4 ms·
"I’d Say, In A Given Week, I Probably Only Do About Fifteen Minutes Of Real, Actual Work.” -- Peter, Office Space I've worked in lots of offices and watched pe
by xen2xen1 5y ago
"I’d Say, In A Given Week, I Probably Only Do About Fifteen Minutes Of Real, Actual Work.” -- Peter, Office Space
I've worked in lots of offices and watched people, especially "important" ones. It's fun to watch. They're so busy the strain is enormous. But if you pay attention, they spend lots of time calling their sister, talking to the Schwann's man.. "I work so hard I never leave work" but little actual work is done, but much is made of the number of hours spent there.
- paxys 5y agoI really hope that the pandemic finally makes us realize that the 9-5, 40 hours/week office culture we have set up over the decades is a total sham. Very few people are really working that much, but it isn't socially acceptable for anyone to admit it.
- coldcode 5y agoUp until I retired a few months ago, I routinely worked 50-60 hours a week as a team lead because I wrote code full time + meetings for several hours a day plus communicating with other teams, product and execs all day long. I rarely took vacations during the years I worked there as the work never slacked off at all. Most of my colleagues also did extra hours every week (I tried to keep my team from overworking, others did not). At least working at home I could avoid another hour a day in commuting. I did not get paid anything more to work longer, but deadlines were often arbitrary so stress was high. You could reduce the standard hours to zero and it would change nothing about that job. If a job is more defined, like flying a plane, or operating a cash register, hours are equal to work, so limiting hours is possible. If I could have worked just 40 every week with 3 weeks actual taken vacation, it would have been nice.
- ChicagoBoy11 5y agoMy wife is a high-powered attorney who makes an obscene amount of money in NY. We both ended up working from home during the pandemic, and it was amusing to see her work schedule. She absolutely did a lot of really strenuous work which often would demand lots (and sometimes ungodly!) hours, but there was also plenty of time where... there wasn't any work. Or she was simply worn out, and was taking a break, etc. And not too infrequently a day would go by like that. It just really hit home for me what a waste office culture is, generally, because I'm sure this is no different when she's at the office, but she's just subjected to a commute, halogen lighting, uncomfy atmosphere, etc., for evidently no benefit at all.
- Cd00d 5y agoYet, she probably still needs to bill hours during those down times. I've always been amazed that those fancy attorneys manage to bill the same $1k per hour when they're super focused as when they're eating a sandwich or shopping for engagement rings online.