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Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide

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11–20 of 88 posts

Re: Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide

#11
post #6

I think this is more about manual labour but I'll take the opposite side when it comes to white collar work that working more hours can be better early on in your career. When I was just out of school and in my early 20s I worked as much as I could, I probably did close to 12 hours days in my 20s. I think I probably averaged an all nighter a month for a few years and worked at least one day on weekends and I loved ev…

You had no burnout or resentment because you had an enjoyable working environment with what sound like just rewards and you were able to learn valuable things. That's pretty rare in my experience. My anecdotal evidence is the opposite. I worked extra hours and volunteered for a long time. I took responsibility for things nobody else wanted. My raises and bonuses were trivial. I had one promotion early on from entry l…

Did you advocate for yourself? Doing good work is half the battle. The other half is "sales and marketing" i.e making sure that people are aware that you're a good worker.

Re: Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide

#13

I think this is more about manual labour but I'll take the opposite side when it comes to white collar work that working more hours can be better early on in your career. When I was just out of school and in my early 20s I worked as much as I could, I probably did close to 12 hours days in my 20s. I think I probably averaged an all nighter a month for a few years and worked at least one day on weekends and I loved ev…

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Re: Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide

#14

I think this is more about manual labour but I'll take the opposite side when it comes to white collar work that working more hours can be better early on in your career. When I was just out of school and in my early 20s I worked as much as I could, I probably did close to 12 hours days in my 20s. I think I probably averaged an all nighter a month for a few years and worked at least one day on weekends and I loved ev…

Can I ask how much of that time you were in a relationship for? I have a theory that men who achieve a steady, loving relationship early that allows them to do what you did have a huge advantage.

I did the 12 hour days and all nighters too but I eventually got lonely and needed to spend a few years learning how to be social and find a relationship. Now I've found that I'm able to resume the many hours of work and it definitely seems to pay dividends. But I wouldn't be able to do it if I was preoccupied with sex and relationships.

Re: Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide

#15

If we worked zero hours, then zero people would die from working. See also: "we lowered the speed limit and get X fewer deaths on the road".

Those two.scenarois dont compare well,because people can still drive just fine at a lower speed...

Re: Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide

#16
post #4
post #3

How does the long work day cause the death? Is it fatigue related accidents or something else?

>We concluded that working long hours is associated with depressive state, anxiety, sleep condition, and coronary heart disease. https://www.sjweh.fi/download.php?abstract_id=3388&file_nro=... >The evidence that long working hours are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease is accumulating and suggests a small risk. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11886-018-1049-9 >[...] working long hours is associated w…

> >[...] working long hours is associated with an elevated risk of early cardiovascular death and hospital-treated infections before age 65.

But that sounds more like stress, depression and burnout which releases cortisol which causes inflammation right? If you work 12+ hours/day with 0 stress and only enjoyment, will the outcome be the same?

Re: Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide

#17
post #8
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We concluded that working long hours is associated with depressive state, anxiety, sleep condition, and coronary heart disease. https://www.sjweh.fi/download.php?abstract_id=3388&file_nro=... >The evidence that long working hours are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease is accumulating and suggests a small risk. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11886-018-1049-9 >[...] working long hours is associated w…

Thanks! I'll have to read these. Seems like a lot of those conditions have been correlated with other attributes, such as lower income, etc. I wonder if working longer hours is really just a result of things like money problems causing the stress causing other issues.

Just grabbed a selection of both new and a bit older articles from okay sources. There is a lot of studies and reviews on the subject. Try checking for articles citing those three if you want to dive deeper. I believe it should be a good jumping off point.

Re: Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide

#18

If we worked zero hours, then zero people would die from working. See also: "we lowered the speed limit and get X fewer deaths on the road".

Flawed logic. Lowering the speed limit does not reduce the time spent on the road, yet fewer people die.

Re: Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide

#19

I think this is more about manual labour but I'll take the opposite side when it comes to white collar work that working more hours can be better early on in your career. When I was just out of school and in my early 20s I worked as much as I could, I probably did close to 12 hours days in my 20s. I think I probably averaged an all nighter a month for a few years and worked at least one day on weekends and I loved ev…

I worked pretty hard in my 20s as well, but always in a comfy way. I never pulled all nighters, I luckily worked in markets where there wasn't much need for that. I could make myself work late evenings, but never past when I wanted to sleep. If I was tired the next evening, I'd turn in early. I would say the thing that made it work was not having kids, and having autonomy over when to work and when to take it easy. I can honestly say I learned more in those years than ever before or since.

My housemate worked in investment banking, much longer hours than me, with a fair bit of pressure to be awake when you want to be sleeping. The kind of job where you don't do much during the day, the MD comes in at 6pm, and tells you to make 100 slides by the next day, which he then doesn't use for a couple of days despite the juniors having stayed up all night. Grinding, and all the people who did it got visibly heavier.

Re: Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide

#20

I think this is more about manual labour but I'll take the opposite side when it comes to white collar work that working more hours can be better early on in your career. When I was just out of school and in my early 20s I worked as much as I could, I probably did close to 12 hours days in my 20s. I think I probably averaged an all nighter a month for a few years and worked at least one day on weekends and I loved ev…

> I was able to compress 10 years of experience into about half that time.

Not a dig, as you're incredibly driven and intelligent to achieve all of the above; I will say this can backfire early, for as painful as those 20 YOE first year x20 types are it's much, much worse to endure the HR hurdles from being the opposite.

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