Success: You’re wrong about almost everything
Why working long hours and being in the office is not the key to success as a software engineer and may actually stunt your growth
“So these high-level sociopaths overpromote a handful of low-level losers who put forth disproportionate amounts of effort. These former losers enter the clueless ranks of middle management to act as a buffer.
…
The clueless believe that they’re on track to be CEO while the losers and sociopaths both know that’s absurd.” — Erik Dietrich, Developer Hegemony: The Future of Labor
“Work hard, put in the hours, keep your head down, forget this remote-working nonsense, get in the office and make an impression!” These, the words of the 156-year-old gentleman on the stage. He takes a shaky bow and hobbles off the stage to his wheelchair made out of solid gold and upholstered with Her late Majesty’s purple face. The audience stands up and applauds, utterly beguiled by the incredible motivational advice that had been bestowed upon them.
We’ve probably all heard a similar speech before, perhaps from our parents, perhaps from Don Draper. This is how we succeed. Grind away.
Or at least, it was. When work consisted of mining coal and washing laundry.
Then, along came the knowledge workers.…
The First Lie — Remote working is bad, mkay
We’ve heard a lot about remote working recently. The pandemic made it standard working practice for a decent chunk of time. The Don Drapers think this is awful — and, to be fair, when the waitress at my local coffee shop worked from home, my coffee was distinctly more hypothetical than I would have liked.
However, these luddites are wrong.
68% of software developers are more productive at home. In fact, when interrupted (common in an office setting), developers take 10–15 minutes to start writing code again. Workers only spend just shy of 3 hours being productive in the office.
Not to mention how inefficient and unproductive commutes are, before adding on the mental degradation they impose.
The Second Lie — Grind
There’s three ways to get into top positions:
- Start your own company
- Jump across from the same position in another company
- Cheat
However, when asked, the nobility who actually reside in this tier of business will invariably respond “just work hard and climb up the ladder”.
Having never climbed up a real ladder in their lives, it would be easy to forgive these corporate viscounts their naivety — perhaps they simply don’t know what a ladder looks like.
The truth is the path to aristocracy is a classic dungeon. If you’re savvy (or lucky); if your risk appetite is healthy; if your satchel is full of useful items, there’s a shortcut. Normally by speaking to some wizard or thinking of an approach the dungeon master didn’t. And that’s where the metaphor begins to shake apart…
Some of the viscounts started their own companies, some jumped up the ladder at one or more points via various means.
Some used a cheat code.
They were handed an opportunity (starter_chest=true), they joined a company when there were only 10 employees (difficulty_mode=easy), they got their dad’s mate to invest (difficulty_mode=peaceful), they stole a job from someone on mat leave (w*nker_level=9000)…
“Productivity per hour decline sharply when a person works more than 50 hours a week. After 55 hours, productivity drops so much that putting in any more hours would be pointless. And, those who work up to 70 hours a week are only getting the same amount of work done as those who put in the 55 hours.” — Stanford
A small amount of highly efficient time working is far more productive than long working hours. The dozen countries that rank higher than the USA for productivity (and no, the UK is not one) have less annual working hours.
“All 12 countries that ranked ahead of the U.S. [for productivity] have employees who work fewer hours annually than U.S. employees. For example, Germany has the fewest annual working hours at 1,340.9 yet still produces $47.09 per person per hour.
On the flip side, some of the countries with the most hours worked produced the least amount of money per person, per hour.” — Business News Daily reporting on Expert Market research, 2022
Additionally, happy workers are 13% more productive per hour. This means work-life balance, healthy eating, exercise, green-space time, hobbies and spending time with friends and family. Not working an extra hour or two a day, for some reason.
The Truth: You’re the Problem
The truth is (and please tell them this to their faces) these kings of commerce are the problem.
Research shows that, although workers’ perceivable outputs don’t change when they reduce their hours, managers penalise them anyway if those workers express a desire to pull back.
“By using local clients, telecommuting, and controlling information about his whereabouts, [Lloyd] found ways to work and travel less, without being found out. He told me: “I skied five days last week. I took calls in the morning and in the evening but I was able to be there for my son when he needed me to be, and I was able to ski five days in a row.” […] Despite his deviance from the ideal worker expectation, however, senior colleagues viewed him as a star; indeed, one Partner described him to me as a “rising star,” who worked “much harder than” he himself did.” — Harvard Business Review
Not only do these successful dukes lie to the commoners about how long and hard they’ve worked, they lie to themselves. They’ve convinced themselves that this is true to the point that they are certain that others doing well must have followed this deeply faulted advice to a tee. In fact, if someone doing well tells Sir Worksalot they work less hours than most, they must therefore not be doing well at all, and should be marked down and admonished.
More Lies
Hopefully, by now you’re thinking “Great! I’ll just tell my company there’s clear evidence for working less hours with less distractions — we’ll cancel all the meetings, turn off our techy chat tools, and do 4 hours a day from home! I’ll be clocking off at noon!”
Well, here’s the bad news. If you try to lay down your boundaries with your company, even to result in better performance for them and more promotions for you, they most likely won’t like it. In fact, they will probably promote the inefficient job-snatchers in your place and shove you in the corner. Like they did here. And if you’re a woman? Forget it.
The answer? Don’t worry your little face, my darling, for I have a solution. Lie.
