Is your job divisible?

[SS-18 ICBM]

Can you work the hours you want or not? If not, do you see a way for it to be divisible? Would you want it to?

I have long believed in the 80-hour week. That’s the quantity of sleep I aspire to, including naps and droopy-eyed bed reading.

So whenever I meet people who live by the 80-hour workweek rather than sleep-week, I’m intrigued. In always-on, digital-age America, they are multiplying like email-addicted bunnies. Ostensibly out of concern (and perhaps out of guilt for my relative sloth), I invariably ask these bankers, lawyers and technologists: Couldn’t you work less?

Couldn’t you work one-quarter fewer hours, and still afford your 48-inch, dual-fuel Viking cooking range? Couldn’t you share your job with a colleague?

And what America’s overworked high-performers invariably reply is: No. We can’t. We’re indivisible.

Bankers say they can’t leave at 8 p.m. during an all-night deal closing because their relationships and intangible knowledge can’t be handed off. High-end software coders argue that their output is art, and working less would mean Da Vincis finishing what Michaelangelos started: Impossible!

This indivisibility has enormous consequences, particularly for women. As scholars like Claudia Goldin, a Harvard economist, have shown, all-consuming jobs at the top of many professions drive lots of mothers out of the work force, and ensure that those who stay but seek flexible hours are penalized. For many, working fewer hours spells fewer hours to be paid, and a lower per-hour wage for the hours that are worked.

Indivisible jobs are responsible for an economic irony that widens already vast inequality: Those who can most afford to cut back often work nonstop, and those who need more income struggle to get full-time employment and even enough hours in part-time jobs.

So is the admission fee to much of the American elite inevitably a willingness to answer email at 11:30 p.m.? Is the flexible, parent-friendly career path that Anne-Marie Slaughter famously called for a fantasy? Ms. Slaughter, you’ll recall, is the think-tank president and former State Department official whose viral essay in 2012 took a tire iron to the idea of women “having it all” under present conditions, while calling for new multispeed, life-accommodating careers.

Now there is mounting evidence that such careers may be possible, and in fact materializing in fields from retailing to brokerage, according to work by Ms. Goldin and her Harvard colleague Lawrence F. Katz. Pharmacists, they argue, show us the way.

Between 1970 and the present, the once-considerable penalty for pharmacy’s part-timers faded away, as people working 20 hours a week began to earn roughly the same hourly wage as those working 45. As a result, the profession became more parent-friendly and welcoming of flexible hours and narrowed the gender pay gap. In 1970, 11 percent of pharmacists were women; today, a majority are.

The crux of why that happened, the professors say, is that pharmacists became much better substitutes for one another. The standardization of protocols and medicines — plus the deployment of computer databases that seamlessly follow patients from doctor’s office to insurance company to drugstore — makes it possible for pharmacists to pick up where their colleagues leave off. That, in turn, makes it easier to rescue your son from an injury in school and know that your patients will still get good care. The job of pharmacist, in short, became divisible.

Doing the same for other professions requires both cultural change and new information systems, Ms. Goldin says. Cultural change, because clients must accept, say, meeting one investment banker during daylight hours and another at night. New information systems, because flexibility depends on ever-smoother handoffs.

“There will always be 24/7 positions with on-call, all-the-time employees and managers, including many C.E.O.s, trial lawyers, merger-and-acquisition bankers, surgeons and the U.S. Secretary of State,” Ms. Goldin writes. “But, that said, the list of positions that can be changed is considerable.”

 

[warpus]

I'm a programmer and technically can flex my time. Actually, in about 5 minutes I'm remoting into work to fix a problem with a new bursary application that just launched. I have one hour that I worked yesterday, so I'll basically end up taking off as much time as I accrue working from home, other constraints permitting.

Having said that everyone else in the office is NOT a programmer, and so a lot of them are used to a 9-4 workday office style workday. So they are technically allowed to flex there their (Ed: I am ashamed) time here and there, but for the most part they are expected to be here between those hours. The data analyst here can and some of the part time people too, but the overall "culture" of the office is clear. I do what I need to do to get the job done though - so when I get into a creative/problem solving mood at home and I have nothing else to do - I might very well fix some problem that's work related. It's a bit of a professional balancing act.

I've talked to my boss about it, and he doesn't care when I come and leave - but that has its limits. For example 2 years ago I worked on a giant project, it took a lot of time, and in the end came out a country-first online scholarship application. As a result of that on one Wednesday I was at work until midnight, finishing everything up and making sure the launch could go forward smoothly... and then basically emailed everyone and was like "It's all done, we are LIVE, see ya on Friday, call me if there's any problems" (there weren't any, it was a very smooth launch) My boss: "That's cool, but you should have talked to me first." - Me: "I worked for like 2 days in 1 day, so I figured the day off the next day was assumed.".. Boss: "Sure, but I need to know why you're missing for a day - if you are going to be."

