I'm not sure that we disgree. Just because marginal productivity falls after a certain point doesn't mean that total productivity diminishes. In English, I mean that although your 84th work hour a week is less productive than your 40th work hour, you're still getting more done at work than if you went home.
If a company required salaried employees to work those sorts of hours on a regular basis, then something is wrong. Maybe management is lousy at scheduling, or maybe management doesn't care about the workers. Either way, it might be time for a change of employer;)
I'e worked in tech companies as a programmer, electrical engineer, and even as a software manager. In the start-ups that I like to work in, crunch time to meet deadlines is a fact of life. Frankly, I find that after a certain level of fatigue sets in, your design choices actually get simpler because it becomes instantly obvious what approaches will require too much effort. Hill-climbing optimization, as it were.
What sucks is when you *do* make the wrong choice, you still have decide whether to live with the crap, or tear it out and rebuild. Like the old saying, "there's always enough time to do it over, but never enough time to build it right in the first place."
I worked in a thought-intensive job 12/7 for months at a time without any apparant loss in quality. My entire shop did, as well (30 people). The day shift started work at 7am, and the night shift at 7pm. The only break was on Sunday where things moved back an hour to 8.
The differences between my situation and the original posters were several:
a) We were on an aircraft carrier, and had no say in our working hours. Frankly, they could have been much worse: some groups worked 5 hours on / 5 off, or 12 on / 6 off for months at a time.
b) We had limited outside distractions. No commute, no having to mow the lawn or paint the house on weekends, no grocery shopping, no cooking. Our job was just to fix avionics boxes, and the system was optimized to keep us on task and productive.
c) You have to get used to the hours. The 8/40 work week is a relativly modern invention - our bodies will work much longer, it's just that our brains aren't used to concentrating so long.
All that being said, if my boss told me that my job depended on working 12/7 for months with no bonus, pay raise, or comp time then I'd walk.
Difference (b) above is a big one - if I have to work 12/7 as well as commute, grocery shop, and maintain my house and car there is simply not enough time left in the day for everything. I didn't go to college for 6 years to work the hours of my great-grandfather the farmer, who got up before sunrise and slept after sunset.
Difference (a) is the clincher, though. Once you enlist, they *own* your ass and you will work whatever hours your semi-literate boss dictates to you. If you tell him to fuck off, you can go to jail, be fed bread and water, or in wartime, be shot. After eight years of experiencing that environment, I'm fully aware that as a civilian I can quit at any time for any reason - this is a luxury that I've earned, and I see no reason not to use it when the conditions of my employment start being arbitrarily changed.
Hogwash - the Allied strategic air war against Germany was largely a valliant waste of men and machines. German industrial production increased throughout the war in spite of the daylight US bombing or nighttime British bombing.
The best that can be said for the air campaign is that it tied down Luftwaffe fighters that otherwise would have been used against the Soviets, who were busy defeating the bulk of the German army.
The shuttle program exists, sucking up NASA money, for two basic reasons: to refuel surveillance satellites and to boost the ISS to higher orbits. The rest of the crap you see on shuttle missions is eye candy.
The shuttles can't be grounded without finding alternate solutions to the above problems. Although watching ISS burn up in re-entry would be little loss except for the money we've wasted on it, the US government would never allow their fleet of surveillance sats to die.
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I'd prefer Emu or Swan.
I'm not sure that we disgree. Just because marginal productivity falls after a certain point doesn't mean that total productivity diminishes. In English, I mean that although your 84th work hour a week is less productive than your 40th work hour, you're still getting more done at work than if you went home.
;)
If a company required salaried employees to work those sorts of hours on a regular basis, then something is wrong. Maybe management is lousy at scheduling, or maybe management doesn't care about the workers. Either way, it might be time for a change of employer
I'e worked in tech companies as a programmer, electrical engineer, and even as a software manager. In the start-ups that I like to work in, crunch time to meet deadlines is a fact of life. Frankly, I find that after a certain level of fatigue sets in, your design choices actually get simpler because it becomes instantly obvious what approaches will require too much effort. Hill-climbing optimization, as it were.
What sucks is when you *do* make the wrong choice, you still have decide whether to live with the crap, or tear it out and rebuild. Like the old saying, "there's always enough time to do it over, but never enough time to build it right in the first place."
I worked in a thought-intensive job 12/7 for months at a time without any apparant loss in quality. My entire shop did, as well (30 people). The day shift started work at 7am, and the night shift at 7pm. The only break was on Sunday where things moved back an hour to 8.
The differences between my situation and the original posters were several:
a) We were on an aircraft carrier, and had no say in our working hours. Frankly, they could have been much worse: some groups worked 5 hours on / 5 off, or 12 on / 6 off for months at a time.
b) We had limited outside distractions. No commute, no having to mow the lawn or paint the house on weekends, no grocery shopping, no cooking. Our job was just to fix avionics boxes, and the system was optimized to keep us on task and productive.
c) You have to get used to the hours. The 8/40 work week is a relativly modern invention - our bodies will work much longer, it's just that our brains aren't used to concentrating so long.
All that being said, if my boss told me that my job depended on working 12/7 for months with no bonus, pay raise, or comp time then I'd walk.
Difference (b) above is a big one - if I have to work 12/7 as well as commute, grocery shop, and maintain my house and car there is simply not enough time left in the day for everything. I didn't go to college for 6 years to work the hours of my great-grandfather the farmer, who got up before sunrise and slept after sunset.
Difference (a) is the clincher, though. Once you enlist, they *own* your ass and you will work whatever hours your semi-literate boss dictates to you. If you tell him to fuck off, you can go to jail, be fed bread and water, or in wartime, be shot. After eight years of experiencing that environment, I'm fully aware that as a civilian I can quit at any time for any reason - this is a luxury that I've earned, and I see no reason not to use it when the conditions of my employment start being arbitrarily changed.
Hogwash - the Allied strategic air war against Germany was largely a valliant waste of men and machines. German industrial production increased throughout the war in spite of the daylight US bombing or nighttime British bombing.
The best that can be said for the air campaign is that it tied down Luftwaffe fighters that otherwise would have been used against the Soviets, who were busy defeating the bulk of the German army.
The shuttle program exists, sucking up NASA money, for two basic reasons: to refuel surveillance satellites and to boost the ISS to higher orbits. The rest of the crap you see on shuttle missions is eye candy.
The shuttles can't be grounded without finding alternate solutions to the above problems. Although watching ISS burn up in re-entry would be little loss except for the money we've wasted on it, the US government would never allow their fleet of surveillance sats to die.