Are you a follower of the 8h shift mantra? You are doing it wrong!
First of all, if you landed on my article I’ve to apologize. The title is supposed to be intriguing and even a little bit provocative on purpose. But I do have a point, which you will be able to understand if you give me the chance to explain myself better.
Target Audience
This post is mostly targeted to a subset of people that have creative or artistic jobs, such as a Craftsman, Painter, Engineer, Coach, Musician, Scientist, and alike.
Problem Statement
I’ve today 33 years old, and to understand what I’m about to explain, picture me 18 years ago (damn, that was long ago). Since my 15 years old, the advice from people all around me have been:
Mother: “Son you’re studying too hard, go to bed, please, tomorrow you’ll have more time” — I heard this one almost every single day till, I left the house to live with my wife.
Wife: Almost around every day at 1'oclock in the mornig “Why are you still up? You need to rest. Tomorrow I’ll push you out of the bed.” — I would answer the same way I used to my mother, “yes yes, be right there”.
Team Lead: “Hey, we have to talk”, me:“What’s up?”, him: “I saw the work you have been doing, including the late-night one”, me: “Yeap, it’s getting super cool right, I can include all my React Components based on that external code repository, we can even version it now….”, him: “Right, true it’s cool, but my problem is with the overworking, if you work too hard, you will standout from the team, making it look they don’t work that hard, and that’s not good for anyone!”. — Outch… this one hurted me, although the guy had a good point in his advantage.
So to sum it up, till I’m 18 years old, I’d my mother tell me to don’t work that hard, after that I’d my wife tell me to stop working so hard, and during my professional career, I had my managers tell me to avoid working too hard (unless asked too obviously).
At which point I got, I must be wrong right? Everyone’s telling me the same…My take is, I do what I believe it’s right, period. All external inputs are merely suggestions. It’s my car and me driving; end of the story.
This is the reason why I call it a mantra, everyone talks about it, everyone thinks they know the implications of what they are saying but turns out that… they “do” in their own context. For different people, working too much will have different meanings.
My Perspective of the Subject
I will explain my perspective of the subject by answering a set of questions, that challenges the mantra:
- Is it ok to work more than the 8h shift?
- Should you charge your extra hours?
- What about the work-life balance?
Is it ok to work more than the 8h shift?
Are you being forced to overwork? If yes, then It’s obviously dead wrong. No matter what is the situation, if you are forced/peer-pressured to work more than 8h shifts, leave!
Why leave? Because, in some location of the world there is a company that just asks you to work 8h per day, and by the end of the week they even thank you for your 8h/day dedication. It’s that simple!
But I’ve stock options! Obviously, if you have stock options involved it’s another story. If you have money in it then… you are working towards maximizing your gains, in that sense either you quit and sell (a.k.a leave with the money that you still have) or you shut up and work (harvest comes on the end).
If you are not being forced, then follow your instinct and do it! You must be wanting to work for some reason, maybe creativity hit you hard in the skull at that 1'oclock in the morning, maybe you remembered something you will forget if you don’t commit right away, maybe you saw the light of a complex problem. In all of those cases, forget the mantra and put yourself into it! You’re after all having fun, if not why would you be having thoughts about work after work right?
Should you charge your extra hours?
Have you been asked to work extra hours? If yes, then yes charge and triple the value. Do I really need to charge 3 times more? No. But you need to do it to make sure it’s really important. If you sell your extra time cheap, then it becomes appealing.
On the other hand, if you just decided to do it, because you were inspired. Obviously don’t charge it, but maybe you will want to work less intensive on that hard Monday, or on that Friday after a tough week.
Do you get what I mean? If you are asked to work, past your commit by contract zone, you charge a surge price.
If you worked on a different schedule, while having fun, don’t charge, but manage that extra time. Normally, I don’t think too much about time, thinking about time sucks. I work based on results, do I feel I’m delivering at a constant speed? Do I feel I’m delivering value? Do I feel I’m a productive element of the team? If the answers to all of those questions are a yes, then I don’t even do the math of “Did I work 7h, 7.5h, or 8h?”… and neither my managers… if they are “listening to engine roar, why ask if it’s running”… right?!
Hope you liked this post and that it helped to get you closer to the answers you seek!