4 ms·

My experience working 80 hour weeks wasn't with startups, it was with political campaigns where I made far less money and there was obviously no equity. Similar

My experience working 80 hour weeks wasn't with startups, it was with political campaigns where I made far less money and there was obviously no equity. Similar situation though, get idealistic 20-somethings recently out of college without families to work endlessly. I don't support 7 day weeks and 12 hour days, but frankly for politics it works. Why? Because for 95% of campaign employees it's not work quality that matters, it's talking to a ton of other people, repeating simple messages, engaging them and asking them to get involved with the campaign. I am extremely supportive of organizations that support reasonable work hours and not overextending yourself. I would never work 7 days a week again. But just as much as you should not needlessly overwork yourself and your employees, you need to understand (or at least try to understand) what is necessary to hit your goals. I suspect the average engineer at most startups could use an extra day off. For some founders it may make sense to work long hours because some of that work is touching base with investors, forging connections and doing other things that may not be intellectually draining but just need to get done.

mathattack 13y ago
Political campaigns at least have downtime though, right? You can have a month or two off between sprints. I think certain creative work (movies?) is like this too.
- dworin 13y ago
  With some exceptions, especially at the top, the "downtime between campaigns" is called unemployment.
  - mathattack 13y ago
    True. I was thinking of it in terms of "Overall the hours may be close to 2000/year" but the reality is the pay sucks, so having downtime is different than other fields. (Say a month or two off between high intensity programming gigs)
- pc86 13y ago
  When I worked on political campaigns it was summer (anywhere from May to August) until election day (first week of November) for 90+ hours a week. I joke around about my very first job where I worked 96 hours in the first 6 days, and since it was July it only got busier from there. It gets to the point where you would much rather do 10+ hours of work every day of the week than take that Sunday off but have to sacrifice sleep for the next week because of it. Particularly for statewide and national elections, the last 2-4 weeks before a campaign there is nothing else. No downtime, no family, no hobbies, nothing. Just the candidate, the message, the voters, the outreach. It’s rare in those major elections to get more than 2-3 hours of sleep (or sleep at all) in the last 72 hour push. Again these are elections for POTUS, Senator or Governor in contested states. A state rep race is going to be much more low key but still easily 60-80+ hours for the final month or two. Things may have lightened up some since I moved to programming, but I doubt it.
  - rgovind 13y ago
    Why do people work so hard for getting a candidate elected? Does it personally benefit you or your family? I am not talking of idealistic 20-somethings but of people in 35+ age group? Why do they work hard to get a candidate elected? In a country like India, where I come from, this is totally understandable...if your candidate wins, you stand to make a lot of (corrupt) money.
    - pc86 13y ago
      Obviously idealistic 20-somethings make up the majority of the grunt work. Hell, even idealistic 30-somethings make up the majority of the lower-level management. For most people who treat it as a career though, it's just a job. Rather than a 40-hour a week office job, they have a job where they work 100 hours a week 5 months out of the year. The vast majority of campaign workers I worked with in my younger days are now working in government (state and federal) so that's definitely one of the best ways to get into that work. To be clear, I'm referring to Administration-type posts, not civil service or public service positions. These are still very political jobs such as spokesperson and generic staffers. EDIT: And maybe this is my idealism shining through (I'm still a 20-something, after all :)) but a lot of us really believe that Our Side is better than The Alternative, and we're willing to give up time to try to make that a reality. Even though I don't make money from politics anymore, I still donate a decent amount of my spare time every cycle to the candidate(s) I choose to support.
bps4484 13y ago
"but frankly for politics it works. Why? Because for 95% of campaign employees it's not work quality that matters, it's talking to a ton of other people, repeating simple messages, engaging them and asking them to get involved with the campaign." As the original author and many pointed out, working tons of hours doesn't work for knowledge workers. I think what you're pointing out here (and I agree with it) is that political campaigns aren't really knowledge work. It seems like it would be, but it sounds like a lot of the work is quite mindless.
ojbyrne 13y ago
So after reading this, and relaxing (leisure spurs interesting thoughts), I had this insight - many, many political campaigns are decided when a candidate/staffer/media person makes a stupid gaffe. The last presidential campaign basically was decided by Mitt Romney's 47% remark (http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/07/mitt-romney-47-percent-denial http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/07/mitt-romney-47-perce...). These things have got to be made more common by mass sleep deprivation. Maybe, maybe, the next president will be the one who insists his staffers work a strict 40 hours a week.

