4 ms·

I agree we don't put in a full 40 hours. Unless someone is working a 1950's style assembly line (meatpacking plant for example) few will put in those 40 hours

by mc32 4y ago

I agree we don't put in a full 40 hours. Unless someone is working a 1950's style assembly line (meatpacking plant for example) few will put in those 40 hours even in manual labor ---you're chatting, playing around, etc. for some time. White collar work, is of course, way worse. There is a lot of slack time in between tasks and meetings and so on. So during those 40 hours, let's say a person delivers 100 work units. If we were to say, from now on you only have to work 32 hours, some people will still deliver 100 work units, but many will deliver an approximation to 80 work units. Many people will automatically adjust. People have a "pace of work" that is like breathing.

devmor 4y ago
> So during those 40 hours, let's say a person delivers 100 work units. If we were to say, from now on you only have to work 32 hours, some people will still deliver 100 work units, but many will deliver an approximation to 80 work units. Many people will automatically adjust. People have a "pace of work" that is like breathing. Perhaps in manual labor, but I don't think this applies to white collar work. The limiting factor in output for this line of work seems to be intellectual exhaustion/burnout, not pacing.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  Exactly. Setting aside the "metabolic drag" of working in a company (time spent attending mandatory trainings, recurring stand-ups/all-hands, etc), I think everyone working in software has more productivity in their 1st hour than in their 39th. The question is where does the N * f(N) first derivative turn negative. I think it's lower than 32 hours/week for software development myself.
  - devmor 4y ago
    I would agree with that figure. Personally I assign development to more of a "creative" role than a lot of people tend to. Your productivity can often depend on your inspiration, moreso the more senior/architectural your role is. I've certainly had moments where I accomplished more at one 3am moment of clarity than an entire week before - and I think most experienced developers can say the same.
- hnews_account_1 4y ago
  White collar work in the modern era is also very unrestricted. I can slack off during most of the day if I want (and nothing urgent comes up) and my manager will neither check nor care. Because of 24/7 systems, I can completely bunk fridays while pretending to work from home and just staying online from the phone. It is totally irrelevant to my job. I hate fridays and usually work Sunday to Thursday in reality. Many people I know have this level of flexibility in many fields. My “work hours” in my pay slip say 75.8 for every 2 weeks. I work maybe 50 hours in a busy week. It is irrelevant to my organization. So we are already there in terms of intellectual white collar work.
  - sdk16420 4y ago
    I feel that we are employed above of all to be available when it matters rather than to do a certain amount of work for the hours you are paid for. Compare it to a workshop with some tools, you buy a hammer not because you use it for 8 hours a day, but because when you need it, you can't do without it. If you go a day without needing to use the hammer, it doesn't mean that having the hammer in your shed is a waste of money. If the company cared only about getting certain amount of work done in the time they paid for, they would hire an external. And continuing the analogy, it's usually more expensive in the long run to rent a tool even if you use it only a couple of times a month, as well as having to get used to unfamiliar equipment, having no records of how well the rental tool performed earlier.
_cenw 4y ago
My pace of work is burn myself out in the first 1-2 hours of every day and then procrastinate / go to meetings. I'm so happy to be out of the office. Being able to work whenever works for me (and my ADHD brain) has probably given me at least 50% more output on average. Hours don't mean anything to me and nobody has ever complained about my work pace (rather the opposite). Pretending to be busy in an office was torture.
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  Ugh. I do the opposite, as I am VERY much not a morning person, so I spend the first hour or two each day just fighting to appear awake. But then get enough done in my peak couple hours after lunch that I run out of work to do. Wish the promise of "Salaried means we pay for the job to be done" ideal was more of a reality.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
treeman79 4y ago
Wife’s a teacher. 40-60 hours at school. 10-30 hours outside of work doing lesson plans, report card comments etc. Always responding to emails from parents. She Has collapsed before when total was getting above 80 for several weeks. They want to promote her to VP. They work even more hours then she does. I make more then triple what she does.
- soperj 4y ago
  > 40-60 hours at school. This part doesn't make sense to me, can you please explain (I'm genuinely asking). My children are in elementary school, and the day is from 8:45-2:30. I can understand being there at 8am(i definitely have seen teachers showing up later than this though), and when I've driven by the school at 3pm nearly all the cars are gone from the teachers lot (if not all). I can understand that there's a lot of work outside of school, but I don't understand how you could ever get to 60 hours at school.
  - acdha 4y ago
    Office hours, tutoring, mandatory training, meetings, clubs, etc. can really add up. My wife’s school is big on community, which is great in some ways but leads to long days with staff expected to attend dances, games, etc.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    Another fascinating thing about teacher claims of working hours is how technology apparently hasn't moved the needle at all. Lots of schools have moved to more and more online assignments that can be in large part automatically graded yet the time spend grading remains constant, or so they claim.
    - mgkimsal 4y ago
      I bet most of the software they use just sucks. I've had some first hand folks tell me some of the bad stories of using various online grade book systems, and years ago I built one myself, and the accommodations people were requiring were... fairly complex. I suspect that at least in some cases I'm aware of, the vendor just lies and says "yes, we support X", gets the contract, and the end users (teachers) have to deal with the lie.

