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Comment by tyri_kai_psomi | Hacker News Reader

We have a contract with the USPS IT department and let me tell you, it is absolutely awesome for their employees. They do about half the work we do in twice the amount of time, get paid more, have more holidays (2 weeks + every single federal holiday) and have pensions. Every worker there clocks in at 9, and clocks out at exactly 5, not a single minute past. If you want a meeting or them to get you something, it needs to be scheduled before 4 otherwise there's a good chance people have already started leaving the office for the day.

Sometimes I wonder where did I go wrong?

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If everyone is happier, less stressed, and as a result less productive, then isn’t that a good trade off? Shouldn’t we all strive to work less hours if it means better mental health? That’s what I would wonder.

There's tons of evidence that for most people working more than 40 hours actually results in a fall in productivity (that's 9-5).

More hours are for show.

As I understand it, it's diminishing returns for a while past 40. Putting in more than 40 hours does get more done, just not as much per hour as the earlier hours.

At a point the negative impact takes a toll on your productivity all week long.

We aren't robots. Having a late night today effects my work tomorrow.

Nope, that's wrong. You get falling OVERALL productivity.

I think mental health is key in this situation.

There's a reason that what we now call "mass shootings" used to be called "going postal."

Those conditions would actually be illegally poor in the UK for a full time employee. Minimum paid holiday is 22 + 8 days (8 are the public holidays) and everyone must have an employer matched contribution pension of at least 2% of gross salary. Hours are not regulated here but generally 8 per day.

> Hours are not regulated here but generally 8 per day

Whilst a lot of employers will have you opt out of the working time directive as part of an employment contract, you can opt back in at any time, limiting your max hours to 48 a week on average:

https://www.gov.uk/maximum-weekly-working-hours/weekly-maxim...

In addition you have the right to opt out of working on Sunday - which obviously has its religious roots.

Pension, more then two weeks holiday, and 9am-5pm workdays sounds like a normal working conditions for an employee?

For many Americans, they are not.

It used to be. There are a ton of popular songs from the 60s, 70s and 80s, especially in country music, about "9 to 5" jobs being the gold standard and basically how you had it made if you got one.

>> Pension

>> Normal working conditions for an employee

Basically not anywhere except government-related positions.

Normal for Europe, well almost. Make it a 4 week vacation and we are almost there.

There was an example from UK, now for Poland:

* 40 hour week (anything above is overtime paid +50% more for first 8 hours during week and day, in weekends or night it is +100%)

* 20 or 26 (depending how many years you have worked in your life, usually after 2 years you get 26) + 13 public holidays.

* women after birth get 52 weeks off (plus their usual vacation), dads get 2 weeks off to be used during 2 years (the 52 weeks can be split between parents, so a mom can go to work and dad can stay with child for 32 weeks)

* on top of that when you are sick and go to doctor he/she can prescribe you a time off (sick off?), which is additional to your normal vacation (this is not limited to any number of days, e.g. when you break your leg you can be a year sick/unable to work), but pays 80% your salary

I'd never take a job with that little holiday. I'll never understand US attitudes on that matter - on most of Europe only two weeks would be unthinkable.

I have 28 days of holidays + national holidays in Italy, plus paid sick leave, plus 8 hour of permits a month, plus of course pension, which is a legal obligation.

And I'm thinking of leaving because as a new company in a larger group they still don't give us meal vouchers like the rest of the companies in the group.

I had several like that. They were at tech and defense BigCo's. You don't need a union to be like that.

Are those conditions not normal? 2 weeks vacation plus holidays seems very average.

Is something keeping you back from working for USPS IT?

> Every worker there clocks in at 9, and clocks out at exactly 5

LUL! Those are amateur numbers, buddy. I do 11-6 maybe, and work at a big 5 tech company making big 5 tech company salaries. And frankly, we aren't working a lot of the time during the day either.

And yes, we have the "unlimited" vacation, which usually results in people taking about 4 weeks a year, on average.

I think people underestimate how easy it is to work at some of the big tech companies.

Do you have to go into the office or do you work remote?

I live a couple blocks from the office, so I go in. There are a couple people on the team who work remote, though.

Big 5 tech companies are pretty great.

> Big 5 tech companies are pretty great.

Out of curiosity - any downsides to your working conditions? You seem pretty happy about everything.

That's cool, I don't make a lot of money at the moment, but I do have nearly unlimited personal freedom working remotely.

There is no “Big 5” in tech

FANNG?

Those are not the “big 5” in tech by any measure. FANG was an acronym that specifically related to stock returns at the time.

Then what measure would you propose? I'd definitely say these companies are an outlier in the amount of influence they wield.*

* Admittedly would swap Netflix with Microsoft in the FAANG acronym.

And yet people know exactly what I mean when I say "big 5" tech company.

How is it that everyone that I talk to, knows what I am talking about when I say those words, but apparently you don't?

I don’t know. I don’t see how anybody could know which companies you mean when you say big 5 tech companies. Which ones did you mean?

It is a short hand for the major/prestigious tech companies.

So it would be Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, and maybe Netflix depending on who you ask.

