But why decrease your salary by more than 50%? I mean the effective per-hour salary.<p><i>Hey boss, you're paying me $100/hour, but I'll work twice as much! Now you'll only be paying me $50/hour, and the best part is that I'm loving it!</i>
I've done 84/wk for the better part of a year. With commuting it was well over 90. Didn't bother me too bad at the time, but took a toll on my health and pretty much everything else in life. I wouldn't recommend it just for the health reasons if nothing else, but those other things that just didn't get done were important too. I'll also say that jobs are ephemeral, and there's really not much benefit to going all-in like that on any of them. Apart from larger amounts of cash in a shorter amount of time (and much higher tax burden), I have nothing to show now for that kind of dedication to my employer's cause. It's not like you'll learn more, you'll just work more and the job becomes your life.
I wonder if any of them saw any additional compensation for the time they spent and the sacrifices they made?<p>Also, right now I'm struggling to hit 40 hours a week, I wonder if I'll ever feel up to working those crazy hours again.
There's nothing wrong to work long hours if it's a choice and not a necessity. I've had colleagues who worked a lot simply because they loved their job. The only issue I have with them is that they raise the bar in the team and other people may have to keep up.
Hours may correlate somewhat with output, but it's diminishing returns.<p>We should optimise for productivity + life outside of work instead<p>I'm glad the "I work XX hours per week" bench is slowly dying out - fools gold.
Joshua Fluke [0] has a channel on youtube and he is talking about all these overwork inefficiencies and tricks companies pull to squeeze as much as possible from their employees. His channel has grown over time and he’s getting a lot of negative attention from exploitative CEO and he’s not shy about calling them out.
[0] <a href="https://m.youtube.com/c/JoshuaFluke1" rel="nofollow">https://m.youtube.com/c/JoshuaFluke1</a>
Andy Hertzfeld it's probably for UI /UX what Dennis Ritchie was to programming, he is a genius mad respect for him... but, even for that time, that hustle culture sounds too similar to a compulsive gambler justifying himself because of a winning streak.
I used to overwork pretty badly. This was mainly because I like what I do for a living.<p>However, I am in a position now where I can work 80 hours one week and disappear for a while to balance it out.<p>I try to make the most of the "flexible work schedule" and "unlimited time off" without shortchanging my employer, and I am grateful that they trust their employees enough to allow me to do so.
People used to work longer than 40h/week before the industrial revolution[1].<p>But as a programmer, even 40h/week is unrealistic.<p>I only get somewhere between 2-5 hours of real work done per day (as a freelance dev). Depending of where I am in the week. Mondays are great because I'm well-rested, but by Friday, I'm less able to put long hours.<p>Anyone has an idea why it's expected that programmers work similar shifts as less creative/deep jobs?<p>[1] <a href="https://bebusinessed.com/history/history-40-hour-workweek/" rel="nofollow">https://bebusinessed.com/history/history-40-hour-workweek/</a><p>Edit: I avoid doing pretty much <i>any</i> kind of work on Sundays. And Saturdays are a mix of work and play.
I'm extremely glad I don't work 90h/week, nor have I ever had to (my contract says 40h/week and that's usually how much I work - if I do overtime (rare) I usually get to adjust for that on a different day).<p>However, I'm not very invested in my work, and I genuinely wish I could work in a team with such esprit de corps and shared sense of purpose as the original Mac team.<p>I wonder if the two can only ever be had as a package deal.<p>I.e. if you are so invested in your work (probably a good thing, all else being equal), does it inevitably end up expanding beyond 40h/week (probably a bad thing, all else being equal)?
I've always been involved in things that require intense periods of work (recording an album, directing a movie, writing my own startup's software) and I really enjoy it. I cannot imagine doing that much work for someone else though. When you are working for yourself on something you are passionate about, it truly does not feel like work at all. The old saying is true.
Back then, they loved to give their souls to a new machine.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_a_New_Machine</a>