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Ask Slashdot: Does Your Work Schedule Make You Unproductive?
debingjos writes "Management at my company seems to think that our developers can get extra work done if they work extra long days. However, as one of the devs in question, I don't agree. When I've been coding for eight hours, my pool of concentration is exhausted. Working overtime either fails to produce any extra code, or the quality of the code is very bad. What is the community's opinion on this? This can be broken out further into several questions: What are the maximum number of hours you can work in a day/week and still be reasonably productive? When you absolutely must work beyond that limit, what steps do you take to minimize degradation of quality? If you're able to structure your time differently from the typical 9-5 schedule, what method works best for you? Finally, how do you communicate the quality problems to management?"
You will never change them. Find a company that allows flex hours and doesn't manage by putting out fires with more fires. They are out there.
Solving problems is like marinating meat. It takes time. If you rush it, you get a quick solution, but not the best. A quick solution might be acceptable for one meal, but not for future meals.
The "Eureka effect" isn't something new.
In creative endeavours like coding, an 8-hour day of actual work is never, ever 8 hours of successful coding, and often results in questionable code that I have to rewrite later because looking busy when you really need a bit of time away from the desk. I think that if I could get away from the desk more without being perceived as slacking off, I would actually get more done.
Get up, take a walk around the block, play a little guitar, or whatever suits your fancy. As long as it gets your mind off the present obstacle. Come back with a fresh perspective and a fresh mind.
It certainly does worlds of good for my own free-time projects, but at work? It seems more like people believe they are paying for time, and not for actual work done.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
By "distraction" do you mean 3 group of people having right now conversation around me ? I hate openspaces...
As a developer, once I'm in the 'zone' I can code until I'm practically asleep... Although if I was forced to code for X hours, I couldn't say if I could 'enter' that zone or not - my guess is I wouldn't considering I would probably be thinking more about how pissed I was.
I am productive in "sessions", usually lasting about 1.5-2.5 hours. I usually have two sessions a day (morning, afternoon). The remaining time I browse the web (hello, Slashdot!), or go to meetings (does that count as "productive"?). I could easily produce the same amount of quality working 5 hour days, instead of 8 hour days. After 6 hours, I'm pretty much useless, other than answering silly questions.
On top of that, I am more productive than entire departments (because I automate those departments!). I saw a graph recently of American productivity versus actual wages. It was quite depressing (for me), though I bet the CEOs were very happy to see it.
When you can't do in 100+ hours / week what I can accomplish in 30, you're probably too young for the job. Step aside and let someone with some experience and perspective do the job that you obviously can't. Development productivity cannot be measured in hours, nor in lines of code.
Any company that measures progress by how many hours your ass is in the chair is not a company worth working for. It's a sign management is not only incapable of measuring real productivity but that they are also indifferent to your well being.
It's not the same thing but I work from home a couple days a week and it's great. I save a couple hours/week on the commute and get to spend some time working in a way that's best for me. And if after lunch I'm tired.. I go hit the couch for 20 mins of shut-eye. Wake up refreshed, far more productive, and in a better mood for when the kids and wife get home. WINNING.
Pointless telephone calls and stupid 'do you have a minute' conversations waste about half of my day.
I'm with you on working outside office hours and ideally outside the office.
When you can't crank out 100+ hours/week at max capacity, you're too old for the job. Step aside and let us younger and more capable guys show you how it's done.
If you have to crank out 100+ hours a week on a regular basis you can't do your job.
I worked for a manager once that didn't believe that anyone who practiced WFH actually worked when they were at home. His position was, you must be visibly in your cube to be considered to be working.
Sounds like he was assuming other people would behave like him.
Unfortunately, the main question seems to imply everyone staying late, which negates the positive side of what you are describing.
Not totally. The slackers that cause 80% of the noise and distraction all go home at exactly 4:59 pm.
That's bullshit. Those you are talking about hang out at work because that's their social life, and believe they're the best workers because they are on site the longest hours. The fact they drift through the day is irrelevant, their bosses merely see long hours and assume they're they productive ones. In fact, it's not even long hours, it's late hours. Those that get in early and are productive before these wasters get it are treated as you suggest. They leave on the dot despite being in 90 minutes before shits like yourself.
Or you're being expected to do more then just YOUR job.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
If this is news to you, you must be new here...
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs," I said. "we have a protractor"
Good point about distractions. Good managers or team leads will make sure their coders are not distracted. Someone mentioned phone calls and silly questions taking up half of their work day, but interruptions are worse than that: interrupting a coder who is in "flow" even for one minute can easily cost half an hour or more of that coder's productivity. Even worse: nudging a coder out of flow several times a day for an extended period of time will lead to severe fatigue and, when under pressure to deliver, a high risk of burnout.
Working coders need to be left alone. Not because they are prima donnas, just because of the nature of their work and the mindset required for it.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Having worked in cubes and open spaces, I'll take my cube any day. Inadequate privacy to concentrate in is much better than no privacy.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Good point. But everyone, and everyday is different. I've had inspired days when I worked 12 hours. My blood was up and concentration was good. I've had bad days when I caught up on email, admin, documenting, etc. no point in trying to code, nothing productive would result.
old school management is a classic fail
The risks are very different first off. If I crash my computer I don't usually kill anyone, if I crash my double trailer on the freeway there is a good chance that people die.
Second, the fatigue is very different between mental jobs and manual labor. I agree that for the most part humans shut down after 8 hours. That said, Tech jobs are quite a bit like being an artist. You find a groove, and you can make magic. I have done a couple of 20 hour days in the past because A) I really really enjoyed the project I was working on, and B) I was in a groove and everything was snapping together. The 20 hour days are extremely rare, but I doubt I'm the only one that's had a couple of those moments.
The thing is, if you find your groove and work a 12 hour day the bosses need to make sure you get compensated. A 40 hour week does not give much time to rest, and a 50 hour week leads to burn out rather quickly. If your boss does not allow comp time, get the hell out!
Many managers learn who the workers are and never comp, often pushing the workers harder and burning them out quicker. As long as they get their bonus they don't care about the staff they have left next quarter.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Good point about distractions. Good managers or team leads will make sure their coders are not distracted. Someone mentioned phone calls and silly questions taking up half of their work day, but interruptions are worse than that: interrupting a coder who is in "flow" even for one minute can easily cost half an hour or more of that coder's productivity. Even worse: nudging a coder out of flow several times a day for an extended period of time will lead to severe fatigue and, when under pressure to deliver, a high risk of burnout. Working coders need to be left alone. Not because they are prima donnas, just because of the nature of their work and the mindset required for it.
Hamming, a famous programmer at Bell Labs talks about open-doors and closed-doors. The general consensus is that people with open-doors tend to be more successful than people with closed-doors.
It is very important to keep your ears to the ground and know what is going on in the workplace. Those "distractions" can sometimes be very important information that can save you hundreds of hours of works or advance your career. A "minute" talking to a person can reveal what a thousand words cannot.
I've heard it said that sales divides the day up into 1 hour increments as being the smallest atomic unit of work. That is, 1 hour to get to a site, meet with the client, and decompress afterwards. This is why you'll find that meetings are typically scheduled to be an hour long (and end up being 45 minutes or so).
Coders on the other hand divide their time up into 4 hour increments. It typically takes about 30 minutes to get into the zone, followed by 3 hours of productive work and 30 minutes to decompress. Therefore a 45 minute meeting takes 1 hour out of a salesperson's day, and it takes 4 hours out of a programmer's day.