Half of IT Workers Sleep on the Job 431
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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(reference hint [wikipedia.org])
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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?
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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.
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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.
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I'm not sure I understand the later concept -- how can organizational productivity be maximized if individual productivity is compromised?
Even if individual productivity per hour is lower, people are working more hours. Let's say that, on average, the individual does 5 units of work per hour with a 35hr week, but only 4.5 units/hr with a 45 hour week. In the first case, the worker is more efficient and accomplishes 175 total units. In the second case, his average productivity is lower, but the total is 202.5. As the hours per week increase, each additional hour adds progressively less to the final total--perhaps at a 60 hour week, he gets o
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Lies, damned lies, and Slashdot statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:Lies, damned lies, and Slashdot statistics (Score:5, Funny)
simple explanation (Score:5, Funny)
or is that spelled unix?
Re:Lies, damned lies, and Slashdot statistics (Score:5, Funny)
Attached: ITworkerData.xls [Filetype: Excel 2007]
Not always due to laziness or lack of work... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure most of the people polled here are younger, but it's definitely not just a laziness issue.
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I Believe It (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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.
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Well, given that this is an internship and is only to last about 3 or 4 more months, I will probably stick it out (since I don't have a choice ;-). I'm more optomistic about it, since I have been anxiously waiting to have a real programming job, so I am hoping that there might be a larger opportunity for me waiting when I finish learning how to write Java GUI code without any GUI Editors to help me :-(
I do agree with your first statement. Even in my firm, there are a lot of positions that are clearly inte
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Well, I guess that explains why *using* java GUI applications is one of the most tediously boring tasks one can ever perform.
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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
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A good tip on staying awake (Score:2, Insightful)
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Sounds like techies aren't getting enough sleep. (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:Sounds like techies aren't getting enough sleep (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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)
Re:Sounds like techies aren't getting enough sleep (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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My husband has sleep apnea. When he went to the sleep clinic they marked him as a 3+ on a scal eout of 3 for level of snoring.
It's only since we started watching House that he realised what the face mask really looks like. What he doesn't appreaciate/experience is the jet of cold/sweaty air being blown in his face/do the back of his neck all night.
We use the air condition for maybe 35% of the year because I need a blanket all year around to act as a wind break and to hide under.
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Everyone has that problem at some point in their life. You need to try and find a way to stimulate yourself more at work. At a past job, I could be getting great sleep and work on very interesting projects all day long, but it would still hit me. I would still start to crash while very intellectually stimulated.
So when that started happening, I started taking walks and interacting with people. Surprise, surprise, I found that if I took some breaks to walk arou
Half of IT Workers Sleep on the Job (Score:3, Informative)
And 95% of management... (Score:5, Funny)
and a recent article ..... (Score:2)
News flash, people who don't get sleep fall asleep (Score:2)
Re:News flash, people who don't get sleep fall asl (Score:2)
Seriously though, the job market is amazing right now, if your job sucks that much leave your company to the miserable, failing fate it deserves. Find something better for yourself.
More men kissing (Score:2)
Clearly this indicates that a majority of the work force in the tech sector is committed to Apple and Apple-related products [slashdot.org].
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(I have asbestos wrapped karma. Bring it on)
Bored and horny... (Score:5, Funny)
Might explain all the buggy sotware, which I always attributed to too much coffee...
Re:Bored and horny... (Score:5, Funny)
>"Might explain all the buggy sotware, which I always attributed to too much coffee..."
Well, one way to reduce the bug count is to fire the 51% who AREN'T sleeping on the job - they're obviously the ones writing the buggy code!
Overworked and out of our element (Score:2, Interesting)
And we've come so far technologically and socially but we still have even more demands put on us every day. 40+ hour week can be a bit much if you have tons of other things to do during non-work hours.
We're sup
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Overworked definatley is an understatement my job at the moment.
I work in a small company, we effectivley are an external IT department to small business, which can be demanding juggling break/fix work and developing and implementing multiple projects at any one time.
