6 ms·

I mean, what the hell is with all this 60-90 hours per week stuff going on? Am I an incredibly defective human being or something - I cannot even fathom working

by vbtemp 6y ago

I mean, what the hell is with all this 60-90 hours per week stuff going on? Am I an incredibly defective human being or something - I cannot even fathom working anything even CLOSE to that (in software/tech, maybe if you're in med school or work an an ER I can see it). There is no way in hell I could ever even be close to productive for that period of time for more than, say, one week a year or something (and even then I'd need weeks to recover). I'd guess I'd ask everyone, "Really?". When you work those kind of hours, are you _actually_ doing value-adding or value-optimizing things, or just engaging in work theater? I've found the most incredible thing is just to say "no" to things. Not doing things has this fantastic side effect of not causing more work. When you don't do more things, you don't cause more problems, which doesn't need more work, which doesn't need more staff, which doesn't require more money, which gives you less stress, and gives you happier staff, happier customers, and a happier self. I wonder if I've totally lost my marbles if this kind of thing only makes sense to myself...

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mjrbrennan 6y ago
> just engaging in work theater I do not have firsthand experience at this, but from my understanding being a salaryman in Japan means staying in the office until the boss leaves. It does not matter if you are producing value or not in that time, it is more about appearance and company loyalty. I agree with you 100%...I think the most I've ever worked in a week was probably in the 50-60 hour range and that was one of the worst experiences of my life. I cannot fathom doing 90 hours for SEVERAL YEARS without wanting to drive into oncoming traffic.
- robryan 6y ago
  I would think if some of these companies really had cracked some kind of method to double the productive output of their employees that they would have a massive advantange on their competition and grow to be some of the biggest companies in the world. The other aspect is that the lower the value of an employees time the more the business will be happy to have them undertake repetative tasks as the cost of them doing it is lower than the cost of the work to automate.
  - brigandish 6y ago
    > and grow to be some of the biggest companies in the world. Japan does have some of the biggest companies in the world and it's not a free market here, not by a long way, competitiveness isn't something particularly needed internally (monopolies and cabals abound) and possibly not externally either, if conditions are right. > The other aspect is that the lower the value of an employees time the more the business will be happy to have them undertake repetative tasks as the cost of them doing it is lower than the cost of the work to automate. The stereotype/joke about fax machines being prevalent isn't based on a myth. Don't assume things work the way they would in the West.
austhrow743 6y ago
>I mean, what the hell is with all this 60-90 hours per week stuff going on? What do you mean "all this"? Has there been a trend of posts here with people talking about doing it that I missed? Specifically with this author, he used to be a Japanese salaryman. Can learn a little more about that here: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan...
nicbou 6y ago
I'm young, single and without children, and even 40 hours a week feels like a tad much, even when I realistically worked 5-6 hours a day. I can't imagine a life of 60-90 hour weeks be worth whatever carrot they dangle in front of those poor sods.
- mepiethree 6y ago
  We aren't "poor sods" or carrot-led horses. We're just motivated by different things than you. In my case, fully mission driven
  - nicbou 6y ago
    What mission is this important?
    - mepiethree 6y ago
      A lot of things, in my opinion. If you do work that can save even one life, it's worth it on a utilitarian level. It's not that hard to think of life-saving things to work on. You could imagine, perhaps, COVID vaccine distribution, solar energy technology, suicide hotlines, lots of food solutions (impossible meat perhaps), even autonomous vehicles if you've drank the kool aid, etc. Of course this assumes that the 40th-80th hours provide marginal utility (perhaps a big assumption).
  - vbtemp 6y ago
    I think when this conversation comes up, a lot of different things get overloaded. There are classes of "work" where output linearly scales (more or less) with input: For example, if you;re a truck driver, time spent with your butt in the driver's seat probably corresponds very tightly to your mileage per day and even deliveries per day (and therefore profit) But given this is mostly a software-centric message board, software engineering and tech in general I have not observed much correlation at all between amount of input (work) and output (profit, success, happiness, etc). The expanse is wide open, the decision-tree of ways to approach a problem is nearly infinite, and choosing an approach to go down almost always incurs an opportunity cost of solving the same problem in a much better way. I've seen this a lot with lots of founders: They are so motivated and have enormous reserves of energy to "work", and while they are legitimately "working" in a certain sense (writing code, hustling for investment, planning business strategy, etc), it's often work that functions like a greedy algorithm: Stuck in local maxima, stuck in ruts, inflexible, etc and having a very hard time pausing, reflecting, and being judicious with their time, energy and focus. I call this the "Bias of Doing Work"
mepiethree 6y ago
Workaholism is an addiction and a mental health problem. I have worked for 50+ hours a week for 4 years and last year I became a manager and have worked 60-80 for the last year. On bad weeks, I joke to my wife that I am headed to my 9-5... because I sometimes work 9am to 5am and get up the next day for another 9am meeting. I am absolutely doing real work, if anything, it's my non-work life that is "theater." I won't check my phone, or even eat because I'll lose minutes of work. It's clearly bad for me and my productivity. I'd love to "work on" my workaholism but...
- b3kart 6y ago
  Have you considered therapy to try to get to the bottom of this? Not being snarky -- you yourself seem to realize that this is really detrimental to your wellbeing.
  - mepiethree 6y ago
    Yes. It's hard to find a good one.
- vbtemp 6y ago
  It sounds like you may need help, and I hope you find it.
brigandish 6y ago
> When you work those kind of hours, are you _actually_ doing value-adding or value-optimizing things, or just engaging in work theater? You're going to be doing a similar total amount of productive work to elsewhere (possibly less because you're so tired), and engaging in work theatre for the rest of the time. As I wrote just last week [0], Japan's worker productivity is not good but that's only one measure and possibly not the most important to those who set the rules in Japan. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26450579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26450579
GordonS 6y ago
I used to occasionally worked 80+ hours at a time in my younger days, during a period where I was working for an oil services company, building tooling for migrating different business systems to SAP. The company has several locations across the globe, and each was using something different to be migrated to SAP. One time I flew to Brazil to build SAP integration tooling for the local division of the company - 3 flights over 20 hours (all in economy), and I was expected to go straight to the office on arrival. I then worked feverishly, drinking gallons of local coffee to sustain me. Everyone else was doing the same. We ended up making some bad decisions (I think because we were all so tired), and at one point I totally lost my shit with the Brazilian project lead, coming close to getting violent. I'm absolutely not a violent person, but that amount of sleep deprivation, pressure and caffeine are not a good combination. I'd do this for 2-3 weeks at a time, and feel completely fried at the end of each stint. I simply couldn't do that anymore, but I'm also convinced it was a false economy - if we'd just worked normal hours without all the pressure from above, we could have achieved the same result, without all the mess along the way.
- vbtemp 6y ago
  > it was a false economy - if we'd just worked normal hours ... we could have achieved the same result, without all the mess along the way. Nearly 100% of the time I was on teams that grinded down to the bone, things turned out poorly. Nearly 100% of the time I was on teams that have tons of slack time, we absolutely crush it. If you're "busy" all the time you can't reflect, put things in perspective, consider alternatives, etc. It is, exactly as you say, a false economy (probably a better term than work theater, which implies slacking off, which is not what I meant)
  - Breza 6y ago
    Well said. The biggest products I've designed for my employer came from times when I could sit around and think. Being a little bored means having time to try things and build some MVPs. Having every minute of my day scheduled means I don't do anything creative.

