I dislike this trope of a single person having nothing better to do than work. Single people have responsibilities too and have quality lives. They don't need to work themselves to death
And I dislike the trope of working being orthogonal to quality of life. Sitting in front of the computer working on my own thing is the ultimate enjoyment. That's what's giving me a quality life.
Yeah there's work (activity) and there's work (job)
I love working (activity) -- coding is a hobby I long ago made the mistake of monetising haha.
My stuff? I'll spend a weekend chasing a dead end without a second thought.
General sort of cog in the machine day to day work? You're paying me to be a bit bored a lot of the time. Not a complaint or anything, just the routine stuff that can't be automated yet.
Fun comes from learning new things, money comes from being paid for what you already learned.
Of course this is just me, if everyone was like me the world would suck. Absolutely no judgement if you get your fun outside of an IDE!
E: bit of context I'm currently single and have no dependents, I would imagine (hope) my priorities would change if that changed
Working for somebody else, where I have little stake in the company? I won't just put in the bare minimum to not get fired, but I also won't work absurd hours, especially on a salary.
My own stuff? I'm ready for the 40 (job) + 60 (my own projects) work week!
For reference, I'm very young and no where close to having a family.
> My own stuff? I'm ready for the 40 (job) + 60 (my own projects) work week!
Since you said you're very young I assume you're still at school/university and haven't had a tech job yet.
This doesn't work. Time is not the biggest factor, energy and focus are. You can only put in 40hrs and be extremely drained.
It's very unlikely you're going to be able to perform well at work and then be productive for another 60hrs on personal projects, especially not at your first job when you're learning a very large amount of new stuff.
Even just 60hrs of personal projects is probably way too much time relative to energy and focus (Your energy and focus will likely be drained before the 60hr mark).
I think this is where the Elon Musk is so detached from reality. Because he can do exactly what he wants all day, and he loves what he is doing what he does all day is not work. Certainly in the sense that say, assembling parts of a weird electric car for 12 hours a day whilst being trapped in the factory for 24 hours is work.
I see it in smaller business. I once got a phone call from my then boss, a sort of VC, who was clearly drunk, who could not make my meeting because he was doing BD. They worked collosal hours on this, in the corporate entertainment suites of the local sporting venues, in the city bars etc. Even lunch was a work activity for them.
I think the word work has a specific meaning. It's work is a phrase. Nobody is saying you should not enjoy your work but work is associated with drudgery and tedium in the common usage
I think it’s not that single people have nothing better to do. It’s that you would need to be single and have basically no life to do this kind of 70h work week (or be prepared to end up single, cuz you sure won’t be tending to your relationships/responsibilities )
As a consciously single I disagree along the lines of this argument (not with the argument itself). You’re seeing lost relationships as something destructive, and sure it is, but also disregard what others do as something that you can get rid of without any harm (“no life anyway”). I like my life, who’s anyone to judge what is important in it or not. Our world-wide society has this trope. “Hey, these people have kids(!), and these are in relationships, etc etc. And you are single nolifer, your rights and opportunities can wait”. As if a kid or a partner were some kind of a universal voucher.
I’m not judging people who are single w/o kids. just saying if you’re in a relationship or have kids that is a commitment and time needs to be spent on there.
I don’t think you should overwork yourself cuz you don’t have kids. Do what you want with your life.
You’re right on projection, and I shouldn’t have written “you” and “disregard” in the same sentence. I meant some part of normal-life folks, addressing them via that line. My mistake, sorry all for confusion.
It depends on what point in your life you are. I was at one point single and fully committed to work. I worked sometimes even 12 hours per day, every day, pulling in weekends too and I had a payoff for that. I’m single now too, but I’m not doing that. I’m focusing on dating. Different people, at different times have different priorities. It’s not any one individual thing that’s bad, it’s elevating one above the rest.
How is that a trope? Everybody here who has kids used to not have kids, and all would agree that before they had kids they had significantly more time to dedicate to non-kid-raising activities.
Nobody is saying single people have "nothing better to do". Just that they very often have more flexibility with what they can reasonably choose to do.
I’m not trying to speak for everyone. I’m saying that I personally can absolutely see myself doing it in these situations. Not trying to imply anything about anyone else.
Careful there -- relaxing or enjoying something mundane is not wasting time.
We have been conditioned to call things like this a waste of time but it doesnt mean it is. Not for everyone. Capitalism would have us believe we must constantly be delivering value that is defined by external standards but that is a dangerous game.
4000 Weeks is a pretty good book with more on this topic.
This isn’t really relevant to the current discussion about how much extra time is spent on “work” beyond normal working hours. Working ~40 hours a week and choosing to spend most of your other conscious hours consuming media is a different situation from spending most/all of your hours on the latter.
Not sure I see your point. "Choosing to spend most of your other conscious hours consuming media" is certainly choosing to waste a significant part of one's lifetime. Doing it all the time is wasting most of it, and likely being broke (with exception of rare edge cases). The question we touched in this particular branch: whether extra work constitutes a better alternative to more gaming/media in the absence of other obligations/fields of activity (such as family)
Please see your comment I was replying to for context on this thread. Addiction is what I was referring to, which is a different issue than whether one is wasting time to any degree. I have no real issue with folks debating on the latter.
“Capitalism would have us believe that…” if you were lazy in a hunter gatherer tribe they’d just no give you food, otherwise punish, or exile you. Some things are more fundamental than capitalism
In the US 70 hr work weeks at startups and even certain industry's are not abnormal. Are those people usually making good decisions, thinking clearly, and not being jerks? Nope, but it's what a lot of people willingly do. I've seen people pull 80 hr weeks
> On my own company, when single, and living in my one room apartment? Absolutely.
Speak for yourself. I have hobbies, a workout routine, friends to meet up with, family members to visit, and beauty sleep to catch. If you're working 70h a week you're sacrificing most if not all of those things.
He already said he was single. You can have a workout routine and plenty of sleep even when working 70h weeks. Just skip the Netflix and other people, for a time.
I'm single too... I don't see the relevance, though. You don't just have to like working. You have to actively decide against doing much of anything else. If you are working ten hours a day with no weekend, or 14 hours a day with one, you're going to be exhausted for the rest of that time.
You can fit working out in there (~30-60 min a day, plus travel time if you don't have your own equipment) if you're willing to burn the candle at both ends like that. At that point you will have committed the overwhelming majority of your time, and if you try to add anything else to your life, any kind of unexpected outing or emergency, or even just waking up one day and not feeling up for it, will have to come directly out of the time you've budgeted for your work and health.
I forgot that some people still commute. I assumed that you have an office in your residence and a gym in the garden. You will have committed most of your time, yes. Still at least in my experience it let me do more in a quarter than in a year of taking it easy. You can retire after a few years, which should still be early enough to enjoy life.
On my own company, when single, and living in my one room apartment? Absolutely.
With a family, children, with tons of responsibilities and in someone elses employ? Not on your life.