At the moment while my boss is on holiday's I'm working 16 hour days covering his work load and my load and it definatley is a strain on what I can take.
Of course, the clients don't realise how hard you work, and when they log a job with you an
Re:Overworked and out of our element (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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I do not wish to sound condescending nor am I attempting to troll, but I would diffidently suggest that you are more likely to become the boss yourself if you upgrade the quality of your written communications. It has a real impact on people who might otherwise promote you. Perhaps using an open document window on the side for scratch text, then running the spell checker over it before you paste the reply? Genuinely trying to help here. It's clear you have the dedication to
in your dreams (Score:2)
"Admit"?
An IT guy?
Yeah, right.
In your dreams maybe
Re:in your dreams (Score:5, Funny)
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)
And there the IT guy gets his chance.
Perhaps the two are the same (Score:4, Funny)
"and when I woke up my mouse was all wet..."
Sooooo....you ask a bunch of geeks (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sooooo....you ask a bunch of geeks (Score:5, Funny)
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.
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I wonder if the survey clearly spelt out that cyber sex does NOT count as kissing a cow-orker.
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ahhh.. statistics... (Score:5, Funny)
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For some people, a peck on the cheek or an 'air kiss' (is there a proper name for that?) is an acceptable form of greeting between a male and a female. Was the type of kiss defined?
Glad we cleared that up.
half? (Score:2)
Perhaps it's just the bottom half?
Fallen asleep? (Score:5, Interesting)
90% of IT workers (Score:5, Insightful)
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So, if more men kissed at work than women... (Score:5, Funny)
Power napping! (Score:5, Interesting)
I highly recommend it.
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I used to do the whole eat quick and nap in the back of the car at lunch but found that afterwards my work level was diminished and the rest of my day was almost worthless. What did work for me, however, was cutting out the caffeine. I've mentioned the wonders of
Re:Power napping! (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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.
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After thirty minutes of down-time, I grab a cup of coffee and hit the afternoon refreshed, thinking clearly and less stressed.
I've found that it gives me the best boost to have the coffee first, and nap before it hits the system. Wake-up and caffeine boost come simoultaneously.
Also, I think thirty minutes is a bit long. An old boss of mine (!!!) taught me this trick: take some metallic object in your hand, such as a keyring, a stapler, whatever. Something that makes some noise but doesn't break when it hits the floor. Once you've fallen asleep and relaxed, the object will fall and wake you up. Works like a charm. Of course, YMM
IT Jobs (Score:2)
If IT is there to keep the business running, and it runs, then IT is doing th
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This what you get when you work people 80+ H/W (Score:2)
And the non-techies??? (Score:2)
oil rigs (Score:2, Interesting)
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At my last job... (Score:2)
I have no idea why more people don't do it. I would wake refreshed and ready for the next pile of crap.
Of course, now I telecommute, I can go the whole hog and hit the bed for 1/2 hour at lunchtime.
Naps are good.
This is news? (Score:2)
I, of course, would never dream of falling asleep at my desk. I usually dream of much more pleasant places.
Of course I've slept at work (Score:2)
When I've been sitting there for 48 hours straight babysitting a run, damn right I took a nap. A short one... and not during "normal" working hours...
I think I'll just take one now and wake up in an hour to check how things are going.
Lights (Score:5, Funny)
Working for a pr0n company & Powernapping (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Working for a pr0n company & Powernapping (Score:5, Funny)
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No, it means you should keep your phone off vibrate when you sleep.
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>"Like many others, I have mastered the fine art of sleeping with my eyes open during management meetings."
Now you know why you're always the loser at bullshit bingo and have to buy the donuts.
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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?
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Any humour derived from pointing out the difference between IT males and IT females should not be based on assuming only IT workers were kissing other IT workers, because humour is a lot funnier when it doesn't depend on such an obvious mis-interpretation of plain english.
I'm not dumping on your parade, but cmon, its only funny if it draws from accurate interpret
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