4 ms·

There are definitely people who can work and focus for 8+ hours a day. I can think of my dentist and family doctor. Waiting room is full from morning to evening

There are definitely people who can work and focus for 8+ hours a day. I can think of my dentist and family doctor. Waiting room is full from morning to evening. Some of my colleagues work hard. I can see their screen in the open space. They are machines. Never a distraction on the screen. The article should be "some people don't work so much, I'm one of them".

learc83 5y ago
My wife is an ER physician. It’s a demanding job that requires a ton of focus, so most of her colleagues only work about 30 hours a week. She’s also worked as a general pediatrician seeing lower acuity patients/well visits. From talking to her, good deal of that job is essentially running on autopilot. That’s why you can do it 8 hours a day.
- m_fayer 5y ago
  Yeah, I think we really need to look at the qualitative aspect of the work being done when having these discussions. A pediatrician may really be working 8 or more hours a day, where 90% of patients are utterly cut-and-dry AND often having pleasant encounters with cute snotty kids and their parents. It doesn't stretch the imagination why this is possible for 8 hours straight. The "machine-like" programmers that GP mentioned are likely working from cut-and-dry requirements and executing the same code patterns over and over with a stack they know like the inside of their eyelids. Doing this can be pleasurable in a similar way to playing puzzle games. I can see why it would be possible for 8 hours straight. Pleasant, meditative physical work - what's called "artisanal" anything these days (cooking, carpentry, etc.) - sure. Then there's programming in a challenging heterogenous environment. Perhaps the requirements are unclear, the stack is new or undependable, you're often interrupted, or have to switch between different kinds of work throughout the day, or your technical abilities are so stretched that absolute and sustained focus is required. Then, good luck getting to those 8 hours in a sustainable fashion. There are many jobs that are acknowledged to be so difficult when in "go" mode that no one expects 40 weekly hours. This just hasn't penetrated into tech and adjacent industries, that's why we have to engage in these charades.
neuroma 5y ago
Can confirm many doctors work insane hours, which are hard to even imagine for people who do office jobs. The notion that you can only do 4 hours of productive work a day is frankly a luxury. If you have 10 hours of work to do, all of which is essential for people's immediate wellbeing, you find ways of being productive.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Doctors are highly specialized mechanics for the human body. The reason they can work the hours they do is because most of what they do is not creative and can be done on basically autopilot. MDs also work in a profession with a fairly unique quality: you always get paid more for doing more work, and the work is more or less completely prepackaged into self-contained units for you - i.e. a GP seeing patients more or less breaks their day into a pattern of independently compensated, 15-30 minute slots.
  - neuroma 5y ago
    Not exactly. Only some are paid per session, as this is typically private medicine, which is not the normal in most of the world. Publicly funded medicine accounts for the great majority of work done, and these doctors around the World are paid the same regardless of their workload. USA has a very unusual system, internationally. Also, only part of the job is autopilot, much of it is difficult and taxing. Experts will manage their attention and energy throughout busy days. The point is that humans can and do work hard and at difficult tasks for long periods day after day. The cost is eventual burnout though, hence why so many doctors quit or go part time.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  I've never seen a convincing explanation for why doctors work these long hours that didn't boil down to 'the doctors union restricts the supply of new doctors and limits the tasks that can be delegated to non-doctors'. As a result, the regular mention of their long hours generally just makes me angry at them rather than grateful to them, but I guess I'm in the minority.
yobbo 5y ago
With admin type duties, people in tech can work at least as many hours. That is probably the closest analogy.
vasco 5y ago
Even in normal office jobs. Everyone gets distracted but if I'm having 1-on-1s with direct reports, at 30mins each that's at least 4 hours of calls filling in a morning, plus another misc few calls, like interviewing candidates or whatever, 1 or 2 random fires and you got 8 hours of constantly happening things, and we didn't even look at email or done any actual work yet. I wish I knew wtf these managers with nothing to do are talking about.

learc83 5y ago

My wife is an ER physician. It’s a demanding job that requires a ton of focus, so most of her colleagues only work about 30 hours a week. She’s also worked as a general pediatrician seeing lower acuity patients/well visits. From talking to her, good deal of that job is essentially running on autopilot. That’s why you can do it 8 hours a day.

m_fayer 5y ago
Yeah, I think we really need to look at the qualitative aspect of the work being done when having these discussions. A pediatrician may really be working 8 or more hours a day, where 90% of patients are utterly cut-and-dry AND often having pleasant encounters with cute snotty kids and their parents. It doesn't stretch the imagination why this is possible for 8 hours straight. The "machine-like" programmers that GP mentioned are likely working from cut-and-dry requirements and executing the same code patterns over and over with a stack they know like the inside of their eyelids. Doing this can be pleasurable in a similar way to playing puzzle games. I can see why it would be possible for 8 hours straight. Pleasant, meditative physical work - what's called "artisanal" anything these days (cooking, carpentry, etc.) - sure. Then there's programming in a challenging heterogenous environment. Perhaps the requirements are unclear, the stack is new or undependable, you're often interrupted, or have to switch between different kinds of work throughout the day, or your technical abilities are so stretched that absolute and sustained focus is required. Then, good luck getting to those 8 hours in a sustainable fashion. There are many jobs that are acknowledged to be so difficult when in "go" mode that no one expects 40 weekly hours. This just hasn't penetrated into tech and adjacent industries, that's why we have to engage in these charades.

neuroma 5y ago

Can confirm many doctors work insane hours, which are hard to even imagine for people who do office jobs. The notion that you can only do 4 hours of productive work a day is frankly a luxury. If you have 10 hours of work to do, all of which is essential for people's immediate wellbeing, you find ways of being productive.

XorNot 5y ago
Doctors are highly specialized mechanics for the human body. The reason they can work the hours they do is because most of what they do is not creative and can be done on basically autopilot. MDs also work in a profession with a fairly unique quality: you always get paid more for doing more work, and the work is more or less completely prepackaged into self-contained units for you - i.e. a GP seeing patients more or less breaks their day into a pattern of independently compensated, 15-30 minute slots.
- neuroma 5y ago
  Not exactly. Only some are paid per session, as this is typically private medicine, which is not the normal in most of the world. Publicly funded medicine accounts for the great majority of work done, and these doctors around the World are paid the same regardless of their workload. USA has a very unusual system, internationally. Also, only part of the job is autopilot, much of it is difficult and taxing. Experts will manage their attention and energy throughout busy days. The point is that humans can and do work hard and at difficult tasks for long periods day after day. The cost is eventual burnout though, hence why so many doctors quit or go part time.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
I've never seen a convincing explanation for why doctors work these long hours that didn't boil down to 'the doctors union restricts the supply of new doctors and limits the tasks that can be delegated to non-doctors'. As a result, the regular mention of their long hours generally just makes me angry at them rather than grateful to them, but I guess I'm in the minority.

yobbo 5y ago

With admin type duties, people in tech can work at least as many hours. That is probably the closest analogy.

vasco 5y ago

Even in normal office jobs. Everyone gets distracted but if I'm having 1-on-1s with direct reports, at 30mins each that's at least 4 hours of calls filling in a morning, plus another misc few calls, like interviewing candidates or whatever, 1 or 2 random fires and you got 8 hours of constantly happening things, and we didn't even look at email or done any actual work yet. I wish I knew wtf these managers with nothing to do are talking about.