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Why do you suppose that people don't enjoy working 70 hours a week? My dad regularly worked 70 hour weeks - had multiple careers doctor/businessman/public figur

• Taylor_OD 5y ago
  Most people don't enjoy working 70 hours a week.
  • hungryforcodes 5y ago
    You're not most people. I'll work 40 or 50 hours a week then spend another 30 on side projects happily! That's 80 hours just working on "stuff". No TikTok. So it really depends. Elon Musk famously claimed he worked 100 hours a week.
    • xkqd 5y ago
      I’m waiting for confirmation but I don’t think the comment thread is suggesting that all “work” is suspended after 40 hours. I think they’re saying that your obligation to your employer should float close to 40. I’m a big proponent of not regularly giving employers extra time, but I urge everyone to make the most of the remaining 168-40 hours a week - that means minimizing idle leisure too.
      • hungryforcodes 5y ago
        Totally agree with this.
  • itisit 5y ago
    Do you have the data to back that up? /s
  • hulitu 5y ago
    Most people do not really work 70 hours / week. They just are present at work.
    • Arisaka1 5y ago
      You assume that workload is binary you either work or you are just present. The intensity fluctuates even if you study for 1 hour. This isn't something exclusive to those who work more.
      • Retric 5y ago
        Low intensity is fine as long as it’s above zero. For many jobs being available to do work has value, but a doctor on call that’s sleeping in the hospital isn’t actually working. As such it’s a perfectly reasonable to separate working from bing available to do work.
  • guessbest 5y ago
    Many people don't consider being controlling work. Thus the long hours.
  • slownews45 5y ago
    Interesting. A lot of the "so successful" have a TON of help. At the home front things are covered - stay at home wife, cleaners etc. You come home, home cooked meal, wife happy to hang out go on a walk do whatever, kids taken care of. You go to work, you have the parking spot, the assistant with a schedule. Strong managers. Again, these are the "so successful" folks. The 70 hours of work is mostly meetings, strategy, bouncing ideas off people you got to hire to work with. It's not terrible
    • conductr 5y ago
      I don’t get burned out because I outsource it by burning my employees out. It works for every other billionaire. /s
      • slownews45 5y ago
        The very successful folks working long hours do tend to have folks around them working long hours as well. Ie, Elon Musk is probably working long hours. If my goal was to NOT work long hours that would be a bad company to work for.
        • munk-a 5y ago
          I've worked extremely long hours and there's a very big difference to me between working on a saturday on green-field development where what you're doing takes time but isn't particularly full of surprises - and trying to grind out a hard to find bug instead of enjoying the outdoors. I don't hate hunting down bugs myself - but dealing with fatigue from overwork while trying to find a needle in a haystack is much different from being able to cruise through some reqs like a badass using half your brain. It's quite likely that the billionaires putting in long hours are doing so in tasks that are diverse and decisive enough to not be soul crushing - while outsourcing those soul crushing tasks to their subordinates... in fact if that isn't the case then they're executiving wrong. Finally, being a found who benefits directly from every penny your company earns differs significantly from working plebs that might just be randomly fired tomorrow and will never see any benefit from the company doing slightly better. The motivation is there for Musk in a way it isn't for those who surround him.
  • xkqd 5y ago
    I think you’re saying it but… You mean working for your employer 70 hours a week, right? As for me, I make it a point to give my employers what they’re paying for, but nothing extra. I spend a lot of extra time each week performing “work” for myself. Whether it be home improvement or side projects.
    • burkaman 5y ago
      Yes, work means employment in this discussion (including self-employment).
    • Taylor_OD 5y ago
      Sure. If we want to expand the definition of work then I work every hour of the day. Some of that work is for my employer, some of that work is for my family, some of that work is for me. Most people don't enjoy spending 70 hours a week working for their employer.
  • xyzzy21 5y ago
    I understand that's certainly true for most. It's just not true for ALL. And yes, that minority are those who: * have higher IQ or higher motivation/grit/work ethic or both * have a marketable set of skills - both hard and soft * do not fall into simplistic life memes that induce FOMO - they make their own success rather than rely on others to define what success must be and how it must be done
• RIMR 5y ago
  If you want to enjoy working 70 hours a week, you have to enjoy doing what you consider "work". If "working" to an executive means attending parties, trade shows, and numerous business events, that 70 hours could be a lot of fun, and totally worth it. I can think of a few roles I'd like in the future that would have me working that much and I'd be all-in for it. There are hard parts, certainly, but as you described, you have control over it. However, if you are sitting at a desk laboring in front of a screen for 70 hours every week because your boss (who works as described in the previous paragraph) thinks that's what defines work ethic, then you're going to get burned out and alienated from your friends and family because all of your emotional energy is being sapped out of you by your employer. You don't have control. Your job isn't exciting and dynamic. There is a limited amount of it that you can tolerate before it starts to harm you. If the ultra-high-earning executive types enjoy their life-encompassing careers, let them have it. If I have the opportunity at a career like that I might take it myself. But if you're laboring to meet an end (and yes, most software engineers should be thought of as laborers), you need work/life balance otherwise you're just being exploited by people who don't care if they bring you misery in the process of delivering a product.
