I think it only sounds horrible if you frame it as "I was forced to do work at 8pm and had to be in at 6am the next day." What the article is describing is more "I got a call at 8pm and decided to work on the issue that evening so I could sleep in the next morning, run some errands and come in to work at noon." It might not be for everyone, but doesn't sound to bad to me.
Right. When I was a graduate student, I had the freedom to work on my thesis project whenever I wanted. The only weekly obligation I had was an afternoon meeting with my advisor. That meant I often slept in late, stayed up late. I did my groceries mid-afternoon because I liked that the grocery store was not crowded. Some days I wasn't motivated and did not work. The compromise was that I often worked evenings, sometimes until 11PM, and I did work most weekends as well. I could organize my schedule however I wanted, but no time was "sacred". It didn't feel unhealthy though, it actually felt pretty natural.
Now, I'm a salaried employee, and I feel annoyed if someone expects me to work past 6PM or on weekends. I feel like I need that time to rest and get my mind off of work-related stuff. I probably need that time in part because I'm expected to get to work in the morning, and deliver a largely uninterrupted work day. As a grad student, I worked from home, and if I was working on a difficult problem, I could just take a break and go lie down on my couch for 15 minutes if I needed to. This isn't an option now, and not being able to take breaks when tired or unmotivated feels pretty unnatural.
How do you decide how much to work in a week, or when to stop working each day?
Personally, it feels like having unstructured work hours leads to an implicit competition between everyone to do the most work humanly possible, and any leisure hours begin to feel almost sinful.
Goals. You work with management to define what needs to be done by when, then set your schedule to maximize your personal productivity to meet those goals. You generally can't really have that kind of flexible schedule without organized/effective management. But it can be a win for Management because the idea is that each employee is maximizing their own productivity, potentially letting the employee have more free time (while still meeting goals) which makes them happier, more well rested, and thus even more productive. In the long-term your more productive employee will get more done.
I guess I was lucky because in my field I was able to do well without overworking myself. I enjoyed my project and how much I worked was based on how motivated I was. I did leisure activities when I felt the need to. I know people who are grad students in deep learning though, and it really seems way more competitive than what I'm used to.
Yeah, it reminds me of the principle of how the harder you work the more work comes your way to meet your level of efficiency. It's basically the same thing but applied to when the work gets done.
True, but this article is talking about shifting norms and the future of work. Doesn't seem like too crazy of an idea to hope/work for a future where the norm is a set of goals for your week/month and you being allowed to largely set your own schedule as needed to achieve them.
It seems crazy in the context of an economic system which combines both a psychotic pursuit of profit and productivity on the part of an ever smaller ownership class with the utterly dull minded petty desire to be dominant of your average boss.
What the article is getting at though is that the younger generations(s) entering the work-force seem to be less willing to accept that "psychotic pursuit of profit and productivity". This is why so many people seem critical of Millennial's work ethic -- they have trouble understating that someone can simply be unwilling to sacrifice their own health an happiness in order to make their employers more profits.
Change can seem impossible the face of entrenched opposition, but change is inevitable. It's never crazy to hope for, and work towards, a positive change.
Speaking from personal experience, if you allow out-of-hours calls, they creep in and become the norm. Then you're expected to both be at work during work hours for meetings and to take the out of hours meetings too.
This can be perfectly acceptable, I was happy to do it for a previous employer. I was also compensated for it.
I don't think that's what the article is describing though. It's talking more about allowing off-hour calls/work/etc, but dropping the expectation of being at work during "normal work hours." Just a general flexibility to set your schedule as long as you're getting your work done.
1) you get asked to take out of hours client meetings.
2) those become regular.
3) you end up on a project which is high priority.
4) those have daily standups to make the schedule.
5) that becomes regular.
Congratulations, you've now got both out-of-hours and in-hours meetings, frequently at 10AM and 10PM. Even if the offset is a "Tuesday/Thursday WFH", that will eventually become consumed by a scheduled something in the face of some time pressure.
For example, we have regular "no meeting weeks", and the team just scheduled one. However, everyone on Project Y, had daily standups. We were even told "no meeting week doesn't apply to you".
Another piece of well-earned experience is what happens with a company phone out of hours. When I did that, I got pinged by well meaning ops people when they started looking at their bug queue. The only problem? I was in GMT-7, and they were in GMT+3. If it's important, they can page me, instead of messaging me.
Again, I can be happy to do this. If I believe in the company mission, and/or I'm compensated for it. I need to negotiate with my partner, but that's what being in a relationship is all about.
I'm not at all discounting your experience; mine are quite similar. I was just saying that what the article is discussing is not how things are now most places but looking at a possible projection of a trend seen in some companies that appears driven by a new generation entering the workforce.
Basically the premise (as I interpret it) is that younger generations have such a drastically different relationship with their employers and work-life balance expectations that it may not be possible for employers to make the kind of demands and "take-backs" your describing because they would just not be considered acceptable anymore. It's basically a positive (and I think more accurate) interpretation of "Millennials don't want to work hard" that says "Millenials aren't willing to sacrifice their health or happiness to make their employers more profits", and looking at what employers may have to change in the future to account for this.
That has not been the case for me. My personal cell phone number has been on my voicemail for a decade now, and I get about two calls a year, generally for system outages or weird issues for a user with a deadline, or for true special cases.
We have automated monitoring of services, and except for the core routers and environmental monitors, all SMS notifications are disabled from midnight to 6am. 'tis lovely.
The quote literally says "and I'm happy to talk to them."
This is about flexibility and a change from strict 9 to 5 office hours. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. If you're not available from 11AM to 2PM, you still have to complete your work - maybe you don't need a full 8 hours to do it, but it needs done.
Naturally if client calls aren't your thing, steer away from that kind of work. Maybe instead you don't mind writing code at 8PM or doing research at 8PM.
When you're young and lonely and clueless many unhealthy/unsustainable things can make you happy. Happy isn't the be-all, end-all of how work should be structured. Many people regret making tradeoffs they were once quite happy to be making.