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> everything from cleaning to child care You cannot overstate the difficulty of putting in eight, or even six, solid hours of work in a day where you also have

> everything from cleaning to child care You cannot overstate the difficulty of putting in eight, or even six, solid hours of work in a day where you also have to coordinate your children's schooling, prepare meals, arbitrate disagreements, apply band-aids, do dishes, do laundry, supply technical support, and a thousand other non-work-related tasks. I was surprised that the article didn't mention this.

m0zg 6y ago
> putting in eight, or even six, solid hours Especially considering that _nobody_ puts in eight or even six hours of "solid work" when at the office. That's something I intuitively knew for a while, but it came into stark contrast once I started consulting and tracking my time. I only bill for the time I _actually_ work. And doing 8 hours of mentally demanding, focused work per day is difficult AF. That's why people slack off in the office, have water cooler conversations, interrupt each other all the time, have meetings they don't really need to have, 1.5 hour lunch breaks, etc. If you had to actually work 8 hours a day, full throttle, few people would stick with it. The flip side is the productivity of doing 8 hours of focused work per day is truly staggering when you tally it up at the end of the week (which I also do, and you should do, too, if you work remote - otherwise you'll be "invisible" no matter how much you contribute). And WFH plus mostly async communication is very amenable to being able to focus.
- lame-robot-hoax 6y ago
  Eh, people in support work probably six solid hours very often. If there’s an outage or a problem, people in support can easily work 7 or 7 and a half hours of taking calls practically non stop. And like you said, few people stick with it. Every place I’ve worked at, the Support department has extremely high turnover and people constantly trying to leave for a different department in the company, or a different role in a different company. Being constantly monitored, poor pay, not being able to go to company sponsored events (oh, at 2 PM we’re having a Zoom workout/meditation meeting, everyone is invited *except support they gotta stay on the phone), having to be above certain metrics, and having to talk to people that are generally neutral at best and extremely pissed at worst, is the perfect recipe for people to hate their job and to quit/leave the company/go to a different department ASAP.
- watwut 6y ago
  There is difference between "downtime is when you want it and is spent socializing, reading, wasting time" versus "supposed downtime is when alarm buzzes and yet another work",
- gnicholas 6y ago
  > _nobody_ puts in eight or even six hours of "solid work" when at the office I think this varies by industry. It may not be possible to do intensive coding for 8 hours a day, but lawyers definitely bill 8, 10, or even more hours per day. For lawyers, this could mean a mix of reading briefs, consulting with colleagues, and writing memos. While you do have to be disciplined to bill nearly all of your hours at work, I definitely had months where I billed 10 hours per day every weekday and some weekends (and honestly — I do recognize that some lawyer pad their hours, but I wasn't one of them)
  - m0zg 6y ago
    Yeah, lawyers will bill 15 minutes for reading one line email, that is well known. :-) On a related note, I remember reading an article about Marissa Mayer where she bragged about "working" 14 hours a day. It turned out that "eating dinner" constituted "work" for her. I should start billing my clients for posting on HN, I'm sure they won't mind.
jefflombardjr 6y ago
I'm surprised that people see going to an office as a solution to this difficulty though. I'd 100% rather be around family than in an office. I've been managing fine by being available during the day, not stressing and just living in the moment. I get the heavy lifting done early in the morning or late at night. Just like in the office... my most productive hours have always been either before everyone else gets in or after everyone else goes home.
- untog 6y ago
  I don’t think people view going to an office as an answer. They view daycares and schools reopening as an answer.
meristem 6y ago
Wish I could upvote this 1000 times.

m0zg 6y ago

> putting in eight, or even six, solid hours Especially considering that _nobody_ puts in eight or even six hours of "solid work" when at the office. That's something I intuitively knew for a while, but it came into stark contrast once I started consulting and tracking my time. I only bill for the time I _actually_ work. And doing 8 hours of mentally demanding, focused work per day is difficult AF. That's why people slack off in the office, have water cooler conversations, interrupt each other all the time, have meetings they don't really need to have, 1.5 hour lunch breaks, etc. If you had to actually work 8 hours a day, full throttle, few people would stick with it. The flip side is the productivity of doing 8 hours of focused work per day is truly staggering when you tally it up at the end of the week (which I also do, and you should do, too, if you work remote - otherwise you'll be "invisible" no matter how much you contribute). And WFH plus mostly async communication is very amenable to being able to focus.

lame-robot-hoax 6y ago
Eh, people in support work probably six solid hours very often. If there’s an outage or a problem, people in support can easily work 7 or 7 and a half hours of taking calls practically non stop. And like you said, few people stick with it. Every place I’ve worked at, the Support department has extremely high turnover and people constantly trying to leave for a different department in the company, or a different role in a different company. Being constantly monitored, poor pay, not being able to go to company sponsored events (oh, at 2 PM we’re having a Zoom workout/meditation meeting, everyone is invited *except support they gotta stay on the phone), having to be above certain metrics, and having to talk to people that are generally neutral at best and extremely pissed at worst, is the perfect recipe for people to hate their job and to quit/leave the company/go to a different department ASAP.
watwut 6y ago
There is difference between "downtime is when you want it and is spent socializing, reading, wasting time" versus "supposed downtime is when alarm buzzes and yet another work",
gnicholas 6y ago
> _nobody_ puts in eight or even six hours of "solid work" when at the office I think this varies by industry. It may not be possible to do intensive coding for 8 hours a day, but lawyers definitely bill 8, 10, or even more hours per day. For lawyers, this could mean a mix of reading briefs, consulting with colleagues, and writing memos. While you do have to be disciplined to bill nearly all of your hours at work, I definitely had months where I billed 10 hours per day every weekday and some weekends (and honestly — I do recognize that some lawyer pad their hours, but I wasn't one of them)
- m0zg 6y ago
  Yeah, lawyers will bill 15 minutes for reading one line email, that is well known. :-) On a related note, I remember reading an article about Marissa Mayer where she bragged about "working" 14 hours a day. It turned out that "eating dinner" constituted "work" for her. I should start billing my clients for posting on HN, I'm sure they won't mind.

jefflombardjr 6y ago

I'm surprised that people see going to an office as a solution to this difficulty though. I'd 100% rather be around family than in an office. I've been managing fine by being available during the day, not stressing and just living in the moment. I get the heavy lifting done early in the morning or late at night. Just like in the office... my most productive hours have always been either before everyone else gets in or after everyone else goes home.

untog 6y ago
I don’t think people view going to an office as an answer. They view daycares and schools reopening as an answer.

meristem 6y ago

Wish I could upvote this 1000 times.