mathattack 13y ago

Political campaigns at least have downtime though, right? You can have a month or two off between sprints. I think certain creative work (movies?) is like this too.

dworin 13y ago
With some exceptions, especially at the top, the "downtime between campaigns" is called unemployment.
- mathattack 13y ago
  True. I was thinking of it in terms of "Overall the hours may be close to 2000/year" but the reality is the pay sucks, so having downtime is different than other fields. (Say a month or two off between high intensity programming gigs)
pc86 13y ago
When I worked on political campaigns it was summer (anywhere from May to August) until election day (first week of November) for 90+ hours a week. I joke around about my very first job where I worked 96 hours in the first 6 days, and since it was July it only got busier from there. It gets to the point where you would much rather do 10+ hours of work every day of the week than take that Sunday off but have to sacrifice sleep for the next week because of it. Particularly for statewide and national elections, the last 2-4 weeks before a campaign there is nothing else. No downtime, no family, no hobbies, nothing. Just the candidate, the message, the voters, the outreach. It’s rare in those major elections to get more than 2-3 hours of sleep (or sleep at all) in the last 72 hour push. Again these are elections for POTUS, Senator or Governor in contested states. A state rep race is going to be much more low key but still easily 60-80+ hours for the final month or two. Things may have lightened up some since I moved to programming, but I doubt it.
- rgovind 13y ago
  Why do people work so hard for getting a candidate elected? Does it personally benefit you or your family? I am not talking of idealistic 20-somethings but of people in 35+ age group? Why do they work hard to get a candidate elected? In a country like India, where I come from, this is totally understandable...if your candidate wins, you stand to make a lot of (corrupt) money.
  - pc86 13y ago
    Obviously idealistic 20-somethings make up the majority of the grunt work. Hell, even idealistic 30-somethings make up the majority of the lower-level management. For most people who treat it as a career though, it's just a job. Rather than a 40-hour a week office job, they have a job where they work 100 hours a week 5 months out of the year. The vast majority of campaign workers I worked with in my younger days are now working in government (state and federal) so that's definitely one of the best ways to get into that work. To be clear, I'm referring to Administration-type posts, not civil service or public service positions. These are still very political jobs such as spokesperson and generic staffers. EDIT: And maybe this is my idealism shining through (I'm still a 20-something, after all :)) but a lot of us really believe that Our Side is better than The Alternative, and we're willing to give up time to try to make that a reality. Even though I don't make money from politics anymore, I still donate a decent amount of my spare time every cycle to the candidate(s) I choose to support.

bps4484 13y ago

"but frankly for politics it works. Why? Because for 95% of campaign employees it's not work quality that matters, it's talking to a ton of other people, repeating simple messages, engaging them and asking them to get involved with the campaign." As the original author and many pointed out, working tons of hours doesn't work for knowledge workers. I think what you're pointing out here (and I agree with it) is that political campaigns aren't really knowledge work. It seems like it would be, but it sounds like a lot of the work is quite mindless.

ojbyrne 13y ago

So after reading this, and relaxing (leisure spurs interesting thoughts), I had this insight - many, many political campaigns are decided when a candidate/staffer/media person makes a stupid gaffe. The last presidential campaign basically was decided by Mitt Romney's 47% remark (http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/07/mitt-romney-47-percent-denial http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/07/mitt-romney-47-perce...). These things have got to be made more common by mass sleep deprivation. Maybe, maybe, the next president will be the one who insists his staffers work a strict 40 hours a week.