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Comment by veb | Hacker News Reader

It's funny. I work in New Zealand, and I do my 37.5 hours a week as required (any more than that, and I get over-time) but that 37.5 hours takes such. a. long. time!

When I was working for a startup, and working from whatever time I woke up, till 3am in the morning, time flew by so quickly. I could easily do 80 hours, and have great fun. I was creative, and energised.

As soon as I went from a startup to working for a large employer and was forced to do 8.30am till 5.00pm all my productivity and energy flew right out the window.

Sigh.

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Sounds like there's a simple (to explain, not necessarily to do) solution for you. What's keeping you at the sucky job?

Not an OP, but I can answer the same.

Good pay, benefits, stability, lots of free time and overall an ability to "have life" now (between 5 and 8:30) as opposed to having it after a startup maybe exits.

That's a shame. I've done the opposite recently and moved from a 'corporate' job into co-founding a start-up. Without the fear of making payroll each month, I know now why it's easy to rest on your laurels and become a clock watcher.

My advice would be to start something up again on the side. Remember why you loved the autonomy of the start-up in the first place and transition yourself back towards a self-sustaining lifestyle.

If nothing else, the thought of working on your 'real' venture will get you through the day at work.

Are you sure it has to do with the hours, and not with; say the type of projects you've been working on, the amount of freedom you've been given, or the big office atmosphere?

Nice, I didn't know about 37.5 hour weeks in NZ. Does that 2.5 difference from 40 hour weeks account for a paid 30 minutes of lunch time everyday, or just a shorter Friday?

I can't comment about NZ,but in the UK the 37.5 hours work weeks are a 8:30-5 or 9-5:30 days with an hour long lunch. The number of hours goes up by 5 if you factor all time actually spent 'in office'.

Again in the UK it's worth noting that's not standard - I've had jobs that were 35 hours a week, 37.5 hours a week and 40 hours a week and in each case I've had the variety where that was usually the number of hours you did and where you did a shed load more.

And we've built a society on the notion that this kind of "stability" is best! Warning signs all around.

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