Hacker News Reader

Comment by irrational | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, but in trades you have to climb in hot attics, deal with sewers, work outside, etc. And you have to put in a full days work. How many of us developers actually put in a full 8+ hours? I know that I don’t. I can usually get my assigned work done in about four hours. Can you imagine an electrician or plumber or doctor or lawyer only working 4 hours a day? It’s insane how much I get paid for what I actually do.

View on HN

>doctor or lawyer only working 4 hours a day

I'm absolutely sure that lawyers and doctors only work 20 hours a week.

Ha! My father is a doctor and in his 70s. He says he is retired because he only works 60 hours a week at the hospital emergency room. According to him, 60 hours a week is being retired since it is so few hours for a doctor.

My brother is a doctor, while he works insane hours, it seems there's a LOT of downtime between jobs, where he's technically "on the clock" but reads ebooks or watches series or socializes.

I technically work 12 hours as well as a developer, but actual work might be 6 hours or less, and it's way less stressful than a doctor.

We’ll my buddy does electrical for new builds and most of his time is spent waiting on other shit to get done. Not even joking, they want the electricians there just in case they can stick to schedule, but of course they can’t.

Also sitting in a chair in an office all day has a lot of health issues And they’re insidious in that your body doesn’t immediately tell you how badly your damaging it.

Don't forget starting your day at 5am, driving an hour and half to and from the job site, or living at a Holiday Inn for weeks at a time.

I know a few doctors working < 20 hours a week.

I don't have to imagine them because I see them while working for me or while talking to my friends who do the job. They go from coffee to coffee, work hard 6 hours for a day then take 2 days break, take 4 hour lunch breaks, say they are gonna come then come 2 days later, and many other stories. Now ALL of them hiked the prices 2x to 3x no matter the craft because of course THEIR material also "dramatically rose in price". Plumber, painter, glassworker, woodworker, electrician, you name it. Some things actually rose in price like steel or wood, but some rose only 20-30% and of course they double the price of work after the price of material "doubles".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com