{"id":28379,"date":"2015-09-06T10:30:01","date_gmt":"2015-09-06T15:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=28379"},"modified":"2015-09-06T12:17:38","modified_gmt":"2015-09-06T17:17:38","slug":"i-am-a-bad-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=28379","title":{"rendered":"I Am a Bad Boss"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve spent years criticizing leaders, executives, and other management-types, insisting that their “death-march crunch mode” approach to production is harmful, wasteful, and counter-productive. <\/p>\n

Maybe it works for ditch-diggers or truck driversI’m not saying it does. I’m saying I don’t know. I try not to do jobs that involve dangerous tasks like driving, lifting heavy things, or being too far from a coffeemaker.<\/span>, but for jobs that focus on mental acuity – particularly creative tasks – you suffer from a massive drop-off in quality above a certain limit. The limit is a little bit different for everyone. Some people hit it at 45 hours, some people at 50, and a few (mostly young people) are good until 60 or so. But once you go above the limit, you’re not going to get any more good work out of them<\/a>. Worse, if you push them too far then it will lower the quality of all<\/em> of their work. <\/p>\n

The effect ramps up gradually over time. You can probably get away with a couple of 60 hour weeks without any serious drawbacks, but as weeks turn into months, the problem intensifies dramatically. Usually. For most people. As far as we can tell. Look, like a lot of organic processes, it’s variable, unpredictable, and hard to measure. The point is…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sometimes Less is More<\/h3>\n

This stock photo of a clock is meant to convey the inexorable pull of time, drawing us and the universe ever forward to a doom we cannot forsee or control. Or maybe it's just filling page space. Whichever.<\/div>
This stock photo of a clock is meant to convey the inexorable pull of time, drawing us and the universe ever forward to a doom we cannot forsee or control. Or maybe it's just filling page space. Whichever.<\/div><\/p>\n

The idea is that in a creative jobs, people can do more in a 40 hour work week than they can in a 60 hour work week. Above the limit, they burn out. Their passion dies. They spend more time mindlessly clicking on Twitter and less time doing the job. They lower their personal standards for quality. And if they’re not getting paid overtime, then all of these problems are likely worse. So when you work some poor grunt 70 hours a week, you’re ruining their home life, making them hate the job, lowering the quality of their work, and to top it all off you’re not even getting the project done any fasterAnd possibly much slower, if we count shoddy work that needs to be re-done.<\/span>. <\/p>\n

As if this wasn’t bad enough, Office Hell pushes people to look for jobs elsewhere, and the first people to leave will be the ones with the most mobility, meaning the ones who are most desirable to other companies. You’re literally filtering out the talent and keeping the dregsIf you’ve ever been stuck in development hell: I’m not saying YOU are untalented. But I am saying the talent density was higher at the start of the project than at the end. It’s a trend, not a rule.<\/span>. <\/p>\n

I know all this. Which makes it all the more surprising that I’ve behaving as though I didn’t know it, or as if it shouldn’t apply to me for some reason.<\/p>\n

When Overworking Isn’t Working<\/h3>\n

This stock photo of a typewriter represents the futility of all creative work as a hopeless effort to reach out to an indifferent world and convey meaning amidst a maelstrom of choas. Or maybe it's just filling page space. Whichever.<\/div>
This stock photo of a typewriter represents the futility of all creative work as a hopeless effort to reach out to an indifferent world and convey meaning amidst a maelstrom of choas. Or maybe it's just filling page space. Whichever.<\/div><\/p>\n

I’ve been cranking up my workload over the past couple of months. The column. The Mass Effect series. Programming Good Robot. Making music. Recording the Diecast and Spoiler Warning, and then writing their attendant posts. Occasional special topic posts. I eventually nudged my work hours above the productivity threshold without noticing it. <\/p>\n

Then I noticed this happening:<\/p>\n

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Bad:You're procrastinating by surfing for content. Worse:There isn't any new content, so you keep reflexively opening the same dozen sites.<\/p>\n

— Shamus Young (@shamusyoung) August 30, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n