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Comment by makmanalp | Hacker News Reader

> Until about 1980, it was typically understood that metered work (i.e. what your boss is directly asking you do to) expectations in the professions would be about 20 to 25 hours per week.

I would love to read more about this, if you have any links or such.

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I second this. Sounds like it might be a bit too good to be true.

"Too good" to be true is a bit of a stretch, because it wasn't all good. The professions in that day were ethnically exclusive, connections driven, and the everyday work was generally pretty dull. Also, getting fired seriously fucked up your life and reputation (rather than being the mild annoyance it is today, for a skilled software engineer) and so offices tended to be a lot more authoritarian. Watch Mad Men to get a sense of it. Sticking around the office till 6:30 meant you were a hard worker, but it wasn't all pleasant, and for a lot of people who, by all rights, would deserve the chance to get in, couldn't.

However, the professions did expect people to dedicate half their time to off-meter work, and were more reasonable about allowing people to do that and have 40-50 hour work weeks. That aspect of it is true. This doesn't mean that you could work only 20 hours per week if you decided off-meter work wasn't your thing. It does mean that you had the autonomy of an actual professional.

I don't have any off-hand, but one well-studied case in point is the concept of "billable hours" in law firms. Attorney were expected to bill 1200 hours to the client. They were still working 40 hours per week, but the other 880 were spent on continuing education, meeting clients, etc.

Today, the expectation is 2000 billable hours. That makes for about a 60-hour work week. If you're a 7th-year associate trying to make partner, you have to bill 2000 hours (metered work) and drum up business on your own time.

This is 1200/2000 billable hours per year? I'm not following the math.

In the white-shoe days, attorneys were expected to bill 1200 hours per year, which comes out to 23 per week. There was still a 40-hour expectation, but they could spend the rest of their time on self-directed pursuits professional/career development, networking, looking for clients, and call it "work".

Now, attorneys in those firms are expected to bill 2000 hours, which means they have to be putting a full-time commitment to just billing, and any professional development or networking has to come on top of that.

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