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Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

One of the advantages of getting older is that you develop some perspective on crap like this. I never check work email at night or on weekends anymore. And I just tell people "no" when they ask me to do work stuff on a weekend. The world continues to turn.

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I think this is why companies often have a bias towards hiring naive younger workers- they're more likely to be cool with being exploited and haven't established any healthy work/life boundaries yet.

I worked somewhere that "specialized" in hiring younger newish grads from the midwest. They'd bring them out to the Bay Area, pay them way under market. The people would put in a year to two years at $75k working 70 hour weeks before they realized it was an intolerable and nonsustainable situation. The younger people were more excited over the free lunch and pingpong tables to care about comp, let alone making rent.

> The people would put in a year to two years at $75k working 70 hour weeks before they realized it was an intolerable and nonsustainable situation.

Indeed unsustainable, but getting that experience and Bay Area connections might quite likely be a rational career choice for these grads

Negative, those things are external to any employment position and not something an employer is entitled to discount salary against.

Employers can do whatever they want if the employees are OK with it. When I was 22 I signed up for a job that kept me in hotels 250 nights a year. I loved it but now with kids would obviously tell any such job to go fuck itself.

Sure, but companies have a heck of a lot more bargaining power than individuals. I don't think "this didn't cause large numbers of employees to quit" means that this was okay.

Do you think it's better than spending that same time socializing with coworkers outside of work? Because it isn't.

This is a variant of "do it for the exposure", which is deeply disrespectful to anyone's time and dignity. Regardless of whether or not you are right in terms of money made, society as a whole would benefit if we stopped playing that particular rigged game.

sounds like the game industry

this sounds like Palantir to me

Not only that, but those hours put your hourly rate around $20. Which is about what you would make as an assistant manager at a retail store in the Bay Area.

I'm not old, but I tell people that I don't check work emails when I go home. But I give the offer that they can call me. Usually this leads to almost never being contacted on the weekend or after hours, and only really when there is a dire need. People seem to be more hesitant to call or text than send an email, and so this method works. But that's part of the implied condition. I think it is fair to call someone after hours for emergency type stuff, but not typical work stuff.

Doing this has facilitated a healthy work life balance and I believe leads to better productivity.

I basically do the same. We are critical development/operational support so I have to have on-call support and do so 1 week at a time with primary and backup (I'm implied 2nd backup if not higher in chain). But my google voice number is only listed on the official schedule website and not in the company contact database so only those that need to know know.

The best thing that ever happened to me was company implementing a lockdown policy so that email/chat/... are only allowed from company assets so I am totally cutoff from work via my phone except through that list and the best part is it by the companies own policy. I only get true emergency calls now.

Sounds like a good pitch for recruiting!

It might be my bubble, but it is also a more of a team spirit thing. I live in a country with good laws regarding employment and my young coworkers in my team don't work outside office hours and don't read email. In other teams in the same business unit of the company it is a whole different story.

It is more tricky when some of this will show up on your perf review and the bonus/RSU grants reflect it. I’ve seen some people circumvent all this by taking sick days liberally and just tow the company line. Any other advice to handle thes situations nicely balancing work/life/$$$ ?

As a result, you're probably the first to go in a layoff scenario. Maybe it's not a problem for you but for many, it is tough to regain footing after getting axed.

Ah yes.. Logan’s run logic.

Any company that lays me off for having boundaries is a company I don't want to work for. Work-life balance is pretty much the _only_ think I optimize for when looking for jobs now. I'm fine being flexible once in a while but if the default assumption is that I will be available on slack every night, I'm not gonna stay there.

Agree completely but the amount of decent companies with work-life balance is rare in the Bay Area. If they exist, they won't for long.

Startups I agree, but working for a more mature company makes it much easier to find this balance. Also, unlimited remote means that I don't _have_ to find a job in the Bay Area. The tradeoff there though is that Non-Bay companies offer much less compensation.

Depends entirely on management priorities. I make sure to never take a job that judges me on butt-in-seat or mean-time-to-email-response. That way I can build skills that actually matter and take that to my next role whether it be at my own startup, in mgmt at bigco, or as a consultant.

People who value work-life balance won't be happy working there anyway.

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