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I think this is more about manual labour but I'll take the opposite side when it comes to white collar work that working more hours can be better early on in yo

I think this is more about manual labour but I'll take the opposite side when it comes to white collar work that working more hours can be better early on in your career. When I was just out of school and in my early 20s I worked as much as I could, I probably did close to 12 hours days in my 20s. I think I probably averaged an all nighter a month for a few years and worked at least one day on weekends and I loved every minute of it. I said yes to almost all the work I could get. My bosses loved me and I got raises/promotions faster than anyone else. I was able to compress 10 years of experience into about half that time. It really set me up for my career later on in life and I learned so much in that time. I did the learn a language a year thing and that helped me get a job as a compiler writer. And I was able to leverage that into becoming a quant as I put in the hours to relearn all the math I'd forgotten from school. And I was able to leverage that to get into a pretty darn successful hedge fund where I said no to them a few times before they convinced me to join. I'm now in my 40s with a family and I work far less but I still think it was the right move at the time. It really set me up for a life of success and I was able to see the effects of outworking everyone else pay off. I didn't seem to miss out on a social life and I had no burn out or resentment to speak of from those days.

sage76 3y ago
>I did the learn a language a year thing and that helped me get a job as a compiler writer. >And I was able to leverage that into becoming a quant as I put in the hours to relearn all the math I'd forgotten from school. What was your first job role?
vaxman 3y ago
> I think this is more about manual labour When I was young, I saw older engineers and ops people die after hours in their offices (of heart attacks, trying to keep up with recent grads who had just spent four years learning something that the older workers were expected to know instantly). There was one really productive older guy who had wired his whole house with RS-232 ports back to a coat closet where he stuffed a minicomputer and AC unit, then he wheeled a VT100 on a cart from room to room and plugged-in, as needed...so he could work around the clock in comfort, but for most everyone else, there were no laptops and they worked at cold/hot office before and after work, especially in F500 and military industrial complex jobs.
giantg2 3y ago
You had no burnout or resentment because you had an enjoyable working environment with what sound like just rewards and you were able to learn valuable things. That's pretty rare in my experience. My anecdotal evidence is the opposite. I worked extra hours and volunteered for a long time. I took responsibility for things nobody else wanted. My raises and bonuses were trivial. I had one promotion early on from entry level to midlevel. Then I was filling the role of a senior dev and a tech lead for a year each with good reviews and respect of other devs in the department (and some outside it). No promotion, still minor raises and bonuses.
- biohax2015 3y ago
  Did you advocate for yourself? Doing good work is half the battle. The other half is "sales and marketing" i.e making sure that people are aware that you're a good worker.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    Not too much. They were already singing my praises so there wasn't really anything to add. One of the main problems was it was a dying area of the company that ended up getting outsourced about a year after I switched teams.
- jonas21 3y ago
  Here's the thing: working hard doesn't just benefit your employer. It also benefits you because you'll learn new skills rapidly. If your employer doesn't recognize the value you're adding, don't just sit around hoping for a raise someday. Use your new skills to find one who will. At least in my experience (as an engineer in the US), this is relatively easy and is considered a normal thing to do in one's career.
  - giantg2 3y ago
    "It also benefits you because you'll learn new skills rapidly." Only if those skills are in wide demand. Moving companies can be risky and complicated depending on one's personal and family issues.
Etheryte 3y ago
From the article: > Of the 2.96 million deaths, 2.6 million are due to diseases derived from employment such as circulatory problems, cancer, and respiratory diseases. The remaining 330,000 are related to work accidents. It's hardly surprising a cushy office spares of you of most of these issues. I'm happy to hear your career has been a successful one, but what you describe is completely unrelated to the submitted article.
- DetroitThrow 3y ago
  never waste a good opportunity for unsolicited bragging, even in your 40s, jeez
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Curious take. I would think that "a cushy office", which normally means sitting for very long periods, would directly lead to many of these issues over the long term. Indeed, I've seen many research reports and articles over the past decade declaring "sitting is the new smoking".
