How I get my employees to work 80 hours a week

I have a sneaking suspicion that these 80 hour work weeks people brag about actually boil down to an anecdote about a terrible week they once had when they needed to get the job done quickly or lose their company. People that don't really understand what this kind of work entails just perpetuate these ideas because of some perverse idea of work ethic they get from reading about irrational people like Elon Musk.

I've got some breaking news for this "CEO" if he is for real and actually thinks an 80 hour work week is in any way a decent idea; the thing you are creating is not that important. You might think it is, but you are wrong. That is the hard but certain truth, and I truly hope you learn that in the least painful way possible.

If the Earth was suddenly going to be destroyed by an asteroid in just a few weeks, you'd be right to sacrifice the physical and mental well being of your brilliant team in ways like this to stop it. Even at that point you'd be better off with rotating fresh minds to figure it out.

Long story short, you are lying or just kidding yourself. Either way, you are doing a bad thing for the world.

It's easy to get a few kids to drink some Kool Aid. Whether they keep drinking it, get any benefit out of it, or remember the experience fondly, are all very different questions.

Something about the feeling of having all the time in the world made me less focused I guess. When I have a deadline, and know that I won't be working through the weekend, I tend to still get it done on time.

Also, in my experience. The teams that work 40-50 hours/week seem to be more stable and of a higher caliber than the 70-80 hours per week crowd, but that's just from the 3-4 teams I've been a part of. I wouldn't say it's anything conclusive.

That's it?

That's going to "change the face of an entire industry"? I'm quite certain the bankers at your local Wells Fargo/Citi/Chase branch work 9-5 and underwrite personal loans all day long without working 80 hours a week. What on earth could these guys be working on that requires such an absurd work schedule?

I've done the 12 hour days as an early employee of a startup (and one significantly more interesting than this). I will never do it again. The math just doesn't make sense—I make substantially more money working at a big tech company and going home at 5 every day than I likely ever would at a startup. Why should I give up my personal life and make less money?

It would be interesting to see accurate data on whether startup employees work fewer hours than they used to. I'd be surprised if they were by much; self-reported numbers were chronically inflated in the first place because it was fashionable to do so. What's new is the cultural consensus that maximizing raw hours is wrong and that raw hours don't equate to productivity. Those were always truisms, but they're truisms that the culture has now settled on, which seems good.

Edit: one trend that doesn't get commented on as much is the fragmentation of the workday: i.e. working hours are less likely to be in a single contiguous block and more likely to be scattered through the day, evenings, and weekends, even if total hours worked are no higher. The problem in this case isn't raw quantity, it's not getting away from work for a long-enough stretch and so not getting any regenerative context switch. Hopefully this will get discussed more and studied.

Doing something you believe in is really fantastic but it's higher on the hierarchy of needs than "put food on my table" and "keep my spouse from resenting me for never being around". If you're working 80 hours a week, then you should be compensated for that. Financially.

A few months ago, a USAF Colonel came and gave an address to the employees at my job site. "I know you all do this for patriotism and love of your country," he said. Sure, those are reasons...#9 or #10 on my list, maybe, for dealing with the insanity of flight test. #1, as the great Randy Moss would have said, is "Straight cash, homie."

I wonder how highly Mr. Sandhu's employees would rate the mission to "truly reinvent banking" on their list of reasons for coming to work?

Given a large lecture hall of ~500 students, how many would agree that working your employees 80/hrs a week in an underpaid fashion is a stroke of genius that proves you to be a successful businessman/businesswomen?

I don't think their is a difference in character or morality between majors, passions, or what have you. I believe we teach a brand of capitalism in regards to business that is highly detrimental to society.

Furthermore I think this methodology is inferior to that of other models, models where workers are fairly compensated, maintain work balance, and ultimately are significantly more productive per/yr.

http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons

> There's a bottom-line reason most industries gave up crunch mode over 75 years ago: > It's the single most expensive way there is to get the work done.

Reduce distractions, reduce meetings, make communication asynchronous, optimise tasks.

Some people would be happier to work from 1pm to 6pm. Some others from 6am to Noon. Emails (or preferably something smarter) can be dealt with at other times

Make decisions depend on the least amount of people possible.

Please someone do some journalism and go ask the employees what they think of this policy...

