6 ms·

I think we should rather talk about the (history) of working the typical 8 hours a day, which doesn't make much sense for software people if you ask me. IIRC th

by W0lf 5y ago

I think we should rather talk about the (history) of working the typical 8 hours a day, which doesn't make much sense for software people if you ask me. IIRC the concept of working 8 hours is more than 100 years old and was considered an optimal value to minimize the number of work accidents and burnouts (for factory workers) and allow for three shifts per day. Hence, 8 hours was (is?) considered to give optimal efficiency for any worker. For me on the other hand, I cannot do any deep work for more than 3-4 hours during a normal day. However, to comply to the historic 8 hours work day, the rest of the day gets filled with __other__ stuff, which may or may not is reasonable. As others have mentioned already, I think it totally depends on company size, culture and people if you are able to gaze through a day by doing only a few hours at any given day. This completely coincides with my experience as well.

hogFeast 5y ago
The working day was 10-16 hours for most of the 19th century. But work then was totally different: a lot of it was piece-rate work, most factories didn't directly employ anyone, etc. (this was also true of proto-industry which is often used as some kind of proof that working conditions can be different). This came down to 8 hours per day as the labour movement grew stronger. The concept of burnout makes no sense outside of the present, it was just politics. The move to 8 hour days was faster in countries that had tighter labour supply and/or greater political representation for working people (i.e. Australia and the US). The structure of work has rarely been determined by efficiency. There is a greater context of norms, other obligations that people have, economics, politics, etc. Even within the developed world and within individual countries, there is significant variation. Indeed, the only limits within most countries is at the extreme i.e. an employer requiring 12 hours of labour without a break or something. The most "efficient" kind of work is piece rate. Some people do this today but I think that most people chose not to do this because it is inconvenient.

by W0lf 5y ago

hogFeast 5y ago

The working day was 10-16 hours for most of the 19th century. But work then was totally different: a lot of it was piece-rate work, most factories didn't directly employ anyone, etc. (this was also true of proto-industry which is often used as some kind of proof that working conditions can be different). This came down to 8 hours per day as the labour movement grew stronger. The concept of burnout makes no sense outside of the present, it was just politics. The move to 8 hour days was faster in countries that had tighter labour supply and/or greater political representation for working people (i.e. Australia and the US). The structure of work has rarely been determined by efficiency. There is a greater context of norms, other obligations that people have, economics, politics, etc. Even within the developed world and within individual countries, there is significant variation. Indeed, the only limits within most countries is at the extreme i.e. an employer requiring 12 hours of labour without a break or something. The most "efficient" kind of work is piece rate. Some people do this today but I think that most people chose not to do this because it is inconvenient.