9 ms·

> People claim that startups work you hard, I personally don’t see it. From people I’ve talked to, I’d say 50 hour weeks are average. That’s about what you se

by seldo 12y ago

> People claim that startups work you hard, I personally don’t see it. From people I’ve talked to, I’d say 50 hour weeks are average. That’s about what you see in corporate America these days. I think only in America would somebody say 50 hour weeks don't count as working you hard. Also, the average US working week is 35 hours, 37 in "information" industries: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm The fact is that past 35 hours most people just aren't very productive, and a startup asking you to work 50 hours is going to get just as much "busy-looking" time as a corporate job asking you to do the same. Don't work at any job that expects you to work 50-60 hour weeks. Those companies are unhappy places.

overgard 12y ago
What always bothered me about companies that ask you to work long hours (long term) isn't even the hours, it's more that it's a canary in the coal mine: it makes it obvious management doesn't know what they're doing. (Or alternatively: that appearance of work is more important to them than actual work. Maybe they're angling for a promotion and trying to impress their boss) I worked at a company for a while where the solution to any deadline was either to work longer hours or to throw more people at it. (They called it "swarming"). I'm pretty sure not a single executive there had read the mythical man month, or they would have realized how insane that was. You can't just brute force problems that require creativity.
- dkrich 12y ago
  Exactly. And I've found that more often than not that the "we MUST complete this by xx/xx/xxxx or ELSE" mentality stems from some arbitrary date promised for no good reason. The company wasn't going to lose any more money or expose themselves to potential liability. It was just an arbitrary date marked in an MS Project file somewhere. In situations where deadlines were missed, it ended up being OKAY and nobody really cared a week later. This then turned into a cycle where every deadline was tight and everybody got burned out because you can be sure that a manager who is bad at managing dates once will be bad at managing dates forever. It seems that a lot of people in management lack good, common sense when managing workloads and deadlines.
gordaco 12y ago
I came to say exactly this. 50 hours is completely crazy, and if you're doing it often, you should look for another place ASAP. Fuck, 40 hours is already on the verge of being crazy if your job is intellectually demanding. I've worked in one startup, another one on the process of becoming a small corp (i.e., already adopting process in a much serious scale) and a corp. The best by far, if you value your life outside the job, is the corp. The worst was IMHO the second one, which had the worst of the two worlds: from the startup world, disapproval stares whenever you left without doing enough overtime, crazy schedules overall (I learned later that some mandatory things were actually illegal in my country) and permanent fire-extinguish mode; from the corp world, bureaucracy and lots of meetings. This was in Europe, not in the US.
- throwaway5752 12y ago
  "50 hours is completely crazy, and if you're doing it often, you should look for another place ASAP. Fuck, 40 hours is already on the verge of being crazy" I feel badly for you that you've been at jobs that have made you feel that way. I've worked 50ish hours for a long time, generally in jobs I enjoy and in compensation structures that rewarded me for do intellectually stimulating work. But 50 hours a week is hardly crazy. Do whatever works for you, but I want to combat this strange myth that nobody can be productive after 35 hours a week. It's obviously false from my experience (and I would guess the experience of many, many people on HN).
  - meddlepal 12y ago
    Exactly, also some us also enjoy working a lot. I do 60+ hour weeks because the work and results interest me. That said there is a limit too.
  - overgard 12y ago
    35 or 50 hours or whatever is a pretty arbitrary number, I would agree most people have different limits on how long they can work, but I think the larger point is that for intellectual work, more hours don't imply more output. Or at least, not sustainably. Not at my current employment, but I know there have been jobs where, say, 3:30 would roll around and my brain would pretty much fried for the day, but I felt obligated to stick around for an extra hour and a half because I'd get disapproving stares if I peaced out early. That extra hour and a half the company got of my time as not a useful hour and a half though. Or conversely sometimes I'd stay late because I was engaged with some sort of problem. Either way, the number of hours really had very little to do with my productivity, and trying to "force" it was never particularly useful. If I were a manager, and I saw a person was treading water, I'd rather them go home and have them come back the next day refreshed, rather then have them stick around being miserable to meet some arbitrary number of hours.
rmc 12y ago
> > People claim that startups work you hard, I personally don’t see it. From people I’ve talked to, I’d say 50 hour weeks are average. That’s about what you see in corporate America these days. > I think only in America would somebody say 50 hour weeks don't count as working you hard. 50 hour weeks are technically illegal in the European Union. EU Working Time Directive sets the max working week at 48 hours.
- ulfw 12y ago
  One of the multitude of examples how law in the European Union (on average) is geared towards protecting the individual (citizen) whereas in America it seems to be geared towards the needs of the (big) corporations.
  - rmc 12y ago
    I think one big root cause is the US idea of "the land of oppertunity" where "an immigrant can step off the boat at ellis island, work hard, and own a skyscraper in Manhatten". In Europe, with it's long history of classism, the lower classes knew that they would never own the company, and trade unions were stronger, which led to stronger employement law.
kenster07 12y ago
The fact is that past X hours most people just aren't very productive I agree with the sentiment, but people need to remember that the number 'X' is different for different people.
- king_jester 12y ago
  And that X can be different for the same person from week to week.

