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People Who Claim to Work 75-Hour Weeks Usually Only Work About 50 Hours

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Re: People Who Claim to Work 75-Hour Weeks Usually Only Work About 50 Hours

#11

Post by S_A_P »

drugme wrote: post #9
S_A_P wrote: post #5

I’m currently working legit 65-70 hours per week. We have a hard stop that costs millions if we miss. It basically means 6am-6pm Monday through Saturday. I’m not as productive as when I work less but there is a net win in productivity. I don’t think I can do this for much more than a few months. I can already tell it has markedly harmed my health. Being stressed for months at a time is hard.

I can already tell it has markedly harmed my health. What salary or other payout is worth "markedly harming" your health, actually?

A pretty good hourly rate actually. I am definitely treating this as a sprint. And for the following 2 years I have lined up 35-40hour per week work. This will allow for a significant runway when the project ends as well. I’m hoping to have 12months salary in the bank.

Re: People Who Claim to Work 75-Hour Weeks Usually Only Work About 50 Hours

#12

Post by Theodores »

What is work anyway?

If you are a programmer then work is different. Sure you are not on your feet all day at the beck and call of customers, however, if you are not working then your computer is. Waiting is not supposed to be part of the job. Learning on the job is also verboten. Very little time that is on the company clock is spent travelling.

I have colleagues in sales that do lots of travel, then, when they are back in the office they spend the morning filling in expenses. Sure this is all work that the company needs someone to do and someone has got to go on those planes. I also know from experience that time spent travelling is tiring, but is it strictly work?

On the plane they could have the laptop out and be working on spreadsheets. Or they could be playing Angry Birds. Would one activity count as working and the other not?

If you are a security guard and are mostly monitoring the TV and kettle, how does that compare to the secretary that occupies the same desk by day, juggling phone calls with a constant stream of people needing assistance?

Or if you are a taxi driver working with half the day spent waiting for a fare. You could easily put in long hours doing that but how much of this work is actual work and how much of it is reading the newspaper?

With every long hours job in the Western world there are these job-specific factors to consider. If someone is doing extra shifts in a factory where there is a production line then I am far more willing to believe claims of long hours worked.

Re: People Who Claim to Work 75-Hour Weeks Usually Only Work About 50 Hours

#13

Post by mwfunk »

In my experience, when a workplace has a perpetual crunch time culture, little if any additional work gets done that wouldn't have gotten done if everyone stuck to 40 hour weeks. I'm very curious how true this is in 996 places. When someone knows that they're going to spend 12 hours in the office regardless of how much work is actually required, that time gets padded out a LOT with non-work stuff, both to preserve their own sanity and out of resentment for the expectation of 12 hour days.

Re: People Who Claim to Work 75-Hour Weeks Usually Only Work About 50 Hours

#14

Post by osrec »

Investment bankers will often claim this, while also lying about their salary.

I was often surprised by my colleagues claiming extra long work weeks, all while looking remarkable fresh. I couldn't work it out - I mean, if I worked a solid 14 hour day, you could see it clearly on my face, yet if they do it, they seem to develop a healthy glow. Turns out a lot of them were in the building, but not at their desk. Oftentimes they were in the gym/steam/sauna. That explained the healthy glow!

Re: People Who Claim to Work 75-Hour Weeks Usually Only Work About 50 Hours

#15

Post by [deleted] »

drugme wrote: post #9
S_A_P wrote: post #5

I’m currently working legit 65-70 hours per week. We have a hard stop that costs millions if we miss. It basically means 6am-6pm Monday through Saturday. I’m not as productive as when I work less but there is a net win in productivity. I don’t think I can do this for much more than a few months. I can already tell it has markedly harmed my health. Being stressed for months at a time is hard.

I can already tell it has markedly harmed my health. What salary or other payout is worth "markedly harming" your health, actually?

[deleted]

Re: People Who Claim to Work 75-Hour Weeks Usually Only Work About 50 Hours

#16

Post by [deleted] »

S_A_P wrote: post #11
drugme wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can already tell it has markedly harmed my health. What salary or other payout is worth "markedly harming" your health, actually?

A pretty good hourly rate actually. I am definitely treating this as a sprint. And for the following 2 years I have lined up 35-40hour per week work. This will allow for a significant runway when the project ends as well. I’m hoping to have 12months salary in the bank.

[deleted]

Re: People Who Claim to Work 75-Hour Weeks Usually Only Work About 50 Hours

#18

Post by danielb12345 »

mwfunk wrote: post #13

In my experience, when a workplace has a perpetual crunch time culture, little if any additional work gets done that wouldn't have gotten done if everyone stuck to 40 hour weeks. I'm very curious how true this is in 996 places. When someone knows that they're going to spend 12 hours in the office regardless of how much work is actually required, that time gets padded out a LOT with non-work stuff, both to preserve th…

I heard from people who work in that culture that it is more for show. Most people still browse YouTube/Reddit and stuff. When everything is an emergency, nothing is an emergency.

Re: People Who Claim to Work 75-Hour Weeks Usually Only Work About 50 Hours

#19

Post by cm2012 »

mwfunk wrote: post #13

In my experience, when a workplace has a perpetual crunch time culture, little if any additional work gets done that wouldn't have gotten done if everyone stuck to 40 hour weeks. I'm very curious how true this is in 996 places. When someone knows that they're going to spend 12 hours in the office regardless of how much work is actually required, that time gets padded out a LOT with non-work stuff, both to preserve th…

Japanese and Korean salaryman culture is 996 and notoriously unproductive.

Re: People Who Claim to Work 75-Hour Weeks Usually Only Work About 50 Hours

#20

Post by darkr »

rogerkirkness wrote: post #2

Actually working more than ~55 hours in a week is soul crushing and physically very hard. At a certain point you would need an escalation of stimulants or risk not being able to get out of bed if you actually worked 75 hours.

In my personal and subjective experience, working beyond 55 hours in a week is very doable... But it's absolutely not sustainable. I've found that doing it for more than 2-3 weeks in a row will generally result in declining productivity and burnout after that, requiring 2-3 weeks of 0-30 hour work weeks afterwards to recover.

Some hard learned lessons that I now adhere to:

* Don't push past 50 hours a week regularly

* If you do, cut your hours down to below 40 the following week, or even take some days off

* Take at least one full weekend off at least once per month

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