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Work Life balance slows careers

pathtostaff.com

51–60 of 122 posts

Re: Work Life balance slows careers

#51
I'm in the middle of reading the book "Apple In China" by Patrick McGee. A few excerpts from one chapter:

> The eighty-hour workweeks and increasing need to be in Asia at inconsistent times, with little warning and often for unknown durations, caused massive stress on the engineers' mental health and their marriages. They were primarily men, and some of their wives took to calling themselves "Apple widows" because their husbands were around so infrequently. So many marriages were broken up during the first year of Jobs's comeback that informal preventative measures were established to contain further damage. Engineers called it the DAP, or Divorce Avoidance Program. In the late 1990s, the acronym referred to to when an engineer couldn't come in to work that day because his marriage was on the line.

> One engineer says the reason he left Apple after more than a decade is that during a routine medical appointment, his doctor noted his high blood pressure and said, "Okay, I need you to do two things for me: lose weight and quit Apple." The doctor explained that that the stress would basically kill him.

> Jon Rubinstein, who worked for Steve Jobs on and off for sixteen years, called the long workweeks "shattering," and it's what led to his own departure later on. "A lot of people got sick at Apple," he once said. "The list goes on and on of people who got terminally ill or really ill... and I was worried that if I stayed, I'd end up damaging myself, and my health was, frankly, more important."

Re: Work Life balance slows careers

#52

> I was Facebook’s first engineer promoted to E9 outside the US. All this, at the cost of my second-grade son making sure he had a reserved spot on my calendar prior to me heading off to work that morning. Was it worth it? > If you want atypically fast career growth, you need to put in the hours. Only you can answer whether the sacrifices are worth it. Ask the kid. Or the spouse. My father had a significant career: m…

If, hypothetically, your kids and wife asked you to work many more hours and earn much more money, would you do it?

Ironically, I worked really hard for a number of years precisely to ensure that my family would be financially safe if something happened to me -- something like what happened to my own father. The difference was that I quit my well-paying job as soon as we had enough to sustain a modest lifestyle.

I will admit that at times I was seduced by the illusion of status, so I get why some people get trapped in that work-first mindset, but it was a very shallow mirage. Just look at your spouse and children and ask whether they would rather have more money, or a more present husband & father.

If my wife asked me to work harder to make more money, I would question my choice to marry her. But she didn't, she was supportive both while I was working and when I decided to quit. She could see the price I was paying for that salary.

Re: Work Life balance slows careers

#53
I don't actually disagree with anything in this article, I would just argue that at some point you might want to consider why you are so interested in "fast career growth". Is it more money? More recognition? More power? To what end?

The standard cliches are true as far as I can tell (as I approach 50). "You can't take it with you", "no one wishes on their death bed that they had worked harder", etc. In 10 years, no one at your office is going to care how much time you put in at the office, but your partner and kids will. Do you want them to resent you for it?

Re: Work Life balance slows careers

#55
post #3

Side note: After 10 years living in Europe, I moved back to my home country and started looking for remote jobs in the US. It's wild what the US calls “quality of life”. In Europe, I had 6 weeks of vacation per year (from basically day 1) in the US, it’s 2 weeks! In Europe, unlimited sick leave is standard (with varying coverage by insurance); meanwhile, a US company bragging about being a “best place to work” was pr…

Generally speaking, whenever there's been an innovation that allows for efficiency gains since and including the industrial revolution, the US has opted to work as much (or more) and get cheaper goods, and the Euro zone has leaned more towards working less.

Re: Work Life balance slows careers

#58
post #38
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $500k per year salary, in NYC and SF, your overall tax burden is about 50% (including federal, state, city, sales and property tax). So really if you save half your money, you are only saving $125k per year.

35% effective, 50% marginal. You take home more like $325k+. Assuming we're talking MFJ with a family

Once you add in payroll tax, sales tax (10% of most purchases) and property tax (you pay indirectly even if you rent) and you get right around 50% in NYC. I have lived this and calced this many times lol.

Re: Work Life balance slows careers

#59
My dad was a workaholic. Also as is typical with boomers they raised us as latchkey kids

I made it a requirement for my career that I wouldn’t treat my kids the same way. I set boundaries with work and am very upset when work intrudes

Could I have made more money and had more status?

Certainly, but my kids like spending time with me and they’re the whole reason I’m chasing a salary in the first place

Re: Work Life balance slows careers

#60
post #5

Unless you have the magic ticket, a career is a 30-40 year journey. Better to take it with others than going it alone, as you’ll need other people when your cachet fades in the second half. Looking back, I recommend working to live over living to work. And remember, if you don’t separate yourself from your work you’ll have no “you” when you dial back or become unnecessary or undesirable. And it’s prudent to do “desir…

> And remember, if you don’t separate yourself from your work you’ll have no “you” when you dial back or become unnecessary or undesirable.

As long as you pay your bills, nobody's going to tell you to do things differently. Financial literacy gets a lot of attention, but time and pleasure literacy get none, and our culture emphasizes consumption and income. It's rare to hear someone talk about the dollar value of having a big block of time to spend doing whatever makes you happiest in the moment.

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