  - switchbak 3y ago
    Sitting is pretty bad, yes. And it's also incredibly common - which is why it gets the press it does. Combined with a sedentary lifestyle, it's a recipe for serious and predictably poor health outcomes. But it isn't half as hard as extended periods of hard physical labour, day after day, especially as you grow older. Doubly so if you don't have proper medical care, and your employer doesn't tolerate sick days. These folks have it _much_ harder than we do.
    - Clubber 3y ago
      I dunno, is getting exercise all day at work better or worse for your health than sitting down all day at work? Naturally hazardous jobs like coal mines excluded.
      - bluefirebrand 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mrweasel 3y ago
While I have no reason to doubt your experience, please note that you're probably an outlier. One of the things I strongly believe that Extreme Programming got right is the max 40 hour work week. Some can easily do more than 40 hours and still function, some can do less but 40 hours seems like a happy average. Expecting more is unreasonable and won't lead to more productivity for most. That's not to say that those who can should work the hours they'd like and see the benefits, but never expect others to be able to do the same, regardless of age and life situation.
- tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
  I'm not calling into doubt the above poster's work estimates, there are people that work those hours, but I have found that it is extremely, extremely rare. Across all of the teams I have worked with I have found that if you ask someone how many hours a week they work they will typically say 40+, usually closer to 50. If you ask someone how much they worked the previous week, every week, they will usually say 30-35, or even lower. I also don't think the majority of them were lying or trying to cover up their work habits, I think they work 50 hours a week the same way someone might see themselves as smart, funny, a good person, or any other nebulous concept. They are a 50, 60, 70 hour per week person. Also, all but one person who worked extended hours as the above poster claims has been of the "super chicken" type. Typically working for visibility and not to advance their team. I see they posted about their individual accolades and accomplishments but I have no way of knowing if their teams goals were met, if they lifted the performance of the rest of their team or anything else. Many an extreme outlier in performance can be found who has never shipped. Again, not specifically talking about the above poster.
  - switchbak 3y ago
    I track my time, and you're just not right in my experience. And not of the majority of people I've worked with. Maybe this is an American thing, but this is certainly not universal. If you have enough experience and (something approximating) mastery of your craft, you can squeeze out a lot of good work in your 5-6 productive hours of work a day. I've never been impressed at the output from the folks working into the evening - lots of output, yes, but lower quality and a bad tradeoff.
131012 3y ago
[flagged]
- chollida1 3y ago
  > Thanks for the environmental collapse, Mr. Overachiever. Can you explain your comment? I think you may have responded to the wrong comment?
globular-toast 3y ago
Can I ask how much of that time you were in a relationship for? I have a theory that men who achieve a steady, loving relationship early that allows them to do what you did have a huge advantage. I did the 12 hour days and all nighters too but I eventually got lonely and needed to spend a few years learning how to be social and find a relationship. Now I've found that I'm able to resume the many hours of work and it definitely seems to pay dividends. But I wouldn't be able to do it if I was preoccupied with sex and relationships.
- chollida1 3y ago
  > Can I ask how much of that time you were in a relationship for? I have a theory that men who achieve a steady, loving relationship early that allows them to do what you did have a huge advantage. Met my wife when I was 25. I bet you are correct. Having a supportive partner is one of the worlds greatest super powers!!
lordnacho 3y ago
I worked pretty hard in my 20s as well, but always in a comfy way. I never pulled all nighters, I luckily worked in markets where there wasn't much need for that. I could make myself work late evenings, but never past when I wanted to sleep. If I was tired the next evening, I'd turn in early. I would say the thing that made it work was not having kids, and having autonomy over when to work and when to take it easy. I can honestly say I learned more in those years than ever before or since. My housemate worked in investment banking, much longer hours than me, with a fair bit of pressure to be awake when you want to be sleeping. The kind of job where you don't do much during the day, the MD comes in at 6pm, and tells you to make 100 slides by the next day, which he then doesn't use for a couple of days despite the juniors having stayed up all night. Grinding, and all the people who did it got visibly heavier.
intelVISA 3y ago
