HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

A short exploration of that concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw

reminds me of cpc gray video [few mins long] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw

Might want to check out "weekend Wednesday": https://youtu.be/ALaTm6VzTBw

I'm in school right now, so I can't comment on this, but I would love a 4 day week with Wednesday as the extra day off. I've tried it, and it's just amazing. [1] Relevant CGP Grey video.

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[1] https://youtu.be/ALaTm6VzTBw.

5 days are fine ... if I can choose which of the five I am working. I'm a big fan of CPGrey's Wednesday concept ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw )

Some [1] propose to split the week in a different way, so that you take a day off on Wed and one on Sun and you work on Sat, so Fri becomes like Thu.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw

That's the Weekend Wednesday described well by CGP Grey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw

⬐ chansiky

Oh that's an awesome description. Love the battery indicators he uses. It makes the concept much easier to understand.

This was the topic of a video [0] posted by CGP Grey on the 25th August.

Not mainstream, but I think the idea has been popular for a while [1].

>6.4

>A manager went to his programmers and told them: "As regards to your work hours: you are going to have to come in at nine in the morning and leave at five in the afternoon." At this, all of them became angry and several resigned on the spot.

>So the manager said: "All right, in that case you may set your own working hours, as long as you finish your projects on schedule." The programmers, now satisfied, began to come in at noon and work to the wee hours of the morning.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw

[1] https://www.mit.edu/~xela/tao.html

⬐ peruvian

So another way to filter out or alienate older employees or those with families.

⬐ malux85

And what about us who are night owls and are non-functional until about 12 / 1-2PM, the current system filters out all of us.

The solution was literally “come in any time you want as long as your projects get done” - what’s your objection? That everybody who wants to come in at lunchtime, and work until the small hours force themselves around your schedule because you have a family?

⬐ ghaff

The issue is that there are very few jobs where you can basically ignore the rest of the world (or even the rest of the world in nearby timezones). If you're a solo writer or programmer sure. But if you work with other people, not wanting to have meetings before 2pm is often a problem. (As would someone who wanted to work midnight to 8am.)

Even jobs that are quite flexible are going to want some overlap time and, even if an atypical schedule allows for a few hours of overlap, the reality is that people will get tired of always having to schedule around your preferences.

⬐ rwnspace

You're absolutely right, I'm always tired when I have to schedule around other people's preference of working 9-5. It's not like schools should be scheduling for 9AM or earlier starts either, it's bad for the kids, particularly teenagers.

⬐ moltar

Huge disservice for kids. Ton of studies show a bunch of negative consequences for kids who don’t sleep enough, which is pretty much all kids who wake up to school early.

⬐ chillacy

I wish people stood up for night owls when I had to suffer the sleep schedules of the elderly or 9-5 schedule in public school.

⬐ fatnoah

When I was VP of Engineering org for a startup, it was a group of about 30 Engineers at all stages of life. Some were young w/no obligations, some had families, a couple were single parents, and there were even a couple folks in the starting to have grandkids phase. I didn't particularly care what schedules people kept as long as work got done and they could be predictably reached.

As a result, there were people that worked 6am to 3pm(ish), 10-3, followed by 7-10 in the evening, 11-8, etc. I had a young child and handled school dropoff, so my hours were roughly 9am - 6pm. My boss, the CEO, was a workaholic who arrived around 10am and worked to whenever. I spent an amazing amount of time dealing with "where is everyone?" sorts of questions, despite the team running fairly efficiently and still completing work on aggressive schedules.

⬐ marketingPro

Of course people want flexibility, but there are cons-

>Much more difficult for collaboration especially for small questions

>Bad workers exploring nice policies

Pros-

>I can sleep/think about code without being paid. Making my solutions lower cost and higher quality

>Happier employees

>Potentially less micro management needed

⬐ amelius

More cons:

- the company restaurant closes at the normal time (or all good stuff is taken)

- you still get that condescending look from early-birds

⬐ watwut

In tech, it is people who work late who act superior. Early birds have it rather harder as they are seen as leaving early even if they objectively done more work.

⬐ amelius

How can you act superior if the early-birds have already left?

In contrast, early-birds act superior while you are there.

⬐ watwut

The overlap is exactly the same. Just purely by math and rules of physical space.

⬐ marketingPro

I am an early bird and there's definitely a weird expectation to stay later than 8 hrs plus lunch.

I definitely never got any bonus points for being at work before my boss.

⬐ ardit33

You can make 1pm to 5pm as mandatory, so both the 9-5 folks and 1pm to 9pm folks have some overlap for synchronization, meetings and such.

As for people exploiting it, you should measure relative performance and not but time

One of my first startups I worked had a noon-4pm core hours. You had to be in by noon, and should stay until 4pm, the rest was flexible. I thought it worked really well for both early risers and late owls.

⬐ Taylor_OD

12-3 is what I prefer for mandatory hours. I'm still going to see you if you are a 6am early bird.

⬐ jniedrauer

> you should measure relative performance

This is also easier said than done. How do you measure programmer performance? LOC is obviously not a reasonable metric. Closed tickets isn't either. It takes an experienced manager who understands code to understand what work is actually being done, and managers like that are rare and valuable.

⬐ bobthepanda

The thing is managers already do this either consciously or subconsciously. So we’re just changing how they apply it.