That's such a strawman! No one wants a depressed, exhausted, sick worker, and no one has ever suggested such a worker would be better to have than a 9-5 happy and healthy person.
Your presupposition the sick guy is how everyone will become if they work an hour over 40 with any regularity is just plain not true. There are people who are at a point in their careers and lives which allow them the ability to invest more time and energy into work in a regular and patterned way than others. It's frankly naive to think there aren't people out there who want to be at work, and can be at work for more than the 9-5 grind each week.
Do the sickly people exist? Yes. Can you be happy, healthy, and work 60 hour weeks while still loving your job? Yes.
> Can you be happy, healthy, and work 60 hour weeks while still loving your job? Yes.
No.
I haven't met a single person who works 60 hours a week and is thrilled about it, outside of those who work for themselves. When you work for yourself, yes, it's definitely possible. That's not what we're talking about.
On top of everything, we're primarily talking about young people. A young person needs to invest a lot more time into their non-work life. Relationships, friends, acquiring property, family, hobbies, sports, etc. I can go on. All of those things are important and require time.
There's a reason you see depression threads pop up here on a constant basis. A healthy work/life balance is important!
If work is life, if you hang out with your coworkers outside of work, if you come in on Sunday to chill with a colleague, then your argument isn't relevant. Work is life, and your relationships are balanced by virtue of the fact that you're actually friends with the people you work with.
You get everything you're saying a young person needs, and you also work 60 hours a week, without even realizing it.
Seconded. Also, I should add that your co-workers aren't your friends. What I mean isn't that you can't make friends at work but rather in a high turnover-prone industry as IT, your friendship might not survive a layoff or a switch to a new job when a bulk of your friendship was founded on the premise of you working together. So going out for lunch or drinks after works takes no additional planning and are just matters of convenience.
You've ripped my paragraph apart and addressed each thing I said without the context of the other things I've said. For best comprehension, I do not recommend doing that.
I'd like to take the time now to point out that your personal experience is not a universal key to the truth. You have a very, very tiny view into what does and does not work, and if companies believe as I do, then they're going to hire as I would. This isn't a, "here is what I think might work", this is a "here is an explanation of why people think this way".
Besides, if you don't believe what I've written works, then how do you square the unmitigated success of companies who hire as I've outlined? Maybe the problem in your experiences, the singular constant, was you (and that's okay). Maybe you just don't work well in that environment.
It's an easy way to get burned out. If the employee is good enough, he or she should be able to accomplish what they need to in a 40 hour week. If it takes 1.5x as long then they aren't cut out for it, or the employer is over working them. Occasionally it's OK to work more then 40 hours for milestones but every week is ridiculous.
One of the biggest reasons you don't want this as an employer is the employee has no time to grow personally and pursue things on his own time.
If you work with the same people you socialize with, work and leisure starts to blend. You think of your office as a place to be around your friends, and you think of your work as a problem you and your buddies figure out together.
Many, many people crave working in places like this, and with people who want to experience this. Apparently Stripe is one of those places. Apparently not everyone wants to work like this.
I do. They do. Who are you to tell us we can't work like that, and hire people who also want to work like that?
It's a bit idealistic, but I'm certainly not telling you what you can or can't do. I can only speak to the effects I've observed from working in similar environments (most of this is anecdotal so take it as you will):
-People will get burned out. But instead of having a place to seek refuge (friends outside of work) the only place they have to go is the very place that is causing it, creating a negative feedback loop. Don't get me wrong, having co-workers who are friends are great, but it shouldn't be a requirement of the job. If work crew is small enough it may work for some length of time, but your theory on everyone being friends breaks down, somewhere I'd wager above 5 people.
-I've met extremely smart people who are great to work with in the sense they can get stuff done in a timely manner, but who prefer to stay in with their family or be home for dinner, you are missing out on great candidates like that.
-The biggest thing for me however, is the importance of giving programmers free time. We're in a fast moving world, and to only be able to focus on one subset is damaging to a persons professional growth. People should have the spare time to pursue things on their own, 40 hours is barely enough, 60 you can forget it.
This just sounds like a rationalization that comes from not being able to/not wanting to do the things other are able to/like to do. I'm talking in trends, and you're talking about specific people you've met, which is orders of magnitude more prone to sample error.
Let me rephrase this for you: what I'm describing works. Period. This isn't some navel gazing here, it's an explanation of how companies like the submission company and others succeed. This isn't a case of, "let's all give our opinions on what might work and what might not work" this is, "let's give our opinions on why this already works."
So with that in mind, your argument simply doesn't mesh with reality. Sure, people such as you describe exist, but people such as I describe are giving interview outlines on Hacker News, and we're commenting about it.
You're saying what should and shouldn't be, but at the same time you're saying you're not telling me what I can and can't do. Those are dichotomous - pick one.
Your presupposition the sick guy is how everyone will become if they work an hour over 40 with any regularity is just plain not true. There are people who are at a point in their careers and lives which allow them the ability to invest more time and energy into work in a regular and patterned way than others. It's frankly naive to think there aren't people out there who want to be at work, and can be at work for more than the 9-5 grind each week.
Do the sickly people exist? Yes. Can you be happy, healthy, and work 60 hour weeks while still loving your job? Yes.