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Half of IT Workers Sleep on the Job

Posted by CowboyNeal on Thu Sep 27, 2007 08:28 PM
from the checking-eyelids-for-leaks dept.
Businesses IT
Stony Stevenson writes "According to a new online survey by Harris Interactive, more than half of IT workers say they've fallen asleep at work, while nearly half of techies also are apparently in the mood for love. Forty-seven percent of tech pros admit they've kissed a co-worker, according to the online survey of 5,700 U.S. workers, including 163 techies. The survey didn't indicate if those work taboos were committed by the same respondents, but in both cases, men were more likely to admit doing both. Forty-nine percent of male techies say they've fallen asleep at work, while only 35 percent of women admitted doing so."
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Submission: Half of IT workers are sleeping on the job by Stony Stevenson (954022)
[+] Science: One in Ten Americans Are Chronically Sleep Deprived 329 comments
WirePosted writes "A CDC research study released this past week indicates that the physical and mental health of many Americans is being adversely affected by a lack of sleep. According to the study, a part of the organization's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, one in ten US citizens are consistently failing to get enough sleep every night. Almost 40% of the people surveyed didn't get enough sleep for more than a week every month. The article notes that this trend can have far-ranging implications for health beyond simple fatigue."
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  • zzzz...... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MaineCoon (12585) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:29PM (#20777103) Homepage
    er, huh, whu? I'm sorry, were you saying something?
    • Wake me up when the log gets to 100 comments or so zzzzzzzzzz

    • Re:zzzz...... (Score:5, Funny)

      by phantomfive (622387) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:45PM (#20777263) Homepage Journal
      No, I was too busy kissing my coworker. Too bad they are all male. I guess we do have a female office manager, she is the only one, but does that mean 47% of my coworkers have kissed her? Ew can we end this conversation already?

    • Re:zzzz...... (Score:5, Funny)

      by creimer (824291) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:52PM (#20777333) Homepage
      That strange noise from the PC underneath the desk wasn't a worn out fan. :P

    • Re:zzzz...... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Stripe7 (571267) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:55PM (#20777375)
      Yes, falling asleep on the job is one half of the equation, working 12-18 hour days or being on call 24/7 is the other side of the equation. I was at EBay once and saw people with sleeping bags under their desks as well as watched a father singing a lullaby's to his kid over the phone because something blew up and work needed to be done.

      • Re:zzzz...... (Score:5, Funny)

        by SatanicPuppy (611928) * <[moc.liamg] [ta] [yppupcinataS]> on Thursday September 27 2007, @09:26PM (#20777669) Journal
        They got sleeping bags? Pussies.

        I can't imagine an "I slept at work" scenario in my job that didn't involve obscene overtime and after hours work. Where the hell would you find time? Where the hell do people get these JOBS?

        • Re:zzzz...... (Score:5, Funny)

          by Frosty Piss (770223) on Thursday September 27 2007, @09:47PM (#20777863)

          They got sleeping bags? Pussies.

          Exactly. Ingrates. All we get where I work is a box or rocks, and I don't mean those smoothe river rocks, I'm talking those sharp crushed rocks. And we're not allowed to actually sleep n them, we can only look at them.

          • Re:zzzz...... (Score:5, Interesting)

            by OriginalArlen (726444) on Friday September 28 2007, @01:18AM (#20779063)
            I usually have a 5 - 10 minute nap at my desk after lunch. It's perfectly normal and natural, I refuse to be apologetic about it (even after co-workers stuck postit notes on me, took pics and stuck them on the noticeboard *) ) and anyone who doesn't like it can piss off. Luckily the war between workers and management at my employer is at a happy state of silent truce; we slog our guts out to help the boss buy a new Bentley, they don't fire us for minor infractions of rules. (I work in security and I've argued several times against aggressively trying to prevent people listening to music. What's the point? We can only manage with the consent of the managed...)

