Talking about how many hours you work is not impressive. Far from being an indication of industrious achievements or alpha status, it should be seen as a professionally embarrassing sign that, quite frankly, you have nothing else to boast about.
Showing off about overwork is now so ubiquitous it’s difficult to remember a time when lack of sleep and hours spent at the office weren’t talked of with a puff of pride. “We just maximize every hour we can, however we can do it,” Twitter executive chairman Omid Kordestani told the Wall Street Journal (paywall) in 2015, explaining that he became chief executive Jack Dorsey’s driver so they could talk business as they commute.
“When you hear the so-called apocryphal stories about Tim Cook coming to work in the wee hours and staying late,” Don Melton, who started Apple’s Safari, told Debug podcast in 2014, “it’s not just some PR person telling you stories to make you think that Apple executives work really hard like that. They really do that,” And, of course, just last month, the patron saint of work boasts, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, declared that “nobody ever changed the world on 40 hours a week.” Musk said in November that he worked 120-hour weeks, and on Twitter claimed that 80 to 100 hours per week is necessary to change the world.
As countless studies have shown, this simply isn’t true. Productivity dramatically decreases with longer work hours, and completely drops off once people reach 55 hours of work a week, to the point that, on average, someone working 70 hours in a week achieves no more than a colleague working 15 fewer hours.
The massive, obvious counterpoint to Musk’s boasts is that, despite working more than 17 hours a day for weeks on end, Musk hasn’t yet changed the world. Not in a real, meaningful sense that will be remembered for generations to come like, say, biologist Charles Darwin, who worked four hours a day, or United States founding father Benjamin Franklin, who was strict about calling it a day after eight hours or work. Sure, Tesla was ahead of the curve on getting the auto industry to go electric but, as Geoffrey James notes in Inc, AltaVista was the first ever search engine and no one says “let me AltaVista that for you.”
It’ll be pretty good going if Tesla manages to make electric cars affordable and replace internal-combustion engines entirely, but that hasn’t happened yet. Similarly, SpaceX has made rockets cheaper, which opens up a lot of opportunities, but we’ve yet to see the consequences. If Musk eventually manages to create a colony on Mars then that, of course, would be world-changing—but I suspect we’d then hear a lot less about how he skips breakfast or doesn’t get much sleep, because Musk would have something far more impressive to boast about.
Most people don’t have such lofty goals as Musk. But the same principle applies to all those business people and media types who just can’t stop banging on and on about how much they do: If they’d actually done something truly, astoundingly brilliant, they wouldn’t need to talk about their work ethic to assert their worth. The account executive who trebles a company’s income is indisputably a huge asset, and no boss will care if they leave work at 5pm and take lengthy lunch breaks while managing to achieve these results. The same goes for best-selling authors, world-class scientists, and revolutionary politicians: If you achieve stupendous goals, that’s all that matters.
It’s only when your results are pretty good—a decent sales record, or a few good papers published—that work ethic is over-emphasized as an indication of value. Or, if you’re failing to produce quality results, then there’s even more of a need to exaggerate working hours as evidence that if someone with your incessant-devotion-to-work and lack-of-personal-life can’t achieve major results, then no one can. It’s effectively an excuse masquerading as a boast.
Why though, if we know more work doesn’t lead to better results, does anyone perceive overworking as “good”? Western society came to see work as virtuous thanks to Christian notions that work—and, in particular, work that involves suffering—is a noble endeavor that brings people closer to God. Though the religious overtones have since been abandoned, long working hours have retained their status as a token of worth.
When Musk says you can only change the world if you work 80 hours a week, he’s not presenting a serious argument, but is making a moral assertion that working more is inherently good. And so, those who boast about work are inadvertently revealing their devotion to an outdated and thoughtless principle. True world leaders don’t need to prove their value by emphasizing their slavish devotion to work. They have better things to do.
