High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours • Hacker News Board

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#261

Post by nebula8804 » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #44

tsunamifury wrote: post #25

Many men discovered over the course of the pandemic how much they actually loved spending time with their family and how unrewarding office life is. Unfortunately the powers that be have decided that this realization is incompatible with how the economy is set up to work, commuting office space work lunches and dinners etc. and so back to the office we will be forced to go.

Women have done the same. The dirty little secret of the current "labor shortage" is that the worker bees are no longer willing to over do it, for the same pay. The commitment to work is still there, but now more and more have reasonable boundaries.

While I agree with your assessment isn't there also a labor shortage caused by accelerated retirement of boomers + people passing away due to the pandemic? There are other factors as well such as wages not keeping up but I think that falls under your reason.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#262

Post by lasfter » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 6:41 PM UTC

kodah wrote: post #253

lasfter wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because people work in their own self-interest, and the interest of large business owners is always in conflict with their employees. Business owners want to extract maximum value from workers for minimum pay. It's unwise to think of business owners as left or right leaning, or to think their espoused politics are any indication of how they will act when push comes to shove. Owners are always perpetuating class…

Business have values and use politics to their advantage. Business owners are the same. Trying to eschew, or more directly what you're doing - excuse, the bad things people of a certain groups do while calling out anither isn't helpful.

My bad, I wasn't trying to excuse anything. Perhaps a better way to put it is that all business owners will use right-wing politics to their advantage, and to think that a purported "left-wing" owner of a large business will treat you better is naive in the long run.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#263

Post by borroka » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 6:46 PM UTC

When I was a researcher in academia, I worked practically all day, every day, including at least one of the two weekend days. It became normal to think about research all the time--"it is so much fun", academics tell themselves and others--and being mostly self-directed, the work is endless: there is always a new model or parameter value to try, a new angle from which to look at the results. After a few years of grueling intellectual work, I had an episode of semi-burnout; I use semi- and not full- because it was 50 percent psychophysiological and 50 percent wondering, "What am I doing with my life?"

I then left academia and at this point have been working in the technology sector for a few years as a salaried employee, which in some companies means working 9-to-5, in others 9-9 including weekends, and in some means working at most a couple of hours per day.

I am not ashamed to admit that I work as little as possible and take on new assignments as reluctantly as possible as well. Saving as much time and energy for myself as I can, while keeping an eye on my career progression and not negatively affecting my colleagues with my rather lackadaisical approach to work, is the guiding principle of my professional life. I am a cynic, or a successful pragmatist, as I like to call myself.

I now have time to read, write, think, exercise, hang out with friends and enjoy life. Self-recommended.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#264

Post by zozbot234 » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 6:50 PM UTC

blep_ wrote: post #248

zozbot234 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the suit became popular as informal clothing in the Western world, starting from the mid-19th to the mid-20th c. Look at old photos from that era and you'll see pretty much everyone wears suit-style clothes in public, even and perhaps especially folks we would consider "lower class" today. There was a reason for that, and it had a lot to do with signaling respect and being considerate to others.

It's signalling class , not respect. People can be assholes in any clothes. It's a tool for getting a certain type of person to respect you .

It was not signaling class historically. There's plenty of old photos showing lower-class folks who did wear suit-style clothes, and took pride in what that meant to them. It only devolved into signaling class when basic norms of mutual respect began to be widely connoted as a "middle-class/bourgeois" thing, which started in the mid-20th c. in much of the West and continued to the present day.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#265

Post by DeRock » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 7:03 PM UTC

dahart wrote: post #101

bodiekane wrote: post #5

> Since this group already put in longer hours than the typical U.S. worker—and women at the highest income levels—these high earners had longer work days to trim > Before the pandemic, Eli Albrecht, a lawyer in the Washington, D.C., area, says he worked between 80 to 90 hours a week. Now, he says he puts in 60 to 70 hours each week Key lines from the article, which give important context and invert what many people'…

TBH For me the line about Eli only begs for more context. Having done it for a while in the games industry, I know first hand that 80-90 hours/week is next to unliveable for long stretches, and the difference between 80 and 90 is enormous (working 80 leaves you with almost 50% more waking non-work-time than 90, assuming 8 hours of sleep). Some people really do work that much, and Eli might be, but 80 means you cut mo…

People vastly overestimate how many hours a week they work: https://qz.com/16899/that-friend-who-says-he-works-75-hours-...

