Mmm, I love my 40 hour work week, which comes with plenty of vacation days (26 that I can pick myself). Of course, I do get paid less than I would get paid in the US, but I think that once you make 'enough' enjoying yourself is worth more than a bit of money.

Update: I didn't mean to suggest that I don't enjoy coding, of course! But the projects my boss finds urgent are not always the same ones that I find interesting, and there are other things I enjoy as well.

In my opinion, if the majority of the people in a job are regularly working >40 hours a week then something is seriously wrong with the project planning.

Like kudra I too love my 40 week, but only because I can then fit in plenty of my own hacking at home :)

--
<http://www.dave.org.uk>

European Perl Conference - Sept 22/24 2000, ICA, London
<http://www.yapc.org/Europe/>

I am / was getting paid as a programmer, but now I've settled down for a 8h/week admin job for a small (but mission critical) network. And somehow I must say, I don't miss either the deadlines nor the endless bugs from programming, and it is quite good for my studies to have a job that dosen't absorb me and that I can leave with closing the door behind me - something my programming projects never made possible.

Of course, I still have projects, but they are now smaller and circle more around modifying existing software and integrating different software than creating new software... I think that I've always been one of the admin mind, but I still enjoy programming - just not the time pressure and long projects ...

After my diploma, I hope to find a half-day admin job so I can maybe get my doctorate financed as well :-)

And don't forget, that study gave the AVERAGE work week. I'm not a developer myself, I'm a sysadmin, but I work for development companies. The programmers working fewer hours, generally speaking, are the junior developers. The better the developer, and the more senior they are, the more hours they work. Several of the programmers at my company work 60 hours a week, some work 70, and one or two actually regularly work 80 hours a week.

The only people here who work 40 hours per week are the administrative assistants, the junior level IT technicians, and the most junior developers.

- email Ozymandias

That's frightening. Studies have shown that working more than 48 hours per week on a regular basis will give you serious long term health problems :-(

Nuance

Did the study ask how many of them were salaried, and thus working for nothing past 40 hours?

Roy Alan

BTW, I'm only four years from 40, and I'm sure not planning to retire in 2004! I'm having way too much fun...

    -- Chip Salzenberg, Free-Floating Agent of Chaos

...and retire at fourty.

First of all, it's forty. :) Secondly, if you're THAT good and THAT enthused about it, you will not WANT to retire at age 40. You will want to keep going, keep meeting new people, keep learning new things, keep contributing to the computer industry, et cetera. It's a very groovy thing. Best of luck to you in your endeavors!

Alakaboo