from Hacker News

Stop Working All Those Hours

by cycojesus on 6/18/12, 4:01 PM with 50 comments

• by lmkg on 6/18/12, 6:26 PM

  Grading knowledge workers based on ass-in-seat time is like grading programs based on lines of code. Which, as Bill Gates once famously said, is like grading aircrafts by weight. Time, lines, and weight aren't the goals of their respective domains, they're resources that are utilized to accomplish the goal. Judging solely by resource consumption penalizes efficiency.

  I think part of the problem, at least in the States, is that we have this ideal of hard work and determination paying off, and lionizing work ethic above talent, skill, education, intelligence, etc. While it's certainly true that work ethic can overcome lack of any of the above, the idea that work == success is just as fallacious as the idea that, say, education == success. A little cleverness, plus a little laziness, can make often make the same amount of labor go a lot further, so judging just effort is missing a big part of the picture.

• by dsr_ on 6/18/12, 5:01 PM

  The article is aimed at the wrong people. Corporate culture starts at the top. Stop judging your employees by the hours they appear, and judge them on results. If you can't measure results, you were in trouble already.

• by com2kid on 6/18/12, 5:38 PM

  Except, I enjoy working all those hours. When I am coding, I am alive, it is my creative outlet and the way I contribute to the world.

  On the other hand I will readily admit that maintaining a healthy work/life balance is key, and knowing not to push one's self to the breaking point is an important bit of self awareness.

  Now for management, well, they need to judge by both results short and long term. Employees working extra long weeks to complete this sprint? Sure the sprint gets done, but if after 2 or 3 sprints half your team leaves, well, the product schedule is going to suffer. :)

• by Loic on 6/18/12, 7:33 PM

  Starting with Ford for line workers in production, we know that long hours are not equal to quality. They know it in these law firms, software companies, basically nearly everywhere (people are not stupid).

  So why this still done like that? Because it easier to answer the question: "How many hours have you been working this week?" than "What value have you brought to the company this week?"

  We substitute an easy question to a harder one and we feel we answered the hard one.

  Edit: Fixed grammar/typos

• by hkmurakami on 6/18/12, 5:40 PM

  The article addresses lawyers, consultants, and analysts, and later brings up an anecdote involving law firm associates.

  Of course these people work long hours -- they have an incentive to do so, as they wisely learn that they must at least put up the facade of working long hours, else they will be passed up for promotion and eventual partnership.

• by MattRogish on 6/18/12, 10:35 PM

  I can't keep over-emphasizing the "Results Only Work Environment" (http://www.gorowe.com/). Everyone at my company is evaluated on results - ONLY. Not hours. Just whether or not you're getting your work done, awesomely.

  If you get a whole week's worth of tasks done in 20 minutes you're done for the rest of the week. Obviously we did a bad job of estimating (a silly case of course) but - you're done. You don't get more work shoved on your stack. Sit on the beach if you want.

  Sure, you can work more, but you're not expected to.

• by tomjen3 on 6/18/12, 4:39 PM

  Do people actually work all those hours or do people appear to work all those hours?

• by larrik on 6/18/12, 6:01 PM

  Lawyers and consultants bill by the hour.

  More hours == more money.

  While their value to the customer may be lower, their value to the firm is likely right on target.

• by jwingy on 6/18/12, 8:16 PM

  Working longer hours also seems to be counter-productive over the long run:

  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3707101

• by markokocic on 6/19/12, 7:07 AM

  What you measure (and reward) is what you will get.

  If long hours are mandatory, people will just tend to do the same, if not lower, amount of work in those 12 hours than what they would otherwise do in 8 hours.

  And why would they care about quality if that's not rewarded? They could always say: "But I worked for 12 hours a day.".

• by jakejake on 6/18/12, 9:01 PM

  I pretty much agree about being more intelligent about work rather than just putting in the hours. I'm not sure I agree about doing B+ work on projects that you don't like, I find those are the ones that tend to continually suck up time come back to haunt you. At least with programming that can be the case, perhaps not with other types of positions.

• by coreygoodie on 6/18/12, 4:52 PM

  Yeah, right. I wish.

• by lucian1900 on 6/19/12, 9:08 AM

  Pop-up ad. I didn't even bother reading.

• by michaelochurch on 6/18/12, 11:36 PM

  It has nothing to do with effectiveness or performance. It comes down to the importance, in some social theaters, of shared suffering. When the company or group is doing well, the rockstars are the people who push forward and come up with new ideas. When things are falling apart, it's reliable/available people who get the benefit of the doubt and will advance. Ass-in-seat time matters most at companies that are stagnant or in trouble, because no one wants to be scapegoated as the slacker. (Bad managers tend to blame problems resulting from their lack of focus and effectiveness on "lazy" people not working enough hours.)

  If you think the crisis is temporary and a one-off, it might be worth it to log long hours for a month or two for the credibility that comes from having suffered with the group, especially as the company/group grows and becomes cliquish and the before/after crowd distinction starts to matter. If it's permanent, it's usually better to find a new job.