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Who is better

 
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Whom would you say is better?
1. A person who works 6-8 hours daily and goes home.
or
2. A person who works for 6-8 hours plus puts in an overtime of 7-8 hours daily and then goes home.
The overtime does not refer to the occasional overtime that a person might put in because of an emergency or such situation.
Think of better in totality.
1. Better for the person himself.
2. Better for the company.
3. Better for the person's family.
4. Better for the person's colleague.
And any other reason you might think of.
[ June 12, 2003: Message edited by: Anupam Sinha ]
 
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The person who works 6-8 hours daily and then goes home is all around better.
1). Going home allows the person to relax, putting him a better state of mind.
2). A person who is relaxed is less likely to make mistakes, making him better for the company. We had one person who would work late, thyinking that he could get more work done, and then the rest of the week was spent by the entire team debugging errors made during those extra working hours.
3). Unless the person and his family don't get along, being at home is obviously better for the family.
4). It is also better for the person's collegues (see #2 above).
 
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Originally posted by Anupam Sinha:
Whom would you say is better?
1. A person who works 6-8 hours daily and goes home.
or
2. A person who works for 6-8 hours plus puts in an overtime of 7-8 hours daily and then goes home.
The overtime does not refer to the occasional overtime that a person might put in because of an emergency or such situation.


Quality and then quantity should matter.If both deliver same quality,its the speed of the work should matter.and it goes...
 
Anonymous
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One who delivers when there is a need
 
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This question does not really make any sense. Overall betterness is a basically the summation of weighted betterness in different categories. Something like:
(w1*Familiy + w2*Money + w3*Morality ...)/(w1+w2+w3..)
Now, it is probably possible to giving a rating to a person's Family condition, Monetory condition (for example, a person who spend 1 hr a day with kids gets family rating of 7/10 or a millionair gets monetory rating of 9/10). However, the 'weight' factor varies from person to person. Every body gives different weightage to different things in life. A workholic may give more weightage to Money, while a mill worker might give more weightage to family values.
So overall betterness can only be determined if the weight factors are assigned by somebody who is above humans. Humans themselves cannot determine who is better. For us, everybody is same.
 
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If we are talking about being a "better" person, the amount of extra hours spent on the job would probaby do very little to make somebody a better person (depending on one's job of course). And even if you had one of those jobs where you were of great service to your fellow human being, if you spent all your time doing it, you wouldn't be of great service to your own family.
A job is just a means to a living, not the reason for living.
 
Anupam Sinha
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I don't that this question doesn't make any sense. I am just asking about your view about the hypothetical person according to what weightage you would give to your different factors. Bascially I would like to know what would you choose if the person concerned were you.
 
mister krabs
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Originally posted by Jason Menard:
A job is just a means to a living, not the reason for living.


Unless you are a priest.
 
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Originally posted by Anupam Sinha:
Whom would you say is better?
1. A person who works 6-8 hours daily and goes home.
or
2. A person who works for 6-8 hours plus puts in an overtime of 7-8 hours daily and then goes home.
The overtime does not refer to the occasional overtime that a person might put in because of an emergency or such situation.
Think of better in totality.
1. Better for the person himself.
2. Better for the company.
3. Better for the person's family.
4. Better for the person's colleague.
And any other reason you might think of.
[ June 12, 2003: Message edited by: Anupam Sinha ]


Plenty of famous inventors and business men who put in those 16 hour days who have improved thousands/millions of peoples lives directly or indirectly. Family life may have suffered, but on the balance there are situations were it has been much better for the world in general that such people did work so hard.
 
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There are also those who (work) 16 hour days but accomplish less than those who work just 8.
 
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I would say that generally someone who is able to do their 6-8 hrs then leave, forget work and relax with family, friends, alone, whatever, will be more content/happy/better. This assumes they are just working as a means to an end not particulary unhappy with their job and are not in any financial difficulty.
Working long hours because you are passionate about your work versus financial/cultural pressures will make a big difference, and its more easy to do one or the other in some jobs and countries than in others.
In the UK I was working around 40 hrs a week and routinely leaving work on time everyday with no one thinking better or worse of me. Okay I thought. Starting work in Korea was a big shock. The regular hours here are 8.30 to 6.30 plus every other Saturday. And even then people don't leave the office till around 8pm.
I asked about this (naturally!) and one guy told me that you shouldn't leave before your boss! This attitude is less strong nowadays he pointed out but there is still a strong cultural pressure to be seen to work long hours (even though after 6.30 alot of my colleagues just surf, play games and listen to music on their PCs).
When I leave at 6.30 or even 7 people ask where I'm going. "Home" I say. "Why?!" is their reply. I used to make up excuses but nowadays I just say "because sitting in one place in front of a PC for more than 8 hrs is not good for you and frankly dull". They are genuinely confused at my wanting to leave. And this is with a boss who makes a point of leaving around 7pm because he knows that people will stay just for the sake of it.
Not healthy IMO but they don't seem particularly worse off for it either. Maybe its easier for the Koreans because most of them live with their parents till they get married, though in fact I've noticed many cultural differences that might support this attitude to work. I'm sure they'd be better off with more free time however; I certainly miss mine.
 