About 8 years ago I got annoyed at an online system that I had been tasked with maintaining - it was a provincial student loan system that basically collected applications and allowed people to adjudicate and trigger various actions. It was designed in a crappy way - meaning a lot of work each term setting everything up.. 3 times a year. So one night at home I said "Screw it", and starting at 10pm or so rebuilt the system from scratch, with a new database structure, new user interface, and basically everything new. Then I wrote a script that copied the data from the old system in the new one, and then wrote an email to my boss and the boss of the people who use the system, explaining what I had done and that I was going to sleep. It wasn't even time for a new term - I was just so fed up with the old system. It had to GO. I was basically done at 8am.

When the financial aid officers came into work and launched their OSAP applications, the new one came up, with a bunch of improvements that they had been asking for, and other improvements I made with the UI and other things. And I was in bed, sleeping. My boss loved it. My current boss is more of a traditionalist in terms of office life, but if I pull magic out of my butt like that again, I bet he'd be into it.

And no, I will not work more than 40 hours a week. I value my free time too much. I have a lot going on - for example over 350 games on steam..

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Now I wonder if my OSAP applications were ever in your data sets.

I'm a programmer and technically can flex my time. Actually, in about 5 minutes I'm remoting into work to fix a problem with a new bursary application that just launched. I have one hour that I worked yesterday, so I'll basically end up taking off as much time as I accrue working from home, other constraints permitting.

Reminds of a comment on an article saying that a good sysadmin is one that isn't busy.

Having said that everyone else in the office is NOT a programmer, and so a lot of them are used to a 9-4 workday office style workday. So they are technically allowed to flex there time here and there, but for the most part they are expected to be here between those hours. The data analyst here can and some of the part time people too, but the overall "culture" of the office is clear. I do what I need to do to get the job done though - so when I get into a creative/problem solving mood at home and I have nothing else to do - I might very well fix some problem that's work related. It's a bit of a professional balancing act.

Hmm, the article didn't devote much to the impact of work cultures, assuming everything is due to practical reasons. It's good that you're motivated to just come in on work when the conditions are just right (and therefore you are at your most productive), something that might be obviated by a typical work culture.

Boss: "Sure, but I need to know why you're missing for a day - if you are going to be."

Did you get the day off, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[nc-1701]

Some of both... I work as tech support for currently two but eventually when I'm done training it'll be 4-8 organizations. So my work can be divided up into granules by supporting more or fewer orgs, and having more or less side projects. THat said I'm stuck in a daytime workday since I need to be available when my customers want to call (approximately 8-5).
Currently I work 40 hours a week or a tad over. I'm sure my boss will gradually push me up to 50 if I don't push back. If I get asked to consistently work anything close to 80 I would walk out immediately.

 

[Kennigit]

I don't do anything important. I could easily do anything asked of me in a reasonable time in a flexible schedule, but now I have to show up at specified times.

0700-1630

 

[warpus]

It's good that you're motivated to just come in on work when the conditions are just right (and therefore you are at your most productive), something that might be obviated by a typical work culture.

I would actually get even more done and be a lot better at my job (I think) if I was given even more freedom. But in an academic office environment impressions matter. I am happy enough with the flexibility I get - I know that a lot of developers are far worse off in terms of their work environments.

Did you get the day off, if you don't mind me asking?

Yeah. Basically, he only gave me crap for this when I showed up to work again on Friday. And he didn't really "give me crap" really, he just wanted to let me know that next time I should talk to him first... i.e. "I worked double hours yesterday, I'm taking tomorrow off as per flex time", etc. instead of just emailing everyone on the bursary team "see you on Friday". That doesn't leave him with enough information about my whereabouts - That was my mistake. He does see that I have a rather unconventional approach to almost everything, but then he also sees the results, so I think in his mind managing me is a bit of a balancing act as well.

 

[downtown]

I work at least 70 hours a week. I'm trying to build towards a world where my job is more divisible, but practically speaking, it isn't really right now.

My boss works even longer than I do (although some of that is his choice). I do fairly specialized stuff that isn't totally easy to train or replace, but at the end of the day, it's not like it's really that iMPORTANT.

 

[warpus]

The work I do affects important things (if you ask academics and students anyway) and at times lots of money, so I get stressed. If I had to work 70 hour workweeks I think I would die.

 

[JollyRoger]

Very few are skilled in the art of properly managing the ever increasing flock of Lee Holloway wannabes. It is not something that is easily delegated.

