Stop calling night owls lazy, we're not | Hacker News Reader

Stop calling night owls lazy, we're not

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54 pointspieterhg17 comments

One thing about the middle of the night - you're not liable to be interrupted. No jackhammers tearing up street gravel, no buzz saws, no lawn blowers, no phone calls, no interruptions, just uninterrupted time. Where you can concentrate intently on figuring out a program, if you want. The middle of the night is the time you can really get work done.

I agree, but the downside is that all these noises are going to wake you up the next morning, while you're trying to sleep.

Within the business environment there is an unwritten rule that applies surprisingly often: Coming into work early tends to mean you are enthusiastic and a go-getter. Staying late means you are inefficient and have poor planning.

And not being around between 10 and 3 is just flat out inconsiderate.

I'm a huge fan of flex hours. I think folks need to find a work rhythm that works for them.

But you also work with other people and working such that your schedule causes conflicts with others is an enormous, inconsiderate pain in the ass.

There's nothing worse than holding a team meeting only to have Joe Night Owl never show up because he works from 12 to 9. Or trying to figure out some of Joes code only to find he's never around when the rest of the team is.

The solution is making work asynchronous

Sure.

Or people could just be considerate of each others time.

But I suppose redefining the modern concept of work is another option.

There is a high likelihood that Joe became a Night Owl because of inconsiderate colleagues.

Many developers will report higher productivity either early in the morning or late in the afternoon/early evening if they work in an office environment:

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/108133/are-de...

Why? During these times, they are less interrupted or distracted by other people in the office.

Ideally, Joe could explain the situation to his manager/colleagues and find a way to work productively in the office during office hours.

My personal experience, however, despite discussions and requests not to be disturbed other than at predefined times, I still get interrupted far too often. Other people will place their "need" to get something from you over your productivity almost always.

I am currently the only developer at my office. When I work at the office I am almost always the last out the door as I start getting productive as everyone else leaves for the day.

To retain some productivity and sanity, I try to work from home 2 days per week. It is telling that on those days I often feel mentally fatigued before the end of the day.

That's an issue of:

1. Office environment. 2. Work culture.

Put folks in an open office space where they're free to "collaborate", and no great surprise folks get interrupted all the time.

My own work environment gives every engineer two person offices with a door they can shut, and we've all taken advantage of that on many occasions.

To retain some productivity and sanity, I try to work from home 2 days per week. It is telling that on those days I often feel mentally fatigued before the end of the day.

And that's a reasonable compromise. You're not totally prioritizing your own productivity to the exclusion of all else, but you're also arranging some "flow time".

My problem is with engineers who are chronically out of sync with the rest of their team all the time. I've personally seen how detrimental that can be to team gel and productivity.

I think one reason why 'normals' complain about night-owls is that they are secretly jealous of those who can choose their time of waking up rather than have it dictated to them. Therefore an early wake up 'builds character,' according to them anyway.

Who calls night owls lazy?

1) invent a grievance

2) fiercely argue against it

A direct quote was provided in the post where he and his brother were called lazy.

I've also personally experienced a negative stigma around my sleeping habits. The only thing that stopped my parents from complaining about it is that I've excelled in college and in my career.

I've received plenty of pushback for being a night owl.

Fortunately most of my employers have allowed flexible schedules, but school was far less accommodating. Plenty of friends have accused me of being a slack for sleeping in until noon (ignoring the fact that I'm frequently working until dawn).

When I'm home, my father always berates me for sleeping in. Even though I work a lot more than he does every day, he just perceives sleeping past 9am to be lazy.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamen...

"... more intelligent children grow up to be more nocturnal as adults than less intelligent children. "

Night owls are smarter?

I don't think self-described 'Night owls' must be lazy, but they are usually non-conformist, which might make them very unsuitable for some jobs and some organizations. If I was hiring for such an organization, that factor would matter to me, even though it is obviously a poor way of assessing their potential value.

Night is the other half of life, and the better half - Goethe

I'm a night owl with a slipping sleeping schedule, but the psychiatrist seems to have a point about depression: there seems to be a link between perceived light, circadian clock and depression. Which is not exactly pointing a finger at all night owls, but at least to people with slipping schedules like me.

It is said that a man with a reputation of waking up early can sleep in until noon.

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