[seldo]

> People claim that startups work you hard, I personally don’t see it. From people I’ve talked to, I’d say 50 hour weeks are average. That’s about what you see in corporate America these days.

I think only in America would somebody say 50 hour weeks don't count as working you hard. Also, the average US working week is 35 hours, 37 in "information" industries:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm

The fact is that past 35 hours most people just aren't very productive, and a startup asking you to work 50 hours is going to get just as much "busy-looking" time as a corporate job asking you to do the same. Don't work at any job that expects you to work 50-60 hour weeks. Those companies are unhappy places.

[overgard]

What always bothered me about companies that ask you to work long hours (long term) isn't even the hours, it's more that it's a canary in the coal mine: it makes it obvious management doesn't know what they're doing. (Or alternatively: that appearance of work is more important to them than actual work. Maybe they're angling for a promotion and trying to impress their boss)

I worked at a company for a while where the solution to any deadline was either to work longer hours or to throw more people at it. (They called it "swarming"). I'm pretty sure not a single executive there had read the mythical man month, or they would have realized how insane that was. You can't just brute force problems that require creativity.

[dkrich]

Exactly. And I've found that more often than not that the "we MUST complete this by xx/xx/xxxx or ELSE" mentality stems from some arbitrary date promised for no good reason. The company wasn't going to lose any more money or expose themselves to potential liability. It was just an arbitrary date marked in an MS Project file somewhere.

In situations where deadlines were missed, it ended up being OKAY and nobody really cared a week later. This then turned into a cycle where every deadline was tight and everybody got burned out because you can be sure that a manager who is bad at managing dates once will be bad at managing dates forever.

It seems that a lot of people in management lack good, common sense when managing workloads and deadlines.

[gordaco]

I came to say exactly this. 50 hours is completely crazy, and if you're doing it often, you should look for another place ASAP. Fuck, 40 hours is already on the verge of being crazy if your job is intellectually demanding.

I've worked in one startup, another one on the process of becoming a small corp (i.e., already adopting process in a much serious scale) and a corp. The best by far, if you value your life outside the job, is the corp. The worst was IMHO the second one, which had the worst of the two worlds: from the startup world, disapproval stares whenever you left without doing enough overtime, crazy schedules overall (I learned later that some mandatory things were actually illegal in my country) and permanent fire-extinguish mode; from the corp world, bureaucracy and lots of meetings. This was in Europe, not in the US.

[throwaway5752]

"50 hours is completely crazy, and if you're doing it often, you should look for another place ASAP. Fuck, 40 hours is already on the verge of being crazy"

I feel badly for you that you've been at jobs that have made you feel that way. I've worked 50ish hours for a long time, generally in jobs I enjoy and in compensation structures that rewarded me for do intellectually stimulating work.

But 50 hours a week is hardly crazy. Do whatever works for you, but I want to combat this strange myth that nobody can be productive after 35 hours a week. It's obviously false from my experience (and I would guess the experience of many, many people on HN).

[overgard]

35 or 50 hours or whatever is a pretty arbitrary number, I would agree most people have different limits on how long they can work, but I think the larger point is that for intellectual work, more hours don't imply more output. Or at least, not sustainably.

Not at my current employment, but I know there have been jobs where, say, 3:30 would roll around and my brain would pretty much fried for the day, but I felt obligated to stick around for an extra hour and a half because I'd get disapproving stares if I peaced out early. That extra hour and a half the company got of my time as not a useful hour and a half though. Or conversely sometimes I'd stay late because I was engaged with some sort of problem. Either way, the number of hours really had very little to do with my productivity, and trying to "force" it was never particularly useful.

If I were a manager, and I saw a person was treading water, I'd rather them go home and have them come back the next day refreshed, rather then have them stick around being miserable to meet some arbitrary number of hours.

[emperorcezar]

I think 35 hours is a pretty normal limit with the caveat that it only involves one type of work. If I'm programming for 35 hours, I'm done. If you mix that in with meetings, design discussions, etc, you can get more than that.

Some of the people I've seen who can do 50 hours of productive work are in roles that extend beyond programming where there is a good mix of things.

[meddlepal]

Exactly, also some us also enjoy working a lot. I do 60+ hour weeks because the work and results interest me.

That said there is a limit too.

