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Comment by jnordwick | Hacker News Reader

Let me come in with a contradictory opinion especially on the overtime.

You don't work for your current salary, you work for your next one. If you are one of those 9 to 5 ers, don't complain when the guy working 60 hours and more gets that promotion over you.

The higher up the ladder you go, the more that will be required of you. Also, startups or high paying jobs will require more of you since you will get getting more in return for better performance.

It is a trade off, and as you get older your priorities change. But there is a trade off to be made. 60 hours is the norm in my field, and often I'll put out more (including the random 2am call), and sometimes much more.

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I have a simple rebuttal to that. It doesn't scale.

This is actually sign of poor management. You should not reward people for working 60+ hours. If you want to reward anyone, you should find the ones that can get the same work done in about 30 hours. Hard to believe, but they do exist.

What you will find, is that the people that need 60 hours at one level, are likely to think they need 80 hours at the next. Or more. This clearly is not going to be available.

Worse, you don't think so, but the odds are high that as you get older, you will get a family and possibly children. When that happens, the ability to get 60 hours is now in jeopardy. Heck, many weeks, that 40 is tough.

Note carefully, I do not believe you should punish people for working extra hours. But incentives should not be such that they are required or encouraged. Unless you like seeing ruined lives. And businesses.

I say meh to all of this. You're better off taking that extra time and spending it on side projects and side businesses that will give you independence from your current company.

When you take taxes into consideration, the promotions don't really add up to that much. You're just adding to your yearly income, which tends to get taxed quite heavily anyway. You need to find a way to take your effort and put it into something that doesn't get taxed as much as regular income does.

I would be more interested in building passive sources of income that don't rely so much on my being present to bring in the money.

I also generally don't like the idea of someone else telling me what my contributions are worth. By putting in all those extra hours, you're basically pinning all of your hopes on someone else's judgment. If they like you, then maybe you'll get that extra money.

But what if they don't? What if they're just some sociopath who couldn't give a rip about your career goals? In my experience, that's been the case more often that not.

It would take one hell of a leader to convince me it's worth putting in all those extra hours. I would basically need assurance from the very beginning that I would be getting a bigger cut of the pie.

> I also generally don't like the idea of someone else telling me what my contributions are worth. By putting in all those extra hours, you're basically pinning all of your hopes on someone else's judgment. If they like you, then maybe you'll get that extra money.

He mentioned he works in finance. That whole industry is very hierarchical and based around strict pecking orders (and lots of koolaid drinking to boot). In many firms, you are always just "one project away" from being promoted or made partner.

The might be applicable to some, but if he works in finance, there's a possibility that the compensation is heavily performance-based, and high enough that it is much smarter to focus on maximizing that (while investing/saving it) than it is to spend non-existent free time on side projects that might pan out to something eventually.

At a certain level of income from a job, it can very much make sense to pour everything you have into it to maximize your personal return while you can.

>when the guy working 60 hours and more gets that promotion over you

Plenty of people who work hard (whether 40 or 60 hours/week) do not get promoted because they can't or won't spend half of that time on self-promotion. They are seen as valuable worker-bees, but promotions go to self-promoters and schmoozers.

This is the culture you want to support and see thrive? Or are you a survival of the fittest kind of person? Many people in the software community believe in opensource and freedom of information. A single one of us often replaces at least 20 peoples jobs due to automation and that number will go up. Tech attracts the most spineless yet sweet personalities.

With all this in mind, you believe that the person allowing you to live should dictate the lifestyle you are allowed to. And their choice is one of "12 hours is not enough but you need sleep so you can do it again tomarrow". Do you want to live your life with only glimpses of the outside world? Do you think success in the ccorperate bubble is worth more than exploring what you want?

> If you are one of those 9 to 5 ers, don't complain when the guy working 60 hours and more gets that promotion over you.

And he shouldn't complain that the guy who works 75 hours and fucks everyone else over at the first opportunity gets a promotion over him.

And the management shouldn't complain when they discover they've created a shitty combative environment where everyone sabotages each other and points fingers of blame.

Etc.

It depends - is the promotion worth it? Is it worth working 60 hours a week? There's more to life than work.

Also, if you get a reputation as a 60 hour worker that's going to be your expectation. After promotion that's going to be the expected schedule. The promotion after that will be the same. The point is you're not just working 60 until the next promotion. You'll probably end up working 60 for the next 10-20 years.

If that's ok with you, and that's what you want, then that's fine.

Another kicker: a company can fire you at pretty much any time and for any reason. Why pour yourself into an enterprise that can toss you aside at any moment?

If I'm sitting here doing 35 hours a week and some guy is doing 60 and gets promoted I'd be fine with it, because you can guarantee he won't be getting a 40% pay increase, and I get 25 hours a week more of my life.

Youre conflating 'working more hours' with 'doing more work' - these are not at all one and the same.

A fresh college graduate could spend 60 hours trying to spin up a new web server, where an experienced professional could do the same in an hour. Should the fresh graduate get a promotion for this?

You're right that higher paying jobs require more of you, thats why the barrier to entry is higher. You need to have more experience and know how to do more things. You're not getting paid more because you're expected to work more hours, but because you are expected to be capable of doing more complex work.

This is a pretty naive approach in most cases.

There are tons of companies (I'd argue most) where firstly there's no "next big salary" to be received (it's a slooow upwards trajectory) and secondly promotions are not based on who works harder than everyone else.

Why am I getting down voted for this?

Obvious reasons.

While I didn't down vote, I would say: because you're wrong.

You seem to suffer from the delusion that number of hours a person works is what matters. Most people aren't productive above 40 hours a week, any high number of hours and you're just wasting time.

Then there's the fact that working 60+ hours of week simply isn't health, and you're advocating that the thing you need to do to advance in the world is to trade in health for promotions, and increased salary.

If a job requires a person to work 60+ hours per week, then may it should be two jobs, not one. So now you're not just encouraging people so scarifies health, family and friend for you job, you're basically under biding a another person by doing their work for free.

Edit: May not wrong, but the advocate for a work environment that should be illegal. In fact it is illegal where I live.

There are highly competitive fields where this is the reality. Those also tend to pay very well and include large bonuses. And some of us like working in those fields. We don't just work on web projects or droid apps.

That's hardly the point. The point is that if not regulated, at a level where the average person can keep up, be healthy and have a life outside work, then some employers will push and exploit people.

Also employees shouldn't be rewarded for self destructive behaviour. Sadly many companies can't tell the self destructive from the people who just happen to enjoy what they do. And some of the self destructive actually do love their job.

It seems to be the latest trend on YC. If you disagree with someone's opinion, down vote it, regardless whether the post was well argumented or not.

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