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Hi Grellas, I feel honored by your comment on my submission. :-) I personally didn't read "force of law" into the viewpoint of the author. However, I can see h

by pnathan 14y ago

Hi Grellas, I feel honored by your comment on my submission. :-) I personally didn't read "force of law" into the viewpoint of the author. However, I can see how it could be read that way, and certainly that would be one action item that could be drawn from the essay. What I did read out of the essay was an interesting approach to maximizing productivity, which runs counter to an initial assumption. I see a lot of glorification of super-long weeks around HN (some people thrive on them, it seems), and I think that a counter perspective is useful; if the studies are born out, it's even a productivity hack, as one might call it. Anyway, I do totally agree that legislating 40-hour work weeks would be a disaster. It'd really ruin the freedom we have in the US to really go deep when we need to.

wildgift 14y ago
There's an exception to the 40 hour week called comp time. You get paid for excess hours by being given paid time off. The 40 hour week is already legislated. If you work over 40 you are supposed to get overtime. Overtime needs to be requested, though - that's an important point. If you're going over 40 you're supposed to tell your boss to get permission, and the boss is supposed to say, "nah, go home." I know it doesn't work that way.
- kamaal 14y ago
  >>I know it doesn't work that way. Its because as programmers we never work 40 hours productively. Quite a but of our time goes in procrastinating, reading stuff on sites like HN, Facebooking etc. There fore there is almost an untold understanding that 40 hours is not to be taken literally.
  - capisce 14y ago
    Well, the article quotes research saying that knowledge workers only have six good hours in them. They need to fill the rest of the time somehow to not go insane.
  - thirdtruck 14y ago
    At the same time, we require an inordinate amount of "back of mind" processing time in order to perform so much problem solving. In other words, "the code's compiling" explanation for idling covers the linking up of modules in the code and in our brains' mental models of it.
  - gasull 14y ago
    Please speak for yourself. I don't procrastinate. Most days I don't even check my personal email at work. Maybe I should, because despite not procrastinating I'm still pretty much forced to be 50 or 60 hours a week in the office.

by pnathan 14y ago

wildgift 14y ago

There's an exception to the 40 hour week called comp time. You get paid for excess hours by being given paid time off. The 40 hour week is already legislated. If you work over 40 you are supposed to get overtime. Overtime needs to be requested, though - that's an important point. If you're going over 40 you're supposed to tell your boss to get permission, and the boss is supposed to say, "nah, go home." I know it doesn't work that way.

kamaal 14y ago
>>I know it doesn't work that way. Its because as programmers we never work 40 hours productively. Quite a but of our time goes in procrastinating, reading stuff on sites like HN, Facebooking etc. There fore there is almost an untold understanding that 40 hours is not to be taken literally.
- capisce 14y ago
  Well, the article quotes research saying that knowledge workers only have six good hours in them. They need to fill the rest of the time somehow to not go insane.
- thirdtruck 14y ago
  At the same time, we require an inordinate amount of "back of mind" processing time in order to perform so much problem solving. In other words, "the code's compiling" explanation for idling covers the linking up of modules in the code and in our brains' mental models of it.
- gasull 14y ago
  Please speak for yourself. I don't procrastinate. Most days I don't even check my personal email at work. Maybe I should, because despite not procrastinating I'm still pretty much forced to be 50 or 60 hours a week in the office.