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Comment by KingOfCoders | Hacker News Reader

As a manager I friendly told people to leave after 8h of work and then kicked them out after a nudging them friendly and a grace period because I believe developer productivity is limited (as shown in studies) and you should have a life outside the company.

This regularily got me into fights with other execs and CEO who said "Stephan, when I go through technology at 8pm there is no one there, don't we know we're a startup?"

When a friend and I was on business in Japan we wanted to meet someone at 11pm at night. We were waiting in the business complex and lots and lots of people were leaving at that time (11pm!), then we got a call he could not leave. What a sad working culture.

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Not only that, but people should be encouraged to take time off entirely. IMO, if you're not taking at least 3 weeks a year off, you're probably damaging your ability to do your best work. (Are there any studies on this?)

> IMO, if you're not taking at least 3 weeks a year off, you're probably damaging your ability to do your best work

Make that more like 5 weeks. The legal minimum here in the UK is 33 days (well, it might be 34 next year but we'll see), which is 5.5 weeks. Every job I've had as a professional has had more leave than that, usually 38-40 days (7.5-8 weeks), and in the last 3-4 years I've also had a weeks office closure during the summer. The feeling of taking a weeks break and coming back and you _not_ having to catch up on what's changed since you left is incredible.

it's actually 28 days but the rest of your points stand

So it is! I thought it was 27+8 bank holidays but I was wrong!

Only three weeks a year? My team have at least five and usually more. Are you in America?

American, but I'm factoring in holidays, too. That gets you more than another week, and you can stretch them out by strategic use of PTO days.

> When a friend and I was on business in Japan we wanted to meet someone at 11pm at night

Do you think this is a carryover from the 1980s, when Japan was a world-leader in semiconductors and personal electronics? Is the thinking that this culture was the reason? And an attempt to return to the glory days?

Or is it more of a social thing? With peer pressure?

Social/cultural thing. Can't leave before the boss leaves. Have to arrive before the boss arrives.

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