by seldo 12y ago

overgard 12y ago

What always bothered me about companies that ask you to work long hours (long term) isn't even the hours, it's more that it's a canary in the coal mine: it makes it obvious management doesn't know what they're doing. (Or alternatively: that appearance of work is more important to them than actual work. Maybe they're angling for a promotion and trying to impress their boss) I worked at a company for a while where the solution to any deadline was either to work longer hours or to throw more people at it. (They called it "swarming"). I'm pretty sure not a single executive there had read the mythical man month, or they would have realized how insane that was. You can't just brute force problems that require creativity.

dkrich 12y ago
Exactly. And I've found that more often than not that the "we MUST complete this by xx/xx/xxxx or ELSE" mentality stems from some arbitrary date promised for no good reason. The company wasn't going to lose any more money or expose themselves to potential liability. It was just an arbitrary date marked in an MS Project file somewhere. In situations where deadlines were missed, it ended up being OKAY and nobody really cared a week later. This then turned into a cycle where every deadline was tight and everybody got burned out because you can be sure that a manager who is bad at managing dates once will be bad at managing dates forever. It seems that a lot of people in management lack good, common sense when managing workloads and deadlines.

gordaco 12y ago

I came to say exactly this. 50 hours is completely crazy, and if you're doing it often, you should look for another place ASAP. Fuck, 40 hours is already on the verge of being crazy if your job is intellectually demanding. I've worked in one startup, another one on the process of becoming a small corp (i.e., already adopting process in a much serious scale) and a corp. The best by far, if you value your life outside the job, is the corp. The worst was IMHO the second one, which had the worst of the two worlds: from the startup world, disapproval stares whenever you left without doing enough overtime, crazy schedules overall (I learned later that some mandatory things were actually illegal in my country) and permanent fire-extinguish mode; from the corp world, bureaucracy and lots of meetings. This was in Europe, not in the US.

throwaway5752 12y ago
"50 hours is completely crazy, and if you're doing it often, you should look for another place ASAP. Fuck, 40 hours is already on the verge of being crazy" I feel badly for you that you've been at jobs that have made you feel that way. I've worked 50ish hours for a long time, generally in jobs I enjoy and in compensation structures that rewarded me for do intellectually stimulating work. But 50 hours a week is hardly crazy. Do whatever works for you, but I want to combat this strange myth that nobody can be productive after 35 hours a week. It's obviously false from my experience (and I would guess the experience of many, many people on HN).
- meddlepal 12y ago
  Exactly, also some us also enjoy working a lot. I do 60+ hour weeks because the work and results interest me. That said there is a limit too.
- overgard 12y ago
  35 or 50 hours or whatever is a pretty arbitrary number, I would agree most people have different limits on how long they can work, but I think the larger point is that for intellectual work, more hours don't imply more output. Or at least, not sustainably. Not at my current employment, but I know there have been jobs where, say, 3:30 would roll around and my brain would pretty much fried for the day, but I felt obligated to stick around for an extra hour and a half because I'd get disapproving stares if I peaced out early. That extra hour and a half the company got of my time as not a useful hour and a half though. Or conversely sometimes I'd stay late because I was engaged with some sort of problem. Either way, the number of hours really had very little to do with my productivity, and trying to "force" it was never particularly useful. If I were a manager, and I saw a person was treading water, I'd rather them go home and have them come back the next day refreshed, rather then have them stick around being miserable to meet some arbitrary number of hours.

rmc 12y ago

> > People claim that startups work you hard, I personally don’t see it. From people I’ve talked to, I’d say 50 hour weeks are average. That’s about what you see in corporate America these days. > I think only in America would somebody say 50 hour weeks don't count as working you hard. 50 hour weeks are technically illegal in the European Union. EU Working Time Directive sets the max working week at 48 hours.

ulfw 12y ago
One of the multitude of examples how law in the European Union (on average) is geared towards protecting the individual (citizen) whereas in America it seems to be geared towards the needs of the (big) corporations.
- rmc 12y ago
  I think one big root cause is the US idea of "the land of oppertunity" where "an immigrant can step off the boat at ellis island, work hard, and own a skyscraper in Manhatten". In Europe, with it's long history of classism, the lower classes knew that they would never own the company, and trade unions were stronger, which led to stronger employement law.

kenster07 12y ago

The fact is that past X hours most people just aren't very productive I agree with the sentiment, but people need to remember that the number 'X' is different for different people.

king_jester 12y ago
And that X can be different for the same person from week to week.