Do you think that if you worked nights and weekends (say another 20 hours a week) your total productivity would be diminished vs. your normal week because those extra hours aren't productive?
Yes, but it depends on what type of work is required.
In creative work: if I don't get enough sleep, enough exercise, enough relaxation time, my personal productivity falls to at most a quarter of normal. Total productivity is surely less.
In grunt/repetitive work: my productivity is affected a little but probably not enough to decrease total productivity, and I've noticed my work is appreciated more because I appear to be more 'busy'.
Of course, you could rightfully question whether this is actually increasing the company's productivity or whether they are just so flushed with billions of oil dollars that they can afford to pay their engineers full-time salaries for slightly less than full-time hours.
Source: I worked for one of the majors w/ this policy.
Maybe his case is not normal?
Edit: Granted, I think another reason for this is that, based on his descriptions, there's a remarkable amount of bureaucracy involved in the oil companies. It's a very, very complex industry, and while it moves quite fast on a global scale, it moves very slowly for most individuals involved in it. His training program alone lasts a few years, so he won't really be a highly productive member of the company for quite some time.
Read Peopleware if you haven't already. It covers myths like the 60 hour work week and outlines how to make software projects productive and predictable.
Can have negative productivity. I am all in favor of keeping work loads light, but in real businesses edge cases come up.
We recently just got through a couple of really harrowing sprints because of such an edge case - a lot of hours were worked. Quality remained high. I personally am satisfied with what we delivered - while it could have been done better with more time, the tradeoffs were all understood and accepted.
The flip side of that is that this kind of thing happens to a given team here maybe once or twice a year. The rest of the time is sane, normal working hours and load. If it were like this a significant portion of the time, then you'd start seeing the kind of patterns you're describing.
The programmer I want/to be is the one who gets shit done the whole time without working nights and weekends and actually spends time doing other things that also matter like family, friends. This way, he/she stays sane and more valuable.
It will however put the kibosh on your plans to extract more value from your employees by working them to the bone.
I agree with you, but not on a single task.
If you want to hire someone who can program for a couple of hours, design your marketing material for a few more, work on your IT infrastructure for another couple of hours, and then maybe go off and do some sales work and meet with the rest of your team, you might have something that works.
Of course, if you find someone who can do all those things well, they are probably off working on their own business and couldn't care less about what you are doing.
At least, as a programmer, I know that having to switch into other modes really diminishes my ability to focus on the problem I'm solving (programming).
Your day sounds like a way to turn a 40-hour programming project into a 80+ hour project.
Now in the real world, where people expect you to do just one thing, I often do multiple two, possibly three, hour stints, with context switches in between each. However, I feel a lot better on the days when I'm able to do different tasks on each switch rather than coming back to the same task each time. You, naturally, still have to give that task your undivided focus while you are working on it. Trying to manage everything at the exact same time will definitely lead to what you suggest.
Of course there are no hard rules. If, for example, you're having a good programming day, maybe you'll put in four straight hours before you feel the need to stop. It is not like you have to put your metaphorical pencil down as soon as the clock strikes the two hour mark.
http://devopsangle.com/2012/04/18/what-research-says-about-w...
In comparison I got a lot done when I spent two months working on code 4-6 hours a day including weekends.
Are you paying them 50% more than market for working for you an additional 50% hours?
People willing to work a 60+ hour week are relatively rare. If you genuinely need that over the long-term, you have to pay for this rarity: in addition to the extra hours.