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Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week?

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Re: Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week?

#71

Post by blackbagboys »

montrose wrote: post #7

Because I like to work. People who don't like to work often misunderstand this when looking at the stories of successful people. They think successful people force themselves to work hard in order to be successful. In fact successful people often like their work so much that there's nothing else they'd rather do. I doubt for example that there's anything Jeff Bezos would rather do than run Amazon. I bet it seems to h…

Of course, the problem is that people in this position tend to assign high moral virtue to what is essentially their hobby, and then tend to make the jump to thinking that people who are not willing to work 70 hours a week are somehow unworthy of rich, comfortable lives.

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk can work all the 70 hour weeks they want. The problem is when they begin to force their subordinates (or indirect support personnel like the poor accounting schmuck in the article) to do the same.

Re: Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week?

#72

Post by Trundle »

bluedino wrote: post #36
ulfw wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a HUMONGOUS difference between owner of a business and employed by a business. Makes sense for the "10th richest person in the world" to work long hours. It's his call. He is working basically for himself. Totally different when you're making say 50K and the "10th richest person in the world" wants YOU to work all day every day too.

There's nothing wrong with being passionate about your job

Inherently? No, but it does come with potential for negative externalities.

If you consider that work passion to be a moral virtue and this comes through in your discussions with others, that contributes to pushing society towards a culture of being overworked.

If you try to overtly filter for passion within hiring at a company then that encourages bullshitting and reduces the efficiency of managing employees. You'll be trying to give "passion" benefits to a bunch of secret mercenaries.

If you're non-business inclined and passionate then this can lead to capturing far less of the value that you generate than you otherwise could. This is effectively charity to the business owning class. If you're working for $80k when a few extra conversations—or even just sentences—over the years could have put you at $150k, then that's effectively a yearly donation of $70k to the people in the world who need it the least. Even if you don't care for that money for yourself because you're too busy having fun working to spend it, then that's an awful lot of good you could have done for others that you're failing to do.

What's more with this one is that it also hurts your colleagues by acting as a salary anchor which again, results in a greater share of the value being generated going to the owning class.

Re: Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week?

#73

Post by mbrodersen »

The number of hours people work is not important. What is important is whether they freely choose to work that amount of hours or not. There are poor people who work a lot more than 70 hours a week (2 to 3 different jobs). But that is not something they choose to do.

Re: Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week?

#75

Post by ggm »

My parents probably had this. "life is short" dominated anyone who lived through the great depression, and WWII and I think it influenced their sense that purposeful activity was better than other choices, what was work and what was pleasure blended, because you had a sense it was better to make things happen, than let entropy rule.

I had this as an engaging drive until 15-20 years ago when I somehow lost my work ethic, in a dark corner and I've looked for it fitfully since, but if I am honest, not very hard. I appreciate that its better to build, and leave something behind, but I am less driven to do this 24/7.

Re: Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week?

#76

Post by toomuchtodo »

dang wrote: post #61
ulfw wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a HUMONGOUS difference between owner of a business and employed by a business. Makes sense for the "10th richest person in the world" to work long hours. It's his call. He is working basically for himself. Totally different when you're making say 50K and the "10th richest person in the world" wants YOU to work all day every day too.

It isn't binary. I like my work, work long hours, don't own the company, and am treated well. I'm lucky, of course. But not every such situation is exploitative. I watched a talk recently where Ivan Sutherland approvingly quotes Fred Brooks as saying "I don't plan to retire, I plan not to retire." p.s. Please don't use allcaps for empahsis on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Do you feel that because you're contributing to the health and wellbeing of a community (as HN's community steward), that provides you with purpose above and beyond the usual monetary compensation?

I think people who work 40+ hours are supportive of doing so when they're contributing to something they believe in, or they enjoy it beyond compensation.

Re: Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week?

#77

Post by closeparen »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #70
jondubois wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hits the nail on the head. Most of the value that you're creating is captured by someone else. So why should you be expected to spend all your life to benefit someone else's interests? It's quite strange that today slavery is a completely taboo subject (rightfully so) and yet workplace slavery is not only tolerated but encouraged. It's essentailly the same; someone else uses their coercive power over you to esse…

Speaking as an outsider to Western/American culture, this is one of the worst parts of America. There are millions of people peddling the bullshit dream of "success" (whatever that means) and the implied message of "work harder" in every corner of the media and workplace. Which is great if you reap 100% of the rewards, but for most its only a way to make them compliant worker-bees competing with each other for scraps…

Unless we’re in some kind of rent-seeking or monopolistic situation, you never get 100% of the rewards. Businesses increase their revenues by providing more value to clients.

Re: Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week?

#79

Post by FlyingSideKick »

montrose wrote: post #7

Because I like to work. People who don't like to work often misunderstand this when looking at the stories of successful people. They think successful people force themselves to work hard in order to be successful. In fact successful people often like their work so much that there's nothing else they'd rather do. I doubt for example that there's anything Jeff Bezos would rather do than run Amazon. I bet it seems to h…

“Insecure overachievers are exceptionally capable and fiercely ambitious, yet driven by a profound sense of their own inadequacy. This typically stems from childhood, and may result from various factors, such as experience of financial or physical deprivation, or a belief that their parents’ love was contingent upon their behaving and performing well.”

For those whom look for meaning or self-worth in work your efforts are seriously misguided. It’s very easy to make oneself busy so that you never have unscheduled quiet time to examine your inner demons. The perpetuation of the overworking culture is hurting us as a country at large. Do you really want to live in a country where people have no hobbies and have little free time to play and simply be?

I run a successful business and we work 4 nine hour days, Friday’s are almost always off and we start everyone with 25 days vacation. You can do that at your org too! Try it for a year and you’ll find that your turnover will drop, people will be more engaged with their work, more creative ideas will emerge from your work force ,morale will improve and people will be knocking down your door to work for you. Give your employees and yourself plenty of time for a life outside of work and you’ll reap the benefits.

Re: Why are successful professionals still working 70 hours a week?

#80

Post by cannonedhamster »

I'm technically a successful professional, but I'd certainly love to work less than 70 hours weeks. I don't have a choice, we're understaffed. It's been shown in black and white to management who is betting a sale will bring those people in. The scam comes into play when we realize we're salary. I used to look at salary as something to achieve, flexible work schedule where I could put in the work and go home when I was done. Now the work is never done. I enjoy what I'm doing, and I'm good at it, but the drive to push everyone in the tech industry into burnout is a cancer that's carving the industry out.
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