 

[onejayhawk]

I must admit, from my various times abroard, other countries do not understand how hard Americans work. The idea that many people work 60 hours a week meets with disbelief.

As for my job, you could put 8 people in it, one hour each. I am not sure the point.

J

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'm the boss so I delegate. Typically, I work 45-50 hours and allow my 3 direct reports as much flexibility as they can manage and still get their work done.

 

[Hygro]

And that's why bankers and lawyers and programmers get paid so much while still taking a school-salary track.

 

[Mise]

I feel like the article ended just as it was getting good

My job is divisible, in the sense that anyone can do what I'm supposed to do, as long as they have the right skills and knowledge, and are given the opportunity. There will be frictional losses during each transition, sure, but people can definitely pick it up if they wanted to. A better way of making it divisible is to simply divide it by duty/responsibility, rather than by time: If I have to do tasks A through D by Friday, you could divide it such that I do A and C and someone else does B and D, both of us working 20 hours, and both of us getting the work done by Friday. (As opposed to me doing 50% of each task, then someone else doing the other 50%.) But even within the type of divisibility that the article is talking about, my job is still very much divisible (despite what my colleagues like to believe).

Anyone who's checked in on the Daily Charts and Graphs thread will know exactly how much I work already -- which is certainly not a 40 hour work-week. I could easily work 20 hours and get the exact same amount of actual work done. I suppose I work a little bit like Warpus, except strictly during the 40 hour 9-5 week. Culturally, this company simply won't accept greater flexibility than that, and certainly nowhere near the amount that Warpus gets. But within the 9-5, I get a fair amount of flexibility: if I'm feeling creative I'll do creative work stuff; if I'm feeling like doing some mindless tasks I'll do a bunch of repetitive stuff, or whatever. And of course the regular, deadliney stuff always gets done on time so nobody panics about how much time I spend working. Also I'm just a lot quicker at doing stuff than my colleagues so I don't need 40 hours to do everything I need to do.

It would be nice to just go home when I'm not in the mood to work, rather than stay here and waste my time on the internet. Oh well.

Oh and the idea of working 60 hours is just WTH. Some of my friends do it. I don't get why they would want to, but if they like their jobs more than they like whatever else they could be doing in their free time then more power to them.

 

[Zelig]

I'm essentially a programmer whose job it is to make everyone's job at my company divisible and expendable, including my own. So yes, IMO, both mine and your jobs are very divisible.

 

[uppi]

I do not think there is any job that is not divisible if you really tried. But dividing a job costs money and for some job it costs more as the employer is willing to spend. Especially when there are people around, who will do two jobs for the pay of one.

 

[The_J]

Mine is in theory really well divisible (mainly because I have more than 1 project), but in reality it isn't, because there isn't enough money and organization (but mainly money) to do that :/.

 

[Zelig]

I do not think there is any job that is not divisible if you really tried. But dividing a job costs money and for some job it costs more as the employer is willing to spend. Especially when there are people around, who will do two jobs for the pay of one.

Mine is in theory really well divisible (mainly because I have more than 1 project), but in reality it isn't, because there isn't enough money and organization (but mainly money) to do that :/.

That just speaks to short-sighted employers. I've saved my employer many times my salary by making other people's jobs divisible/redundant.

 

[Tahuti]

Also a programmer, I actually on certain occasions end up doing all things computer besides programming such as server maintenance, even though I was hired to develop the applications.

So my job is rather divisible - though most programming jobs so far in this thread seem to be such. Though they are reluctant to hire more IT workers and I'm actually one of the few already.

 

[illram]

This was one of the reasons why we implemented overtime and the 40 hour workweek in the US. Employers were encouraged to hire more workers rather than pay a workforce overtime.

I think in the more specialized professional spheres it makes sense to call a job indivisible, i.e., only the person closing the deal with the relationship with the other party can work it, or the surgeon who has to complete the surgery, or the lawyer who has to do the trial. But nowadays so called overtime exemptions have been expanded beyond their original intent with marginally specialized professional positions and/or woefully underpaid employees classified as "exempt" and paid a salary, when a more scrupulous employer could hire additional people else or give more hours to another employee to do the same thing.

 

[Zelig]

I think in the more specialized professional spheres it makes sense to call a job indivisible, i.e., only the person closing the deal with the relationship with the other party can work it, or the surgeon who has to complete the surgery, or the lawyer who has to do the trial.

That's not really divisibility, that's just replacement difficulty on short timescales - and if you're looking at a short enough timescale any job becomes difficult to replace.

And still, any company that isn't actively working to minimize the impact of the bus factor (wiki article is in reference to software developers, but it's applicable anytime you have mortal employees) is being negligent in its project management.