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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

#51

Post by vlehto »

Theodores wrote: post #12

What is work anyway? If you are a programmer then work is different. Sure you are not on your feet all day at the beck and call of customers, however, if you are not working then your computer is. Waiting is not supposed to be part of the job. Learning on the job is also verboten. Very little time that is on the company clock is spent travelling. I have colleagues in sales that do lots of travel, then, when they are…

The old school "production lines" are pretty much automated away these days. Most production requiring human labor is custom or small batch jobs. And as a result the real amount of work done is relatively small.

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

#52

Post by smallgovt »

The nature of this topic is that:

- Those who don't work long hours will want to understate how many hours hard workers work (to avoid being labelled a slacker)

- Those who do work long hours will want to overstate how many hours they work (to accrue more perceived clout)

The reality is almost certainly in between. There are certainly people who both claim and do work 75+ hour weeks on a persistent basis. I've done this for 4.5 years straight as a founder.

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

#53

Post by hobs »

yibg wrote: post #45

Many years ago I was working for a small consulting firm and had a stretch of time with a lot of overtime; aka "crunch time". Since these were billable hours, time was tracked daily, even if they weren't all actually billed. The tracked hours varied over the ~6 month span, but ranged from 55 hours a week to 93 for one week. Of course not 100% of the time was spent on actual work but it was pretty close. The 93 hour w…

Very common to have an "in the trenches" mentality and to even miss it - the shared stress and common purpose drives people close together, but mostly for the wrong reasons.

I still am actively in contact with the people from "that job" and never made as strong of a bond with others, but I still wouldn't go back.

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

#54

Post by smallgovt »

notfromhere wrote: post #44
ridgewell wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People like to bring up the long hours that workers in Asian countries stay in the office or workplace for to justify long work weeks in North America and Europe when needed. In practice, they drag out their work day (eat breakfast, take showers, go to the gym, go on their phone) and don't really work significant hours in the end. Their productivity in terms of economic value produced per hour is markedly lower than…

You can't. After a few solid months of 70 hour weeks you start seeing some serious health effects (blood pressure spikes, nervous system issues triggered by high levels of persistent stress, insomnia, exhaustion, etc).

This is quite a generalization. It depends on how much you value and enjoy your work. And, every person's limit is different. There exist people on both extremes.

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

#55

Post by sverige »

yibg wrote: post #45

Many years ago I was working for a small consulting firm and had a stretch of time with a lot of overtime; aka "crunch time". Since these were billable hours, time was tracked daily, even if they weren't all actually billed. The tracked hours varied over the ~6 month span, but ranged from 55 hours a week to 93 for one week. Of course not 100% of the time was spent on actual work but it was pretty close. The 93 hour w…

There are indications that missing 15 minutes of sleep can throw you off.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/real-life/774372/sleep-insomnia-...

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

#56

Post by wvenable »

yibg wrote: post #45

Many years ago I was working for a small consulting firm and had a stretch of time with a lot of overtime; aka "crunch time". Since these were billable hours, time was tracked daily, even if they weren't all actually billed. The tracked hours varied over the ~6 month span, but ranged from 55 hours a week to 93 for one week. Of course not 100% of the time was spent on actual work but it was pretty close. The 93 hour w…

Small bits of crunch time can be fun. You really get to stay in the zone and it's really liberating. I enjoy an occasional crunch (it's very rare in my job) but after the crunch I'm done and productivity falls to near zero.

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

#57

Post by S_A_P »

drugme wrote: post #35
S_A_P wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A pretty good hourly rate actually. I am definitely treating this as a sprint. And for the following 2 years I have lined up 35-40hour per week work. This will allow for a significant runway when the project ends as well. I’m hoping to have 12months salary in the bank.

Fair enough -- I genuinely hope the odds work out for you, then.

To be clear- what I said leaves broad room for interpretation. I am by no means at deaths door. What I meant is a few things have happened for this sprint. 1) my stress level is higher 2) focus is harder 3) easier to make poor food choices 4) fatigue sets in towards the end of the week

That said Ive made adjustments that have helped 1) plan out the week of food on sunday and prepare as much as possible 2) forced excercise in the evening for 30-60 minutes 3) hard sleep boundaries.

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

#58

Post by clubm8 »

FiddlyPack wrote: post #40
clubm8 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also know from experience that time spent travelling is tiring, but is it strictly work? If I'm someplace other than where I want to be, it's work. A lot of comments in this thread don't seem to understand - even if you're free to read HN during downtime, if I need to be in by 9am and am unable to leave until 7pm, the period in between was work. If I would have suffered professionally if I'd left at 5 regardless…

The confusion is because many of us work many days remote, and/or have flexible hours. For many of us, our entire existence is oriented around improving a bottom line...so when we have down time, we are recreationally reading about how to do that better, whether we are on the clock or not. So, if you are a remote worker, and you produce 3 proof of concepts for your company for fun, and none of them pan out, how many…

Why does the concept of being salary always seem to go one way (more than 40)?

I worked in a place where people "worked long hours".

A typical day would go like this: around 4pm they'd declare they had a "conference call" and call a friend from a meeting room. Then they'd watch some Netflix til 7ish, then go out to dinner (probably with the friend they called), where they'd fire off several drafted emails. If someone actually responds, they'd draft a reply then send it while getting ready for bed.

When the definition of "good work" becomes subjective, "work" becomes art, specifically performance art.

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

#59

Post by wnissen »

epicureanideal wrote: post #17

How many hours are people who say they work 40 working?

That was the most interesting part of the Mother Jones article to me. If you compare people who average 43 hours a week (but claim they are averaging 50), the folks who think they are working 70 should be working about 20 hours more a week. But it's only 12. Pretty amazing.

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/04/most-of-us-do...

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