Great article. Always wanted to know how you got somewhere in life. Little did I know I could turn to some millennial chick for the answer.
You need to pay better attention in your anger management classes.
Musk is building (or helping others build) ground breaking companies (note:plural) in many highly technical companies. Back to the “many” – He must work smart, as he can only possibly spend a few hours a week on each and yet – he produces industry (and World) shattering ideas and progress.
Are you being sarcastic? I honestly can’t tell.
Hey dumbass, Elon Musk had to work a few weekends. and now he’s worth 20 billion dollars. What have you been doing during that same time? Got 7 battle stars on Fortnite yet?
What’s that old adage…
Doubtful, as you’re laying in hospice, knowing your time on this plane is closing fast, that most of us will muse: “Damn. I should’ve worked more hours, and spent less time for liesure, with close friends, family, doing things I loved.”
Better to do what you love so well, you’d do it for free.
And when the fortunate ones find their niche, and reap a tidy income from it, we call that a pretty good gig.
Especially if you can do it less than 40 per week, 8 hrs. a day.
…and well into your 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, if you choose to.
All earth-changing accomplishments aside.
If you’ve made things better w your bag, then OT is only necessary out of either love, or workaholic greed.
IMHO.
I’ve known LOTS and LOST of guys in the construction industry who think this way. It’s almost like a sense of martyrdom about who can work the most hours, and spend the most time away from their families.
I always thought it odd that there was a such a pleasure in claiming to be around your co-workers, more than your family.
In the bigger scheme of things, very little of what any of us do has any significance to anyone
I bet you were a hit on career day
People who like what they do and do productive things generally don’t feel the need to brag about long hours spent doing something they enjoy, and usually feel doing so overshadows the actual things they are trying to accomplish. My experience is that those who brag about how many hours they work are either bullshitting you or they spend a lot of time doing unnecessary extracurricular bullshit activities (PTA meetings, driving kids to soccer practice, networking, posting to social media, etc.) all while eating food purchased from a drive-thru window. Activity for the sake of activity is no way to live. In Elon Musk’s case, he’s just bullshitting us trying to boost the TSLA share price a few more points.
I would give ANYBODY, especially young men, totally opposite advice than this bimbo. Pay your dues early, and reap the rewards for the rest of your life. The biggest missing chunk of skills in Millennials is work ethic. Be a go-getter and you don’t even have to be that smart anymore to be a star wherever you are employed. If you’re smart and have a good work ethic, the sky’s the limit. Jordan Peterson takes apart simpletons like this chick, when they demand equal pay as a man. Because with an attitude like this one, they are almost valueless to any organization, which is why they tend to congregate in education and government. Places where there is no accountability. Be a man, work your ass off, and let shit like this go in one ear and out the other.
There are people who work hard doing positive things, and then there are people who brag about being busy and working long hours. There is little if any overlap between the two. For the latter, it’s mainly just another dick-measuring contest.
Maybe that’s true Todd. But there’s nobody who wastes their time throwing stones at society’s productive class that is doing anything positive. Musk employees 50,000 Americans at Tesla, and another 7,000 at SpaceX, with breadwinner jobs. That’s what, maybe a 150,000- 200,000 people with a roof over their head, food on the table just from the efforts of one guy. Doesn’t that count for anything compared to this dumb lazy piece of shit’s opinion? She has the nerve to call him a failure?
As of 12/10/18, Tesla has a market cap of 62.77B, General Motors has a market cap of 48.59B, and Ford has a market cap of 33.97B. GM and Ford both manufacture around 7 million vehicles per year, while Tesla produced only about 100,000 vehicles in 2017. Tesla has survived by the skills of Musk in hyping the stock and selling shares at an extremely elevated price. They burn capital, produce no profit, and that is the source of the jobs you mentioned. If Tesla stock goes to 0, Musk will be to blame for his shareholders holding worthless stock. In a sane market, TSLA stock might be worth $10 on a good day, not $365.
