Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Is Logging Long Hours a Recipe For Burnout or the Only Way To Get Ahead? (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Over the weekend, I came across this story on Bloomberg that illustrates a common dilemma that many of us face ourselves: are we sure we're working enough? From the article: "Earlier this month, venture capitalist Keith Rabois set off a Silicon Valley firestorm about what it takes to succeed. When another tech investor wrote on Twitter that working on the weekends and burning out isn't cool -- and doesn't work -- Rabois fired back. "Totally false," he said. Rabois cited icons like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Belichick as proof that dogged dedication (usually measured by long hours) was the only way to reach the top of your field. Lots of people objected to this assessment, for reasons ranging from VC privilege to its gendered implications." I was wondering where Slashdot readers find themselves in this debate.
If I'm working long hours, it will be for myself thanks. Keep in mind that Zuck works long hours because he won the lottery and the project he works long hours on is actually something of his own. If a company wants to hire me then they can either appreciate me for the good work I do during my eight hour day or I will take my skills elsewhere.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
This depends on your culture.
Here in the Netherlands, many consider putting in more hours (just for more hours) as inefficient and wasteful, while my colleagues in the US consider it necessary, not just to get ahead, but even to keep their job. To many Dutch colleagues the way they work in the US is considered inefficient and 'dinosaur era' where you are appreciated for the time spent, and not for the results produced or spending your time well. We like to spent more hours only as a temporary fix to a stable planning.
During an internship at MIT for a couple of months, I noticed similar behavior which was considered by the students to be absolutely necessary for good grades: put in lots of hours, even regular all-nighters. To me they spent a lot of that time on the wrong/unrelated/side issue things, and they could have gotten the same results in about half or 2/3 the time. They would pursue every single option/angle the prof would point out, even the clearly fruitless ones. They were afraid (as in not an option at all) to tell the prof that 'yes, that was a fine idea, but perhaps not related to the core of this project and perhaps better not taken up here and now'. Actually when I told the MIT professor such in one of his talks with me about my work, he was very surprised to be told 'no', although he immediately saw the correctness of it and actually thanked me for reeling in his 'wide academic interest' that would have derailed the project.
So, when the culture requires you to spend hours, and not question the task description you might not get job-ownership, but that is not what is requested, so no problem: spend the hours.
When the culture is to value efficiency, be smarter instead of making more hours, question the task description, ask yourself with every subtask 'how does this contribute to the goal, must this work be done, must it be done by me?, etc' and created job-ownership and control in the process.
In my experience, getting overworked or burned out happens most to those that have a strong sense of responsibility and ambition that is conflicting by lack of power and possibilities they encounter.
Therefore I would argue to go for the second method as much as your local culture allows: it empowers you more to steer your own work, setting your own goals with your own rewards, while allowing you to do so in less time, leaving more time available for 'unloading'. And if you like spending much more hours, you will see that in this environment, any hours spent extra will contribute noticeably to your own end goals, and you can maintain much more easily a healthy balance between work hard-play hard with far less risk of burn out (because of the control you have over it)