<story><title>Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide</title><url>https://english.elpais.com/health/2023-11-28/working-more-than-55-hours-a-week-kills-750000-people-a-year-worldwide.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chollida1</author><text>I think this is more about manual labour but I&amp;#x27;ll take the opposite side when it comes to white collar work that working more hours can be better early on in your career.&lt;p&gt;When I was just out of school and in my early 20s I worked as much as I could, I probably did close to 12 hours days in my 20s.&lt;p&gt;I think I probably averaged an all nighter a month for a few years and worked at least one day on weekends and I loved every minute of it.&lt;p&gt;I said yes to almost all the work I could get.  My bosses loved me and I got raises&amp;#x2F;promotions faster than anyone else.  I was able to compress 10 years of experience into about half that time.  It really set me up for my career later on in life and I learned so much in that time.&lt;p&gt;I did the learn a language a year thing and that helped me get a job as a compiler writer.&lt;p&gt;And I was able to leverage that into becoming a quant as I put in the hours to relearn all the math I&amp;#x27;d forgotten from school.&lt;p&gt;And I was able to leverage that to get into a pretty darn successful hedge fund where I said no to them a few times before they convinced me to join.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m now in my 40s with a family and I work far less but I still think it was the right move at the time.  It really set me up for a life of success and I was able to see the effects of outworking everyone else pay off.&lt;p&gt;I didn&amp;#x27;t seem to miss out on a social life and I had no burn out or resentment to speak of from those days.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>giantg2</author><text>You had no burnout or resentment because you had an enjoyable working environment with what sound like just rewards and you were able to learn valuable things. That&amp;#x27;s pretty rare in my experience.&lt;p&gt;My anecdotal evidence is the opposite. I worked extra hours and volunteered for a long time. I took responsibility for things nobody else wanted. My raises and bonuses were trivial. I had one promotion early on from entry level to midlevel. Then I was filling the role of a senior dev and a tech lead for a year each with good reviews and respect of other devs in the department (and some outside it). No promotion, still minor raises and bonuses.</text></comment>
<story><title>Working more than 55 hours a week kills 750k people a year worldwide</title><url>https://english.elpais.com/health/2023-11-28/working-more-than-55-hours-a-week-kills-750000-people-a-year-worldwide.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chollida1</author><text>I think this is more about manual labour but I&amp;#x27;ll take the opposite side when it comes to white collar work that working more hours can be better early on in your career.&lt;p&gt;When I was just out of school and in my early 20s I worked as much as I could, I probably did close to 12 hours days in my 20s.&lt;p&gt;I think I probably averaged an all nighter a month for a few years and worked at least one day on weekends and I loved every minute of it.&lt;p&gt;I said yes to almost all the work I could get.  My bosses loved me and I got raises&amp;#x2F;promotions faster than anyone else.  I was able to compress 10 years of experience into about half that time.  It really set me up for my career later on in life and I learned so much in that time.&lt;p&gt;I did the learn a language a year thing and that helped me get a job as a compiler writer.&lt;p&gt;And I was able to leverage that into becoming a quant as I put in the hours to relearn all the math I&amp;#x27;d forgotten from school.&lt;p&gt;And I was able to leverage that to get into a pretty darn successful hedge fund where I said no to them a few times before they convinced me to join.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m now in my 40s with a family and I work far less but I still think it was the right move at the time.  It really set me up for a life of success and I was able to see the effects of outworking everyone else pay off.&lt;p&gt;I didn&amp;#x27;t seem to miss out on a social life and I had no burn out or resentment to speak of from those days.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lordnacho</author><text>I worked pretty hard in my 20s as well, but always in a comfy way. I never pulled all nighters, I luckily worked in markets where there wasn&amp;#x27;t much need for that. I could make myself work late evenings, but never past when I wanted to sleep. If I was tired the next evening, I&amp;#x27;d turn in early. I would say the thing that made it work was not having kids, and having autonomy over when to work and when to take it easy. I can honestly say I learned more in those years than ever before or since.&lt;p&gt;My housemate worked in investment banking, much longer hours than me, with a fair bit of pressure to be awake when you want to be sleeping. The kind of job where you don&amp;#x27;t do much during the day, the MD comes in at 6pm, and tells you to make 100 slides by the next day, which he then doesn&amp;#x27;t use for a couple of days despite the juniors having stayed up all night. Grinding, and all the people who did it got visibly heavier.</text></comment>