You have some studying to do, Bubba. You’ve been sold a bill of goods. Look at the fundamentals of that business. They are rock solid. The share price will do whatever the share price does. Doesn’t have anything to do with it. “They burn capital, produce no profit.” As would any business setting up manufacturing facilities. But that was then, and this is now. Now they are quite profitable, and putting money in the bank
“As countless studies have shown, this simply isn’t true.” You really think Tesla would be where it is now if Musk had him put in the year that he just did? Astonishing that people like the dumbass that wrote this article get noticed in the world, because they contribute nothing other than bad advice. It’s really hard to make something of yourself in this world. And it’s a lot harder if you’re lazy and stupid. She’s not smart enough to know that the key to success is almost always elbow grease. Michael Jordan was the first in the gym in the morning and the last to leave at night.
I feel a bit of shame when I say I have worked more hours; nights and Saturdays included, than any dentist within 200 miles, maybe the whole state save one demented soul I know and who is now a very rich professional friend – another son of a SAC pilot and classmate. It was the price I payed with onerous alimony and child support payments. It was not my plan or professional goal. Likewise in undergrad I worked an average of 30 hours a week – with only a handful of weekends off in 4 years. Same in grad school – 20 hours a week minimum, sometimes 60 plus.
I was saddled with ten years of rehabilitative alimony – this from a 9 year marriage, that came after I worked my way through 8 years of college, two years of O3 rank in the AF and three years in civilian practice as a single person plus the 8 years of marriage- the judge gave her more money than I had made in my entire life plus a deed to the matrimonial home – (which was foreclosed on 6 years into the divorce – despite my monthly payments 5 times her mortgage. And since my name was on the note’s origin my credit score was dinged by her non payments and foreclosure) (her mom had once worked in the courthouse and was buddy buddy with the philandering judge.) NO KIDDING There was a hole in mommy’s arm where all her money went.
BUT in those slavish conditions I learned how to work smarter, not harder. I endeavor’d to persevere one day at at time. It took more than 20 years before I took more than a four day weekend off. It helped that I actually did a great job of client satisfaction by hiring enabled capable females to help me. At the end I was working 24 hours a week and net pocket profit was well over $400 an hour – @2006 More if you consider built in benefits passed on as business expenses. It was a sweet gig.
I once interviewed a retiring Major AF dentist as a potential associate. That month (my best ever) my profit was greater than his entire yearly military salary. But then he did have a great lifetime retirement benefit. And 30 days paid leave a year. He chose to take on a retiring low volume low profit practice. I think he did not understand how one man could make so much and still do a good job.
I often heard a statement from consultants that once you get efficient AND effective (very different in nature – effectiveness is the better skill) it becomes easy to lead the field. Only after I worked my way to the top did I understand it to be true. It became frighteningly easy. Too much money and poor decisions did not bode well for me in the longer run. But it was fun while it lasted.
An abrupt medical/legal retirement was a tough adjustment. I was once a work a holic, then an affluent working professional with leisure and now a comment queen on TBP eking by on SSI. Does that make me a commentaholic?
KS, it’s only by working hard that you learn to work smart. And it’s only by working smart but you put yourself in a position where others can shoulder the load to your benefit. No?
Hard work and long hours are no substitute for good management-me. Success breeds arrogance and complacency-Ross Perot.
Steve Jobs worked long hours but was a horrible father. No thanks. “No amount of success can make up for being a failure in the home.”-Richard Swenson, author of the book “Margin”. King David of The Holy Bible probably worked long hours but was a lousy father. He should have worked less and taken care of business at home. Perhaps if he would have done that his family would not have been so freakin’ dysfunctional.
Fooof! Just put in my hour and a half for the week and it is only Monday. No bills, no worries cuz the more you make, the more the gov can take. Now back to the family.
If you have to work a lot of hours to maintain your spot in the world, maybe you belong somewhere else.
Robert (QSLV)