<story><title>How hustle culture took over advertising</title><url>https://digiday.com/marketing/welcome-hustletown-hustle-culture-took-advertising/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rabidrat</author><text>I think we&amp;#x27;re all increasingly aware that our society and infrastructure are crumbling, and no matter how &amp;quot;rich&amp;quot; the country as a whole is, if you haven&amp;#x27;t built up your own security through wealth, you&amp;#x27;re [going to be] fucked.  And that awareness translates into people being willing to overwork themselves, so they don&amp;#x27;t lose their spot in the rat race; and corporations with money to spend on workers are well-positioned to take advantage of that, and they do.</text></item><item><author>apatters</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m American but I&amp;#x27;ve lived overseas for nearly a decade, and I hardly ever go back.&lt;p&gt;In recent years when I meet other Americans who are visiting my city, I often get this vague feeling that they&amp;#x27;re just &lt;i&gt;trying too hard&lt;/i&gt; in one way or another. Maybe they&amp;#x27;re working too hard, or trying too hard to impress someone, or get attention, or assert themselves. I don&amp;#x27;t know if I&amp;#x27;ve changed or if America is changed or if it&amp;#x27;s something else entirely.&lt;p&gt;What I do wonder is, what&amp;#x27;s with all these Americans working themselves to the bone? I own an agency which is one of the types of businesses called out in this article. I tell all my employees very clearly, whenever possible, work 40 hours and then call it a week. We also happen to be mostly remote so I tell them, within reason, respecting a small number of important calls&amp;#x2F;meeting times etc. you can put in those hours whenever you want, preferably after a great night&amp;#x27;s sleep.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s nothing like &amp;quot;you&amp;#x27;re measured by how many hours you bill out,&amp;quot; nor does there need to be, if we have more than 40 hours of work per person per week, we hire more people.&lt;p&gt;Where does this all come from? This is an honest question. Why are people working themselves to death in the US and having this crazy mindset that doing stuff which puts you on the verge of a breakdown is good? When did this start?&lt;p&gt;Is it good for health&amp;#x2F;happiness? Definitely not&lt;p&gt;Is it good for productivity? Maybe, but I doubt it</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eiaoa</author><text>&amp;gt;  I think we&amp;#x27;re all increasingly aware that our society and infrastructure are crumbling, and no matter how &amp;quot;rich&amp;quot; the country as a whole is, if you haven&amp;#x27;t built up your own security through wealth, you&amp;#x27;re [going to be] fucked. And that awareness translates into people being willing to overwork themselves, so they don&amp;#x27;t lose their spot in the rat race; and corporations with money to spend on workers are well-positioned to take advantage of that, and they do.&lt;p&gt;I disagree.  That only makes sense if you assume you (and everyone like you) are politically powerless and the rot and decay are inevitable.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s also another option: redirect that excess effort you&amp;#x27;re expediting to hoard for the failure into &lt;i&gt;fixing the system before it fails&lt;/i&gt;.  Your personal efforts to fix it might fail, but some other group that heeded the same call might succeed, and that&amp;#x27;s all it takes.&lt;p&gt;Hoarding wealth might seem like a safer bet, but it&amp;#x27;s just as prone to failure.  The kind of wealth you could accumulate through hard work might not be enough to give you the security you want, and to get more you have to take big risks anyway.</text></comment>
<story><title>How hustle culture took over advertising</title><url>https://digiday.com/marketing/welcome-hustletown-hustle-culture-took-advertising/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rabidrat</author><text>I think we&amp;#x27;re all increasingly aware that our society and infrastructure are crumbling, and no matter how &amp;quot;rich&amp;quot; the country as a whole is, if you haven&amp;#x27;t built up your own security through wealth, you&amp;#x27;re [going to be] fucked.  And that awareness translates into people being willing to overwork themselves, so they don&amp;#x27;t lose their spot in the rat race; and corporations with money to spend on workers are well-positioned to take advantage of that, and they do.</text></item><item><author>apatters</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m American but I&amp;#x27;ve lived overseas for nearly a decade, and I hardly ever go back.&lt;p&gt;In recent years when I meet other Americans who are visiting my city, I often get this vague feeling that they&amp;#x27;re just &lt;i&gt;trying too hard&lt;/i&gt; in one way or another. Maybe they&amp;#x27;re working too hard, or trying too hard to impress someone, or get attention, or assert themselves. I don&amp;#x27;t know if I&amp;#x27;ve changed or if America is changed or if it&amp;#x27;s something else entirely.&lt;p&gt;What I do wonder is, what&amp;#x27;s with all these Americans working themselves to the bone? I own an agency which is one of the types of businesses called out in this article. I tell all my employees very clearly, whenever possible, work 40 hours and then call it a week. We also happen to be mostly remote so I tell them, within reason, respecting a small number of important calls&amp;#x2F;meeting times etc. you can put in those hours whenever you want, preferably after a great night&amp;#x27;s sleep.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s nothing like &amp;quot;you&amp;#x27;re measured by how many hours you bill out,&amp;quot; nor does there need to be, if we have more than 40 hours of work per person per week, we hire more people.&lt;p&gt;Where does this all come from? This is an honest question. Why are people working themselves to death in the US and having this crazy mindset that doing stuff which puts you on the verge of a breakdown is good? When did this start?&lt;p&gt;Is it good for health&amp;#x2F;happiness? Definitely not&lt;p&gt;Is it good for productivity? Maybe, but I doubt it</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>phillc73</author><text>&amp;gt;  if you haven&amp;#x27;t built up your own security through wealth, you&amp;#x27;re [going to be] fucked.&lt;p&gt;Another approach is to build security through self sufficiency and community based initiatives. For example, growing your own food wherever possible, or community gardens on common land.&lt;p&gt;There is a long list of examples and ideas where future security, defining that as decent quality of life, health and education, doesn&amp;#x27;t need to be based around monetary wealth.</text></comment>