And yes, I know that is more than 5 companies. It is a shorthand for "those prestigious, large tech companies that new grads apply to, and hire lots of people, and have large market caps".

If I talk to any new grad who is applying to companies these day, they will know what I mean when I say "big 5 tech companies".

This is a very common term in the interview/tech market and discussions.

Yeah, new grads being confused doesn’t surprise me. We don’t call that big 5 in the real world ;)

Language is defined by how it is used.

The fact that this is how people use these words, makes it the definition.

Lots of people in the real world know exactly what it means when people say "big 5 tech companies".

You'd have to be extremely obtuse to not know what people mean when they say those words.

You obviously know what I meant.

I don't know if I'd like to work in a place like that. Wouldn't you get lazy after a couple of years? Doesn't this create incentives to deliberately work more slowly?

After a couple of more years like that wouldn't you get used to not doing much and then get slaughtered when inevitable change came around?

My friend referred to this kind of situation as "being in an ass" ;) Yeah, from time to time there's a smell but it's always warm, comfy and soft ;P

This seems like a masochistic justification for being exploited by employers

Yeah, well, you might be onto something here. I've been told I've not acted in my own self interest a couple of times before :P

You would get lazy having a 40 hour work week and 2 weeks paid vacation?

No way. Unpaid overtime sucks. Burnout sucks. What I meant was that that USPS job description sounded to me like a cushy, untouchable asshole replying to emails passive aggressively every other day from 1200-1235hrs.

I'm not for exploiting people if that's what you mean. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

Assuming someone's job is easy, without knowing much about it, and therefore believing they must lazy isn't a good look.

Well, I'm just drawing from my own experience here. Usually when I worked with people that behaved that way it turned out that that behaviour steemed from their untouchable-ish status.

Is it possible that someone behaving that way has legitimate reasons to do so? Sure. I mean I've been wrong before :P It's that I (personal experience, anecdata) didn't encounter many situations like that is all.

Idk about you, but I don’t work hard out of fear of losing my job. I do it for the respect of my coworkers more than anything. It’s totally viable to be lazy in a non-union job too.

Sure thing. It's just that that USPS job performance description didn't really sound all that respectful of your coworkers is what I'm sayin'.

If some employer is taking advantage of you you should quit. I do understand that not everyone is in a position to say 'fuck you' to a person/entity that's taking advantage of him/her and that that's a situation a union can help in.

> Wouldn't you get lazy after a couple of years? Doesn't this create incentives to deliberately work more slowly?

Maybe without unpaid overtime and burnout, developers will finally have the chance to contribute to open source and side projects that recruiters are always looking for.

I guess we can test that. How many USPS developers are open source mavens?

EDIT: Did I misunderstand a joke or something? Doesn't seem like I said anything particularly controversial.

Several are unpaid Linux kernel contributors.

And many thanks to those guys for their work!

Whoa whoa I'm not sayin people should be treated like shit. Just that that USPS example didn't really look all that good.

Burnout sucks and being exploited sucks. I'm all for unlimited sick days, being compensated for all the work and time you put in, getting the benefits that you're guaranteed by law etc. In exchange for that I sure would expect the employer to expect me performing well. Quid pro quo. The USPS example didn't imply that imho.

It enforces the 40 hours a week. That's the job you are paid for. Working 16 hours a day..7 days a week is not lazy. It's a recipe for burn out. Working hard for the 40 is what is expected and should be exactly that.

You pay me for 40 I'll give you 40 You want 80 then you pay me for 80

Facebook and Google certainly pay for 80 then. The average senior engineer there definitely makes at least double what someone at USPS IT does...

I don't think working 80 is either sustainable or even possible for that matter.

My wife was on an assignment in South Korea and she experienced the 16 hour work days there. No one even blinked when you tried calling your colleagues at 11:00pm.

However, what my wife noticed is that most of the people working those hours seemd drousy, unfocused and inattentive. It boggles my mind how either of the sides of that work contract can think that that kind of situation is beneficial for either of the sides in any imaginable way...

You get lazy when you get so tired you can't work anymore.

Even sled dogs owners give them plenty of rest or they stop doing a good job and you think it would hurt human performances?

Don't you guys have families over there? How do you raise your children if you enjoy those crazy hours? Even 40 is too much, I actually want to see, enjoy and teach my children while they grow up. Time goes by incredibly fast.

> it is absolutely awesome for their employees. They do about half the work we do in twice the amount of time

how is that awesome? the productive output of the most productive time of their lives is 4 times less. It would be truly awesome of course if they productively worked only 25% of the time with your efficiency and spent the rest 75% on say education, new tech learning, skills improvement, side projects... Unfortunately, i suspect, their time is simply wasted 4 times less efficiently than yours - may be using less efficient tools, processes, nobody cares about anything in particular because there is no point in improvement, etc...

I myself work in a very similar environment, a non-FAANG BigCo, my effective productivity is order of magnitude less than it was at previous jobs in particular because we're moving with the speed of midday sleeping flies, and moving any faster would create huge impedance mismatch causing systemic structural stress painfully affecting everybody. Such slowdown isn't good even in the short term as it makes your mind into a mushy soup zen-like diffusing through your skull and merging with the swamp around.

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