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your (x times y) work week is a privilege earned by a long history of labour activism in the Western world. With most of "us" being some kind of a software eng

your (x times y) work week is a privilege earned by a long history of labour activism in the Western world. With most of "us" being some kind of a software engineer, I'm sincerely curious: was 80-hours workweek ever a mandatory thing for an engineer (teacher, doctor)?

um_ya 8y ago
In terms of a software development, laws/licences requiring maximum workweek hours is kind of pointless. If any company forces their employees to work in those kinds of conditions, they're going to get poor results, and their customers will notice. Software development requires a clear thinking mind, you can only get away with so much before productivity tanks. Manufacturing work is mindless, so they can get away with extra hours without as much decrease in productivity.
- ubercow13 8y ago
  Are you basically denying the existence of this problem?
geofft 8y ago
Well, it sort of depends on how / where you see yourself and whether you work for yourself. Doctors today work long hours, and teachers are sort of limited by class schedules so their labor organizing has generally focused on better pay / benefits rather than fewer hours, but even for engineers, there's a spectrum from locomotive engineer to Nikola Tesla. Here are some things I've learned from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day#United_States and linked pages : - In 1791, carpenters in Philadelphia went on strike against "the prevailing sun-to-sun system, and the 75 hour work week" and fought for a 10-hour day. http://www.red-coral.net/WorkCoops.html http://www.red-coral.net/WorkCoops.html - The International Typographical Union, which had relatively well-off members, went on strike around 1900-ish initially for a 48-hour work week and then for a 40-hour work week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Typographical_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Typographical_Un... - In 1907, the US passed the "Hours of Service Act," which limited railroad telegraphers to a 9-hour day. In committee the act was almost going to be a limit to a 12-hour day (i.e., the normal day was longer than that!), until the telegraphers spammed their congresspeople using their telegraphs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Railroad_Telegraphers#Impact_of_Hours_of_Service_Act_of_1907 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Railroad_Telegraphers... I would say that software engineers, SREs, etc. working IC jobs maintaining large codebases/services at the direction of their bosses in large companies are far closer to the professions that historically have made up the labor movement—carpenters and typesetters and electricians and actors and journalists and composers and telegraph operators and so forth—than they are to the doctor running their own private clinic as their own business.
egypturnash 8y ago
A quick search for “doctor work week” is returning numbers that start around 50 and go up to 108 for an emergency room surgeon. There is a horrible cultural expectation of crazy amounts of overwork in the US hospital world.
- sebazzz 8y ago
  Seems dangerous in a medical profession. I certainly start making all kinds of obvious mistakes when tired or overworked, but my web application doesn't hurt anyone.
  - Jarwain 8y ago
    I read somewhere that the rationale is essentially that more mistakes are made when handing a patient off to another doctor on shift change. Communicating all the necessary information is difficult, context or details can be left out, resulting in larger mistakes being made by the incoming doctor. They think the tradeoff is worthwhile
- rb808 8y ago
  Pretty much every hospital globally. Its not great for the doctors, but if you're a patient with an acute problem its much better to have the same few doctors working keeping watch over you than a brand new doctor every 8 hours coming on board that doesn't know anything about why you're there.
  - vkou 8y ago
    There's probably a more optimal solution then either a current 8h handoff, or a zombie caring for you. However, doctoring, as profession, is a conservative one, and is highly resistant to process improvements. It took decades of effort, and decades of trivial mistakes (wrong organs removed, surgical instruments left inside patients when they are sewn up) to get the profession to even consider that maybe, maybe, checklists are a good idea during surgeries. If someone came up with a process improvement that made patient handoff better, many doctors would resist it out of principle, vanity, or plain-old "I was hazed with 90 hr/week residency, so should every new doctor."

um_ya 8y ago

In terms of a software development, laws/licences requiring maximum workweek hours is kind of pointless. If any company forces their employees to work in those kinds of conditions, they're going to get poor results, and their customers will notice. Software development requires a clear thinking mind, you can only get away with so much before productivity tanks. Manufacturing work is mindless, so they can get away with extra hours without as much decrease in productivity.

ubercow13 8y ago
Are you basically denying the existence of this problem?

geofft 8y ago

Well, it sort of depends on how / where you see yourself and whether you work for yourself. Doctors today work long hours, and teachers are sort of limited by class schedules so their labor organizing has generally focused on better pay / benefits rather than fewer hours, but even for engineers, there's a spectrum from locomotive engineer to Nikola Tesla. Here are some things I've learned from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day#United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight-hour_day#United_States and linked pages : - In 1791, carpenters in Philadelphia went on strike against "the prevailing sun-to-sun system, and the 75 hour work week" and fought for a 10-hour day. http://www.red-coral.net/WorkCoops.html http://www.red-coral.net/WorkCoops.html - The International Typographical Union, which had relatively well-off members, went on strike around 1900-ish initially for a 48-hour work week and then for a 40-hour work week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Typographical_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Typographical_Un... - In 1907, the US passed the "Hours of Service Act," which limited railroad telegraphers to a 9-hour day. In committee the act was almost going to be a limit to a 12-hour day (i.e., the normal day was longer than that!), until the telegraphers spammed their congresspeople using their telegraphs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Railroad_Telegraphers#Impact_of_Hours_of_Service_Act_of_1907 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Railroad_Telegraphers... I would say that software engineers, SREs, etc. working IC jobs maintaining large codebases/services at the direction of their bosses in large companies are far closer to the professions that historically have made up the labor movement—carpenters and typesetters and electricians and actors and journalists and composers and telegraph operators and so forth—than they are to the doctor running their own private clinic as their own business.

egypturnash 8y ago

A quick search for “doctor work week” is returning numbers that start around 50 and go up to 108 for an emergency room surgeon. There is a horrible cultural expectation of crazy amounts of overwork in the US hospital world.

sebazzz 8y ago
Seems dangerous in a medical profession. I certainly start making all kinds of obvious mistakes when tired or overworked, but my web application doesn't hurt anyone.
- Jarwain 8y ago
  I read somewhere that the rationale is essentially that more mistakes are made when handing a patient off to another doctor on shift change. Communicating all the necessary information is difficult, context or details can be left out, resulting in larger mistakes being made by the incoming doctor. They think the tradeoff is worthwhile
rb808 8y ago
Pretty much every hospital globally. Its not great for the doctors, but if you're a patient with an acute problem its much better to have the same few doctors working keeping watch over you than a brand new doctor every 8 hours coming on board that doesn't know anything about why you're there.
- vkou 8y ago
  There's probably a more optimal solution then either a current 8h handoff, or a zombie caring for you. However, doctoring, as profession, is a conservative one, and is highly resistant to process improvements. It took decades of effort, and decades of trivial mistakes (wrong organs removed, surgical instruments left inside patients when they are sewn up) to get the profession to even consider that maybe, maybe, checklists are a good idea during surgeries. If someone came up with a process improvement that made patient handoff better, many doctors would resist it out of principle, vanity, or plain-old "I was hazed with 90 hr/week residency, so should every new doctor."