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Comment by bitL | Hacker News Reader

It's terrible to be reachable 18h/day. It's like those poor Amazon employees that are forced to have pager all the time with them because Bezos likes it that way. What kind of life do you have when you can't even make a trip to forest without thinking about not being reachable? No hour awake without being completely off... How is your health? How long do you think you can handle it? Any hobbies where you can make your own mark? Or just survival?

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I'd much rather know about something that's about to be a problem then find out about it at 9 AM when it is a problem. I would argue staying on top of my work life throughout the day prevents stressful issues. I'm proactive instead of reactive, and when someone up the chain wants to know what's going on, the chances are, I already know, and it's already partway resolved, and those are very comforting answers to be able to give people.

I have a number of hobbies! I'm writing a home automation system, it runs in my car now as well. I play a fair number of games, am a pretty regular movie theater goer, etc. Don't mistake being reachable for being in a constant state of panic, I actually used to have a job where I'd have to duck out of a movie theater if my phone went off when I was on call, and now it's really not a big deal, I can get to it when I have a few moments.

I would say I am reachable for 24h/day, but that doesn't mean I'll start working on a problem until the start of the next 8h working period.

I might not even take your call and just assume that if it was something truly important, you'd leave a voicemail.

Don't know if that truly counts as reachable.

I would be reachable 24 hours a day if my phone could wake me up. It can't. Which is a blessing and a curse.

>It's terrible to be reachable 18h/day.

This exactly. Sure I could go do the undergraduate business thing and live what many would consider a more than comfortable life making 80k a year, but most companies that I would do that for would own me and I would only ever be a pencil pusher. The problem with this, for me, is that I would not really have a life of my own.

I would argue my pets tie me down more and cause me more stress than my job. My job doesn't interfere with my ability to take trips much, but having to board my pets does.

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