Because I like to work.<p>People who don't like to work often misunderstand this when looking at the stories of successful people. They think successful people force themselves to work hard in order to be successful. In fact successful people often like their work so much that there's nothing else they'd rather do. I doubt for example that there's anything Jeff Bezos would rather do than run Amazon. I bet it seems to him the way a gigantic Lego creation seems to a 7 year old.
You can have meaning or you can have happiness. You cannot have both -- at least not all of the time. This conflict can be seen clearly in a movie like "Office Space", where both the male and female leads are working for happiness (and survival) whereas the work environment expects them to be working for meaning. (How many pieces of flair are you wearing?)<p>The trick to this discussion is that people on one side of the discussion frankly don't understand folks on the other side. The things they say and do don't make any sense. If you're a meaning person, you read the title of this essay -- "If You’re So Successful, Why Are You Still Working 70 Hours a Week?" and think if you're successful, why <i>wouldn't</i> you be working 70 hours a week? You're doing what you love, making a difference in the world! It's only those that are unsuccessful, those who work for meaning but aren't very effective, that would spend a lot of time doing nothing.<p>For both camps, it seems the world is full of people from the other camp, basically ruining things for the rest of us. It would be great if we could convey this critical piece of information to people early on in life. So much time and energy is spent in conflicts with other folks where it's not needed.
For the most of my career, I was certain that there was something wrong with me. After the first few months at a new job, a sense of meaninglessness grew in me. Is this it? Am I really babysitting this ASP.Net app from here on out? I tried to find meaning in my work but always came up short. Cue a miserable year followed by a job hunt. Rinse and repeat every 2-4 years.<p>After 12 years of this, it suddendly struck me - I don’t like working. I don’t hate it, not at all - I enjoy coding and fixing bugs. However I fail to see any deeper meaning in the work I do. So last month, I quit, started my own consultancy and sell my skills and time to the highest bidder, max 6 hours per day. Couldn’t be happier! I really feel more like a plumber or electrician than a coder and for the first time in my career I don’t feel anxious about doing something meaningful, because I’ve redefined what “meaning” is.
The article profiles people in a bunch of professional firms, but ignores the changing market for those professionals. An ABA study showed that in 1965, a typical billable hour target for a lawyer was 1200-1600. Today, 2000 hours is a typical target. That can’t be explained by culture. Law has always drawn “insecure overachievers.” In reality, it’s due to the changing marketplace. Decades ago, it would be highly unusual for Philadelphia company to retain a DC firm for a matter. Today, it’s routine—your competition is nationwide. Golfing with local business people doesn’t cut it for business development anymore. And like other industries, the work has shifted to larger players in big markets (NYC/Chicago/SF/DC).<p>External competition also breeds internal competition. I used to work at a firm in New York. There was no competition in the partnership, by design: everyone was paid in a lock step fashion strictly by seniority. Business development meant checking your messages when you got back from lunch. Partnership was for life and partners never left. That was typical 30-40 years ago. Today it’s very much the exception, a model retained by a handful of firms that have major institutional relationships. The typical model today is “eat what you kill.” Partners are compensated based on how much business they bring in, and regularly hop from firm to firm depending on who is offering the best pay package.<p>Of course all this isn’t necessarily bad. Increased competition means more work, more hours, more availability. But where there is a lack of competition, that’s often a sign of people being kept down. Back in 1965, many firms didn’t hire Jews, Asians, African Americans, women, etc. Business was given out over drinks instead of having competing firms pitch for it in a transparent way. All of those things increase competition and decrease the value of “good old boy” networks.
I wonder if organisations are getting the benefits they perceive, I suppose if you bill by the hour you are but I know from personal experience nothing kills my creativity like overwork.
It is odd to ask this question without any consideration of culture.<p>Perhaps our culture defines "success" in a way that can only be achieved by working 70 hours a week.<p>Also, where is the law that says devoting time to idle leisure is superior to working?
I'm technically a successful professional, but I'd certainly love to work less than 70 hours weeks. I don't have a choice, we're understaffed. It's been shown in black and white to management who is betting a sale will bring those people in. The scam comes into play when we realize we're salary. I used to look at salary as something to achieve, flexible work schedule where I could put in the work and go home when I was done. Now the work is never done. I enjoy what I'm doing, and I'm good at it, but the drive to push everyone in the tech industry into burnout is a cancer that's carving the industry out.
Is it bad to just like work?<p>I couldn't think of anything I could do for the number of hours that I work that wouldn't send me insane. Travelling, hanging out with friends, partying, sports, random interests - not that I don't like them a bit, but I would lose it after just a few weeks.
My parents probably had this. "life is short" dominated anyone who lived through the great depression, and WWII and I think it influenced their sense that purposeful activity was better than other choices, what was work and what was pleasure blended, because you had a sense it was better to make things happen, than let entropy rule.<p>I had this as an engaging drive until 15-20 years ago when I somehow lost my work ethic, in a dark corner and I've looked for it fitfully since, but if I am honest, not very hard. I appreciate that its better to build, and leave something behind, but I am less driven to do this 24/7.
I have to work almost all the time. My day typically begins at 3am and ends around 7pm. The reason for this is that my own projects and goals are often contingent on the successful completion of projects by other teams, and organizationally we tend to hire C workers at best. So I spend a lot of time pushing other people and other teams. It doesn’t make me popular but it does make me effective.
It's great to see an article about this. I think it's clear that as automation replaces a lot of jobs we're all going to work less (finally) and find meaning, purpose and happiness in other ways.<p>Certainly some people really love their work, and that's fantastic. Other people would rather work less, and that's great too.
The number of hours people work is not important. What is important is whether they freely <i>choose</i> to work that amount of hours or not. There are poor people who work a lot more than 70 hours a week (2 to 3 different jobs). But that is not something they <i>choose</i> to do.
Also, measuring success in money earned is misguided. Success is personal. Success is achieving what gives meaning/fulfilment to <i>you</i> independently of what gives meaning/fulfilment to others.
Working 70 hrs a week is a signal to me that one is not competent. Computers work for me, not the other way around. As for the people with "bullshit jobs" I assume they do it because of imposter syndrome. The only other category I can think of is doctors, doing it because there's literally no one else who can save a life. That's a management/credentialism issue.
Maybe that's how they became successful. It's a well established fact that industriousness is one of the strongest predictors of success in people.