by mc32 4y ago

devmor 4y ago

> So during those 40 hours, let's say a person delivers 100 work units. If we were to say, from now on you only have to work 32 hours, some people will still deliver 100 work units, but many will deliver an approximation to 80 work units. Many people will automatically adjust. People have a "pace of work" that is like breathing. Perhaps in manual labor, but I don't think this applies to white collar work. The limiting factor in output for this line of work seems to be intellectual exhaustion/burnout, not pacing.

sokoloff 4y ago
Exactly. Setting aside the "metabolic drag" of working in a company (time spent attending mandatory trainings, recurring stand-ups/all-hands, etc), I think everyone working in software has more productivity in their 1st hour than in their 39th. The question is where does the N * f(N) first derivative turn negative. I think it's lower than 32 hours/week for software development myself.
- devmor 4y ago
  I would agree with that figure. Personally I assign development to more of a "creative" role than a lot of people tend to. Your productivity can often depend on your inspiration, moreso the more senior/architectural your role is. I've certainly had moments where I accomplished more at one 3am moment of clarity than an entire week before - and I think most experienced developers can say the same.
hnews_account_1 4y ago
White collar work in the modern era is also very unrestricted. I can slack off during most of the day if I want (and nothing urgent comes up) and my manager will neither check nor care. Because of 24/7 systems, I can completely bunk fridays while pretending to work from home and just staying online from the phone. It is totally irrelevant to my job. I hate fridays and usually work Sunday to Thursday in reality. Many people I know have this level of flexibility in many fields. My “work hours” in my pay slip say 75.8 for every 2 weeks. I work maybe 50 hours in a busy week. It is irrelevant to my organization. So we are already there in terms of intellectual white collar work.
- sdk16420 4y ago
  I feel that we are employed above of all to be available when it matters rather than to do a certain amount of work for the hours you are paid for. Compare it to a workshop with some tools, you buy a hammer not because you use it for 8 hours a day, but because when you need it, you can't do without it. If you go a day without needing to use the hammer, it doesn't mean that having the hammer in your shed is a waste of money. If the company cared only about getting certain amount of work done in the time they paid for, they would hire an external. And continuing the analogy, it's usually more expensive in the long run to rent a tool even if you use it only a couple of times a month, as well as having to get used to unfamiliar equipment, having no records of how well the rental tool performed earlier.

_cenw 4y ago

My pace of work is burn myself out in the first 1-2 hours of every day and then procrastinate / go to meetings. I'm so happy to be out of the office. Being able to work whenever works for me (and my ADHD brain) has probably given me at least 50% more output on average. Hours don't mean anything to me and nobody has ever complained about my work pace (rather the opposite). Pretending to be busy in an office was torture.

OkayPhysicist 4y ago
Ugh. I do the opposite, as I am VERY much not a morning person, so I spend the first hour or two each day just fighting to appear awake. But then get enough done in my peak couple hours after lunch that I run out of work to do. Wish the promise of "Salaried means we pay for the job to be done" ideal was more of a reality.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

treeman79 4y ago

Wife’s a teacher. 40-60 hours at school. 10-30 hours outside of work doing lesson plans, report card comments etc. Always responding to emails from parents. She Has collapsed before when total was getting above 80 for several weeks. They want to promote her to VP. They work even more hours then she does. I make more then triple what she does.

soperj 4y ago
> 40-60 hours at school. This part doesn't make sense to me, can you please explain (I'm genuinely asking). My children are in elementary school, and the day is from 8:45-2:30. I can understand being there at 8am(i definitely have seen teachers showing up later than this though), and when I've driven by the school at 3pm nearly all the cars are gone from the teachers lot (if not all). I can understand that there's a lot of work outside of school, but I don't understand how you could ever get to 60 hours at school.
- acdha 4y ago
  Office hours, tutoring, mandatory training, meetings, clubs, etc. can really add up. My wife’s school is big on community, which is great in some ways but leads to long days with staff expected to attend dances, games, etc.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  Another fascinating thing about teacher claims of working hours is how technology apparently hasn't moved the needle at all. Lots of schools have moved to more and more online assignments that can be in large part automatically graded yet the time spend grading remains constant, or so they claim.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    I bet most of the software they use just sucks. I've had some first hand folks tell me some of the bad stories of using various online grade book systems, and years ago I built one myself, and the accommodations people were requiring were... fairly complex. I suspect that at least in some cases I'm aware of, the vendor just lies and says "yes, we support X", gets the contract, and the end users (teachers) have to deal with the lie.