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Comment by crikli | Hacker News Reader

I effing love what I do. The result is that I frequently "work" 14+ hour days, skip social stuff to code (or sneak in my iPad to research the problem I'm stuck on), and I love talking shop.

I'm this way in my own business and I was like this at the job I had before I left to start it.

Honestly, with all of the slack ass clock punchers out there that can't write a lick of code, the idea of canning someone for working too hard seems pretty silly.

And FWIW, I found time in the last couple years to get my pilot's certificate.

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Both the article and you are talking in terms of extremes.

Some people work 14+ hour days regularly because they are excited about the work. There is nothing wrong with this. Working 14+ hour days because you feel like you must do so to "keep up" is bad. In general working well past the point where you are productive is bad.

Some people want to slack off and punch the clock, and do not give a crap about their work. This is bad. Some recognize when they've done all of the productive work they can today, and seek to use the remaining time to balance out their life. There is nothing wrong with that, either.

Basically it comes down to reasons and effective self-evaluation. If you're working 14+ hours while being useful and engaged, great for you. If you're doing it as some badge of honor and hacking together crap because you're tired, you really aren't helping.

Know yourself, and your limits. Use them as tools to do the best you can. The only people you should fire here are the ones who refuse to do this.

I love my "job" too. Although there's nothing I love so much to do it 10 hours a day on a regular basis. Not sleep, eat, sex, listen to music, read, watch Tv, play XBox, nor work. Nothing.

If I can't regularly do what I need to do in 9 hours day, for virtually anything, then I'm doing something wrong.

I wish I could upvote this 1000 times.

This is better written as "I agree".

I agree.

Some of us "slack ass clock punchers" have lives outside of work. I have friends and family and hobbies that do not involve sitting in front of a computer screen for every waking moment of the day.

Working to live, vs. living to work.

If you love your work, what is wrong with living to work?

(When I say living to work, take it as implied that I mean taking good enough care of yourself to prevent physical or mental health problems from tanking your work quality)

Exactly. I love what I do. If I had to work a job that didn't involve programming, I'd still do it after work (I've played an amazing 3d game that as written by somebody who worked a summer job at a gas station). I regularly program outside of work, I've stayed at work for long hours. When I'd have a day with multiple meetings, I'd frequently stay late to write code as otherwise I'd feel unsatisfied.

At the mean time, some days I'd prefer to have dinner with my girlfriend after work. On weekends I'd occasionally prefer a get away outside of Silicon Valley. Exercise is an absolute must. I also have interest outside of computing: reading (history, philosophy), photography. Pursuing them only helps re-invigorate my passion for computing: occasionally ideas would come to me when I'm reading an unrelated book, working out at the gym or taking photographs.

Many times there's a direct link: I'd write my own photo gallery software and host the pictures myself, build creative ways to backup my images, research ways to do interesting image manipulation from Linux (photo manipulation libraries, etc...) etc... Pursuing photography as a hobby while on a budget as a college student meant I had to do "casual programming" quite frequently to get what I want done (now, however, I've shelled out for Aperture).

It's important to understand that performance requires maintenance, good ideas come form outside. At the mean time, there's nothing wrong with working long hours if you want to do so: it's only healthy and pleasant if you actually have a passion for what you do (as long as you don't go to the extreme of forgoing maintenance and ignoring other sources of inspiration).

  Sensible people get paid for playing --
  that is the art of life.

      -- Alan Watts

hobbies that do not involve sitting in front of a computer screen... Working to live, vs. living to work.

It's more complex than that for me. I really like Calcanis's point that work is life for him. "Work to live" makes it sound like you would be happier if you could just have a trust fund, which is true for almost nobody.

I don't know if I want to take it to Calcanis's level where his work is his Alpha and his Omega, but my work is a big, big part of my life right now, and the other things (friends, dating, a home life, hobbies, etc) are less important to me. In the future surely that will change/flip. Certainly I've had different priorities in the past.

But the other thing is I kind of treat my "hobbies" as work. I just moved to a new city, and a lot of the "non-work" fun people are doing is partying, drinking, eating, playing outside, etc. Those are things I love, but lately what I really want to do is gardening, beer brewing, building structures, and yes... even coding for fun.

And one of those activities--gardening--became the foundation of my business. So now, even that is considered "working" in a very real sense.

So for me, this work/play line is very blurry. And the question of whether it's ok to want to spend most of your time in the "work" world is open for me. As is the question of whether it's reasonable for people like me (and Calcanis) to want to work only with other people who feel the same way.

Personally, I'd never want to work in a company full of "me's". I'm totally screwed up in a bunch of important ways, and I want people who do the opposite to balance me out.

I guess that's where I disagree with both DHH and Calcanis. I'll throw my own absurd overgeneralization in to the ring: fire the people who are just like you.

I don't know what a trust fund is, but my goal in life is to maximise leisure and minimise work. The more time I have to spend on my own activities, things that make me happy, the better. (This even involves writing Scheme for fun.)

If you have a job doing something you love, I am not about to look down on you for working extra hours. After all, you'd probably be doing it whether you were being paid or not. It doesn't feel like work at all. That is where I draw the distinction.

If you are doing something that you normally would not be doing, something you don't enjoy, and taking pride in the fact that you are putting in these extra hours for free, working for someone else, increasing their wealth... the employer has you exactly where they want you. The perfect employee.

Working for yourself, now that's an entirely different matter. Work as hard and as long as you want. You're only answering to you.

A trust fund is a huge pile money that a wealthy person (a trustee) gives to some beneficiary under certain conditions. The money is dispersed gradually to the beneficiary (stereotypically a spoiled rich kid) so they don't spend it all at once, and to avoid estate taxes.

Basically, it's something that allows you to maximise leisure and minimise work.

(Nitpick: a trustee administers the fund, the money was supplied by a settlor or testator.)

People really don't want this?

Lots of people may want it, for 99% of us it's not an option and we have to work for a living.

Lots of people want it, but those who have it aren't generally happy. In recent years there's been a lot of psychological research about people's happiness set points. In general, people adjust to an increased income very quickly, even if no work is required to earn it (e.g. lottery winners).

On the other hand, many people do find fulfillment through work. In that sense, trust fund beneficiaries may have a tougher road to follow. Another thing that can defeat happiness set points is continual goal setting and achievement, once again something that the idle rich don't need to do.

There is no vs.

> the idea of canning someone for working too hard seems pretty silly

I think you're taking the article too literally. It seemed to me that he was taking the (decidedly silly) polar opposite position to emphasize the extremity of Jason's suggestion, and that there are perfectly legitimate reasons not to follow it, to the extent that the exact opposite could be argued. I don't think he actually expects anyone to fire someone for working overtime, just recognize that expecting overtime has negative effects.

Agree 100%

I often work passionately 16 or even 18 hours a day, but that's like for a couple of weeks (or maybe a month) in a year, when we are about to launch something exciting, rest of the year I usually work 5-6 hours a day, sometimes even less, an hour or a couple of hours a day, spending the rest of the time catching up on technology, making art and some music. That said, I get more work done than almost a 100 other people combined.

If I were to work for a fixed number of hours a day every day of the year, I would probably be doing some boring chore of a work, and would likely 'burn out' due the boredom.

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