[alekseyk]

I always laugh at people who say how many hours they worked per day like it's an achievement of any sort.

Anybody can 'sit' at their desk for 10 hours that says absolutely nothing about you or your job performance but hey you can brag about how many hours you worked for.

I will come in focused, do all the work I have to do while you bullshit with co-workers or talk about doing something for the 10th time without doing anything and leave on time.

That what sucks about engineering/start-ups, if person is mediocre all they have to do is stay in the office the longest and even if they can't beat the quality and output of an engineer who does 9-5 that's overlooked by 'hey I 'worked' for 10 hours!'

[labrentca]

There's a political element to this to though. Remember, human beings, including your boss and coworkers, are social creatures. What you consider time spent "bullshitting with coworkers" might actually be an investment into office culture and politics.

[alekseyk]

Nobody is saying that you have to lock your self in a box and do your work.

If you need 10 hours to do something that somebody does in 6. Maybe, just maybe you should focus on your work instead of 'culture' especially if the goal of a start up to succeed.

I have never heard of a single case where something got acquired for it's culture. Have you?

But let me be clear. My point is that measuring somebody by the time they spend in the office only rewards people who sit in the office the most.

That's not really what their job is right? Because if that's the case I can hire few people to sit in the office for really cheap.

[dennisgorelik]

If I'm good at office politics and not good on writing code, then reasonable thing for me would be to do more office politics and less writing code.

Me spending more time on office politics would unload some of the office politics from your shoulders and let you focus more on software development which you do the best.

That way it would be a win-win.

[andrewcross]

I fully agree with you. If you aren't being productive, you aren't working. The number of hours isn't a badge of honor, but the number of productive hours is.