As a mid-40s year old male, I can assure you that working 70+ hours a week will eventually kill you. Your body will respond in ways you never expected in your youth. And it's insidious. It will sneak up on you and catch up to you when you least expect it. If you're lucky, there will be time to take corrective action.
My First Job: Fired and Rehired on Day 1
71–80 of 116 posts
Re: My First Job: Fired and Rehired on Day 1
#72I feel like I'm a different species when I hear someone excited about working 80+ hours a week. Having so little free time and so little time to spend with friends and family seems like a sad life regardless of the paycheck. I agree with this: "Have a passion for Doing something rather than Being a title on a business card." I also agree that "Showing up a lot increases your odds" (in this case meaning working a lot…
I think it's easy for most people to agree that 80 hour work-weeks are typically bugs, not features - especially as they often seem to be a symptom of a dysfunctional working environment. > Life outside of work is, for many of us, far more meaningful than work. There seems to be a meme that this should be the case. My work is extremely meaningful to me, and my work place is extremely not-dysfunctional and no boss is…
"But focusing on that number alone"
"there is no merit in working 80 hours for the sake of working 80 hours"
Bad managers beg to differ with you.
Inevitably this turns into MBA disease where you rank workers by the hours present. Your boss deathmarches you for 85 hours a week and his competition only deathmarches his workers for 75 hours? Guess who's getting the bigger annual bonus, Mr 85 hours of course. You're only willing to work 75 hours, what are you not a team player (aka why aren't you willing to destroy yourself to make me richer)?
Its very hard for someone who doesn't know anything about a domain specific subject to evaluate the quality of a specialist worker. On the other hand its pretty easy to record, graph, chart, and rate number of hours. Half of all managers by definition are below the median; 50:50 odds aren't looking so good.
The worst possible outcome is when professional goals and workplace metrics don't align. So I could do that in 40 hours of serious head down grinding, which would be OK if I only had to be in the office for 40 hours, but worker has to be present for 80 hours to meet the metric goal of appearing busy to show off to the other managers and get that bonus. Wish I could be learning a new language or technology or playing games sitting out on my patio at home for some of those 30-40 hours/week. Well, back to checking social media sites and watching cat videos so the time can get marked off as "present". Unless you're all open plan office in which case you either have to not give a F and do it anyway, or be very stealthy, or most likely just socialize and do busywork. Also over 50 or so hours work quality takes a sharp dive, so at 60 hours you're probably actually accomplishing less than if you worked 40, so now you "need" to work 70, which results in even less milestones accomplished, inevitably the negative feedback loop spirals out of control until you're present for the maximum physical possible time, yet accomplishing basically nothing.
Re: My First Job: Fired and Rehired on Day 1
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's easy for most people to agree that 80 hour work-weeks are typically bugs, not features - especially as they often seem to be a symptom of a dysfunctional working environment. > Life outside of work is, for many of us, far more meaningful than work. There seems to be a meme that this should be the case. My work is extremely meaningful to me, and my work place is extremely not-dysfunctional and no boss is…
"But focusing on that number alone" "there is no merit in working 80 hours for the sake of working 80 hours" Bad managers beg to differ with you. Inevitably this turns into MBA disease where you rank workers by the hours present. Your boss deathmarches you for 85 hours a week and his competition only deathmarches his workers for 75 hours? Guess who's getting the bigger annual bonus, Mr 85 hours of course. You're only…
"I think it's easy for most people to agree that 80 hour work-weeks are typically bugs, not features - especially as they often seem to be a symptom of a dysfunctional working environment."
Re: My First Job: Fired and Rehired on Day 1
#74> Two weeks before the class was over, the head of the deployment team asked, “Steve, are you single?” Yes. “Do you like to travel?” Sure. “Why don’t you come to Korea with us when we ship the system overseas.” The first of those questions was completely unnecessary, and invited a potential employment discrimination lawsuit; it fairly directly implies they might not have made the offer if he wasn't. It would have suf…
The weirdest part of the meta discussion is the fixation on legality rather than morality of finding out if someone is single.
Also its an extremely bad business strategy. Take a single dude who probably loves the night life to Korea on a deployment, what could possibly go wrong? If you're planning a party that sounds like a fun plan. On the other hand I hate traveling, so if you pick me I'll get that system up and running faster than any human being on the planet, which sounds highly profitable.
Re: My First Job: Fired and Rehired on Day 1
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
The UK negotiated an opt out to the 48 hour maximum enforced by the European Working Time directive, though as you say it's something the individual has to agree to (though that can be just by agreeing to a job that stipulates the opt out in the contract). I live in the UK and work in IT and have never had a contract that didn't automatically opt me out of it, however my wife is a doctor and they're all covered by it…
> (though that can be just by agreeing to a job that stipulates the opt out in the contract) That would probably fall foul of the regulations.
The contract is fine but a worker can cancel the opt out if they wished (in writing, giving I think 7 days notice) and (in theory at least) they can't be discriminated against for doing so.
Worth noting too that the average of 48 hours a week is calculated over 17 weeks so under even under a WTD compliant agreement you could have someone work a month of 60 hour weeks so long as you reverted to 40 hour weeks for a while after to bring the average back down.
Re: My First Job: Fired and Rehired on Day 1
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
"But focusing on that number alone" "there is no merit in working 80 hours for the sake of working 80 hours" Bad managers beg to differ with you. Inevitably this turns into MBA disease where you rank workers by the hours present. Your boss deathmarches you for 85 hours a week and his competition only deathmarches his workers for 75 hours? Guess who's getting the bigger annual bonus, Mr 85 hours of course. You're only…
"I think it's easy for most people to agree that 80 hour work-weeks are typically bugs, not features - especially as they often seem to be a symptom of a dysfunctional working environment."