by vbtemp 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mjrbrennan 6y ago

> just engaging in work theater I do not have firsthand experience at this, but from my understanding being a salaryman in Japan means staying in the office until the boss leaves. It does not matter if you are producing value or not in that time, it is more about appearance and company loyalty. I agree with you 100%...I think the most I've ever worked in a week was probably in the 50-60 hour range and that was one of the worst experiences of my life. I cannot fathom doing 90 hours for SEVERAL YEARS without wanting to drive into oncoming traffic.

robryan 6y ago
I would think if some of these companies really had cracked some kind of method to double the productive output of their employees that they would have a massive advantange on their competition and grow to be some of the biggest companies in the world. The other aspect is that the lower the value of an employees time the more the business will be happy to have them undertake repetative tasks as the cost of them doing it is lower than the cost of the work to automate.
- brigandish 6y ago
  > and grow to be some of the biggest companies in the world. Japan does have some of the biggest companies in the world and it's not a free market here, not by a long way, competitiveness isn't something particularly needed internally (monopolies and cabals abound) and possibly not externally either, if conditions are right. > The other aspect is that the lower the value of an employees time the more the business will be happy to have them undertake repetative tasks as the cost of them doing it is lower than the cost of the work to automate. The stereotype/joke about fax machines being prevalent isn't based on a myth. Don't assume things work the way they would in the West.

austhrow743 6y ago

>I mean, what the hell is with all this 60-90 hours per week stuff going on? What do you mean "all this"? Has there been a trend of posts here with people talking about doing it that I missed? Specifically with this author, he used to be a Japanese salaryman. Can learn a little more about that here: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan...

nicbou 6y ago

I'm young, single and without children, and even 40 hours a week feels like a tad much, even when I realistically worked 5-6 hours a day. I can't imagine a life of 60-90 hour weeks be worth whatever carrot they dangle in front of those poor sods.