              • Re:zzzz...... (Score:5, Funny)

                by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 28 2007, @02:18AM (#20779337)
                You get to use your imagination? Dear lord, I wish we could. All we get is a bunch of angry mole people that poke us with sharp pencils and hot pokers.

        • Re:zzzz...... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by syntaxglitch (889367) on Friday September 28 2007, @08:57AM (#20781471)

          In France, we often do work less than 40 hours a week. Less work also means better productivity. There surely is a "balancing point", but if it exist, it is different for every person, and is not constant with the time.

          Believe it or not, there is actual research done on this--not that anyone ever pays attention to the results. If I recall correctly, it boils down to something like this:

          - Productivity is low for the first 1-3 hours of a day as people get into the swing of things
          - Daily productivity mostly goes up, but drops toward the end of the day (possibly because people are consciously "winding down")
          - Productivity per worker hour peaks somewhere around a 30-hour week.
          - Total sustainable productivity per week peaks at around a 45-hour week.
          - Around 50 hours and up, fatigue builds up over time until burnout kicks in. Sustained work weeks of 50 hours are likely to be getting less TOTAL WORK done than sustained 35-hour weeks.
          - Work weeks of around 80 hours are sustainable for maybe a week or so before catastrophic loss of total productivity occurs
          - Anything much more than 80 hours likely results in immediately LOWER productivity, as fatigued workers make mistakes that take more time to fix than the extra hours provide.

          From this, one can conclude that European schedules are more likely to maximize individual productivity (more work per hour), while American schedules are more likely to maximize organizational productivity (more work per person). One can also conclude that any manager who demands sustained work weeks of 50 hours or more is incompetent and a fool; the management equivalent of the kind of programmer who creates so many bugs he provides a net negative productivity to the team.

          In practice, actual work hours are lower than they appear; most salaried workers are prone to finding numerous ways to not work while at work, largely because in many office environments physical presence is seen as more important than actual productivity.

          I suspect the best balancing point would be something like four 9-hour workdays per week. Longer days to minimize the productivity drain of mornings, but a shorter total work week to allow occasional bursts of extra effort without creating long-term burnout.

    • I thought the Seinfeld episode where George turns his desk into a bed was inspirational.

    • Lies, damned lies, and Slashdot statistics (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MoxFulder (159829) on Friday September 28 2007, @12:04AM (#20778733) Homepage

      According to a new online survey by Harris Interactive, more than half of IT workers say they've fallen asleep at work ... Forty-nine percent of male techies say they've fallen asleep at work, while only 35 percent of women admitted doing so.
      Hmmm... less than half of male techs have fallen asleep at work, and less than half of female techs have fallen asleep at work.

      And yet, somehow, more than half of all techs have fallen asleep at work. Gosh, that's interesting. Those non-male non-female techs sure must do a lot of sleeping on the job!
  • I have an older employee who handles some contracts (hourly) that has a tendency to fall asleep. He's within a decade or less of retirement, and we've caught him napping a few times in recent months (as has the customer he's usually working at). We've talked, and it definitely seems like there's a medical issue here, so it leaves us with having to just compensate the customer for any billable time where he has fallen asleep. We've considered moving him to an internal job, but he's really good at the tasks he leads, and he also works very hard otherwise. The customer is also understanding because they have realized that his productive time more than compensates for his napping time, but there's always a fear that the contract could expire over this particular issue.

    I'm sure most of the people polled here are younger, but it's definitely not just a laziness issue.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Seumas (6865)
      Of course, for every nap on the job, I suspect there are a half dozen sleepless nights where an engineer had to cover for an emergency, fix something, help with a high priority client, fly somewhere for an urgent fix, cover a sick employee or return from vacation early. Sorry, but I don't feel guilty if I take a nap here and there when I also often work double shifts, put in seven day weeks (sometimes multiple weeks in a row), cover for staff shortages, log in remotely while on vacation in a hotel, from the

  • I Believe It (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MrCrassic (994046) <mrcrassic@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:36PM (#20777155) Homepage Journal

    Funny that I was just about to do an AskSlash about this issue because I was starting to get concerned.

