained that we mostly forget to talk about it and it's just assumed. "Early bird catches the worm" and all that. I once saw a workplace where there were night-person-friendly policies and schedules. Then one insanely morning person joins and wants to leave at 3:30 every day. Suddenly all of his scheduling preferences were presumed valid, and all night-person preferences had to be fought for and justified. So if you want to reach a world with truly optimal flexible schedules, first you'll need to wrest ownership of the culture from the "morning people are better" people who currently dominate it.
- dictum 9y ago
  > Then one insanely morning person joins and wants to leave at 3:30 every day. Suddenly all of his scheduling preferences were presumed valid Why wouldn't their preferences be presumed valid? It's as hard for the morning person to deal with night-person preferences as it's hard for a night person to deal with morning-person preferences. (Disclaimer: I'm a morning person and I'm not American.)
  - davehtaylor 9y ago
    I think it's because people think "morning person" is the default, and correct, way of being. And that not being a morning person makes you odd or lazy. So when someone comes in challenging late-friendly scheduling, they're assumed to be the correct one, and that the workplace has somehow been in error by allowing later schedules.
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      It's the Ben Franklin Poor Richard's Almanac thing: "Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." He was also the buttmunch that gave us daylight savings time.
      - core-questions 9y ago
        I used to be really against DST, but honestly, it's the only thing that actually lets me see the damn sun at all in the winter, so now I'm a fan.
        krylon 9y ago
        But DST is in summer, isn't it? At least that is what I have been told: In summer, days are so long and start so early that we might as well move the whole day back by an hour, so get up early, finish work early and still have a couple of hours of daylight left. Full disclosure: I am not a fan of DST, but I do not expect the current situation to change. In Europe, almost(?) all countries use it, so if just Germany (where I live) abolished DST, we would be out of sync with the rest of Europe for half of the year. Dealing with dates and times as a programmer is already confusing enough; if DST was to go, all countries would have to drop it simultaneously, or else the resulting patchwork would be too much of a pain. And I do not see that happening anytime soon.
        surement 9y ago
        > if DST was to go, all countries would have to drop it simultaneously, or else the resulting patchwork would be too much of a pain There are already countless exceptions to DST and people seem to be doing fine. E.g. in Australia there are two regions in the same time zone where only one has DST, meaning they are out of sync for half the year.
- davehtaylor 9y ago
  > Part of the "why not" is a deeply ingrained belief in at least American culture that morning people are just "better" than night people. It's so ingrained that we mostly forget to talk about it and it's just assumed. "Early bird catches the worm" and all that. I think you really nailed it here. People who aren't "morning people" are viewed as lazy, strange, and unmotivated. And it's very frustrating to try to make people understand that I don't stay up until 3:00am every night and sleep until noon, or that I'm not lazy because I'm not flitting around the room like a humming bird the moment I get out of bed. It's like it's completely impossible to have this conversation because people are totally unwilling to see things in any other way. Also, the early worm gets eaten.
- watwut 9y ago
  In tech it seems to be opposite. Staying late make you seem like hard workers, but nobody cares if you come soon.
- krylon 9y ago
  It is more complex than that. I do not own a car, so I have to use public transportation to get to work, and that dries up outside the main working hours. Another issue is that it often makes sense for people that work together to be in the same place at the same time. The implicit assumption that it is somehow morally better to get up early in the morning is very prevalent in Germany, too. I think it's a protestant thing, or at least a Christianity thing - getting up late in the morning implies sleeping in which implies laziness, which is a deadly sin. In fact, I remember listening to an interview with a neurologist (or a biologist whose focus was the nervous system), who said it was absurd to force children to get up as early in the morning as the adults, because for the first one or two lessons, their ability to learn would be impaired anyway. There is one thing to be said, though, in favour of uniform working hours - it is that you do not need to worry about when your friends are free or working. During my Zivildienst (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst) I worked in a hospital in shift work. Working the early shift meant I could not go out the evening before, because I had to get up at 05:00, so I had get to bed early; working the late shift meant that I only got off work when it was already evening.
- EpicEng 9y ago
  part of it, yes, but unless you work in a complete vacuum people will need your input throughout the day. They may need support, or your attendance at a meeting, or maybe the just need to ask a simple question. I couldn't support one of my devs asking for hours completely opposite everyone else as it would slow the entire team down.
  - s73ver_ 9y ago
    For 99.9999999999999% of things, waiting for a response is not going to kill anyone. The sun will still come up tomorrow, the business will still be around, and things will continue as normal.
  - khedoros1 9y ago
    We've got a minority working in the US and a majority across the Pacific. It adds friction, but you work it out. Even in the local office, a couple of the devs tend to have personal matters in the morning, but work late into the night. Again, you work it out, and it's not a big deal.
majormajor 9y ago
Yeah, 8PM to 2AM is tricky for the same reason as international teams since you might have zero face-to-face overlap with someone doing 10AM-6PM, but I've worked at three different places that were all fine with a less extreme version of that (noon-to-8, for instance, seems pretty common, or even 3-11PM for the occasional outlier). Ask around, look around, and discuss stuff like this before signing the offer if it's important to you. It's definitely not impossible. :) Barring a union or such, things like this will only change one job at a time.
- mjevans 9y ago
  The way to make it not tricky is to be //remote friendly// in your work culture and get the interactions externalized and committed to information storage and dissemination systems. Make processes phased and allow for multiple inputs (maybe blinded) during each phase, followed by a digestion step. Repeat this cycle until a strong consensus is reached.
ubertaco 9y ago
Shifting a schedule is one thing (in fact, I work on a shifted schedule on days I commute; from 6:45am or 7am to 3pm, due to bad local traffic); cutting your workday effectively in half is another. This article is touting "forget your 8-hour/9-hour job, just work a 5-hour day instead!" That'd be nice from a free-time perspective, but it doesn't line up with business needs.
- mangodrunk 9y ago
  If only we started valuing free time as a society. If all the automation and productivity gains, you would think we could work less now. What modern comforts necessitate an 8 hour work schedule? I would rather have more free time and less money.
lazyasciiart 9y ago
It turns out there are people who literally believe that having multiple people in a room is 'productive' even when there is no agenda, no goal and no fucking point to doing so. So that kind of person sees 'being at the office at the same time as other people' as a goal in itself.
- mangodrunk 9y ago
  It's rather annoying that there's a thought that by random chance something (who knows what that something would be) can come out of people being in the same place at the same time. I do see value in being at the same place/time when you are working with someone, as it's so much easier and more fluid when collaborating in person.

