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Comment by FiatLuxDave | Hacker News Reader

I'm also coming from outside the bubble. From a different viewpoint, though, programmers aren't so bad about this. Try hanging out with some medical doctors and nurses, instead. I might think my 60 hour weeks are bad, but i just can't complain about it to my wife when she gets home from her 80 hour weeks. Burnout is a completely accepted part of nursing, and many nurses take it into account in career planning.

Not saying it isn't crazy also, just providing another perspective.

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I think it's a bit apples to oranges. Programming is for the most part sitting quietly in front of a computer screen for hours each day. At face value it looks easier, but it's actually a lot more brain-numbing. If I'm honest with myself, I think I can do it for 4 hours a day before my brain starts to slowly shutdown. I've been working for only a couple years and I'm seriously concerned about my future in the industry.

I'll let you into a secret: four hours of concentrated, high-quality thinking a day is about the limit of what the rest of us can do as well. I don't know whether that's a human universal, but if there are exceptions, they are exceptional indeed. A programmer working eight hours a day is at best doing four hours of high-quality concentrated work and four hours of random crap like attending meetings, checking e-mail and reading HN.

In other words, don't worry about your future in the industry. You're doing fine.

I've been noticing this type of thinking a lot on HN. It simply isn't true. I am not in the tech industry (if you search my comment history you'll find I do underground tunneling) but everybody I have interacted with at my firm that is above the junior level (and the majority of those at the junior level) puts in far more than 4 hours of concentrated, high-quality thinking a day.

Out of the normal 45 to 60 hours I work a week when I am doing design work, at least 75% of that time is spent doing high level thinking. I am not an anomaly in my firm.

I don't accept nor do I respect the idea that a person is only good for a couple of hours of high quality work to their employer per day.

My understanding is that most studies suggest that working around the 60 hours per week mark results in diminished productivity compared to 40 hours per week after only about 3 weeks.

On the other hand, I think people who say that they are only able to get through 4 hours of work in a day, really specifically mean programming. And it's probably true in that limited sense, but all the other stuff - communicating with others so you know what program to write, helping others so they can work more effectively, is actually very valuable. It's just a common programmer failing to not really see that stuff as 'real work'. It's even worse as programmers get promotions and are expected to spend a significant amount of their time on management type activities.

The trick is to make those 4 hours as productive as possible, so the rest of your day can be spent on more menial tasks. Finding the right balance comes with time and experience, so I wouldn't stress about it too much.

Sometimes people claim they can be productive for 8 or more hours per day, for weeks on end. But likely what's happening is they are tricking themselves into feeling (and looking) productive, while their actual productivity finds an equilibrium far below what it could be if they paced themselves.

I guess it's nice to hear I'm not alone. Well unfortunately you need to fill in the other 4 hours in a way that doesn't leave you feeling inadequate - but you're right, it's something to work on.

If I had it my way, I'd work half time programming and half time working a public facing job.

The nurses I know have schedules that cap at three 12-hour days per week (36 hours/week). What kind of nurses work 80 hours a week?

Demand can be very bursty for nursing.

My wife works in postpartum care, and while she usually works 3 12.5 hr shifts per week, if the hospital is going through a busy time it can be more. In addition to her normal scheduled hours, she will have a few on-call shifts per month, and during feb-april (usually the busiest time of year around here) it's pretty much assumed that she'll get called in for these. In addition to the scheduled on-call shifts it's usually not hard to find other times that the hospital is in need.

Of course even at that, I don't think she's ever worked more than like, 60 hrs a week. I can't imagine anyone working 80 hr weeks consistently in nursing. It doesn't even seem safe - nursing is very physically and mentally demanding work, someone consistently overworked is much more likely to make mistakes.

Likewise. My wife has now, and has had in the past at other nursing jobs, strict rules regarding overage time.

There's a whole lot of different work schedules for nurses. I never knew until I started rubbing shoulders with a large number of them.

Does that include any on call time?

Also ask Investment Banking people. From what I hear, they lead a life at least as busy as ours, and what's worse is that they often cannot control what urgent tasks are shoved into their faces.

I call the talk on "programmer working long hours" stereotype and myopia.

Overworking doctors and nurses leads to mistakes that kill people. I think it's quite possible that programmer culture doesn't have a healthy attitude and that medical culture is even worse.

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