> I was able to compress 10 years of experience into about half that time. Not a dig, as you're incredibly driven and intelligent to achieve all of the above; I will say this can backfire early, for as painful as those 20 YOE first year x20 types are it's much, much worse to endure the HR hurdles from being the opposite.
wslh 3y ago
> I think this is more about manual labour but I'll take the opposite side when it comes to white collar work that working more hours can be better early on in your career. I have the exact opposite real work experience: I can sustain more manual labor than performing thinking demanding activities.
TheGRS 3y ago
Survivorship bias though, not everyone has great coaches in their life or people who see their potential. You got dealt a good hand and played it well, and that's great, but not everyone is so lucky. Working 12 hour days I would not recommend to anyone. Go out and play.
fakedang 3y ago
Let me challenge the findings of that scientific study with my highly specific anecdote which portrays me in good light.
- chollida1 3y ago
  > Let me challenge the findings of that scientific study with my highly specific anecdote which portrays me in good light. I don't think I challenged any findings, I mearly showed how working hard in my 20s has helped setup the rest of my life. I figured that could help people starting gout in their career. Some of us like to help others around here:)
switchbak 3y ago
This appears to be a Mexican publication talking primarily about jobs involving physical labour. That's a far cry from the desk jobs we have. It sounds like you enjoyed your path, that's a good thing and it seems like you've been really successful. Most people aren't Jamie Zawinski however (thank god), and don't embrace such overwork. If someone demanded that of me, I'd quit on the spot.
alfalfasprout 3y ago
> I didn't seem to miss out on a social life and I had no burn out or resentment to speak of from those days Correction: you don't really know what you missed out on or don't value those things.
- fsckboy 3y ago
  that's not a correction, you're just offering potential explanations
n_ary 3y ago
> I said yes to almost all the work I could get. My bosses loved me and I got raises/promotions faster than anyone else. That culture of “hardwork = reward” is long behind us. Instead of being the “guy who reliably gets things done whatever you throw at them”, I advise on saving one’s sanity and avoid potential burnout by finding a friendly place where they enjoy and have power to make decisions(yes, place exists where even interns can offer decisions and make impacts) and focus on work-life balance more. We are no longer in the golden era. Also, if one is smart enough to find the vein of the gold mine and settle there, one can learn more with balanced effort compared to working too hard or too much.
- snapplebobapple 3y ago
  That's kind of true. You need to find a smaller company that is growing fast for hard work to translate into reward.I've seen hard workers kill it many times in the right,s maller up and coming company and I've seen hard workers die in bigger, less caring places. It's more about whether management values you the incremental value you bring because it's growing fast or if management is worried about your incremental cost because they already have a large enough position to have market power and are now optimizing for somethign other than growth (i.e. profit maximization by exploiting labor monopsony, minimum spend to defend the market power, etc).
- Clubber 3y ago
  >That culture of “hardwork = reward” is long behind us. No it's certainly not. I think it's a convenient excuse to not work hard though. People talk. I always get asked, "we're hiring, you know anybody?" I would recommend someone who works hard and never mention someone who doesn't. I had a brilliant but lazy colleague who I've never recommended to anybody. Every job I've had in the last 25 or so years is because I worked hard and someone noticed and recommended me when they switched jobs or knew someone who was hiring. My first job out of college I had to do the recruiter/interview thing. I worked hard. Every job since has been an offer over lunch. Working hard matters a great deal.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Working smart matters even more. Some jobs require more working hard (re: long hours and 6 days per week) than working smart though, and obviously employers love employees who want less money per time. As an employee though, you want to work smart. And that might be working longer SOMETIMES to learn skills, but the chollida1’s post does not give me that vibe. You only get your 20s once, and while they might have thought it worthwhile to trade them for financial security in their 40s and 50s, I wouldn’t say that is an optimal move, or even a necessary sacrifice. It is the main reason I would advise my kids from becoming doctors. The sacrifices the system asks are far too much. I had much more fun than my doctor friends and they did not end up better off. Spend time with family and friends, do leisure activities that you won’t be able to do when older, etc.
jncfhnb 3y ago
I did good too doing the opposite of this advice. I think it sounds nutty.

