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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!
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.