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Comment by ultimoo | Hacker News Reader

SF starting at 8:17 a.m. caught me a little by surprise. I work in SF and have a few friends who work at different companies (20-somethings and 30-somethings, working in tech).

Almost everyone I know comes in to work sometime from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. The Caltrains reaching SF from 9:05 to 9:30 are generally packed, so are the N and KT muni lines; so I am guessing it isn't only my social circle that starts their day early.

Of course I know a few people who start their day at 8:00 a.m. but it came to me as a complete surprise that the average is 8:17 a.m.

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SF starting at 8:17 a.m. caught me a little by surprise. I work in SF and have a few friends who work at different companies (20-somethings and 30-somethings, working in tech).

Almost everyone I know comes in to work sometime from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

I think you've captured the essence of the HN bubble in three sentences.

since I am obviously not of that type, I am curious why the late start? I have always been of the sort to start early and finish early. There is so much wonderful time to spend outdoors and with friends, especially in summer hours.

We make jokes around here about getting out in time to get caught by school buses or beat the kids home which results in having nearly half the day in sunlight.

You can enjoy the outdoors more (especially summer) if you start your day a little later. You can go running or biking in the morning when the sun is getting up (6a->8a), go to work for the direct sunlight hours (930a->630p), and then you're free to do whatever you want until the sun is down and your apartment/house is cool for sleeping.

I'd say people tend to start early in Denmark for the same reason. Especially in summer, if you work a 7am-3pm or 8am-4pm schedule, you finish work early enough to have a nice block of 5+ post-work sunlight hours that you can use to organize a nontrivial post-work outing with friends/family. On sunny days it's pretty common for people to try to leave work by 3pm so they can go home, change, and then head out to the beach or a picnic by 4pm, while it's still warm and you've got some hours of sunlight left.

This could be influenced by the fact that it's rarely too hot in Denmark; a "very hot" day is maybe 27 C (80 F). So there's no need to avoid the hottest part of the day; quite the opposite.

It makes more sense to use the climate as the driver of work-hours than anything else.

Not everyone is an early riser. I can guarantee you that being an early riser and having some time to kill in the mornings is less of a problem than being a late riser and never getting enough sleep because your stupid job mandates you get in early to keep up appearances.

You have to keep appearances everywhere. I have worked in tech for three years across two different cities now. An old grad school habit of mine that has carried over is waking up insanely early, getting to work and getting my shit done and getting out around five. I have never had a job where I haven't got shit for being the guy who leaves work on the clock at five when everyone is going for their first burrito of the night.

> since I am obviously not of that type, I am curious why the late start? I have always been of the sort to start early and finish early. There is so much wonderful time to spend outdoors and with friends, especially in summer hours.

I think it is a tech thing. When I lived in SF, I used to get out of home at 8 AM. The streets would be empty but for the blue collar workers going to their jobs (showing how much white collar is tech). In NYC, 8 AM is packed. Yet, at work there is an odd split with the tech folks wandering in at 10 AM or what have you and the others at 9 AM sharp. (Approximately of course.)

I have the same anecdotal evidence, but I started thinking about all SF's other industries, and the folks I see already at work when I walk my dog.

According to http://www.bayareaeconomy.org/wp-content/uploads/San_Francis... there are a lot of non-tech sectors to balance out engineer working hours (as a PM I'd usually be in by 9). Construction, transportation (hi SFO), education, healthcare, some retail and some tourism jobs will all balance out those who arrive later.

In fact, the Caltrain schedule itself reflects peak arrive-at-work hours, I'd imagine. With perhaps some disgruntled folks who get up earlier just to get a faster train (7:59, I'm looking st you.)

SF is (or used to be until recently) the West Coast's banking center, and everyone in that industry has to be ready when markets open on the East Coast at 5am Pacific.

Sure, engineers and startup people in general come to work at between 9:30 and 10:30.

But who feeds us coffee before boarding that train an hour earlier? ;)

I wonder how much the financial services industry effects san Francisco's median since a lot of people have to get in prior to the market opening at 6:30 PST.

Agree, I think the financial market skewed these results in SF. Most engineers and startup employees I know generally get to work at 9:30, 10am, or even later.

:) Make friends with people in finance. The Nasdaq and NYSE open at 9:30 EST which is 6:30 PST:)

I don't regret moving back to the east cost for that reason

My impression of SF is that 9:30 is definitely at the tail end of the rush-hour. You can see that in the Caltrain schedules (express trains run ~6:30-9:00am), and even if you just walk around the city. There's a lot of activity already by 7am, while the bustle is noticeably starting to die down after 9am. There are some workplaces that don't start the day until ~10am (some tech companies, restaurants that don't do breakfast, maybe some stores), but the city seems pretty up-and-running long before that.

Note that the figures are self-reported ;)

The service sector generally starts between 7 and 8, and is pretty large.

I generally start working (on blogging side projects) around 7:00 but don't show up at my day job till 9:30. I'd have to be a partner/founder/MD/CxO level before I'd be OK with 7:00 meetings. Why would I give the morning hours away?

If I could get up at 5:00 without being too out-of-sync with the rest of the world, I would. It's insanely productive. I seem to be naturally creeping in the early direction by about 15 minutes per year I age.

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