Today in ratioed tweets: "If you don’t work nights and weekends in your 20s, you’re not going to have a successful career."

[Deleted member 49482]

The amount of people who achieve financial independence period is in general is in single digits, that's not really the point. Assuredly independence is the long term goal for alot of people but even as a short term goal, improving your skills enough to gain employment doing something you actually like is going to be worth sacrificing off time.

Its not just about getting rich. Its about not hating the place that you are forced to spend a majority of your time at.

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Very true - but combining your comments and bringing it back to the OP: even if you generally enjoy your job (i.e., working for someone; not running your own business), working nights and weekends at that job is typically going to be a losing proposition with respect to future compensation and present opportunity costs for the vast majority of people. There are a lot of presuppositions in the OP tweets, but I believe this is the concept they are referencing.

 

[maxxpower]

I work only 50 hours a week and even that feels like death.

 

[RavFiveFour]

There's no answer to how many hours a week you should work.

 

[VeryHighlander]

I work only 50 hours a week and even that feels like death.

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Only? That's a LOT of time you are dedicating from your life. Don't underestimate that at all. Just because some people work more doesn't diminish what you are doing. You're still bustin your ass, right?

 

[Deleted member 6582]

It's about what you learn, not what you do. So provided that you are learning something then it probably will help (though you can self learn however you want, it doesn't need to be work pressure) but if you are just rushing to finish a product because you have bad management you are wasting your time and rewarding bad behavior.

I frequently shut down co-workers who say they are working extra hours or respond to chat/email when they are on vacation. The company isn't and shouldn't reward that, so you best do it because you actually want to do it. If things need to get done, then they will make time for it.

 

[Deleted member 1248]

I've never received as much as a pat on the back from management for showing initiative or working extra hours. Hard working reliable people only get one thing: exploited. I put in my scheduled hours and then leave.

 

[Masquerader]

There's no answer to how many hours a week you should work.

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Yes there is! The answer is the amount of hours you actually want to work.

 

[Huncho_Houdini]

Lol @ the MLK, Gandhi etc. comparisons. Not really a valid standard to hold oneself to, as working 80 hours IT per week won't change the world. Just silly corporate bootlicking.

One should see the stats for mental heath decline, health issues, drug use, etc. in industries where that schedule is forced (for example medical residents). It's soul crushing.

 

[danowat]

I work only 50 hours a week and even that feels like death.

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Saddening to see 50 and 'only' in the same sentence.

I do 36 and that's still too much, I used to work crazy hours when I was younger, until I realised that it's not the people who work loads that ascend the ladder, it's those that get others to do it that do.

 

[kickz]

I rarely work over 40, if u want to move up its as easy as changing companies u work at.

 

[Deleted member 5359]

If I'm hourly then I'll take the extra hours and $$$ most of the time.

If I'm salary then nah dawg I'm good unless there is some kind of alternate compensation agreed upon (in writing)

 

[Servbot24]

I've never received as much as a pat on the back from management for showing initiative or working extra hours. Hard working reliable people only get one thing: exploited. I put in my scheduled hours and then leave.

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Yep. Working late hours is for chumps. I clock out at 5 on the dot (or earlier) and have never heard a thing about it. Still get my raises and promotions.

Now if you want to learn something new or change your career then working at night is required in the form of studying.

I rarely work over 40, if u want to move up its as easy as changing companies u work at.

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So true. Wish I learned this 2 years earlier. I'm new at my job and right now I'm just trying to get the Senior level of my position then I'll start job shopping again.

 

[Z-Beat]

I don't know how wise it is to take any kind of long term career advice from someone so reliant on crypto currency

 

[Dennis8K]

"Work more, serfs!"

"Can we have universal healthcare?"

"No"

USA 2020

 

[Z-Beat]

This being tech twitter, some are defending the tweet with worse takes.



The tech industry is doomed.

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Innovation is born from the need to be lazy. No one ever made an invention because they wanted to do more work with no increase in output. You don't make the lightbulb so you can get up at the crack of dawn to do work while you have light.

If you don't look for ways to mitigate workload in the tech industry then you're not gonna have a successful career because that's kinda the entire point of the tech industry

 

[hurlex]

I will never understand people who brag about working an extreme amount. I mean, if you are passionate in what you do and you want to spend your time on it, cool. But some people brag about horrible their life is and try to guilt people into doing the same. Fuck that

 

[onadesertedisland]

We get a limited time on Earth. I refuse to spend it so someone else can relax in luxury. The concept of a career is anathema to the human condition.

