Do those of us not cool enough to know already get to find out what 996 means?
"Work nine to nine, six days a week"
996
101–110 of 561 posts
Re: 996
#102I don't understand this expectation that employees work more, and stigma if you go home on time, yet we don't have a corresponding stigma for when the amount of money that reaches my account is "only" what we agreed my salary would be.
I don't understand this expectation that employees work more, and stigma if you go home on time, yet we don't have a corresponding stigma for when the amount of money that reaches my account is "only" what we agreed my salary would be. Since I'm (mostly) work-from-home, my wifi router is configured to firewall my work devices outside of working hours. This is frustrating for the IT department because it likes to push…
I had a huge row with my prospective US investment banking client manager because we had a conversation that went something like "we'll pay you for 8 hours but we expect you to work 10" (or 12). I said, why lie immdiately in our contract? We could try adjusting the expected hours or the hourly rate or both...
Anyhow I got to be paid for the hours that I actually did for well over a decade on off IIRC, and survived most of the purges of consultants/contractors there over the years, so demanding honesty from management was apparently survivable even if unusual!
Re: 996
#103[deleted]
Re: 996
#104I've found I just loan time from tomorrow's morning if I stay up late working on something. If you're in a good flow, it could be worth it. Other than that, you're likely to be underwater on the loan.
Borrowing productivity from the future is how I feel about my career as a whole. I spent 30 years working stressful 70-80 hour weeks, only to burn out completely in my late 40s. From high achiever to practically zero executive function. Like my ability to get into a flow state blew a fuse and now I can't get there. Meanwhile all my peers who kept a healthy work-life balance in their 20s and 30s are still doing great.
Re: 996
#105If you don’t want to grind, don’t pick a career where only the toughest survive—like startups. In China, programmers get massages. You could be giving the massages. I’m not smart, but I worked 7 days a week for a decade. It takes me 40 hours just to warm up, so real work means 100-hour weeks. Yet I’ve built 3 startups, 2 unicorns. In both, I was the dumbest person in the room—but I outworked everyone.
My brother, if you are taking 40 hours to get to the state where you're warmed up, maybe look into that first.
Re: 996
#106When founders put 996 in their job descriptions or Tweet about their 996 culture it’s a helpful signal to avoid that company. The only time I’d actually consider crazy schedules was if I was the founder with a huge equity stake and a once in a lifetime opportunity that would benefit from a short period of 996. For average employees? Absolutely not. If someone wants extraordinary hours they need to be providing extrao…
If you're smart enough to get hired for one of these roles, and you're willing to work 996, be just a little bit smarter and found your own startup and take all the upside.
Re: 996
#107These times really do feel like those once-in-a-century redefinitions of work and labor, similar to how we got Child Labor Laws and 40-hour work weeks from the labor movement early last century. Intrinsically, more people are realizing that the former social contract was long ago fed into a shredder, and that the lack of a formal contract will have consequences. Technology broke down the 40-hour work week by enabling…
I have absolutely zero faith that the current political ruling class will “come to their senses”.
All you have to do is observe their current behavior and you will come to the same conclusion.
When billionaires show you who they are, believe them the first time.
They have not lived through a depression and neither have they lived through any major world wars. They will be curious to see how bad it can get and they believe they will remain untouched from it.
Re: 996
#108why would i work 996 if i don't have ownership
The standard answer from owners: You work on something you're really passionate about, and are willing to sacrifice your own time for "the mission", "changing the world", or whatever they frame it is.
Some founders really do hype up their B2B SAAS product as the the Apollo program, and so naturally any engineer will work around the clock to put man on the moon.
Re: 996
#109[dead]
Re: 996
#110When founders put 996 in their job descriptions or Tweet about their 996 culture it’s a helpful signal to avoid that company. The only time I’d actually consider crazy schedules was if I was the founder with a huge equity stake and a once in a lifetime opportunity that would benefit from a short period of 996. For average employees? Absolutely not. If someone wants extraordinary hours they need to be providing extrao…
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