• imilk 5y ago
  I'd much rather spend time with the people I love in life before I die than the abstract busyness known as "work". But that may just be just me.
  • Arisaka1 5y ago
    Calling work "abstract busyness" devalues workers.
    • bmeski 5y ago
      Then stop training workers in valueless things like agile PM or Product mgmt
      • jasondigitized 5y ago
        Valueless PM? You must work for a bad company who is not product focused.
        • flerchin 5y ago
          If all the Agile people and all the Project managers got stuck in an endless status meeting, no one would ever notice.
          • xboxnolifes 5y ago
            My product manager does everything I don't want to do for me, so I sure would notice.
    • heavyset_go 5y ago
      It's abstract busyness if those workers don't have a significant stake in the businesses they're keeping afloat, as they aren't among the owners who are made wealthy from their abstracted labor.
      • markuse 5y ago
• daniel_reetz 5y ago
  It's true that some have an enormous capacity for work. I felt my capacity grew year on year for ten years straight -- simply by working with enormously ambitious people. But it can also happen by other means. While at a megacorp, for example, I was collaborating and competing with colleagues medicated with Adderal, who had astounding focus and output. The bar is always being raised, and sometimes in ways that are barely visible. My takeaway was that it's important to identify personal limits and boundaries, and be careful how hard you compete.
• justinator 5y ago
  How was your time with your Father? Or do you regret that his career got in the way of your relationship?
  • mpfundstein 5y ago
    THAT is the question that deserves an answer
  • sharadov 5y ago
    It was great, he is a very loving dad. He taught me a lot along the way. We spend a lot more time talking now that he's retired and we live on opposite sides of the globe. He does regret it that he did not spend enough time with me. But, he made a lot of other people's lives better and I made peace with that.
• brtkdotse 5y ago
  Did he ever have time to be with his family?
  • bobthechef 5y ago
    Right. The family is your moral priority, not your career. But people are selfish. They will sacrifice their families for their careers when the two are in conflict. Divorces ensue, estranged children that are poorly adjusted. Actually, all this mostly started with the industrial revolution. Before then, work usually took place in and around the home for most people. Both men and women worked. But with the industrial revolution, fathers were torn from the home and forced to go off and labor in the factories. I hope that COVID finally destroys this stupid modern tradition for occupations where it is possible to do so. Besides, if all you know and do is your career, then you're a pretty boring fellow. Human beings don't just eat and shit. They do other things as well. Culture needs leisure[0]. The world of "total work" is not a good one. And generally, it is a sign of latent nihilism. If you cannot put work to the side and take care of the other important stuff you're neglecting, then you are probably using work as something to avoid uncomfortable realizations. Work becomes an opiate. You're no longer thinking in terms of what is objectively good, but what you find subjectively pleasing. The two need not be at odds, but they can be when you subordinate the truth to your desires instead of subordinating your desires to the truth. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/767958.Leisure https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/767958.Leisure
    • mensetmanusman 5y ago
      Great book, we read this at our Catholic men’s group :)
    • xyzzy21 5y ago
      Familiar with that book. It's not so black-and-white, however. First it's based on a much older book that is essentially talking about "master-slave/master-serf" luxury and leisure of elites - 100% bullshit elitism. Second, the reality is that civilization can not operate without a fair if not majority of jobs being shit jobs. As long as they are well-paying enough and voluntary, there's nothing wrong with that. And that cost could be being away from your family. As long as family is being provided for, I see no problems with that. And the main reason being that simply having parents being "present" does NOT assure happy or good childhoods to your children or good relations with your spouse. There are plenty of counter examples.
• adventured 5y ago
  I think it's a fair premise that the majority will never / can never enjoy working 70 hours per week. It's essentially impossible to match so many people ideally up to financially rewarding tasks they'd enjoy doing for that amount of time each week on a persistent basis. I'm skeptical there is much of anything people enjoy doing 70 hours per week; I've only known a few people that even liked to get that much sleep. In the past I've known a few gaming addicts that played ten hours per day, but, that's an addict, they have a serious problem. If you have a family, 70 hours per week becomes threatening to the well-being of that family unit. Are there exceptions? I'm sure. That's all they are though, rare exceptions. A bunch of that time should rationally be spent exploring life with the kids and spouse, partaking in new shared experiences together, which is what bonds people together for the long-term. I don't mind working eight hours per day, seven days per week. Up to ten hours if I really need to get something done. I won't do that for anybody else other than myself though, for my own projects/businesses; I won't do it under any circumstances for some middle management moron clown boss or company I don't own. My bills are around a thousand dollars per month right now, I can meet that working part-time for $15 / hr at a convenience store if I feel like it, or doing low volume contract tech work on the side. I've been working six or seven days per week for 20+ years straight at this point and I have rarely suffered burnout, because I've spent that time working on what I wanted to, doing what I wanted to, when I wanted to, with no boss. If I want to sleep all day, I sleep all day; if I want to work all day, I work all day; if I want to sleep during the day and work all night, I do that. That's not normal, and it can't be replicated by the majority of people. I also don't have a family; if I did, I'd have a different schedule because my priorities would be different, working 7*10 would be a serious disservice to that family, it would be unfair.
  • solitus 5y ago
    Out of curiosity what do you do?