sage76 3y ago

>I did the learn a language a year thing and that helped me get a job as a compiler writer. >And I was able to leverage that into becoming a quant as I put in the hours to relearn all the math I'd forgotten from school. What was your first job role?

vaxman 3y ago

> I think this is more about manual labour When I was young, I saw older engineers and ops people die after hours in their offices (of heart attacks, trying to keep up with recent grads who had just spent four years learning something that the older workers were expected to know instantly). There was one really productive older guy who had wired his whole house with RS-232 ports back to a coat closet where he stuffed a minicomputer and AC unit, then he wheeled a VT100 on a cart from room to room and plugged-in, as needed...so he could work around the clock in comfort, but for most everyone else, there were no laptops and they worked at cold/hot office before and after work, especially in F500 and military industrial complex jobs.

giantg2 3y ago

You had no burnout or resentment because you had an enjoyable working environment with what sound like just rewards and you were able to learn valuable things. That's pretty rare in my experience. My anecdotal evidence is the opposite. I worked extra hours and volunteered for a long time. I took responsibility for things nobody else wanted. My raises and bonuses were trivial. I had one promotion early on from entry level to midlevel. Then I was filling the role of a senior dev and a tech lead for a year each with good reviews and respect of other devs in the department (and some outside it). No promotion, still minor raises and bonuses.

biohax2015 3y ago
Did you advocate for yourself? Doing good work is half the battle. The other half is "sales and marketing" i.e making sure that people are aware that you're a good worker.
- giantg2 3y ago
  Not too much. They were already singing my praises so there wasn't really anything to add. One of the main problems was it was a dying area of the company that ended up getting outsourced about a year after I switched teams.
jonas21 3y ago
Here's the thing: working hard doesn't just benefit your employer. It also benefits you because you'll learn new skills rapidly. If your employer doesn't recognize the value you're adding, don't just sit around hoping for a raise someday. Use your new skills to find one who will. At least in my experience (as an engineer in the US), this is relatively easy and is considered a normal thing to do in one's career.
- giantg2 3y ago
  "It also benefits you because you'll learn new skills rapidly." Only if those skills are in wide demand. Moving companies can be risky and complicated depending on one's personal and family issues.

Etheryte 3y ago

From the article: > Of the 2.96 million deaths, 2.6 million are due to diseases derived from employment such as circulatory problems, cancer, and respiratory diseases. The remaining 330,000 are related to work accidents. It's hardly surprising a cushy office spares of you of most of these issues. I'm happy to hear your career has been a successful one, but what you describe is completely unrelated to the submitted article.

DetroitThrow 3y ago
never waste a good opportunity for unsolicited bragging, even in your 40s, jeez
hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Curious take. I would think that "a cushy office", which normally means sitting for very long periods, would directly lead to many of these issues over the long term. Indeed, I've seen many research reports and articles over the past decade declaring "sitting is the new smoking".
- switchbak 3y ago
  Sitting is pretty bad, yes. And it's also incredibly common - which is why it gets the press it does. Combined with a sedentary lifestyle, it's a recipe for serious and predictably poor health outcomes. But it isn't half as hard as extended periods of hard physical labour, day after day, especially as you grow older. Doubly so if you don't have proper medical care, and your employer doesn't tolerate sick days. These folks have it _much_ harder than we do.
  - Clubber 3y ago
    I dunno, is getting exercise all day at work better or worse for your health than sitting down all day at work? Naturally hazardous jobs like coal mines excluded.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mrweasel 3y ago

