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

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

#51

Post by CP3f6kMA »

anonzzzies wrote: post #16
tokai wrote: 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…

> >[...] 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?

I'd wager that most workers doing 12 hour days aren't enjoying themselves.

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

#52

Post by tanjtanjtanj »

switchbak wrote: post #48
tanjtanjtanj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not calling into doubt the above poster's work estimates, there are people that work those hours, but I have found that it is extremely, extremely rare. Across all of the teams I have worked with I have found that if you ask someone how many hours a week they work they will typically say 40+, usually closer to 50. If you ask someone how much they worked the previous week, every week, they will usually say 30-35,…

I track my time, and you're just not right in my experience. And not of the majority of people I've worked with. Maybe this is an American thing, but this is certainly not universal. If you have enough experience and (something approximating) mastery of your craft, you can squeeze out a lot of good work in your 5-6 productive hours of work a day. I've never been impressed at the output from the folks working into the…

I'm confused, which part am I not right about? It seems like we agree based on your second paragraph.

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

#53

Post by Auracle »

jonas21 wrote: post #34
giantg2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here's the thing: working hard doesn't just benefit your employer. It also benefits you because you'll learn new skills rapidly. If your employer doesn't recognize the value you're adding, don't just sit around hoping for a raise someday. Use your new skills to find one who will. At least in my experience (as an engineer in the US), this is relatively easy and is considered a normal thing to do in one's career.

Not every job has 'more work = new skills.'

Usually it's just more of the same.

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

#54

Post by BossingAround »

sonicanatidae wrote: post #22

I would argue against this in the IT industry, but I'm a SysAdmin and we're not known for common sense when it comes to working hours. Lots of other sense, sure, but this? Not so much. In seriousness, I would like to see less of this. After working through most of my career this way, I would change it, if I did it over. To new SysAdmins or just hard-headed senior admins like me: It will still be there tomorrow.

> we're not known for common sense when it comes to working hours

Sorry, what does this mean? As in sysadmins are notorious for non-stop working? (I've never been a sysadmin and I don't know any sysadmin tropes.)

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

#55

Post by giantg2 »

Auracle wrote: post #53
jonas21 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing: working hard doesn't just benefit your employer. It also benefits you because you'll learn new skills rapidly. If your employer doesn't recognize the value you're adding, don't just sit around hoping for a raise someday. Use your new skills to find one who will. At least in my experience (as an engineer in the US), this is relatively easy and is considered a normal thing to do in one's career.

Not every job has 'more work = new skills.' Usually it's just more of the same.

Yeah, in my experience it's been more time on the system is more learning, but not in hours. It's usually the unusual errors that are the most interesting and informative, but those tend to happen over a fixed time and not hour dependent.

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

#56

Post by sonicanatidae »

BossingAround wrote: post #54
sonicanatidae wrote: post #22

I would argue against this in the IT industry, but I'm a SysAdmin and we're not known for common sense when it comes to working hours. Lots of other sense, sure, but this? Not so much. In seriousness, I would like to see less of this. After working through most of my career this way, I would change it, if I did it over. To new SysAdmins or just hard-headed senior admins like me: It will still be there tomorrow.

> we're not known for common sense when it comes to working hours Sorry, what does this mean? As in sysadmins are notorious for non-stop working? (I've never been a sysadmin and I don't know any sysadmin tropes.)

Yes. We work normal shifts, but also, the very best time to work on servers is after hours/holidays, etc. so we tend to work a lot of both.

We also tend towards ownership of the gear, so it becomes a little personal. It's also a bit of professional pride.

I worked as the Director of IT for 3 hospitals over my career in acute care. I maintained 99%+ uptime on these systems, since this is acute care. I'm proud of that, but man that was a lot of work.

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

#57

Post by alfalfasprout »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

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 didn't seem to miss out on a social life and I had no burn out or resentment to speak of from those days

Correction: you don't really know what you missed out on or don't value those things.

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

#58

Post by n_ary »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

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 said yes to almost all the work I could get. My bosses loved me and I got raises/promotions faster than anyone else.

That culture of “hardwork = reward” is long behind us. Instead of being the “guy who reliably gets things done whatever you throw at them”, I advise on saving one’s sanity and avoid potential burnout by finding a friendly place where they enjoy and have power to make decisions(yes, place exists where even interns can offer decisions and make impacts) and focus on work-life balance more. We are no longer in the golden era.

Also, if one is smart enough to find the vein of the gold mine and settle there, one can learn more with balanced effort compared to working too hard or too much.

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

#60

Post by DiggyJohnson »

tanjtanjtanj wrote: post #52
switchbak wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I track my time, and you're just not right in my experience. And not of the majority of people I've worked with. Maybe this is an American thing, but this is certainly not universal. If you have enough experience and (something approximating) mastery of your craft, you can squeeze out a lot of good work in your 5-6 productive hours of work a day. I've never been impressed at the output from the folks working into the…

I'm confused, which part am I not right about? It seems like we agree based on your second paragraph.

Agreed with your confusion. I do think you guys are making similar points.
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