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But I think if he works 6-8 hours one day,he perhaps gains lessness.So everybody owns himself(herself) individual condition and status.So he has to live in his(her)world in despite of nowilling.
 
Anupam Sinha
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LOVE YOUR JOB, BUT NEVER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR COMPANY BCOZ U NEVER KNOW WHEN COMPANY STOPS LOVING YOU
Narayana Murthy
Extract of Mr. Narayana Murthy's Speech during Mentor Session:
I know people who work 12 hours a day, six days a week, or more. Some
people do so because of a work emergency where the long hours are only
temporary. Other people I know have put in these hours for years. I don't
know if they are working all these hours, but I do know they are in the
office this long. Others put in long office hours because they are
addicted to the workplace. Whatever the reason for putting in overtime,
working long hours over the long term is harmful to the person and to the organization.
There are things managers can do to change this for everyone's benefit.
Being in the office long hours, over long periods of time, makes way for
potential errors. My colleagues who are in the office long hours
frequently make mistakes caused by fatigue. Correcting these mistakes
requires their time as well as the time and energy of others. I have seen
people work Tuesday through Friday to correct mistakes made after 5 PM on
Monday. Another problem is that people who are in the office long hours
are not pleasant company. They often compl ain about other people (who
aren't working as hard); they are irritable, or cranky, or even angry.
Other people avoid them. Such behaviour poses problems, where work goes
much better when people work together instead of avoiding one another. As
Managers, there are things we can do to help people leave the office.
First and foremost is to set the example and go home ourselves. I work
with a manager who chides people for working long hours. His words quickly
lose their meaning when he sends these chiding group e-mails with a
time-stamp of 2 AM, Sunday. Second is to encourage people to put some
balance in their lives. For instance, here is a guideline I find helpful:
1) Wake up, eat a good breakfast, and go to work.
2) Work hard and smart for eight or nine hours.
3) Go home.
4) Read the comics, watch a funny movie, dig in the dirt, play with your
kids, etc.
5) Eat well and sleep well.
This is called recreating. Doing steps 1, 3, 4, and 5 enable step 2.
Working regular hours and recreating daily are simple concepts. They are
hard for some of us because that requires personal change. They are
possible since we all have the power to choose to do them. In considering
the issue of overtime, I am reminded of my oldest son. When he was a
toddler, if people were visiting the apartment, he would not fall asleep
no matter how long the visit, and no matter what time of day it was. He
would fight off sleep until the visitors left. It was as if he was afraid
that he would miss something. Once our visitors' left, he would go to
sleep. By this time, however, he was over tired and would scream through
half the night with nightmares. He, my wife, and I, all paid the price for
his fear of missing out. Perhaps some people put in such long hours
because they don't want to miss anything when they leave the off ice. The
trouble with this is that events will never stop happening. That is life!!
Things happen 24 hours a day.
Allowing for little rest is not ultimately practical. So, take a nap.
Things will happen while you're asleep, but you will have the energy to
catch up when you wake.
Hence "LOVE YOUR JOB BUT NEVER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR COMPANY"
 
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I used to stay late at the office because everyone else did.
We had this real macho culture, if you left the office at 5.30pm or anytime before 9pm people would come out with comments such as going home early, or half day is it, jokingly of course.
A project would be badly managed and then everyone would stay late to throw as many man-hours at it as possible.
Comments were it’s got to be ready yesterday, give a guesstimate and half it, and if you are not panicking you don’t have enough to do.
Most weekends we would be asked if we mind coming in peer pressure company loyalty, bonus pressure and possible promotion meant we all came in.
Then you would spend a few hours sitting around doing nothing because before you could start a task, someone else had to complete theres.
No project planning no critical path analysis, its was a case of lets get started lads all hands to the pump. A lot of software houses are still like that, lets deliver it fast, no time to plan it out it needs to be done yesterday.
Cheers Tony
 
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