    It's been very difficult for me to stay up or want to stay up at the current internship that I'm in, which involves writing software for a corporate firm. While the job itself can be stimulating and logically challenging at times, sometimes I feel like I just have a hard time really concentrating on anything. It's not so much the environment; most of the people that work with me are very active in talking about their roles and responsibilities (most conversations either directly involve or segway into this). Actually, I'm not really sure what it is.

    I really like to be mobile and move around in my jobs, but I am devoid of needing to do that for this. My main job is to sit down and review/rewrite/create code. I've never done this before, so maybe I'm just not accustomed to needing to look at a computer screen for 8.5+ hours every business day.

    In general, IT jobs can have some physical downtime; it's just inevitable. As for kissing co-workers, I would presume that this is more prominent in corporate environments because the physical quality of the girls are MUCH better than those of more research-oriented or specialized firms (forgive me if I've insulted anyone). I know that there are several women at my job that I would love to take out to dinner sometime, but it can be difficult dealing with a formidable age gap as an intern in a pretty established department...

    Good article.

    • Re:I Believe It (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Original Replica (908688) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:50PM (#20777313) Journal
      I really like to be mobile and move around in my jobs, but I am devoid of needing to do that for this. My main job is to sit down and review/rewrite/create code. I've never done this before, so maybe I'm just not accustomed to needing to look at a computer screen for 8.5+ hours every business day.

      I found out after college, that the realities of a full time job in the field of my major, were mentally exhausting and physically unmoving. So I changed career paths about a year after graduation. If sitting in a chair while looking at a computer screen for 8+ hours a day isn't for you, maybe you should find a different line of work. In the course of your life, you will spend more time at work than will spend with your spouse, you job should be something you enjoy.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anrego (830717)
      I`ve long thought that the work day is way to long. 8 hours is just too much time to spend sitting in a chair... or really doing any kind of work.

      I find that after 6 hours, I generally have no capacity to write any serious code, and usually spend the remainder of the day picking at what i`ve written (which is actually probably a good thing, because I find a lot of minor bugs/typos/etc..)

      I find that taking a 5 minute break to walk around the building or even pace around your office every hour or so makes _al

      • Re:I Believe It (Score:5, Insightful)

        by aca_broj_1 (1034904) on Thursday September 27 2007, @10:46PM (#20778265)
        Shortly after I quit smoking, I realized the same thing. If you smoke regularly, you get the regular hourly ten minute break, once you stop, the breaks stop as well. It took me at least three months to realize that the reason I was less productive was not the post-quitting stress, but in actuality the lack of breaks. I have since started to take hourly breaks no matter what I do, and its made a world of difference.

  • Sounds like techies aren't getting enough sleep. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Vellmont (569020) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:38PM (#20777179)
    sleep debt [wikipedia.org] is a real phenomenon, and if you're falling asleep at work, you've likely got a large amount of it.

    Many people think falling asleep is a sign of "laziness". That's just nonsense, it just means that person needs to get more sleep, or get better quality sleep!
    • This is why I wish my company either had shorter core hours, or only have core hours 4 days a week. I really have trouble falling asleep at night, but once I'm asleep, I can stay asleep just fine. If I could fall asleep on my own time and come in on my own time, I'd be much more productive/code better, because I wouldn't be as tired.

      I think there's definitely something to be said for having only 4 hours of core hours a day. While everyone would still be required to work their 40 hours during the week, you'd only be required to be at work during those 4 hours, and could decide when you wanted to work the other 20 hours.

      • Re:Sounds like techies aren't getting enough sleep (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Vellmont (569020) on Thursday September 27 2007, @09:23PM (#20777647)

        I sleep around 10 hours a night, more on the weekends, but am still tired all the time.

        You might have sleep apnea [wikipedia.org] or some other kind of sleep disorder (assuming you haven't been checked for that). You can be waking up in the middle of the night multiple times and not even realize it. I'm no expert, but if I were you I'd try to get refered to an expert. They can give you some kind of monitoring device that'll tell you how many times/night you're waking up.