[nyrulez]

Wow, sentiments about this differ very strongly in Europe vs. the US. What if the employer isn't asking you to work extra, but the person is amibitious and interested in the work he is doing and ends up working 50-60 hours without it getting in the way? To suggest that beyond 35 hours is non productive sounds ridiculous to me as a hypothesis. I would think it varies for every individual. Different folks can run different distances without getting overly exhausted. It is very similar for intellectual or creative work and even more so for technical work.

[existencebox]

I think it's more a matter of expectations. I've worked OT non comp places that will still expect you to do hotseat outside of hours, deal with fires, or regularly come in early/stay late "lest you look like a slacker." This often isn't even institutionalized, but just some sort of weird culture that's built up around time spent "looking busy" corresponding in some inane way to being a productive employee. If you're making the choice yourself, fine. But if you're being pressured to work past that boundary, it may be as the parent poster said, a canary, if not for the whole company, but how the company culture will play in concert with your own personal choices/life balance.

[nyrulez]

Agreed - a push to confirm in a way that is not desirable creates the opposite effect. And this is actually pretty common - expecting folks to work on weekends, be available to reply at all times and so on.

Working beyond 40 hours is non-productive is a rhetoric I see often on Hacker news. And it always blows my mind. My life experience has been exactly the opposite.

The parent article does not state it as a requirement - more so as a nature of reality for the more ambitious folks in the startup vs. corporate category. I find exceptional folks in my company to be also very hard workers - by choice and not by force. And there are plenty who live a precise 40 hour schedule. Which is fine for both parties as long as that's what they want. What I find pretty ridiculous is the very common new-agey declaration that there is only one right way for everyone which is "40 hours of work" and anything else is just a waste of time. I think it is a very appealing life-style for many - but not a reality for many people who want to get ahead in their careers, are ambitious or are attached to the nature of their work. I see nothing wrong with that.

[existencebox]

There's a risk in it though, and this is what I always try to stress. While I certainly accept there are many people who can work more hours, and do, (I do, if it's a project I care about) this can still set a precedent that "leaks" onto the other employees through that potentially subconscious expectation setting I mentioned. In short, you don't only have to worry about what you can handle, but if your behavior will put the rest of your team between a rock and a hard place.

This may be a "dangerous" thing to suggest, since I realize it edges on a "if no one does exceptional work we all look fine" mentality which certainly isn't productive, I just mean to stress that buying into 40< hours may have ripples in terms of legitimizing it as a Carte Blanche system, (Yes, this is a slippery slope argument, but having seen it pan out as I've described I'm less hesitant to lend it credence.) and as you say, an appealing life-style for many, or some, certainly might not be for all.

[BSousa]

I advise you to take a read: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...

[nyrulez]

Thanks - this was a dense but provocative read. Is the context that working those extra hours just gets you into the over-performing loser category and doing so for the psychopath organization (which has no loyalty to you) is all for naught in the end ?

[BSousa]

I guess it depends on yourself only. But any extra hours you are giving to your employer, you are taking them from you. Even if you enjoy the work, you could be enjoying the work at home on a personal project (that may make you money, or famous), or gym time for your health, or family time, etc etc.

I'm not against doing some extra time if needed, but working overtime regularly with the 'I like my work' mentality is for me the wrong way of thinking, since anything you could be doing sitting at a desk for your employer outside the agreed hours you could be doing it for yourself.

[rjf1990]

While this makes total sense, there are in fact roles where working more makes you progress faster. I feel that this is less the case in programming roles. But, in many business roles, working more allows you to learn more about the business, which in turn allows you to contribute more. As long as you are in a meritocratic environment (as I was in), where results are rewarded with advancement/higher pay.

[rmc]

> > People claim that startups work you hard, I personally don’t see it. From people I’ve talked to, I’d say 50 hour weeks are average. That’s about what you see in corporate America these days.

> I think only in America would somebody say 50 hour weeks don't count as working you hard.

50 hour weeks are technically illegal in the European Union. EU Working Time Directive sets the max working week at 48 hours.

[ulfw]

One of the multitude of examples how law in the European Union (on average) is geared towards protecting the individual (citizen) whereas in America it seems to be geared towards the needs of the (big) corporations.

[rmc]

I think one big root cause is the US idea of "the land of oppertunity" where "an immigrant can step off the boat at ellis island, work hard, and own a skyscraper in Manhatten". In Europe, with it's long history of classism, the lower classes knew that they would never own the company, and trade unions were stronger, which led to stronger employement law.

[kenster07]

The fact is that past X hours most people just aren't very productive

I agree with the sentiment, but people need to remember that the number 'X' is different for different people.

[king_jester]

And that X can be different for the same person from week to week.