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How about no
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this post was submitted on 17 Sep 2023
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I recognize that Lemmy is largely anti-capitalist, and anti-work, and would hate this idea. But for people trying to better their position in life, move up in the class system we have, build a new career, or become exceptional in the one they're in, this sort of advice is actually helpful. It is possible, hell, it's relatively common, for people to bust their asses and improve their positions in life. Complaining that it's not fair doesn't get you anywhere, even though it's true.
The big problem I have with this advice is that it can't be scaled up to everbody. If everybody were to follow this advice, we'd have a situation where everbody works 4 extra unpaid hours and nobody stands out. Advice which becomes worse the more people take it. Not good.
Secondly, working more hours might decrease your efficiency in the long run, leading you to finishing less work than if you took the time to rest. If reduces your efficiency by just 10%, you'd already produce less value. While it's unlikely to get that far by just 4 extra hours, you don't get the full 26 extra days of productivity.
And if everybody were to follow this advice, always trying to work more than everybody else in order to stand out, we'd soon reach a point where people would produce less.
The advice is basically actively harmful to society.
Usually in this context the "work" part is learning new job skills, preparing plans, networking, and that sort of stuff. It could be actual work for your career, like preparing sales presentations for a sales person, or planning a big coding project for an engineering lead, but it could also be time spent educating yourself and building skills needed to get ahead. Everyone here gets so hung up on the people who were born privileged that they completely overlook the people who have actually worked their asses off to build a better life for themselves and their families.
In the context of “work” being further training or working towards credentials, ie working through community college or certification in your line of work, sure, but I don’t think that’s what this guy is actually saying
People who do this are useless. They burn out and can't do their regular jobs, and boring people with no life aren't useful in any sort of position that requires you to think because they've never had the time or bandwidth to learn how.
Source: started going down this road, realized it was counterproductive, and now avoid hiring people like this.
Most places I've worked, people would just wonder why you were so inefficient that you needed the extra time to do your job. Like, yeah everyone else does this shit in 40 hours, but this guy keeps showing up on Saturday, so he's either fucking around during the week or he's bad at his job. Anywhere that would think it was a good thing wasn't the kind of place you wanted to move up, it was the kind you tried to leave as soon as you could. Because they were run by the kind of morons who think the appearance of working harder was more valuable than actually doing something useful.
Early in my career, I picked up as much overtime as I could at the hospital. I worked 13 days in a row with three of the those days being 12 hour shifts. My coworkers informed that I was a real bitch after day 7 and it would be better for all of us if I didn't work more than seven days in a row.
I took their words to heart. There's working hard to get ahead and then there is killing yourself and making everyone around you miserable.
You hospital workers have insane schedules! All of you! I've heard of resident doctors working 36 hour shifts. How do they even function?
I have a friend who is a nurse and he takes all the worst shifts because they pay the best. He doesn't have a family, so it only impacts him, and he's living a FIRE lifestyle (which he's hella good at). But he lost a ton of weight and was as white as a vampire last time I saw him because he never sees the sun. That's taking it a bit too far IMO. But I'm sure he'll be the one laughing when he retires with a paid off house and no debt in a few years.
Well with the wealth gap inequity and the notion of meritocracy having been proven a farce for the past couple generations…. This advice is utter bullshit.
I would say that for someone who is willing to work multiple full time jobs and choose to “live to work” they could potentially save up enough money to send back to help their family in a second or third world country.
Nobody's talking about becoming wealthy, we're talking about bettering your position in life. But you seem pretty sold on exerting the least possible effort and remaining bitter with the results, so have it, I guess.