        There's also special sleep clinics around the country that will observe you while you sleep and can diagnose other kinds of sleep disorders. Many doctors aren't aware of the different sleep disorders that exist. (A number of years ago I attended a speech given by a top sleep researcher given to medical professionals, so that's where my primitive knowledge comes from)
        • [ Posted from Alien Loves Predator [alienlovespredator.com] ]

          Thursday, August 2, 2007, 11:08am ET

          CPAP Hooray

          I have sleep apnea! Wooooo! High-five.

          For a while now Elaine's been complaining about my snoring, and I believed her that I snore, but I never knew how bad it was. There'd be times in the middle of the night where she'd shove me in frustration and I'm like, "What! How could I be snoring, I've been lying here awake!" which was of course total B.S. I told her to record me one night so I could hear for myself, which she avoided for a while, but finally did using our camera in video mode. I finally learned why our bedroom furniture is always in different places in the morning and why a team of confused seismologists is always wandering around our block. And that I look cute when I'm sleeping.

          So off I went to spend a night at a sleep clinic to find out if I have the same thing that both my dad has and my brother have (being that apnea can be genetic, it was almost a foregone conclusion). Good thing I have a bemused curiosity about things like this, like the "collection" room when I went to make sure my "equipment" wasn't "shooting blanks" so I could have "money-sucking kids that won't give you a moment's peace and will draw on your walls and by the way, we'll have TWO AT A TIME which'll make life hell so GOOD LUCK."

          Except there wasn't any porn! Only a TV with just network channels so I was forced to watch "So You Think You Can Be Smarter Than a Fifth Grader Who Forgets the Lyrics or No Deal: Fiji". Shows like this are why Elaine is grateful for Pay-per-view and Netflix during the summer. At least it helped put me to sleep so the guys in white coats could start their study. Until they woke me up at 2am and said COULD YOU NOT SNORE SO LOUD YOU'RE WAKING UP THE OTHER SNORING PATIENTS.

          When I went in to see the doctor to get my results, I was already resigned to the fact that I might need to get the same surgery that my brother did, which fixed his problem. But the guy said, "your apnea is so bad, surgery wouldn't help." All right! I dodged THAT bullet. Apparently I had short breathing stoppages fifty-two times in an hour. The normal rate is about three.

          So at home, I'm now trying to wear a CPAP mask to bed to help me breathe better, stop snoring and get more restful sleep. (I get "CPAP" and "pap smear" confused, I don't even know what "pap smear" is but I know I don't want it on my face) And it's been tough so far. It's too hot and humid these days to be wearing a large mask on your face all night, especially one that needs to be tight enough so there's no air leaks, and that's blowing air at you so hard you feel like you're sky diving (or: think Jackie Chan, Operation Condor, wind tunnel). But I'm trying. Like with everything, I know I'll get used to it eventually.

          At least Elaine gets to fulfill her lifelong dream of sleeping with Darth Vader. C'mon girls, admit it, I know there's plenty of you out there.

  • Half of IT Workers Sleep on the Job (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:39PM (#20777183)
    Yeah, and the other half is here posting on Slashdot!

  • And 95% of management... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jwiegley (520444) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:41PM (#20777209)
    We're counting brain-dead as "asleep", right?

  • Bored and horny... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Progman3K (515744) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:44PM (#20777251)
    Seems like a dangerous combination.
    Might explain all the buggy sotware, which I always attributed to too much coffee...

  • Perhaps the two are the same (Score:4, Funny)

    by mpickut (721322) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:46PM (#20777283)
    Maybe they just dreamed they were kissing a co-worker.

    "and when I woke up my mouse was all wet..."