nitrogen 9y ago

...if they want to come in a 8:00pm and work until 2:00am, why not? Part of the "why not" is a deeply ingrained belief in at least American culture that morning people are just "better" than night people. It's so ingrained that we mostly forget to talk about it and it's just assumed. "Early bird catches the worm" and all that. I once saw a workplace where there were night-person-friendly policies and schedules. Then one insanely morning person joins and wants to leave at 3:30 every day. Suddenly all of his scheduling preferences were presumed valid, and all night-person preferences had to be fought for and justified. So if you want to reach a world with truly optimal flexible schedules, first you'll need to wrest ownership of the culture from the "morning people are better" people who currently dominate it.

dictum 9y ago
> Then one insanely morning person joins and wants to leave at 3:30 every day. Suddenly all of his scheduling preferences were presumed valid Why wouldn't their preferences be presumed valid? It's as hard for the morning person to deal with night-person preferences as it's hard for a night person to deal with morning-person preferences. (Disclaimer: I'm a morning person and I'm not American.)
- davehtaylor 9y ago
  I think it's because people think "morning person" is the default, and correct, way of being. And that not being a morning person makes you odd or lazy. So when someone comes in challenging late-friendly scheduling, they're assumed to be the correct one, and that the workplace has somehow been in error by allowing later schedules.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    It's the Ben Franklin Poor Richard's Almanac thing: "Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." He was also the buttmunch that gave us daylight savings time.
    - core-questions 9y ago
      I used to be really against DST, but honestly, it's the only thing that actually lets me see the damn sun at all in the winter, so now I'm a fan.
      - krylon 9y ago
        But DST is in summer, isn't it? At least that is what I have been told: In summer, days are so long and start so early that we might as well move the whole day back by an hour, so get up early, finish work early and still have a couple of hours of daylight left. Full disclosure: I am not a fan of DST, but I do not expect the current situation to change. In Europe, almost(?) all countries use it, so if just Germany (where I live) abolished DST, we would be out of sync with the rest of Europe for half of the year. Dealing with dates and times as a programmer is already confusing enough; if DST was to go, all countries would have to drop it simultaneously, or else the resulting patchwork would be too much of a pain. And I do not see that happening anytime soon.
        surement 9y ago
        > if DST was to go, all countries would have to drop it simultaneously, or else the resulting patchwork would be too much of a pain There are already countless exceptions to DST and people seem to be doing fine. E.g. in Australia there are two regions in the same time zone where only one has DST, meaning they are out of sync for half the year.
davehtaylor 9y ago
> Part of the "why not" is a deeply ingrained belief in at least American culture that morning people are just "better" than night people. It's so ingrained that we mostly forget to talk about it and it's just assumed. "Early bird catches the worm" and all that. I think you really nailed it here. People who aren't "morning people" are viewed as lazy, strange, and unmotivated. And it's very frustrating to try to make people understand that I don't stay up until 3:00am every night and sleep until noon, or that I'm not lazy because I'm not flitting around the room like a humming bird the moment I get out of bed. It's like it's completely impossible to have this conversation because people are totally unwilling to see things in any other way. Also, the early worm gets eaten.
watwut 9y ago
In tech it seems to be opposite. Staying late make you seem like hard workers, but nobody cares if you come soon.
krylon 9y ago