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#266

Post by lots2learn » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 7:05 PM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #144

bradlys wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d also argue that for young men - unless you’re an absolute unit and breathtakingly handsome… you’re always going to need to make more than your partner for a long term relationship. Being a bartender or taking a lower wage job is a surefire way to only being able to sleep around. I’ve only met a few women who earn more than their spouse and can actually only think of one off the top of my head. Every other couple…

Yup. When I met my girlfriend she was really clear that she didn't want to date someone who didn't have a similar level of accomplishment to her. It wasn't about money entirely, but money was a part of it. She has a master's degree and manages a department of people at a fairly big company. I only have a bachelor, and I don't manage people, but I earn more than her. So I guess it balances out? She would never date a…

"Success" is a part of it but that usually comes packaged with other things like similar level of education and similar type of things the two find interesting. Income is a good (but far from perfect) indicator of social compatibility.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#267

Post by bluefirebrand » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 7:19 PM UTC

lots2learn wrote: post #266

bluefirebrand wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. When I met my girlfriend she was really clear that she didn't want to date someone who didn't have a similar level of accomplishment to her. It wasn't about money entirely, but money was a part of it. She has a master's degree and manages a department of people at a fairly big company. I only have a bachelor, and I don't manage people, but I earn more than her. So I guess it balances out? She would never date a…

"Success" is a part of it but that usually comes packaged with other things like similar level of education and similar type of things the two find interesting. Income is a good (but far from perfect) indicator of social compatibility.

I think this gets at the crux of the thing I'm talking about.

Some people, compatibility is the most important thing. They want someone they can do everything together with, so they have to have very similar interests and day-to-day wants.

For me and my partner, we both wanted someone who wanted similar long-term things and were working hard to accomplish those things. We had very little activities in common when we started dating. I like videogames and DnD, she has very little interest in either. But we've found other things that we love to do together instead of only just adopting the things we both already liked.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#268

Post by bongoman37 » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 7:20 PM UTC

bilsbie wrote: post #97

sillysaurusx wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Height, intelligence, and a sense of humor. You can often get by with just two. Beyond a certain threshold, throwing money at women doesn't really yield more results. Or at least not the kind of results you'd want.

Is height a bigger deal than 10-20 years ago? I feel like I keep hearing about it.

The thing with online dating is filters kill a lot of opportunities that earlier you could compensate for. Most people and women can't easily tell between someone 5'11 and 6' and subconsciously someone who is dominant is perceived as taller than they are. But on an app, women will set a hard filter cutting out men at the edges who might have a chance earlier. Interestingly, women have ensured there is no weight filter, so things are further stacked against men looking for fit partners.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#269

Post by px43 » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 7:30 PM UTC

subpixel wrote: post #183

greatpostman wrote: post #21

Controversial opinion: Men are concluding that women don’t care about money as much as they used to, and having an amazing career to snag a great woman is no longer the best (or even a good) strategy. In some ways, being a dedicated corporate employee makes you unattractive as a person. I know a lot of guys in their late 20s that think this. And I know a lot of broke bar tenders dating great women. Unless you are mak…

My bartender bought a house in the country a decade before I did. All those tax free tips add up over time.

Ha, what? Tips are income, and you need to pay taxes on those too. Sounds like your bartender was committing tax fraud. Not a great idea to cheat on your taxes, and then buy a house with it.

Re: High-Earning Men Are Cutting Back on Their Working Hours

#270

Post by polskibus » Sat, Jan 28, 2023, 7:36 PM UTC

lumost wrote: post #126

ren_engineer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the last sentence of the article hints at the real reason it was written in the first place: >But as staff cut back their hours, it costs medical organizations money it's just companies screeching that they are making less money because salaried employees are doing less unpaid work. I think the pandemic had a large effect on people in terms of 1. Having to face potential mortality much earlier than expected and thus…

Companies have had numerous ways of tweaking engagement for office workers which are no longer effective. These tweaks ranged from mildly positive too awful. I suspect that people who were at firms using these tweaks are starting to simply find their own balance based on what they can/want to deliver relative to peers. - Have team events/other activities which encourage the team to stay late at the office for social…

It is tried, my friends who do insurance sales have software on their laptops that monitors mouse and keyboard activity. Which leads people to buying usb sticks that send out fake mouse movements :)