  • Sooooo....you ask a bunch of geeks (Score:5, Funny)

    by gandhi_2 (1108023) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:48PM (#20777295)
    You ask a bunch of geeks if they've kissed a co-worker...and no surprise, over half of them have! Of course, 57% of us are also blackbelts and monster-truck drivers in our spare time. The girls we supposedly kissed? Yeah, they're totally hot. But they live in Idaho, so you wouldn't know them.
    • You ask a bunch of geeks if they've kissed a co-worker...and no surprise, over half of them have! Of course, 57% of us are also blackbelts and monster-truck drivers in our spare time. The girls we supposedly kissed? Yeah, they're totally hot. But they live in Idaho, so you wouldn't know them.

      You're all a bunch of liars who should be ashamed of yourselves. I, on the other hand, learned a little something called integrity and truthfulness back when I was going through astonaut training.

  • ahhh.. statistics... (Score:5, Funny)

    by RuBLed (995686) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:48PM (#20777297)

    Forty-seven percent of tech pros admit they've kissed a co-worker

    Forty-nine percent of male techies say they've fallen asleep at work, while only 35 percent of women admitted doing so.
    Here is the explanation: Since only 49% of the men admitted sleeping at work, the 51% must be up to something. 35% of the women admittend sleeping at work, my best guess is that at least 35% ( +/- 5%) of the men who were awake are kissing women who are sleeping. That leaves us with 16% of the male who were awake and not kissing sleeping women. Since 47% admitted kissing a co-worker (we already know that 35% we're males), it means that 12 % of the women we're kissing some of the sleeping men. (This doesn't surprise me). Now we had 16% innocent males and 51% innocent females, if you assume that 5% of the remaining males are on the top management, that roughly equals around 15% of the 51% women being kissed and not admitting it. 10% read slasdot (male obviously) leaving 1% what.. well we still had 36% of the women left...

  • Fallen asleep? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by alshithead (981606) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:53PM (#20777339)
    I've never fallen asleep...gone to sleep? Oh, yes. With a former employer it wasn't unusual to bust ass for 7-8 hours starting at 8 PM Saturday to get physical maintenance tasks done (after working 50 hours during the week) and then being in the position of still having several hours before server jobs I had kicked off at the start of maintenance needing to finish so I can go home. Employee lounge with nice comfortable leather sofa...here I come. Management knew and preferred that to me killing myself falling asleep behind the wheel on my way home. Still, it's funny how you can miss the fact that a traffic light is red when you are really sleep deprived. I'm very happy to have a 9-5 now.

  • 90% of IT workers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kizzle (555439) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:53PM (#20777347)
    lie on surveys.

  • So, if more men kissed at work than women... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Junta (36770) on Thursday September 27 2007, @08:54PM (#20777359)
    That means... I really don't want to fall asleep around other men at work?

  • Power napping! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jacobcaz (91509) on Thursday September 27 2007, @09:00PM (#20777421) Homepage
    Power napping [successminders.com] is where it's at! Depending on the culture at your work place you may have to be a bit "sneaky" to slip in a power nap, or you may need to scarf lunch and take a quick rest in the car.

    I highly recommend it.

    • Re:Power napping! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jollyreaper (513215) on Thursday September 27 2007, @11:01PM (#20778357)
      I'm not built for napping. For starters, if I try to doze off it usually takes me a long time. If I'm in a boring meeting, it's much easier. Hell, if the meeting is at the end of the day and I'm just trying to hold off so I can get home, by the time I'm home I no longer feel the need. If I DO manage to sleep during the middle of the day, it usually throws me completely off. I'll end up sleeping for maybe four hours before popping awake, then I'm not able to crash at a normal time that night and I can end up sleeping extra long. I usually do seven hours but if my sleep pattern is disturbed, like with a nap, I could end up sleeping for 10 hours. It's very weird.

      I don't disbelieve the benefits of getting a good nap in, I just don't think I'm physiologically capable of it.

  • Naps! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kabdib (81955) on Thursday September 27 2007, @09:04PM (#20777463) Homepage
    As an Old Fart, I often take half hour naps in the early afternoon. I'm lucky to have worked mostly at companies with private offices (with doors that lock), but I've done this in cube farms, too.