 

[Deleted member 7883]

i gotta crunch like a motherfucker the last week of every month. The holiday season has been brutal... usually I can get away with using RemotePC for five hours on a saturday and that's it, but due to the nature of my job teleworking won't cut it. Now I gotta come in to work Saturday AND Sunday, AND still be here next monday and tuesday. I don't even think I'll be able to knock out all the deadlines by then. I don't get paid overtime... all fulltime employees just get stuck with flex time bs. Only thing keeping me moving forward is looking forward to playing Witcher 3 on my commute, and taking extra days off early in January to compensate for my overtime... instead of being paid overtime. :(

To anyone else in a similar situation right now, where you gotta work this weekend because of the holidays... my heart goes out to you. We can make it through this. <3

 

[Meauxse]

It sucks that the norm is 40 or above. It's kind of impossible to say: I'm not working more than 40 no matter what. The project fails and I have no future work if the project doesn't get done. So to have future work, I need to put extra time in now. We've had difficulty hiring up because the knowledge is specific and as such, I need to shoulder the burden to keep my bills paid.

It sucks, but it is the current reality of things. As such, I haven't worked a week under 50 hrs in 8 months.

 

[Doc Kelso]

My favorite thing about these "change the world" people is that I've never once heard of them, nor have I heard of any of the products they've ever worked on.

 

[Deleted member 3208]

40 hours a week and period. Good luck finding me in my job after 4 PM.

Only way I would work more than the usual is if I owned a company; otherwise, hahaha.

 

[Red Liquorice]

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Please tell me he means another Thatcher.

 

[Daingurse]

I hate working a single minute over my 40 for the week. I don't give a shit about changing world. I'll leave that to the proud few. I just want to enjoy my life.

 

[Deleted member 25600]

I work the hours I'm paid for. Not a second longer.

Also the 40 hour work week is very antiquated and should be reduced.

 

[thewienke]

I will never understand people who brag about working an extreme amount. I mean, if you are passionate in what you do and you want to spend your time on it, cool. But some people brag about horrible their life is and try to guilt people into doing the same. Fuck that

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This is what steered me away from Big 4 or public accounting in general. The weird martyrdom stories of the number of hours worked without any desire to leave the industry because they hope to maybe make partner one day seems insane.

Glad y'all make more money in the long run but I'd rather make less money working 40-45 hours a week.

 

[I Don't Like]

I can somewhat understand people who have become incredibly successful working a ton saying shit like this but I feel like the majority of this crap comes from regular people who are just trying waaaay too hard. Like the motherfuckers who have multiple "side hustles" in addition to their regular meager job and are into MLM and shit.

 

[Hollywood Duo]

Nothing builds respect among your peers like being a pushover

 

[Rover]

When these low-effort "thought leaders" in tech decide to work hard to change the world, we get wonderful outcomes like:

• Your private info sold like a commodity; hacks and leaks of your info is not a privacy concern, but a loss of assets for the company
• Objective truth and honesty dissolved because fake news and controversy drives more online engagement, more incentive to watch the world burn
• Biased statistical and AI methods accelerating the trend of discrimination, and also providing a smokescreen for who's doing it

Just to name a few.

The world needs smarter people, more of them, and better decision making and critical thinking, not longer hours and certainly not more people in tech ruining the world with their changes.

 

[Melhadf]

Wages are a life for money transaction, if you want more than 40 hours a week of my life then the pay needs to go way, way, wayyyyy up.

 

[Mathieran]

The "weekend" is conceptual in this case. Your weekend is typically Friday-Saturday, but you still get one.

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Ah, I misunderstood weekend to mean having to work Sat-Sun

in that case I rarely am required to work extra hours, typically only in an animal emergency. Overtime is rare and optional.

 

[Randam]

I work 34 hours per week.
there are still people at work 24 hourse per day.
we are saving the planet as a team :)

Spoiler

we aren't really savin the world.
maybe in a few year when our company starts building electro vehicles :D

 

[Apathy]

All the people working overnight at my work that thought they were going to get ahead that way only got forgotten by management and made no connections

 

[hurlex]

Another thing that is dumb is that there is a lot of evidence that you get way more inefficient as you work longer and more likely to make mistakes. So from a managerial perspective, it's better for your employees to work less.

 

[infinitebento]

if you're a successful chef and you somehow work >40 hours a week, suck my dick.

 

[Deleted member 11413]

My only problem with it is that it's total nonsense. What the heck does "changing the world" even mean. What does MLK have to do with Alexander Hamilton and Margaret fucking Thatcher? It's just a bunch of bullshit for tech nerds to pat themselves on the back for bending themselves over a barrel for their bosses.

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Yeah as soon as I saw Thatcher I was like 'fuck this shit'

 

[Kernel]

Whatever happened to work smarter not harder?

 

[ginger ninja]

I always find it hilarious that people working in tech literally believe they are doing some game changing every day. Like that dude comparing himself to MLK, GANDHI. No you ain't one of those, dipshit.

I say this as someone working in the tech industry myself. All we do is slave ourselves away to a capitalist/consumerist society so we can buy things we don't really need.

