There's long hours, and hard work. Some of those jobs listed are mostly long hours, not so much hard work. Finance, consulting, and similar are good examples of

There's long hours, and hard work. Some of those jobs listed are mostly long hours, not so much hard work. Finance, consulting, and similar are good examples of such - there's A LOT of waiting as the work traverses up and down the hierarchy, combined with the fact that the work often fundamentally revolves around deals/projects with a finite (and quite short) window. Actually doing long hours combined with hard work is not really sustainable. In the end you'll end up with burnouts, resignations, lower quality work, etc. But with that said, lots of sectors are plagued with the mentality of "That is the only way it works, always has been", combined with "if I could/had to do it, others should too". Who knows, maybe change is coming. IIRC, investment banking analysts have gone through their tribulations regarding this. Everyone joining IB knows the hours are long, and the competition is fierce - but still juniors are saying enough is enough.