Wow some days he works 20 hours, I imagine he handles all the staffs laundry as well? These kinds of people need to be featured more often, they are great role models for kids.
I don't think that someone working 20 hours a day (likely possibly to the detriment of their personal relationships and health) is necessarily a good role model.
I assume you're suggesting it is impossible to do it regularly, which I'd agree with. The definition of 'work' also broadens profoundly. You will also pay for it by sleeping away more of your free time than you already donated to your work for free.
My observation is that he is does this by being upto his neck in debt, being aggressively resilient,having memorized the mechanics down to his bones, and intrinsically valuing hard work. Crazy but there he is baking bread 130 hours a week.
When I used to work in the restaurant/catering industry I'd sometimes pull 20-odd hour shifts. If we were doing a wedding I'd do 8 AM until 4 AM the next day.
It was strangely rewarding, but then you'd get your measly paycheque and it was quite disheartening to see how little you made for the effort you put in.
The ACGME rules require only that a medical resident work no more than 24 continuous hours with at least a 14-hour break after a 24-hour shift. Many residency programs had difficulty adjusting their programs to comply with these rules when they went into effect in 2011.
My wife regularly works 24-hour ER shifts; and used to do 8-hour clinic shifts immediately after. There's another doctor in the same ER who usually works one or two 60-hour shifts per month.
Work in a small ER is bursty. You might see one or two patients with minor problems in a 24-hour shift, and get to sleep a full night. Or you might get woken up after 4 hours of sleep. Or you might get to take a series of 2 hour naps. Or you might not sleep.
After 18 hours without sleep, you're functioning at the level of a person with two drinks in them. It only gets worse from there. We trust these people with our lives.
Source: I'm a stagehand. I can show you a pay stub from a couple months ago when I worked 20 hours in one day. We were the band's first stop on the tour, so the load-in started at 4am, and the load-out finished at 3am. I had 3 hours off during the show itself, though some people got to work straight through.
I couldn't do it every day, of course, but I'd gladly do it a couple times a week. It was a tremendous experience, and one of my all time favorite days at work.
That's simply not true. You don't work 20 hour days every day.
I apologize for coming off as overly defensive, but I do occasionally work 20 hour days, and I love it. I can't help but feel like it's a bit of an attack when you suggest that someone else's life isn't worth living, but yours is.