While I have no reason to doubt your experience, please note that you're probably an outlier. One of the things I strongly believe that Extreme Programming got right is the max 40 hour work week. Some can easily do more than 40 hours and still function, some can do less but 40 hours seems like a happy average. Expecting more is unreasonable and won't lead to more productivity for most. That's not to say that those who can should work the hours they'd like and see the benefits, but never expect others to be able to do the same, regardless of age and life situation.

tanjtanjtanj 3y ago
I'm not calling into doubt the above poster's work estimates, there are people that work those hours, but I have found that it is extremely, extremely rare. Across all of the teams I have worked with I have found that if you ask someone how many hours a week they work they will typically say 40+, usually closer to 50. If you ask someone how much they worked the previous week, every week, they will usually say 30-35, or even lower. I also don't think the majority of them were lying or trying to cover up their work habits, I think they work 50 hours a week the same way someone might see themselves as smart, funny, a good person, or any other nebulous concept. They are a 50, 60, 70 hour per week person. Also, all but one person who worked extended hours as the above poster claims has been of the "super chicken" type. Typically working for visibility and not to advance their team. I see they posted about their individual accolades and accomplishments but I have no way of knowing if their teams goals were met, if they lifted the performance of the rest of their team or anything else. Many an extreme outlier in performance can be found who has never shipped. Again, not specifically talking about the above poster.
- switchbak 3y ago
  I track my time, and you're just not right in my experience. And not of the majority of people I've worked with. Maybe this is an American thing, but this is certainly not universal. If you have enough experience and (something approximating) mastery of your craft, you can squeeze out a lot of good work in your 5-6 productive hours of work a day. I've never been impressed at the output from the folks working into the evening - lots of output, yes, but lower quality and a bad tradeoff.

131012 3y ago

[flagged]

chollida1 3y ago
> Thanks for the environmental collapse, Mr. Overachiever. Can you explain your comment? I think you may have responded to the wrong comment?

globular-toast 3y ago

Can I ask how much of that time you were in a relationship for? I have a theory that men who achieve a steady, loving relationship early that allows them to do what you did have a huge advantage. I did the 12 hour days and all nighters too but I eventually got lonely and needed to spend a few years learning how to be social and find a relationship. Now I've found that I'm able to resume the many hours of work and it definitely seems to pay dividends. But I wouldn't be able to do it if I was preoccupied with sex and relationships.

chollida1 3y ago
> Can I ask how much of that time you were in a relationship for? I have a theory that men who achieve a steady, loving relationship early that allows them to do what you did have a huge advantage. Met my wife when I was 25. I bet you are correct. Having a supportive partner is one of the worlds greatest super powers!!

lordnacho 3y ago

I worked pretty hard in my 20s as well, but always in a comfy way. I never pulled all nighters, I luckily worked in markets where there wasn't much need for that. I could make myself work late evenings, but never past when I wanted to sleep. If I was tired the next evening, I'd turn in early. I would say the thing that made it work was not having kids, and having autonomy over when to work and when to take it easy. I can honestly say I learned more in those years than ever before or since. My housemate worked in investment banking, much longer hours than me, with a fair bit of pressure to be awake when you want to be sleeping. The kind of job where you don't do much during the day, the MD comes in at 6pm, and tells you to make 100 slides by the next day, which he then doesn't use for a couple of days despite the juniors having stayed up all night. Grinding, and all the people who did it got visibly heavier.

intelVISA 3y ago

> I was able to compress 10 years of experience into about half that time. Not a dig, as you're incredibly driven and intelligent to achieve all of the above; I will say this can backfire early, for as painful as those 20 YOE first year x20 types are it's much, much worse to endure the HR hurdles from being the opposite.

wslh 3y ago

> I think this is more about manual labour but I'll take the opposite side when it comes to white collar work that working more hours can be better early on in your career. I have the exact opposite real work experience: I can sustain more manual labor than performing thinking demanding activities.

