The "hustle" culture has been a key part of MLM (pyramid schemes) for many years. It's sad to see that crossing over into legitimate businesses.
How hustle culture took over advertising
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Re: How hustle culture took over advertising
#22> it wasn’t just working hard — it was “maximizing every last bit of energy you have in order to produce.”
That reminds of this blog post by Jamie Zawinski[1]:
"What is true is that for a VC's business model to work, it's necessary for you to give up your life in order for him to become richer.
Follow the fucking money. When a VC tells you what's good for you, check your wallet, then count your fingers.
He's telling you the story of, "If you bust your ass and don't sleep, you'll get rich" because the only way that people in his line of work get richer is if young, poorly-socialized, naive geniuses believe that story! Without those coat-tails to ride, VCs might have to work for a living. Once that kid burns out, they'll just slot a new one in."
[1] [redacted]
Re: How hustle culture took over advertising
#23So, this is the industry that: - puts flashing colored boxes in front of our faces at any possible opportunity - requires us to click through multiple popups to access almost any for-profit website - has normalized the act of wasting human life at a mass scale by injecting multi-minute time-wasting sessions in activities "How hustle culture took over"? It's a hustle by default. I'd call it a swindle.
I always thought that hustler was synonymous with confidence artist or a low level scammer. That it’s now considered a positive word is fascinating to me.
I first learned the word hustler in the mid 80s when my soccer coach had a "hustler of the day" award for every game. It went to whoever worked the hardest that day.
Re: How hustle culture took over advertising
#24I'm American but I've lived overseas for nearly a decade, and I hardly ever go back.
In recent years when I meet other Americans who are visiting my city, I often get this vague feeling that they're just trying too hard in one way or another. Maybe they're working too hard, or trying too hard to impress someone, or get attention, or assert themselves. I don't know if I've changed or if America is changed or if it's something else entirely.
What I do wonder is, what's with all these Americans working themselves to the bone? I own an agency which is one of the types of businesses called out in this article. I tell all my employees very clearly, whenever possible, work 40 hours and then call it a week. We also happen to be mostly remote so I tell them, within reason, respecting a small number of important calls/meeting times etc. you can put in those hours whenever you want, preferably after a great night's sleep.
There's nothing like "you're measured by how many hours you bill out," nor does there need to be, if we have more than 40 hours of work per person per week, we hire more people.
Where does this all come from? This is an honest question. Why are people working themselves to death in the US and having this crazy mindset that doing stuff which puts you on the verge of a breakdown is good? When did this start?
Is it good for health/happiness? Definitely not
Is it good for productivity? Maybe, but I doubt it
Re: How hustle culture took over advertising
#25So, this is the industry that: - puts flashing colored boxes in front of our faces at any possible opportunity - requires us to click through multiple popups to access almost any for-profit website - has normalized the act of wasting human life at a mass scale by injecting multi-minute time-wasting sessions in activities "How hustle culture took over"? It's a hustle by default. I'd call it a swindle.
The employees still deserve to be respected and allowed to live normal lives outside of this corporate "hustler culture."
Re: How hustle culture took over advertising
#26Meanwhile over in this other thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18271834
We learn that you aren't really an "entrepreneur" unless you are a salesman. Business without "hustle" is unthinkable?
Re: How hustle culture took over advertising
#27So, this is the industry that: - puts flashing colored boxes in front of our faces at any possible opportunity - requires us to click through multiple popups to access almost any for-profit website - has normalized the act of wasting human life at a mass scale by injecting multi-minute time-wasting sessions in activities "How hustle culture took over"? It's a hustle by default. I'd call it a swindle.
The employees still deserve to be respected and allowed to live normal lives outside of this corporate "hustler culture."
Why should employment be treated as a shroud?
If you spend the majority of your time working to abuse your fellow man, I don't respect that, and see no reason why I should.
That is not, and should not be accepted as, a "normal life".
Advertising companies are a disease.
Re: How hustle culture took over advertising
#28I'm American but I've lived overseas for nearly a decade, and I hardly ever go back. In recent years when I meet other Americans who are visiting my city, I often get this vague feeling that they're just trying too hard in one way or another. Maybe they're working too hard, or trying too hard to impress someone, or get attention, or assert themselves. I don't know if I've changed or if America is changed or if it's s…
I'm curious, where do you work now and who are your clients? I worked in Asia and the work culture with the Chinese (mainlanders) and those of Chinese-descent (Chinese Malaysians, Chinese Singaporean) was more challenging than working with Americans.
When I was in advertising, stories of people working and staying (as in sleeping over) during the weekends was not uncommon. Clients would call me at 11pm asking for a concall with my staff. 12 hours a day for weeks on end, including working weekends, were common place.
We were able to hire great talent just by promising that we'd never ask our staff to work weekends and hardly ever after 7pm on a workday. We had mostly US clients so that was an easy thing for us to day.
This culture shifted a bit when stories of young agency people in Hong Kong and other Asian cities dying from exhaustion became a big deal 4-5 years ago. But its still very workaholic culture.
Don't get me wrong, Americans work insane hours compared to Indonesians or the French, but parts of Asia is a whole other level of madness.
Re: How hustle culture took over advertising
#29As a professional diesel mechanic, I find most of the points in this article pretty difficult to understand outside the context of, say, Hollywood? or maybe iPhones? Do programmers really have to show this kind of reckless drive? This hasnt been a thing in tradecraft since...forever i dont think...and if it is, its punished pretty severely.
An example: if im rebuilding the idler and pitman assembly on a fourteen ton truck, theres no hustle. there is no competition to do it "the fastest." You do it right, because if that assembly fails in a turn you could cause a pretty horrible accident. Depending on what that professional driver hauls (benzene, chlorine, pesticides, etc...), you might find your "hustle" on the evening news as the police evacuate some poor suburb.
If you're writing a web application, shouldnt you take care to make sure its secure and well written? Just because nobody had to pick hair out of a windshield doesnt mean a hacked webapp doesnt ruin just as many lives.
Re: How hustle culture took over advertising
#30Just some random thoughts here...this strikes me as a consequence of the contemporary idea of work having to be the end-all to one’s identity, purpose and meaning in life. Advertising, perhaps the ‘original’ fundamentally meaningless career field to spawn from consumer capitalism, used to be mostly about just communicating your product/service. Eventually it morphed into lifestyle marketing and at this point has reac…
>> advertising workers themselves have drunk the Koolaid that used to only be peddled to consumers
Please don't blame the victim. The slaves have no choice, they have to dance like their masters require them to. The "choice" to quit their jobs simply doesn't exist since there are fewer and fewer jobs for more and more hungry and desperate poor (payed just to live to another paycheck, making sure they end up in the streets should they put up some resistance at the pressure to dance as they are told).