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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

#111

Post by booleandilemma »

osrec wrote: post #14

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. Oftent…

This reminds me of the people I know who claim they haven’t slept in 2 days or some such nonsense.

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

#112

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#113

Post by watermelongunn »

kelnos wrote: post #75
kansface wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats only 750K$ - roughly have the price of a house in the Bay Area before taxes (maybe just enough for the down payment).

... and also consider that taxes (self-employment tax etc.) and expenses (health insurance) are higher when you're a contractor. You'll be lucky to see half that figure hit your bank account.

I'll give you that health insurance is more expensive as a contractor (though not enough to significantly cut into $750k), but if your taxes are also higher then you really need to talk to a good CPA. If you are doing it right, paying less in taxes is one of the BENEFITS of being self-employed.

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

#114

Post by sidlls »

jolmg wrote: post #95
sidlls wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work is optional. There are plenty of people who get by without it. Doesn't mean they're doing well or healthy. And for society to continue to function having children is actually not optional.

> Work is optional. There are plenty of people who get by without it. Doesn't mean they're doing well or healthy. Except if you don't have a kid, you have better chances of staying well and healthy. That's the whole point. That's what is meant with parenthood being optional and work not. > And for society to continue to function having children is actually not optional. With the rate at which world population is incr…

Your argument is about the reproduction rate, not whether it's optional.

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

#116

Post by yeukhon »

arosier wrote: post #21

This happened to me. I was working 40 hours per week but saying I was working 75 hours per week (without really measuring it). Then I got a second job which made it more important to manage my time effectively (including measuring my time). With the second job, I actually started working 72 hours per week and realized how hard it is to work that much time due to the necessities in life (sleeping, eating/shopping, bat…

I used to really work 70-100 hours of week. You would see me responding to Nagios emails at 3am. Mind we didn’t use PagerDuty. I enjoyed it because I had nothing to do outside of work. After three years I ended up choosing a different job and have a better wlb.

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

#117

Post by rdm_blackhole »

sidlls wrote: post #80
kelnos wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that having a child is an optional activity that you choose to do, whereas going to work is (usually) required. Ideally that work doesn't include periods of extreme overwork, and lucky people are sometimes able to walk away from jobs that do, but many people just have to do it in order to put food on the table.

Work is optional. There are plenty of people who get by without it. Doesn't mean they're doing well or healthy. And for society to continue to function having children is actually not optional.

That's only if our current economic model stays the same. At the moment most developed countries rely on immigration to create growth by adding more consumers.

However, it is changing, as the world develops, fewer people are born and within a century our population growth will flatten and our global population will even decline to the 2000's level.

Children should not be made just to keep society going. That's quite a selfish reason to have a child, to be honest.

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

#118

Post by seppin »

luminati wrote: post #115

Well Marissa Mayers claims to have worked 130 hour work weeks[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-on-1...

> "the hardest working CEO in Silicon Valley, bar none."

i'm sorry but she was early stage at Google, what since then has all that hard work gotten her?

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

#119

Post by KC8ZKF »

Thlom wrote: post #90
osrec wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too was one of those unhealthy looking, overworked bankers. I was promoted at a young age and had a lot to prove, so I overdid it for a year or two. Then I understood the secret the other MDs had known for years - you just have to look busy, not actually be busy!

When I was working construction many years ago there was an urban legend about a guy that always looked busy running around with some tools, but no one ever saw him actually working. Turned out he used to find himself a hidden spot at the site and sleep there most of the day. Just making sure to walk across the site with tools once in a while.

I learned as a young sailor that if you always had a broom in your hand, nobody would find something for you to do.

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

#120

Post by seppin »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #3

And even if they do spend 75 hours at their workplace, they're probably spending far less than 40 actually working. (says the guy posting on HN instead of actually working).

> And even if they do spend 75 hours at their workplace, they're probably spending far less than 40 actually working.

Interesting, in Europe the hours are less but you are expected to work every minute you are there. In America you are expected to physically stay longer but being on FB/Reddit is no big deal.

Sounds like a bad way of doing things.

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