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Why do we work so hard?

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Re: Why do we work so hard?

#81

Post by tluyben2 »

buf wrote: post #7

I moved to SF in 2008 as a poor college grad. Since then, I've spent all of my time in startups. It's an unhealthy addiction and it's going to kill me. I was the third engineer at Eventbrite, and I spent years working many extra hours. After 4 years, it felt like I worked 10 years. I quit and moved to Europe to try to leave the startup scene, but a month later, I found myself the CTO of a startup in London. The addic…

I was like that and it did catch up with me when I was doing that for around 11 years. I still work in startups but no longer the crazy hours and to my continued surprise: we get everything done still while no one works crazy hours.

Re: Why do we work so hard?

#82

Post by tluyben2 »

rodgerd wrote: post #61
burgessaccount wrote: post #35

This will sound moralistic, and I don't mean it that way, but I think this relates to our general lack of clear values as a society. With religion absent in many people's lives, not much has stepped in to take up the slack and say "what really matters is being a good person" or "what really matters is wisdom" or "what really matters is family". So we're left with the messages we ARE getting, which are from a combinat…

> With religion absent in many people's lives, not much has stepped in to take up the slack Given the obsession with hard (in fact over-) work in the English-speaking world and European north tends to be commonly treated as an artifact of the "Protestant work ethic" this seems pretty off-base.

That is probably one of the reason but not conciously for most in north EU. So religion is absent in their lives just some of the habits instilled by centuries of teachings die hard.

Re: Why do we work so hard?

#83

Post by msellout »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #14

There's several issues intertwined here. The easy ones are those market forces I experienced at the relative bottom of the pay-scale and at the smaller end of the company scale: you're asked to work harder and more hours because it makes more money/profits for your employer to get you to work as long as possible for as little as possible. However, I think there's two more aspects I think I can contribute. Firstly: so…

Much of the busywork comes from a lack of comparison between ones' decision processes and randomness. Doing so would be temporarily depressing, but in the long run quite liberating.

Re: Why do we work so hard?

#84

Post by Animats »

jotux wrote: post #4
madengr wrote: post #2

I enjoy designing RF/Microwave hardware and I am paid well to do it. I plan on doing it till I keel over. I have a state of the art lab at work, and a nice lab at home. I'm passionate about electronics and really wouldn't know what else to do.

RF/Microwave hardware isn't work, it's sorcery. You just enjoy being a wizard.

If you're too good at that, DoD gets annoyed. One of the great suppressed inventions: Airadar.[1] A phased array radar with a conformal antenna for light aircraft. In 1973. Worked fine, and was reviewed in Flying magazine. The USAF was very unhappy, because it was better and much smaller than military radars of the period, which were still "dish in the nose" mechanically scanned devices.

[1] https://books.google.com/books?id=NWzlTqj0gQ4C&pg=PA66&lpg=P...

Re: Why do we work so hard?

#85

Post by tluyben2 »

buf wrote: post #18
Tempest1981 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is "looking at houses in Denver" depressing?

To me, it represents a slower pace of life. EDIT: trust me, I'm not bored.

I moved from cities to a mountain village where 40 people live at the high point of the year. Best thing I ever did. I still like some cities but the different pace made realize we are just winding ourselves up needlessly. It is indeed an addiction which you do not need to achieve what you want (exceptions aside ofcourse).

Re: Why do we work so hard?

#86

Post by xcasperx »

buf wrote: post #7

I moved to SF in 2008 as a poor college grad. Since then, I've spent all of my time in startups. It's an unhealthy addiction and it's going to kill me. I was the third engineer at Eventbrite, and I spent years working many extra hours. After 4 years, it felt like I worked 10 years. I quit and moved to Europe to try to leave the startup scene, but a month later, I found myself the CTO of a startup in London. The addic…

Funny how that works. I'm a soon to be college grad, born in Denver (currently in Boulder,) looking to move to SF and get into the start up life. Want to switch places?

BTW: I love Denver, just want to see what's up with SF.

Re: Why do we work so hard?

#87

Post by tluyben2 »

tim333 wrote: post #24
buf wrote: post #7

I moved to SF in 2008 as a poor college grad. Since then, I've spent all of my time in startups. It's an unhealthy addiction and it's going to kill me. I was the third engineer at Eventbrite, and I spent years working many extra hours. After 4 years, it felt like I worked 10 years. I quit and moved to Europe to try to leave the startup scene, but a month later, I found myself the CTO of a startup in London. The addic…

Maybe you could stick CTOing but slack off a bit as the company becomes prosperous?

This is the core of the problem: 'slack off' is actually 'having a life' but you yourself and everyone in the ratmill finds it slacking off. Maybe you are lucky and will realize that this is crazy before your health catches up.

Re: Why do we work so hard?

#88

Post by Swizec »

BadassFractal wrote: post #69
buf wrote: post #7

I moved to SF in 2008 as a poor college grad. Since then, I've spent all of my time in startups. It's an unhealthy addiction and it's going to kill me. I was the third engineer at Eventbrite, and I spent years working many extra hours. After 4 years, it felt like I worked 10 years. I quit and moved to Europe to try to leave the startup scene, but a month later, I found myself the CTO of a startup in London. The addic…

Similar story here, been doing the crazy startup founder hours for half a decade now, haven't really lived much outside of the office in that time. Feeling also trapped: if I drop out, then I'm somewhat giving up on all of the people who over the years I had to convince to join me in a vision that I'm becoming tired of. It'd very likely lead to the collapse of a source of fulfillment, purpose and income for many peop…

> What's something someone with a strong entrepreneurial, technical and managerial background (and very good pedigree) can do for maybe 20 hours a week and still pay the bills? I would love to drop out of the race for a few years and smell the roses.

Consulting. Small business. Almost anything really.

How hard is it to make some $5k per month if you have a skill that you can charge $100+/hour for! About a week and a half of work per month.

Re: Why do we work so hard?

#89

Post by nostrademons »

kyllo wrote: post #73
nostrademons wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, it's that folks who get their values from other folks are the only ones who bother to tell other folks how well they're doing at achieving their externally-gifted values. If your goal is to make a lot of money but you decided that was just your goal, why bother to tell anyone you've achieved it? (Indeed, it can be very counterproductive to tell other people.) If your goal is to be a good husband & father, then w…

Because there's a bit of a feedback loop with success. If others see you as being successful or impressive (on whatever axis they care about), this attracts them to you, and having a more admirers increases your social power and influence, which gives you more opportunities and better chances of success in your future efforts. This also explains patio11's formula for career success, which is basically: 10 Make someth…

That's true but only matters if you have a value system that includes social power and influence among its values.

Someone whose core values are "I was there for my family whenever they needed me" is not going to care how many admirers they have. Someone whose core values are "I will respect and learn from other peoples' differences and not try to convert them to my way of thinking" is actively failing if they end up recruiting disciples.

Re: Why do we work so hard?

#90

Post by icelancer »

henrikschroder wrote: post #59
ambicapter wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Then again, I'm not where I want to be. Looking at all the workaholics in this thread I'm simultaneously intrigued and weirded out.

I'm also weirded out. Who wants to work? How can you not have as a life goal to not work? It sucks for the most part! As for Marx and Keynes and others, thinking about what people will do if they're freed of labour, have you SEEN youtube? People are not lacking ideas on things to do, quite the opposite!

My work is my life's dream. I did it for years as a hobby making no $ (losing money really) and worked terrible tech jobs I hated until I could switch the two.

Now I work 80 hours per week but it feels like 5. So it's not work to me.

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