    After thirty minutes of down-time, I grab a cup of coffee and hit the afternoon refreshed, thinking clearly and less stressed.

    Civilized societies have siestas.

  • Lights (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hemogoblin (982564) on Thursday September 27 2007, @10:18PM (#20778043)
    It's not sleeping. It's relaxen unt watchen das blinken lights.

    • Working for a pr0n company & Powernapping (Score:4, Interesting)

      by fsckr (965056) on Thursday September 27 2007, @09:01PM (#20777429) Homepage
      I used to work for a pr0n company where people were actually paid for sleeping on the job (not to mention kissing co-workers...hehe) but I guess my experience is not really that of the 'typical' IT worker... That said, I think all IT workers should take at least a one hour nap midday sometime, it makes dealing with non-IT types much easier afterward. A colleague of mine introduced me to the 30 min powernap. At 3pm when you feel tired, chug a Red Bull or a coffee and quickly take a nap, by the time the drink kicks in you should be waking up from your nap charged up and ready to take on another 3hrs or so...try it! fsckr

    • Re:in your dreams (Score:5, Funny)

      by weirdcrashingnoises (1151951) on Thursday September 27 2007, @09:03PM (#20777451) Journal
      Clearly this was a type-o. The correct statistic is that 47% of IT guys had a dream at work in which they kissed a co-worker.

      Of those 47%, 15% admitted they didn't even know the name of the person who they kissed in their dream because they have never spoken a word to the member of the opposite sex. (with the exception of their mother)

      25% admitted that they gotten close enough to see the secretaries name tag.

      Finally, 60% admitted that they thought kissing the new company servers counted as kissing a co-worker.

    • Re:in your dreams (Score:5, Funny)

      by CrazyJim1 (809850) on Thursday September 27 2007, @09:28PM (#20777681) Journal
      Actually, 35% of females have fallen asleep during the job.

      And there the IT guy gets his chance.

    • Thanks for reminding me - we're out of vodka and rum at the office. Can you pick some up on the way in? And maybe some ice?

      • Re:Overworked and out of our element (Score:5, Insightful)

        by SirSlud (67381) on Thursday September 27 2007, @09:29PM (#20777697) Homepage
        Well, it never bothers them that you do. I'm sure some realize it. After 9 years of programming, I have just decided to under promise, over deliver. Lose a contract, or not get promoted? Fuck it, its not worth it. Sanity is worth it. In the end, somebody will pay you for making quality products or providing quality services without having to live at work. So I say it'll be fixed by tomorrow afternoon, and fix it at 10am. They'll be more appreciative, and you got more sleep so you can clock more quality work hours. I like to say that 25% of the skill of a developer is managing expectations. *Technically*, we could write a word processor in assembly on 386, but telling somebody who is responsible for purchasing computer equipment and software tools that is suicide. Having people realize how fucking hard and taxing your job is and how challenging it is to fix things that appear small to a customer or designer is key to keeping people around you happy to provide you the proper environment to kick ass.

        One other thing that people forget is that frequently the problems that crop up that programmers and IT folks have to fix are problems that may not have occurred had the work force been better rested. Near the end of a particular development cycle, we were working 12 to 14 hour shifts 6 or 7 days a week, alternating between folks during the day and folks at night. Near gold, it was basically a team would come in and have to fix the bug caused by the folks the earlier 12 hour shift caused fixing another bug. Everyone was so overworked that nobody could make rational steps towards fixing things properly. Seemed to me that we could have finished off earlier were we not pressed into 'work every hour you're awake' mode for the last 4 weeks. You end up causing problems that you then have to stay up even more hours to fix.

        If your clients dont know when you fix things or do things for them, change that. Send them an email timestamped at 1am when you fix the problem. Mention it offhand when you discuss the resolution of the problem. You'd be surprised how willing people are to compromise or help you change the situation so you don't need to be on call for them 24/7 .. they might cut you some slack on short term hack jobs to create better long term infrastructure, monitoring, fixes, etc.

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