I think, that you think, that I think, that we disagree, but actually I agree with your post and wish to extend it to show that 80-hour weeks not only don't align with personal success as per your well written post, but also 80 hours weeks do not align with organizational/business success.
Re: My First Job: Fired and Rehired on Day 1
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe here they don't, but I think generally people see things your way. I don't, and I didn't, even before I got into 'tech' and started reading HN. For me, the statement 'life outside of work is more meaningful than work' just doesn't make sense. While I do treat 'work time' slightly differently than 'free time', the difference is not so great for me. It's mostly to keep some ritual and prevent weeks turning into l…
Not everyone enjoys their work. It's a sad reality. Most of us are just lucky enough to keep a monthly paycheck in our chosen fields at a rate that is almost a living wage. Having said that, and I don't mean this as a slight to you or your particular lifestyle, do you have a significant other or children? This is probably a key question when talking about work/life balance. Because, as with all things, it's very impo…
No offense taken. I do not have children and currently no SO, and I do realize that this makes a big difference. As I mentioned, I do understand that not everyone has the luxury of finding 'nice' work. What I said applies mainly to those that DO have this luxury. I just think a lot of people, especially in Western Europe, have this luxury and don't use it.
Shouldn't the knowledge that your freedom is likely to diminish as you get older actually motivate one to not lock into a particular job directly post-college, but instead do everything to ensure that you're on a right 'track'? It just seems so important to make sure that the thing you do with most of your productive time is actually something you enjoy...
As for work/life balance: I'm by no means a workaholic most of the time. I work to save a bit, and I keep a low financial profile, and as a result I could potentially get by (currently) on even just two days of work a week. The reasons why I've worked hard were generally 1) saving/pension, 2) passionate about a project, or 3) saving to take significant time off to explore (which in turn often offered me new avenues of revenue or fulfllment)
But to provide some context. My main inspiration has come from a somewhat unusual childhood and the unusual lives of the adults that I grew up around, especially my parents. They went 'off the beaten path' early in life: young parents with three young children off to work in a developing nation (and before that basically volunteering). I believe this choice has been crucial in their path. It resulted in years of poverty and uncertainty, but they were young and happy, and found they didn't really need that much. And here in western europe, we have a pretty good welfare system for the real emergencies.
As a result, they developed something of an entrepreneurial/adventurous spirit and never quite got back to normal, even though they've been 'home' for the past decade.
Their entire approach to life just seems... different, and not primarily because of personality, but because they never went for the 'default'. They never lived above their means. They learned to be happy with very little.
My father has a 'regular' job nowadays, but it's something he's passionate about, and there has always been a certain fluidity in how he treats work and the rest of life. My mother started a business a few years ago (shop) and suddenly had to learn everything that comes with that.
What I always remember most is that despite growing up relatively poor, and despite a relative lack of security, despite serious illness and hardship, and despite a background that isn't all that great, they're among the most happy people I know. And I think it's primarily because their whole life has been an adventure that they faced together, with us, the kids, in tow. And I've met too many people like them to think they're just a lucky exception.
That said, I do not mean to imply that it is the only valid approach, or that this is an option for everyone. It's just that I'm baffled by how many people don't even try.
(also, as I'm getting older I'm becoming more and more convinced that having a family is one of the most gratifying things you can have in life, and at least something I deeply respect. I'll probably get me one of those eventually even if it does mean losing some 'freedom' :) )
Re: My First Job: Fired and Rehired on Day 1
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe here they don't, but I think generally people see things your way. I don't, and I didn't, even before I got into 'tech' and started reading HN. For me, the statement 'life outside of work is more meaningful than work' just doesn't make sense. While I do treat 'work time' slightly differently than 'free time', the difference is not so great for me. It's mostly to keep some ritual and prevent weeks turning into l…
People avoid talking about work on Fridays because for the most part it boring to listen to. That's not to say interesting things don't happen at work but for someone that's not directly involved making or missing say a major project deadline is irrelevant to them. And the specific's of designing a new CPU / Space Probe / Power Supply rarely interests someone in say Marketing. Sure after a few years you may pick up a…
That's true. But what this means is that I actively try to hold back from talking about work to avoid being a bore... but I still want to! The people I know that actively avoid it, often avoid because they just don't care for their job.
Re: My First Job: Fired and Rehired on Day 1
#79Can anyone summarize? I do not read linkedin articles.
I don't understand the elitism that happens around here about where content is located. It's fine to say that you don't use regularly Quora, LinkedIn, Facebook etc because the signal/noise ratio is bad or it's not something you want to sign up for. But to refuse to click a public link to even see what it is?
Clicking a link like that is essentially supporting the company. I don't think it's unreasonable to request a mirror somewhere (see pastebin below).
Re: My First Job: Fired and Rehired on Day 1
#80I feel like I'm a different species when I hear someone excited about working 80+ hours a week. Having so little free time and so little time to spend with friends and family seems like a sad life regardless of the paycheck. I agree with this: "Have a passion for Doing something rather than Being a title on a business card." I also agree that "Showing up a lot increases your odds" (in this case meaning working a lot…
I absolutely hate the idiots that praise long work. Praise hard work. Praise efficient work. If you're working 80 hours a week (and aren't a founder), then you are a chump.
The whole point of work is to fund your life. People lose sight of this and started romanticizing long hours.