[ExI] france again

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On 5/31/07, Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:
> On Thu, May 31, 2007 at 10:38:02AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> > I used to work for 16 hours at full concentration as a resident. 12
>
> I think it's well documented how much impairment due to chronical fatigue
> there is in the health industry (elsewhere, you'd go to jail because
> you're more impaired than DUI). Just because it's a part of the culture
> it doesn't mean it's a good idea.
>
### If you are on call overnight at a hospital, you can work pretty
well for about 24 hours, usually including a nap or two. Chronic
fatigue sets in only if you keep doing it over and over again. Most
activities of a physician actually don't take that much brainpower.

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> > hours is peanuts even now, in my old age.
>
> Don't tell me you could code (not in the critical care sense)
> 12 hours straight. Sustainably. Most people have trouble with 8 h,
> effective hours (as in: not yakking at the water cooler).

### The discussion was about working hours in general, not just among
coders. I would defend the notion that the 8 hour workday is a bizarre
relic of 19th century class warfare, and given their druthers most
humans would work different hours, some more, some less.

Longer work hours in the US are an expression of worker's preferences,
influenced by the higher rewards we reap thanks to the slightly less
regulated, freer economy here.

-------------------------------
>
> > My boss works about 12 - 14 hour workdays. He gets about three times
>
> 12-14 h physical work is ok. 12-14 h mental work, no way.
>
> > more done than I do, in part because I work only 8 to 10 hours.
>
> 8 h is doable, though it starts grinding you down after a while.
> If you claim 10 h/day effective work, I'd rather to see a proof
> of that, a proof as in analysis of a video recording.

### Nah, I am not very effective. But, I do work 8 to 10 hours, since
the experiments that I am doing impose the schedule on me - usually
with downtime in between actions.

You would miss a lot if you measure work time as only the time spent
performing some well-defined actions. You have to include all the time
that you have to sacrifice so as to be able to perform these actions,
such as waiting for an incubation to finish, waiting for a client to
show up, etc.

Rafal