It is more complex than that. I do not own a car, so I have to use public transportation to get to work, and that dries up outside the main working hours. Another issue is that it often makes sense for people that work together to be in the same place at the same time. The implicit assumption that it is somehow morally better to get up early in the morning is very prevalent in Germany, too. I think it's a protestant thing, or at least a Christianity thing - getting up late in the morning implies sleeping in which implies laziness, which is a deadly sin. In fact, I remember listening to an interview with a neurologist (or a biologist whose focus was the nervous system), who said it was absurd to force children to get up as early in the morning as the adults, because for the first one or two lessons, their ability to learn would be impaired anyway. There is one thing to be said, though, in favour of uniform working hours - it is that you do not need to worry about when your friends are free or working. During my Zivildienst (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zivildienst) I worked in a hospital in shift work. Working the early shift meant I could not go out the evening before, because I had to get up at 05:00, so I had get to bed early; working the late shift meant that I only got off work when it was already evening.
EpicEng 9y ago
part of it, yes, but unless you work in a complete vacuum people will need your input throughout the day. They may need support, or your attendance at a meeting, or maybe the just need to ask a simple question. I couldn't support one of my devs asking for hours completely opposite everyone else as it would slow the entire team down.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  For 99.9999999999999% of things, waiting for a response is not going to kill anyone. The sun will still come up tomorrow, the business will still be around, and things will continue as normal.
- khedoros1 9y ago
  We've got a minority working in the US and a majority across the Pacific. It adds friction, but you work it out. Even in the local office, a couple of the devs tend to have personal matters in the morning, but work late into the night. Again, you work it out, and it's not a big deal.

majormajor 9y ago

Yeah, 8PM to 2AM is tricky for the same reason as international teams since you might have zero face-to-face overlap with someone doing 10AM-6PM, but I've worked at three different places that were all fine with a less extreme version of that (noon-to-8, for instance, seems pretty common, or even 3-11PM for the occasional outlier). Ask around, look around, and discuss stuff like this before signing the offer if it's important to you. It's definitely not impossible. :) Barring a union or such, things like this will only change one job at a time.

mjevans 9y ago
The way to make it not tricky is to be //remote friendly// in your work culture and get the interactions externalized and committed to information storage and dissemination systems. Make processes phased and allow for multiple inputs (maybe blinded) during each phase, followed by a digestion step. Repeat this cycle until a strong consensus is reached.

ubertaco 9y ago

Shifting a schedule is one thing (in fact, I work on a shifted schedule on days I commute; from 6:45am or 7am to 3pm, due to bad local traffic); cutting your workday effectively in half is another. This article is touting "forget your 8-hour/9-hour job, just work a 5-hour day instead!" That'd be nice from a free-time perspective, but it doesn't line up with business needs.

mangodrunk 9y ago
If only we started valuing free time as a society. If all the automation and productivity gains, you would think we could work less now. What modern comforts necessitate an 8 hour work schedule? I would rather have more free time and less money.

lazyasciiart 9y ago

It turns out there are people who literally believe that having multiple people in a room is 'productive' even when there is no agenda, no goal and no fucking point to doing so. So that kind of person sees 'being at the office at the same time as other people' as a goal in itself.

mangodrunk 9y ago
It's rather annoying that there's a thought that by random chance something (who knows what that something would be) can come out of people being in the same place at the same time. I do see value in being at the same place/time when you are working with someone, as it's so much easier and more fluid when collaborating in person.