What’s infuriating is that having no work-life balance is promoted as a positive. Sure there are people who are really devoted to their work and thrive on it, but that should be seen as voluntary and not expected. Working long hours also doesn’t necessarily mean you are working efficiently or using your full potential the entire time.
It’s meant to deify these CEOs. Gullible schmoes see this and think “well that makes sense, he spends every hour of his day working. That’s three times more than me! No wonder he makes a million times my salary! See, the only reason I’m not making billions is because I don’t have the divine skills and talent to work on my company all day.” (Or, “I choose to have a work-life balance cause I don’t mind making a little less money”)
These CEOs have PR teams dedicated to slipping out stories like these so it keeps the CEO looking like a king.
Also to convince gullible idiots to put in more hours and make more sacrifices because “that’s what it takes to make it to the top” not realizing that sacrificing your time and energy for a multi-billion dollar corporation won’t make you a billionaire. Rich people love the “hustle and grind” culture because it convinces people that if they just keep producing for the machine, the trickle down will finally come
Ugh. People wasting company time by thinking about their health and welfare and if they can afford their bills. When they should be thinking about the company. Won’t someone think of the profits. Theft. Theft all of it! Makes me so sick I have to take a mental health day away from checking my investments. /s /s /ssssssssss
One of the perks of my job is that we have 50 hours a year in addition to our holidays that we can cash in whenever we need them.
Everyone takes them, but my boss uses a handful each year, stays late every night, only uses half his holidays and loses the rest. I’ll never understand it.
It’s short-sighted not to realize that treating people with dignity will improve their motivation and productivity. My work also has a generous policy for time off, but my colleagues are still considerate when they use it by making sure the important things are done before they leave and that the rest of us will be able to handle things in their absence. There will always be a handful of people who abuse the privilege, but they need to be dealt with individually.
From my observation, the types to work late and have no time off either take an immense satisfaction in working or are avoiding something to come home to.
Also, having no work-life balance is different if you own a significant fraction of the company vs. if you’re on salary.
Like, if Jensen Huang spends 12 hours over the weekend working on something for nVidia and increases the share price by 0.01% (with a $4.165 trillion market cap, this means it goes up $416 million), his personal net worth will go up by $14.7m. Not bad for a little weekend work.
Let’s assume that someone who is on salary is on something absurd like $1m per year and gets a 500% bonus for working overtime. Their 12 hours of weekend work is going to net them $28k. That’s certainly nice, but it’s about 1/500th of what Huang gets. And, your average engineer probably doesn’t get overtime at all, and if they did it would be closer to $3k not $30k.
If someone who owns a business wants to have a bad work-life balance, that’s one thing. But, it should never be expected of anybody who’s just on salary.
Yes I understand that for some people out there, being a tech executive is their highest passion and true calling. But I hate it when those people turn around and expect everybody to act that way, and act like they’re just more virtuous for doing so. I have a very successful tech career but it’s a job, not my whole life. This society values money, so we keep asking rich people for life advice, as if they have tapped into something deeply human and universal. They haven’t.
And if its voluntary I would more likely categorize it as a hobby rather than work. I think we need a better definition for “work”. Work, to me, is an obligation. People work in order to feed and house themselves. So let’s says someone has $10mil. That is more than enough to easily live off the interest. I would say anyone at that level of wealth never actually works because they have the option to stop at any time, which in my mind makes it a hobby.
What’s infuriating is that having no work-life balance is promoted as a positive. Sure there are people who are really devoted to their work and thrive on it, but that should be seen as voluntary and not expected. Working long hours also doesn’t necessarily mean you are working efficiently or using your full potential the entire time.
It’s meant to deify these CEOs. Gullible schmoes see this and think “well that makes sense, he spends every hour of his day working. That’s three times more than me! No wonder he makes a million times my salary! See, the only reason I’m not making billions is because I don’t have the divine skills and talent to work on my company all day.” (Or, “I choose to have a work-life balance cause I don’t mind making a little less money”)
These CEOs have PR teams dedicated to slipping out stories like these so it keeps the CEO looking like a king.
Also to convince gullible idiots to put in more hours and make more sacrifices because “that’s what it takes to make it to the top” not realizing that sacrificing your time and energy for a multi-billion dollar corporation won’t make you a billionaire. Rich people love the “hustle and grind” culture because it convinces people that if they just keep producing for the machine, the trickle down will finally come
Ugh. People wasting company time by thinking about their health and welfare and if they can afford their bills. When they should be thinking about the company. Won’t someone think of the profits. Theft. Theft all of it! Makes me so sick I have to take a mental health day away from checking my investments. /s /s /ssssssssss
One of the perks of my job is that we have 50 hours a year in addition to our holidays that we can cash in whenever we need them.
Everyone takes them, but my boss uses a handful each year, stays late every night, only uses half his holidays and loses the rest. I’ll never understand it.
It’s short-sighted not to realize that treating people with dignity will improve their motivation and productivity. My work also has a generous policy for time off, but my colleagues are still considerate when they use it by making sure the important things are done before they leave and that the rest of us will be able to handle things in their absence. There will always be a handful of people who abuse the privilege, but they need to be dealt with individually.
From my observation, the types to work late and have no time off either take an immense satisfaction in working or are avoiding something to come home to.
50 hours??
That ain’t even 10 days …
I currently have at least 20 days, sometimes even 32 depending on the job.
It’s in addition
In addition to my 35 days holiday
Also, having no work-life balance is different if you own a significant fraction of the company vs. if you’re on salary.
Like, if Jensen Huang spends 12 hours over the weekend working on something for nVidia and increases the share price by 0.01% (with a $4.165 trillion market cap, this means it goes up $416 million), his personal net worth will go up by $14.7m. Not bad for a little weekend work.
Let’s assume that someone who is on salary is on something absurd like $1m per year and gets a 500% bonus for working overtime. Their 12 hours of weekend work is going to net them $28k. That’s certainly nice, but it’s about 1/500th of what Huang gets. And, your average engineer probably doesn’t get overtime at all, and if they did it would be closer to $3k not $30k.
If someone who owns a business wants to have a bad work-life balance, that’s one thing. But, it should never be expected of anybody who’s just on salary.
Yes I understand that for some people out there, being a tech executive is their highest passion and true calling. But I hate it when those people turn around and expect everybody to act that way, and act like they’re just more virtuous for doing so. I have a very successful tech career but it’s a job, not my whole life. This society values money, so we keep asking rich people for life advice, as if they have tapped into something deeply human and universal. They haven’t.
And if its voluntary I would more likely categorize it as a hobby rather than work. I think we need a better definition for “work”. Work, to me, is an obligation. People work in order to feed and house themselves. So let’s says someone has $10mil. That is more than enough to easily live off the interest. I would say anyone at that level of wealth never actually works because they have the option to stop at any time, which in my mind makes it a hobby.
I think the Nvidia should get a life.i also agree 100%, if you are working every second of your waking hours then you are far from being efficient.