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As a person who isn't a professional coder. Fuck me this thread is depressing. When I was working as a chef: out of a 12 hour shift, perhaps 9-10 hours were fu

As a person who isn't a professional coder. Fuck me this thread is depressing. When I was working as a chef: out of a 12 hour shift, perhaps 9-10 hours were full on. When I worked on the docks(forklift driver/unloading by hand), 7-8 hours full on out of a 10 hour shift. As an eikawa teacher, a little better, 40% full on teaching, 20% prep and the last 40 bullshitting.(I hated that job). My current job, 9 hour shift, 4-5 teaching, 2+ prep and creating future classes, rest meetings or bullshitting/lunch. Today: 5 hours prep for current week/future courses, 3 hours classes, 4 hours meetings(random day today). I was thinking tonight about how my workload had changed and it seemed much better, but damn. I don't even know how to put this into words at this point, without sounding too conceited, but I cannot fathom a reason for anyone here to complain about overwork :-p

johnnyRose 7y ago
You're right - in my experience, most programmers have it pretty good. What I've noticed is that stress/overworking comes when the team is pressured for time. As a mental, as opposed to physical laborer, sometimes less is more, and sometimes that means leaving an hour early just to figure out the solution to your problems on the drive home. Managers who think "butts in seats, hands on keyboards" equals "more productivity" can't effectively manage programmers.
ajkjk 7y ago
In my experience there is something strange about how exhausting a relatively small amount of programming is. Presumably because complex problem-solving wears the brain down in a way that more well-defined tasks don't. When I get home I find myself dying to do something menial. It takes me more effort to program for two hours than it does to, like, 12 hours of physical labor. It's not as physically exhausting, but it wrecks my brain.
- fapjacks 7y ago
  I think this is something intrinsic to animals. Working dogs are the same way: After some x amount of time, the dog is done working for the day. It doesn't matter what you do, the dog is done working. It's just something about work which engages the brain that animals can only handle so much of. I have no evidence to back this up, but I like to think this is a distant cousin of the neurophysical phenomenon of "overstimulation" where saying a word over and over causes it to lose meaning. It's believed this is due to a kind of neuronal over-use of some particular piece of the brain related to the meaning of the word.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
throwaway190628 7y ago
I am a dev and haven’t experienced the same thing as some of the other posters here. I work remotely, minimize distractions, have few meetings, and I’m generally working 10-14 hours a day - without making any time for growth, HN, etc. That is all focus time, and fast movement. EDIT: That’s the baseline... “Overtime” is that plus nights and weekends. These remarks are about USA-based companies, and salaried positions. Have learned that at some of these smaller startups, the devs have different capacities, but the company just learns what each person can do and asks for (at least) 120%+ of that. And people play psychological tricks to keep people cranking it. I have puzzled about who this arrangements benefits... As the turnover is more costly than the illusion of getting a bit more done today. FWIW, The best readings I’ve found about it are on DaedTech and Ribbonfarm. Some larger Cos. do the same but sometimes they also have the budget that can support people coasting as others have mentioned in this thread. But many of those rely on “office traps” and expect a lot of performative presence (50+ hours a week or you’re negatively judged). And even if some people are coasting some of the time, they find ways to burn people out in bursts. It burns people out and it seems to be a bad deal for everyone involved. Currently figuring out how to get back to a healthy and sustainable balance, but without talking explicitly about it with people at work, as it is a taboo subject. This is my Nth job as a dev where I’ve been in this situation. I’m only recently starting to accept there are not consistently available jobs/employers who allow transparency about work/life balance or burnout; at most they pretend to but it is translated to negative marks on you. Both in the interview process and on the job...
- fapjacks 7y ago
  I feel for you and I wish you the best. I am on the way back up after a burnout some time ago and this isn't my first burnout, stupidly. I should have known better after a couple decades in the industry, but I really thought I could handle the extra load because of how much I enjoyed the work and the team. There were some other factors that went into it (unhealthy non-work-related externalities), but at the end of the day, I burned out. I have no idea what the answer to this problem is, but it's a huge, huge problem, as you've surmised. Good luck.
hangtwenty 7y ago
There is another discussion right now that needs to be x-linked here. On burnout. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20300509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20300509

johnnyRose 7y ago

You're right - in my experience, most programmers have it pretty good. What I've noticed is that stress/overworking comes when the team is pressured for time. As a mental, as opposed to physical laborer, sometimes less is more, and sometimes that means leaving an hour early just to figure out the solution to your problems on the drive home. Managers who think "butts in seats, hands on keyboards" equals "more productivity" can't effectively manage programmers.

ajkjk 7y ago

In my experience there is something strange about how exhausting a relatively small amount of programming is. Presumably because complex problem-solving wears the brain down in a way that more well-defined tasks don't. When I get home I find myself dying to do something menial. It takes me more effort to program for two hours than it does to, like, 12 hours of physical labor. It's not as physically exhausting, but it wrecks my brain.

fapjacks 7y ago
I think this is something intrinsic to animals. Working dogs are the same way: After some x amount of time, the dog is done working for the day. It doesn't matter what you do, the dog is done working. It's just something about work which engages the brain that animals can only handle so much of. I have no evidence to back this up, but I like to think this is a distant cousin of the neurophysical phenomenon of "overstimulation" where saying a word over and over causes it to lose meaning. It's believed this is due to a kind of neuronal over-use of some particular piece of the brain related to the meaning of the word.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

throwaway190628 7y ago

I am a dev and haven’t experienced the same thing as some of the other posters here. I work remotely, minimize distractions, have few meetings, and I’m generally working 10-14 hours a day - without making any time for growth, HN, etc. That is all focus time, and fast movement. EDIT: That’s the baseline... “Overtime” is that plus nights and weekends. These remarks are about USA-based companies, and salaried positions. Have learned that at some of these smaller startups, the devs have different capacities, but the company just learns what each person can do and asks for (at least) 120%+ of that. And people play psychological tricks to keep people cranking it. I have puzzled about who this arrangements benefits... As the turnover is more costly than the illusion of getting a bit more done today. FWIW, The best readings I’ve found about it are on DaedTech and Ribbonfarm. Some larger Cos. do the same but sometimes they also have the budget that can support people coasting as others have mentioned in this thread. But many of those rely on “office traps” and expect a lot of performative presence (50+ hours a week or you’re negatively judged). And even if some people are coasting some of the time, they find ways to burn people out in bursts. It burns people out and it seems to be a bad deal for everyone involved. Currently figuring out how to get back to a healthy and sustainable balance, but without talking explicitly about it with people at work, as it is a taboo subject. This is my Nth job as a dev where I’ve been in this situation. I’m only recently starting to accept there are not consistently available jobs/employers who allow transparency about work/life balance or burnout; at most they pretend to but it is translated to negative marks on you. Both in the interview process and on the job...

fapjacks 7y ago
I feel for you and I wish you the best. I am on the way back up after a burnout some time ago and this isn't my first burnout, stupidly. I should have known better after a couple decades in the industry, but I really thought I could handle the extra load because of how much I enjoyed the work and the team. There were some other factors that went into it (unhealthy non-work-related externalities), but at the end of the day, I burned out. I have no idea what the answer to this problem is, but it's a huge, huge problem, as you've surmised. Good luck.

hangtwenty 7y ago

There is another discussion right now that needs to be x-linked here. On burnout. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20300509 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20300509