mepiethree 6y ago
We aren't "poor sods" or carrot-led horses. We're just motivated by different things than you. In my case, fully mission driven
- nicbou 6y ago
  What mission is this important?
  - mepiethree 6y ago
    A lot of things, in my opinion. If you do work that can save even one life, it's worth it on a utilitarian level. It's not that hard to think of life-saving things to work on. You could imagine, perhaps, COVID vaccine distribution, solar energy technology, suicide hotlines, lots of food solutions (impossible meat perhaps), even autonomous vehicles if you've drank the kool aid, etc. Of course this assumes that the 40th-80th hours provide marginal utility (perhaps a big assumption).
- vbtemp 6y ago
  I think when this conversation comes up, a lot of different things get overloaded. There are classes of "work" where output linearly scales (more or less) with input: For example, if you;re a truck driver, time spent with your butt in the driver's seat probably corresponds very tightly to your mileage per day and even deliveries per day (and therefore profit) But given this is mostly a software-centric message board, software engineering and tech in general I have not observed much correlation at all between amount of input (work) and output (profit, success, happiness, etc). The expanse is wide open, the decision-tree of ways to approach a problem is nearly infinite, and choosing an approach to go down almost always incurs an opportunity cost of solving the same problem in a much better way. I've seen this a lot with lots of founders: They are so motivated and have enormous reserves of energy to "work", and while they are legitimately "working" in a certain sense (writing code, hustling for investment, planning business strategy, etc), it's often work that functions like a greedy algorithm: Stuck in local maxima, stuck in ruts, inflexible, etc and having a very hard time pausing, reflecting, and being judicious with their time, energy and focus. I call this the "Bias of Doing Work"

mepiethree 6y ago

Workaholism is an addiction and a mental health problem. I have worked for 50+ hours a week for 4 years and last year I became a manager and have worked 60-80 for the last year. On bad weeks, I joke to my wife that I am headed to my 9-5... because I sometimes work 9am to 5am and get up the next day for another 9am meeting. I am absolutely doing real work, if anything, it's my non-work life that is "theater." I won't check my phone, or even eat because I'll lose minutes of work. It's clearly bad for me and my productivity. I'd love to "work on" my workaholism but...

b3kart 6y ago
Have you considered therapy to try to get to the bottom of this? Not being snarky -- you yourself seem to realize that this is really detrimental to your wellbeing.
- mepiethree 6y ago
  Yes. It's hard to find a good one.
vbtemp 6y ago
It sounds like you may need help, and I hope you find it.

brigandish 6y ago

> When you work those kind of hours, are you _actually_ doing value-adding or value-optimizing things, or just engaging in work theater? You're going to be doing a similar total amount of productive work to elsewhere (possibly less because you're so tired), and engaging in work theatre for the rest of the time. As I wrote just last week [0], Japan's worker productivity is not good but that's only one measure and possibly not the most important to those who set the rules in Japan. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26450579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26450579

GordonS 6y ago

I used to occasionally worked 80+ hours at a time in my younger days, during a period where I was working for an oil services company, building tooling for migrating different business systems to SAP. The company has several locations across the globe, and each was using something different to be migrated to SAP. One time I flew to Brazil to build SAP integration tooling for the local division of the company - 3 flights over 20 hours (all in economy), and I was expected to go straight to the office on arrival. I then worked feverishly, drinking gallons of local coffee to sustain me. Everyone else was doing the same. We ended up making some bad decisions (I think because we were all so tired), and at one point I totally lost my shit with the Brazilian project lead, coming close to getting violent. I'm absolutely not a violent person, but that amount of sleep deprivation, pressure and caffeine are not a good combination. I'd do this for 2-3 weeks at a time, and feel completely fried at the end of each stint. I simply couldn't do that anymore, but I'm also convinced it was a false economy - if we'd just worked normal hours without all the pressure from above, we could have achieved the same result, without all the mess along the way.

vbtemp 6y ago
> it was a false economy - if we'd just worked normal hours ... we could have achieved the same result, without all the mess along the way. Nearly 100% of the time I was on teams that grinded down to the bone, things turned out poorly. Nearly 100% of the time I was on teams that have tons of slack time, we absolutely crush it. If you're "busy" all the time you can't reflect, put things in perspective, consider alternatives, etc. It is, exactly as you say, a false economy (probably a better term than work theater, which implies slacking off, which is not what I meant)
- Breza 6y ago
  Well said. The biggest products I've designed for my employer came from times when I could sit around and think. Being a little bored means having time to try things and build some MVPs. Having every minute of my day scheduled means I don't do anything creative.