Krugerrand
Meow
There is one significant difference...Tesla isn't asking their employees to do it their entire career. They're asking employees to do it during this very critical phase of 'make or break'.
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There is one significant difference...Tesla isn't asking their employees to do it their entire career. They're asking employees to do it during this very critical phase of 'make or break'.
The productivity/defect studies aren't about over the life of a career, it's about productivity in shorter time frames. Things well matched to this "make or break" scenario.
Studies about career length stuff tend to deal with worker retention problems and/or long term medical issues (such as depression).
For anyone interested, here's an article that does a good job of capturing a lot of the issues and results of studies. It's not a study, it's a Salon article, so it's intentionally a synopsis (well, the first 1/2 is synopsis, the back half is more a call to action).
Bring back the 40-hour work week - Salon.com
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CapitalistOppressor
Active Member
Nice. I was gonna start riffing on my personal experiences with me and teams Ive managed working extreme hours over a long periods, but science beats anecdote any day
It's worth noting people vary quite a bit obviously. Someone like Elon may be exceptionally well suited to long term extreme hours, but that's at the end of the human bell curve. Studies are about people at large, which is usually the data you want to know when you're talking about groups larger than a few people.Nice. I was gonna start riffing on my personal experiences with me and teams Ive managed working extreme hours over a long periods, but science beats anecdote any day
We often tell anecdotes of individuals precisely because they differ from the norm and stand out. That's not to detract from amazing specific individuals or actions, just to note that it's dangerous to extrapolate those to a general population.
Anyway, way off topic other than as a interest in how Tesla is going to accomplish their quick rampup.
It is also worth pointing out that personal life really affects how much you can work. I can work about 60 hours a week sustained and still be fine, at least I could when I was single, going to bars. Not that I am married working 50 hours seems to 'feel' about the same. And when single working 6 days wasn't really a problem, unless I had and event I wanted to go to during the weekend. Now with a house, and being married, and having dogs working on Saturday stings a bit more.
And once I hit about 75 hours in a week I am pretty much worthless after that. I have been able to do about 3 80 hour weeks but any more than that I would probably end up quitting. Those long weeks normally are crap work, or at least have been for me. Most of my 60 hour weeks were 'good' interesting work, so they didn't hurt as bad.
Krugerrand
Meow
There's so many assumptions being made about 'people' in general, that I can't take any of it seriously. The article is being written as if all people are created equally; as if they are all equally skilled, equally devoted, equally motivated, equally intelligent, equally hardworking, have equal amounts of common sense, practicality, are affected by their environment equally, take care of themselves equally, have equal family/homelife/friend/relationships and support...and so on.
That is not the reality of 'people', therefore a study, an article, a synopsis, whathaveyou, is of no relevance. First, you'd have to start with a group of people who are equal in 'all' aspects to get accurate data that could be applied to all, and that's not possible.
Mental and physical tolerance for work is individual and based on an infinite number of factors. Mental, physical and emotional health is also individual and based on an infinite number of factors. We can make some VERY general assumptions.
1. When a person is tired their capacity for thinking and doing is reduced. How much, to what degree, at what point it kicks in...speculation at best and varies from person to person. One person's 10% reduced rate might still be 50% better than another's.
2. Working 60-80hr work weeks is not sustainable. But the non-sustainable point is different for everyone.
3. Having to do shift work is far harder on the body than a few extra hours done each week on a shift that never changes.
4. People love to complain about what's not going right in their lives, instead of being happy about what is going right. (Yeah, I know. Doesn't seem to belong, but think about it.)
The article mentioned some 150 years of data points and studies and you sort of just threw all that out, so I'm not sure what you'd feel has value.
Yes, individuals of any population (people or otherwise) vary by quite a bit, but that doesn't invalidate studies on impacts of larger populations as a whole. That's a principle behind all sorts of scientific study.
For me, I'll defer to the judgment of the published experts since they're far more knowledgeable than my personal, subjective, or anecdotal experience.
Yes, individuals of any population (people or otherwise) vary by quite a bit, but that doesn't invalidate studies on impacts of larger populations as a whole. That's a principle behind all sorts of scientific study.
For me, I'll defer to the judgment of the published experts since they're far more knowledgeable than my personal, subjective, or anecdotal experience.
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