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Comment by fizixer | Hacker News Reader

One thing I noticed while doing a 40 hour a week software job recently (I'm not working now) is that your ability to work in the evenings and weekends depends on how much cognitive load you go through during those 40 hours.

I've had jobs where the load is moderate, but in this recent one, the employer wanted to extract work from every hour of the 40 hour perior. I was so exhausted, that I couldn't do anything in the evenings, would spend Saturday in a state of haze, and on Sunday finally be able to think straight. But then on Sunday you barely catch up with what you were doing last Sunday. So your progress practically comes to grinding halt.

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This is the beginning of burnout.

Soon, you'll stop being able to think straight even into Monday. Other things in your life will fall to the wayside or disappear out of neglect. Monday will turn into Tuesday, Tuesday into Wednesday. You'll wonder why you even bother to show up.

Eventually, your employer will fire you for someone younger and cheaper, and you'll realize that you have no ability to maintain enough software development effort on your own to demonstrate to potential employers that you can do the work.

And even if you could, it's a sham, because you can't. You'll find that you end up being able to work ten, maybe twenty hours a week if you're having an especially good week. Your work won't be any worse, for quality, you just simply won't be able to force yourself to do it any more than that.

So, it's worth addressing that early.

I'm not sure why the mantra of HN is that "You just have weekend and side projects and stay up till 3 am while still making that 9am meeting and everything is great". Sure, that works for a while, until you hit your limits and your life falls apart. There's no road back from there.

Take it from me, you can truly excel, and nobody cares unless you can work 40, 50, or 60 hours a week. To PG's point from a while ago, "Nobody is willing to pay double for twice the work" - neither is anyone willing to pay half the rate for half the work.

I'm not sure what solution you're suggesting. Can you please rephrase?

I am suggesting that, if the environment you work in leaves you with no energy at the end of the day, you need to either change it or leave.

(Not that you should use that free energy for programming. Use it to build your life, not software.)

Parent is not working 60 hours a week. He is working 40, but he does not slack around, so he is tired after that.

I don't think that being exhausted at the end of the day should be accepted, or considered normal.

Sure, everyone has bad days.

What happens if you're working to your utmost, absolutely everything you've got has to go into the job, and you hit a rough patch? A cold, a breakup, God forbid a death in the family.

You have to build that into your routine. You're not going to be a superhero every day, so you need to spend some of your time managing for that, setting things up in such a way that when you have a bad day, you can compensate for it, rather than falling apart.

If you're putting out more than 90% of your 'best day' effort every day, you're sitting in a very precarious place. You need to be proactive about resting and rehabilitating yourself.

> I don't think that being exhausted at the end of the day should be accepted, or considered normal.

Indeed. Being physically exhausted can be healthy in most cases but mentally exhausted is completely different. You don't recover from it with a good sleep.

If you are too exhausted, whether physically or mentally, then it is bad. However, if you come home full of energy and work four more hours, then you likely slacked at work - regardless of how much time you spent there.

It's probably true that not everyone can pull it off, but many evidently can.

You don't need to excel at your day job, you just need to work hard enough to hang on while exploring your side project.

Speaking of, I don't think I've met a programmer without some kind of side project, so it's just a matter of how much effort you can put into it, and how good the idea is. If you have a family this will depend on how understanding your wife is, but I think it's safe to assume that anyone can but in an hour a day at least. Americans watch some 3 hours of TV a day, so time is not lacking.

Shit, that sounds like me. The weekends have turned into recovery from the workweek. I love electronics design, but my employer has ground me down over 20 years. I'd quit now at 45, but have 2 kids elementary school age with looming college expenses and a few years left on the mortgage. I'd like to quit and do it just for fun again.

I'd be happy to talk if you want. I don't have a bunch of help to offer you, it's what I've been living the last little while. My email is in my profile if you'd prefer to discuss privately - I have no shame so... here's my thoughts.

Take it from me though quitting doesn't solve the problem. It just means you're unemployed and burnt out!

I've been in therapy for quite a while now and really not seeing much in the way of significant progress, but things are getting better in an incremental way.

Is college really required?

===

It takes too long. It's too expensive. In the UK and US it's s a costly activity - students tend to take loans so when they leave university they are in debt. Hurray! You got a degree, now you have to work to pay off your loan...

I have nothing against education and learning. You should always learn. If you really think that going to university is something you really have to do: * Take a gap year first * Be sure what you want to study * Don't pay for it: scholarships, or maybe a different country with free education? (you may need to learn the language first)

I made several mistakes in my approach to university. Probably the biggest one was sense of entitlement - because I graduated from the top degree in the top high school - I thought I'll get new jobs easily.

> Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn't work.

University could be good in terms of making friends, expanding your network but... I bet you can make friends anyway.

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I know how you feel. I'm currently technically doing a 37.5 hour week - but it FEELS like a LOT more and it's killing me. A lot of those hours are at odd times and I seem to work more and then take it up in time in lieu but it's entirely recovery time not doing-things-time.

Try explaining to your boss, "We need more staff because although I consistently meet all targets I'm just working TOO hard".

I get gas lighted when I do so. They insinuate I'm doing something wrong and need to take more breaks. Uh yeah but then the work doesn't get done, and day by day it builds up, and everyone is clamouring for it, and then you make it seem like I'm at fault again?

I started keeping an Excel spreadsheet of what I do every day just to see how much time I "waste". It turns out I'm doing 6-20 different things a day. Which is what I've been telling them, the load of constantly switching between so many different demands on attention and doing stuff "which should only take a minute" but can turn into hours spread out over days - all the time goes.

I'm extremely sad every day. I'm definitely depressed. But the pay is good and it pays my mortgage. So I feel very trapped.

And yeah when I get home I do nothing. I used to do stuff and blog but now I'm just too tired. All day every day I'm working and making decisions and stressing out - I have no capability to function outside of hours. I can't even make dinner so my partner does it. I find it hard to decide on even simple things and if anything goes wrong I'll break down into tears.

I hope writing that down helped. Because that is not sustainable. I tell developers that I interview that I don't want them working long hours because it leads to bad code. Go home. I want you to have a life and one you enjoy.

Let the work pile up. Who cares if they insinuate you are doing something wrong. Don't take it personally. Resourcing issues are not something you should be worried about.

I wouldn't worry about them replacing you if they don't understand what you do either.

You bring up an often overlooked point. The friction of switching tasks. Some people (non-technical managers especially) don't understand the price. They think "oh, I'll just have them jump on this for 15 minutes, then that for half an hour, then the other until lunch". Wrong. You don't get 15 minutes + half an hour + whatever until lunch. You can take 30% + off the top for the switching. This holds true in non-technical fields as well.

The ideal workday is doing just one or two things. That's where a person gets the most return on effort.

Take more more breaks. The big picture is that you are hard working person and the amount of work assigned to you will go up until they find your limit. So, slow down to speed that is long term sustainable (e.g. dont slack, just slow enough so you are able to function normally in the evening). If you don't, you will burn out and risk ending up all resentful.

The other part of big picture is that what you need is to learn some negotiation and organizational skills. Them clamouring is negotiation and "making it seem like you are at fault again" is particularly ugly negotiation tactic. Treat them as such. By organization, I mean don't do all "just one minute taks" immediately, put them into tracker, group them more effectively so you dont switch attention constantly. So it is more visible that you are really working all the time and that it piles up. Basically, create system in which it is easier for you to tell "later".

Been in a situation as that, it was ugly. At another job it was also like that, just I pulled in 70-100 hours a week.

They did not care. I spent time thinking about it all these years about it, and also talked to various managers.

If the job is being handled, almost 100% , you won't get any help.

The symptoms sound like burnout. Don't ignore it, because not only is it worsening the quality of your life, but also those around you.

What worked for me was to take a long break, a sabbatical. Think deeply about whether you want to stay or move on when you return.

If you can't explain it to your boss, just stop shielding him from the consequences.

When you can't do all the work without getting exhausted, prioritize it, do what you can, let the low value work pile up and people complain. If you can't switch all that fast, don't, or if switching is more valuable than your main work, do prioritize it adequately, what means pushing the attention requiring work down.

And do care about your healthy. Make sure you exercise, get some sun, and control your caffeine intake.

What I personally found is that the days when I go straight home, have some food and then get coding, I get nothing done at home. Instead I feel stressed and it's no fun. Not a good way.

When I instead pass the gym on the way home and work my body hard for an hour it works much better. Then I go home hungry like a wolf and devour a meal, and I feel more inspired for my projects than I did during the "regular" work day.

My conclusion is that sitting life isn't how we evolved - and when I fix my body-use deficiency I unlock all that potential.

This isn't normal? ... f*ck.

What kind of software job leaves you with enough mental energy at the end of the day to let you work and code on your own projects? (Serious question, I feel like it's either work or hobby for me!)

Most I would say, definitely so in Northern Europe. We all have side projects.

But how? After about 6 hours of work my brain is mush!

You're not alone: https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2013/02/04/four-hours-of-conc...

No, it's not normal at all across the world and especially throughout the last century.

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