Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nymag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 243 posts

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

#121

Post by Robotbeat »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #117
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.

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…

That’s the opposite of selfish.

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

#122

Post by airstrike »

seppin wrote: post #118
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?

Damn near bankrupting Yahoo!

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

#123

Post by osrec »

buybackoff wrote: post #110
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…

From my experience gym/steam/sauna is probably the only structured activity you have other than work, and probably "too weak vacation" if you are lucky. And those are just required to be physically functional. 5x12 in the office at PC/phone is absolute minimum, then one of the two weekends, usually Sunday, you catch up and prepare for the next week because during other days there is too much client work (in a general…

Was your experience as a junior? I concur that this can often be the routine for junior team members, who get sold a false sense of importance for the work they do.

Rarely is this the routine for senior team members. Many of the most senior people I worked with only showed up if something bad had happened, or they knew their seniors were going to be around. One member of the board that I reported to only turned up for a day in the entire year, and that was for a meeting with FINMA! That also happened to be the only time I saw his boss in the office... It seems everyone's just taking the piss wherever possible.

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

#125

Post by buybackoff »

osrec wrote: post #123
buybackoff wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my experience gym/steam/sauna is probably the only structured activity you have other than work, and probably "too weak vacation" if you are lucky. And those are just required to be physically functional. 5x12 in the office at PC/phone is absolute minimum, then one of the two weekends, usually Sunday, you catch up and prepare for the next week because during other days there is too much client work (in a general…

Was your experience as a junior? I concur that this can often be the routine for junior team members, who get sold a false sense of importance for the work they do. Rarely is this the routine for senior team members. Many of the most senior people I worked with only showed up if something bad had happened, or they knew their seniors were going to be around. One member of the board that I reported to only turned up fo…

Yes, that's an analyst experience. More senior people just travel half of the time and do client facing work. But to my surprise our MD left office usually just 1-2 hours earlier that everyone else when he was not travelling and he was also available till very late for important tasks that required his attention even from us. He was also always ON and had a lot of different work, not monkey work at Excel/email.

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

#126

Post by perl4ever »

jolmg wrote: post #106
gilleain wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

7 billion , not trillion

:P Thanks. Fun Fact I learned from that link: Supposedly, we'll be reaching our first trillion sometime between 2050 and 2060. That's actually pretty close.

If the world population is 7 billion now and will be 1,000 billion around 2055, then by my math (142.9^(1/36)) that's a growth rate of 14.8% a year. Since the current growth rate is (based on the first few hits on Google) a little over 1%, I wonder why someone would expect it to go up that drastically. Especially with global warming and everything.

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

#127

Post by anitil »

deadbunny wrote: post #68

I recently started turning up at around 10 and leaving at 4:45 and I get just as much done as when I was in the office 9-6. I've also started giving more fucks about work, which is amusing as I started showing up late and leaving early due to my lack of fucks. So in my unsanctioned (and I'm sure time limited once someone complains) experiment with a sample size of one I can say shorter days definitely keep me more en…

Just a quick warning - I've heard plenty of people complain that once they ran out of their allotted fucks at work, they ended up getting promoted. Apparently speaking your mind does that sometimes.

So beware.

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

#128

Post by osrec »

war1025 wrote: post #70
deadbunny wrote: post #68

I recently started turning up at around 10 and leaving at 4:45 and I get just as much done as when I was in the office 9-6. I've also started giving more fucks about work, which is amusing as I started showing up late and leaving early due to my lack of fucks. So in my unsanctioned (and I'm sure time limited once someone complains) experiment with a sample size of one I can say shorter days definitely keep me more en…

This has been my standard work day for ~4 years. I've found people don't complain as long as you get things done.

If you work in a large corporate, people will complain, especially if you get this done. It sorta highlights the inefficiencies of the punctual, yet less productive employees, and they don't like it.

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

#129

Post by ska »

kelnos wrote: post #85
ska wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I've heard that argument before. I've asked before if the research shows the problem is handoffs per se, or the protocol around them, but haven't had a good answer. There also doesn't seem to be good research into the longer term impact of these negative consequences on the practitioners. I've worked around clinicians and clinical staff, and several times been surprised how much is left to personal memory and sc…

I have several friends who are doctors or nurses, and have talked with most of them about this. They all parrot the "doctor/nurse-patient continuity" line, but when pressed as to whether fewer handoffs actually outweigh the effects of exhaustion on outcomes, they all seem to take it as a given that it does, without being able to support it. I suspect that, even if fewer handoffs does take an edge over exhaustion, the…

It’s really interesting to do workflow analysis in clinical settings. It’s not uncommon to run into “we do it this way because that’s the way we’ve always done it” situations.

There is also a bit of machismo/pride for the shifts worked thing, which isn’t helpful.

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

#130

Post by osrec »

buybackoff wrote: post #125
osrec wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was your experience as a junior? I concur that this can often be the routine for junior team members, who get sold a false sense of importance for the work they do. Rarely is this the routine for senior team members. Many of the most senior people I worked with only showed up if something bad had happened, or they knew their seniors were going to be around. One member of the board that I reported to only turned up fo…

Yes, that's an analyst experience. More senior people just travel half of the time and do client facing work. But to my surprise our MD left office usually just 1-2 hours earlier that everyone else when he was not travelling and he was also available till very late for important tasks that required his attention even from us. He was also always ON and had a lot of different work, not monkey work at Excel/email.

I eventually became an MD. Yes I was always "on", but once I figured out the tricks, I didn't do very much real work at all. It was more about not rocking the boat, and keeping a nice set of senior allies who could support me as and when needed. Basically, politics.
Post reply on HN