To anyone who thinks it is ok to overwork people for 14-18 hours a day: In the name of God, please stop!
If you want to work those long hours, please feel free. But stop normalising it and even worse, prescribing it as a “character-building medicine” for young people.
First of all, just because you did something when you were younger does not justify inflicting it on others. I have heard many people say, “What’s the big deal? We have all worked those hours!”
You might have. But what cost did it inflict on you? How did it affect your health? Would you want your kids to go through that?
Second, I don’t know if you noticed — most people prescribing overwork are themselves retired or are in high enough positions that they have autonomy.
At my startup, if I work 14 hours a day — at least I can do it as per my convenience. But my employees working 10 am to 12 night will have no flexibility.
Third, I am really curious — why exactly do you need such long hours? Even if your company is doing some world-changing work, don’t your people need to be mentally alert and focused? And how will they be alert if every day is a soul-sucking grind?
Here is my sincere suggestion: Please study how your people ACTUALLY spend their work day. You will find that a lot of time is spent switching between tasks, email and Slack checks, and meetings. Much of this creates little value.
I have said this ad nauseam but let me repeat — humans can’t focus for more than 4-5 hours on effortful work (e.g., office work). After 5 hours of focus, my brain is jelly.
But one might counter all this by saying, “What about Elon Musk? He works so hard!” Maybe, the dopamine spike from all the overachievement keeps him going. But even he complains about severe back pain and sleep problems.
Anyway, if you want to be Elon Musk, please go ahead. But don’t assume that everyone wants to work those hours.
For 99% of regular office work, 9-10 hours of focused work is enough. And it is HARDER than 14 or 16 hours of unfocused work.
So I am not saying hard work is bad. On the contrary, I am saying that if you genuinely work hard (i.e., do focused work) you shouldn’t need to labor 16 hours a day.
Please stop this madness before we send another generation to hospitals with stress, obesity, and cardiac issues. Just stop.
– Rajan