But - people throw around numbers like 80 and 100+ easily, I'm not always convinced real-world numbers are as high as people claim they are. Having done some extended 80 hour crunches, I know first-hand that all life outside of work stops above 65-70 hours/week. At 80, you can still get 8 hours of sleep per day and have one meal away from work, maybe watch a single 30 or 45 minute TV show to relax, but almost nothing else. While it happens, it is not particularly sustainable. 100+ hours means you're eating into your sleep schedule.

I know first-hand that many people exaggerate their long hours in crunch times, and most crunches where people claimed 80, they were pulling more like 65-70. And I don't believe they are lying intentionally, its just that extra hours can be harder than you think, and the perception is you work more than you think you do. A studio I worked at measured work hours during crunch time and found most people work 10-20 hours less than they thought they did. I discovered that I wasn't working as many hours as I thought I was.

Percentage loss of productivity where n is the number of hours over 8 per day, for a 5 day week.

e.g. for prolonged use of an 11 hour day :

0.2 + 4.5 x 3 + 0.3 x 9 = 16% loss of productivity over the whole week.

According to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics - Bulletin No. 917 [1]

for more info see this research : http://www.weblem.org/upload/OT1.pdf

[1] https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?title_id=4359&filepath...

The rewards are entirely endful for the people actually doing the work. What a tool.

Employers have a disproportionate amount of influence over the lives of the people under their employ. This should carry with it a sense of duty, or responsibility, to the well-being of their fellow human.

It takes time to realize the true cost of a past employer's abuse on your career and your mental health. I've heard it can take multiple years to recover in some cases.

Really? Gropeland could have hired someone to assemble Ikea desks for $5-10 apiece, but instead they chose to haze new employees and waste their time. The previous tech boom did things better: when I showed up for a job, the desk was already there, the sysadmins slotted in a drive with the stuff I needed, and I was ready to do what I was hired to do in 5 minutes. People did what they did best, and we all went home for dinner.

I won't really delve to talk about the employer, the company, the mentality and that other stuff. I'll keep it simple:

If you are working hard (like 80hours+) and doing anything to succeed (like assembling Ikea furniture), then maybe you should start your own business or a one-man consulting.

It pays off much better on the long run.

> "...it’s not about work-life balance. Rather, it’s about optimizing work-life imbalance"

Translation: If I use the word "optimizing" in this sentence, the crushing work load I'm about to give you will seem like a rational choice rather than bare exploitation.

> "Long nights and weekends spent away from families are the norm in the startup world. We often chuckle at glamorized notions of the startup lifestyle: table tennis games, fully stocked kitchens and generous stock options."

Translation: We know what it's really like to work in a startup - having families and fair pay are luxuries we know don't really exist. Anyone who expects otherwise is lazy and doesn't fit with our "culture".

> "We work long hours, we are not paid much, and even after raising over $10-million within our first year of operations, we still have a mountain to climb in our efforts to expand this company."

Translation: While you might not be paid much, I hold a majority stake in the company and will be handsomely rewarded for your hard work when the company gets bought. And just because we raised $10 million doesn't mean any of you are getting a raise.

> "We have also ensured that each employee has an unyielding belief in the company’s mission. If anyone in the office doesn’t believe they’re a part of something incredibly meaningful that will truly reinvent banking, they’ll likely struggle to relate to their co-workers and eventually “burn out.”

Translation: I mean... they're going to burn out anyway after working 80 hours every week, but forced belief in the "mission" of the company allows us to squeeze a couple more months of hard work out of them before they finally quit, feeling guilty and ashamed of their perceived failure.

> "Our husbands and wives help pick up the slack on our long days, and our kids put a smile on our faces after stressful meetings. Many of our team members have young families, and we do our best to respect their needs through flexible hours and by encouraging the ability to work from home when needed."

Translation: I mean, I'm not a monster - if someone wants to spend a portion of their 14 hour work day at home, using their own computer and resources, of course we'll accommodate them. Far be it from me to prevent my employees from bringing all the stress of their work lives into their homes.

> "While the work can be challenging, the rewards are endless."

Translation: The rewards for me, that is. For you, the rewards are very much finite.

> "Having said that, it takes a special kind of personality to seek out (and succeed in) such an uncertain and risky environment. At the end of the day, I guess you still need to be a little nuts to succeed in a startup."

Translation: Young, well-off techies without families or hobbies who can afford to live on breadcrumbs and are healthy enough to keep our insurance costs minimal to the front of the line.