TheGRS 3y ago

Survivorship bias though, not everyone has great coaches in their life or people who see their potential. You got dealt a good hand and played it well, and that's great, but not everyone is so lucky. Working 12 hour days I would not recommend to anyone. Go out and play.

fakedang 3y ago

Let me challenge the findings of that scientific study with my highly specific anecdote which portrays me in good light.

chollida1 3y ago
> Let me challenge the findings of that scientific study with my highly specific anecdote which portrays me in good light. I don't think I challenged any findings, I mearly showed how working hard in my 20s has helped setup the rest of my life. I figured that could help people starting gout in their career. Some of us like to help others around here:)

switchbak 3y ago

This appears to be a Mexican publication talking primarily about jobs involving physical labour. That's a far cry from the desk jobs we have. It sounds like you enjoyed your path, that's a good thing and it seems like you've been really successful. Most people aren't Jamie Zawinski however (thank god), and don't embrace such overwork. If someone demanded that of me, I'd quit on the spot.

alfalfasprout 3y ago

> I didn't seem to miss out on a social life and I had no burn out or resentment to speak of from those days Correction: you don't really know what you missed out on or don't value those things.

fsckboy 3y ago
that's not a correction, you're just offering potential explanations

n_ary 3y ago

> I said yes to almost all the work I could get. My bosses loved me and I got raises/promotions faster than anyone else. That culture of “hardwork = reward” is long behind us. Instead of being the “guy who reliably gets things done whatever you throw at them”, I advise on saving one’s sanity and avoid potential burnout by finding a friendly place where they enjoy and have power to make decisions(yes, place exists where even interns can offer decisions and make impacts) and focus on work-life balance more. We are no longer in the golden era. Also, if one is smart enough to find the vein of the gold mine and settle there, one can learn more with balanced effort compared to working too hard or too much.

snapplebobapple 3y ago
That's kind of true. You need to find a smaller company that is growing fast for hard work to translate into reward.I've seen hard workers kill it many times in the right,s maller up and coming company and I've seen hard workers die in bigger, less caring places. It's more about whether management values you the incremental value you bring because it's growing fast or if management is worried about your incremental cost because they already have a large enough position to have market power and are now optimizing for somethign other than growth (i.e. profit maximization by exploiting labor monopsony, minimum spend to defend the market power, etc).
Clubber 3y ago
>That culture of “hardwork = reward” is long behind us. No it's certainly not. I think it's a convenient excuse to not work hard though. People talk. I always get asked, "we're hiring, you know anybody?" I would recommend someone who works hard and never mention someone who doesn't. I had a brilliant but lazy colleague who I've never recommended to anybody. Every job I've had in the last 25 or so years is because I worked hard and someone noticed and recommended me when they switched jobs or knew someone who was hiring. My first job out of college I had to do the recruiter/interview thing. I worked hard. Every job since has been an offer over lunch. Working hard matters a great deal.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Working smart matters even more. Some jobs require more working hard (re: long hours and 6 days per week) than working smart though, and obviously employers love employees who want less money per time. As an employee though, you want to work smart. And that might be working longer SOMETIMES to learn skills, but the chollida1’s post does not give me that vibe. You only get your 20s once, and while they might have thought it worthwhile to trade them for financial security in their 40s and 50s, I wouldn’t say that is an optimal move, or even a necessary sacrifice. It is the main reason I would advise my kids from becoming doctors. The sacrifices the system asks are far too much. I had much more fun than my doctor friends and they did not end up better off. Spend time with family and friends, do leisure activities that you won’t be able to do when older, etc.

jncfhnb 3y ago

I did good too doing the opposite of this advice. I think it sounds nutty.