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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

#231

Post by balfirevic »

seppin wrote: post #230
drilldrive wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people unfortunately refer to Europe when they mean north-west Europe or even the Nordic countries alone.

Yes sorry I was being sloppy with language, I was describing northern/Germanic Europe. Southern Europe has their own rules

I still find it hard to believe that it's universal across all or even most companies in (for example) Germany. Do software shops there not have Playstation/table tennis/table football or whatever that people use to take a break during working hours?

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

#232

Post by Noumenon72 »

nullandvoid wrote: post #81
secfirstmd wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Qbserve

Thanks this sounds like something I'd like to try - are there any others you considered whilst looking around as that is mac only and I'm Windows unfltunately ( or any one else in this thread do something similar )

I'm using Timeular which is an octahedron with erasable sides. It tracks whichever side is facing up. You just have to remember to flip it, which is a good way to notice 'hey, should I really be switching tasks'?

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

#233

Post by kelnos »

munk-a wrote: post #102
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.

Nobody should be forced to work 75 hrs to put food on the table, it's dehumanizing and we, as a society, have enough wealth to make sure everyone can live a minimally enjoyable life.

Not sure where you're reading that in what I said.

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

#234

Post by kelnos »

Robotbeat wrote: post #145
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you care to elaborate?

Doing something that’s essential to society but which requires enormous amount of individual sacrifice and cost. Voluntarily.

If the majority of people's stated reason for having children was to ensure the survival of the human race, maybe that argument would hold water.

But most people's desire to have children center around selfish things, like continuing their family line, or because their parents want grandkids, or because "that's just what you do to get to the next life stage", or because their religion pushes them to, or "John and Jane have such a beautiful child and I want one too", or because they want a small version of themselves that will love them, or truly foolish things like believing a child will save a bad marriage.

And I'm not even saying selfish acts are bad! People do selfish things all the time, and as long as those things don't harm anyone else, so what? But I wish people would give more thought to the social, financial, physical, emotional, and mental implications of having a child before doing so, rather than just taking it as a given that it's what they're supposed to do.

At least there are some people who have kids because they genuinely want to nurture, educate, and mentor a new human, but I'd be hard pressed to find someone who'd say "to ensure the future of humanity" is one of their top reasons for having children.

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

#235

Post by kelnos »

sidlls wrote: post #152
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Children are literally the entities that make our shared future viable. If we don't reproduce at a sufficient rate we literally, as a species, will not be able to sustain our own existence. And considering how much more personally expensive (both in yes of resources and one's self) we have made raising children over the years it's the absolute opposite of selfish to have them.

How many people have you met that tell you that they're having children because they want to ensure the future of humanity? I'd bet not many, if any at all.

What you describe might be considered selfless, most parents have kids for fairly selfish reasons. There's (usually) nothing wrong with that, of course, but let's not try to paint a rosy picture that doesn't exist.

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

#236

Post by kelnos »

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.

> Work is optional. There are plenty of people who get by without it.

You must live in a very different world than most people do if that's the norm among your peer group.

> And for society to continue to function having children is actually not optional.

At a macro level, sure (though a slow, steady reduction in population over the next few generations might do the planet some good), but on the individual level, it's absolutely optional.

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

#237

Post by kelnos »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #167
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.

having a child is ...optional A high percentage of children are not planned. They are a natural consequence of sex, which Mother Nature sneakily designed to be desirable in its own right, whether people wanted babies or not. Most of human sexual morality seems to be rooted in this inconvenient, annoying fact of life.

Accidents happen, sure. Education, availability, and consistent use of contraception is nowhere near where it should be (and even where it is, it's not foolproof). And when contraception fails, access to abortion can be difficult depending on local regulation, and many people have an aversion to that option for various reasons. But none of that changes the fact that having a child is indeed optional.

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

#238

Post by kelnos »

beart wrote: post #76
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.

> Except that having a child is an optional activity that you choose to do I get what you are saying, but this is not a universal truth. Life gets complicated.

The last time I was reading on this topic, around 10% of kids are actually unwanted -- that is, one or both parents did not want to ever have kids, or did not want to have more kids. Most kids are planned to some degree. For the remainder that aren't, the couple does want to have kids at some point, but they didn't plan to have kids at that particular time.

Regardless, children are optional, full stop. There are certainly reasons why people who don't plan to have kids end up having them anyway, but that doesn't change the fact that it's an optional activity.

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

#239

Post by sjg007 »

new299 wrote: post #150
gwbas1c wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent who added a second child when my first was 2 and a half, I think you're doing it wrong. A year later, both children are still extremely demanding. It's all about setting limits and knowing when to bend them, like last night when my daughter finally figured out how to wake herself up in the middle of the night to go poop. That's one of the rare sleepless nights that's worth it. Otherwise, knowing how you s…

The advice is interesting, but I don’t think warrant telling someone “they’re doing it wrong”. Your extrapolating from your experience with 2 children. Children are difficult and often respond differently to the same techniques. However if you wanted to show that a particular technique is superior in the majority of cases, some data would be useful. In general, the workload of parenting is underestimated. This is som…

I think the real problem is that almost all parents have no experience in early childhood development. They sort of learn as they go and infer the good things that happened to them. Parents are by no means early childhood development experts. Just like you go to a medical doctor you can find professionals who can help.

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

#240

Post by sjg007 »

johnm1019 wrote: post #101
rexpop wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a child is optional for individuals, but not for society, and so it's really only "pseudo-optional" for individuals: there is some distributed portion of requirement on everyone.

I wish there was more discussion about how society should recognize and handle this. Much of modern society is orthogonal to parenting and raising children, I would love to see it addressed more in the public discourse -- maybe even "disrupted" by tech so we can be thrice better parents, citizens, and workers.

I mean, I see government having a role here. Both in developing pro child development resources and policies. Europe is way ahead of the US for example. Some US states are way better than others as well.
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