 

[Antrax]

There's nothing wrong with having big goals. People should be encouraged towards that. The too cool to care attitude is shit, I would much rather associate with someone who has passion and dedication.

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99% (and I'm lowballing that) of jobs done well have a non-existent impact on the world. Certainly the CEO of a data company primarily catered to businesses like real estate isn't fucking Ghandi.

It's also always some smug white dude.

 

[Dream Machine]

Whatever happened to work smarter not harder?

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That's just for the bosses. Peons will work until bones are showing

 

[Nassudan]

I worked nights and weekends at my last job (a startup) and all I have to show for that was zero 401k savings and bailing out *just* before the place closed down.

Ok boomer.

 

[Dremorak]

Worked maybe 3 late nights since leaving retail 8 years ago. Was animation lead on a project and managed to become pretty valuable to the company while they forced their coders to work themselves to death ( pretty standard games industry stuff unfortunately) thankfully found a company now that treats their workers right, only do a little extra here and there because I want the company and the game to do well, not cause a producer wandered over and said "would be good if you could stay tonight, everyone else has been working 12 hour days for the last 2 months. Would be good to show solidarity with the team"

 

[Kurita]

Workaholic tech dudes (and the equivalent in other fields) need to be shot into the Sun I swear

That Auren Hoffman jabronie (whoever that is) goes first.

 

[Hot Priest]

I worked 84 hours a week in my 20`s and 30`s but I was paid a fuck ton for overtime. I put all the money away in investments and paying off my house. now I work a slow 40 hour week. I would never work a salary job.
Its hard to say how the extra hours helped my career, but there is no way I could have the amount of experience I have now if not for those long hours.

Also I don`t understand the "if you company needs you to work nights and weekends, the company is at fault." I have always works maintenance and repair for companies that run 24/7 they will always need people to work day and night.

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Not even one page and people start defending this

Corporate bootlicker - ERA never change

 

[ItIsOkBro]

I occasionally work overtime and weekends and use that as leverage during my reviews but all it amounts to is a maybe a 4K raise vs. a 3K raise, not exactly the difference between successful and unsuccessful.

 

[take_marsh]

Such delusions drawn from a deeply anecdotal experience is no basis for a statement as vast as that one. You'd have to be a giant douche to believe something so obviously wrong.

At the very least, try to make tiny changes to earth (Frightened Rabbit fan, I can't help it). There's nothing wrong with ambition, but don't let your ego collapse into an asshole.

 

[cubicle47b]

I feel lucky to be working at a software company that prioritizes work/life balance. I've never been asked to work over 40 hours per week (or even bill 40 hours per week as some time each week is spent on continuous learning, travel, etc.).

 

[A More Normal Bird]

A lot of people don't seem to realise that the consensus has shifted from the belief that figures like Gandhi and Thatcher were able to spearhead social change because of their roles in the broader conditions they were operating in, to a recognition that they were actually what is known as "10x politicians". These are politicians that can achieve up to ten times as much social change in any given moment of rupture compared to the average politician.

You're really doing your PredictIt account a disservice if you don't know how to recognise a 10x politician. These are the ones who when a new ideology is forming are already experimenting and tinkering with it, before any documentation is released. As the tweet mentions, they often work odd and long hours and take their work home with them, because to them it's like a challenge. Also: have a look at their shoes! A 10x politician usually wears smart but comfortable footwear, and it's often worn down from long hours door knocking, pacing corridors whilst having intense conversations and being thrown at hapless staffers.

 

[APOEERA]

I work at a company that it takes too much damn time (like close to 1 to 2 hours) just to get to work (I have literally taken naps for an hour before my scheduled start time due to exhaustion). I shouldn't have to do this but the local economy for my area sucks and whatever companies that are there are more interested in paying near poverty level wages for the work I do in IT. Then you interview with them and the common question is "what do you know about web design?" (as if setting up networks or Active Directory or desktops is the same thing)

I get paid more now and work fewer hours than over a year ago where I got paid less and had to basically run a department. I like my job a lot but having to do this just to make it doesn't make sense. Nights and weekends my @ss, what about companies paying a livable wage?

 

[ryan299]

Not only tech industry. Can tell you that me working weekends is due to bad management From my company and has done nothing to make me successful. They don't even care that my boss and I bail the company out every fall do to their bad management. It's the same crap year after year and it's just empty promises to fix what's broken.

Life is short, it's not worth working extra for no benefit. This is also part of the reason why nobody has company loyalty anymore.

 

[Graven]

It's not that simple, some people work very hard, but are being exploited instead of ascending, while some other are sitting in big chairs because of connections.

Working hard to achieve your goals is commendable, but there is a line, and if you push it too much, you might live to regret it later. As a reminder, the world is full of vanity, you might end up chasing after things that later on you will realise you didn't even need them in the first place.