"Hard work never hurt anyone" is wrong

[Teacher Terry]

Working in hard jobs cost many people in my parent’s generation to lose both their health and lives.

 

[Nick12]

I have some friends and family that are retired military. On deployment they worked minimum 12 hour days sometimes 16 hours a day 7 days a week. When they transitioned back to civilian life work hours some said it was a piece of cake compared to working hours serving our country.

 

[karen1972]

It didn't kill me but I can tell you farm work as a kid certainly led to some of my back issues. When I retired at 43, I realized I had probably put in so many hours of overtime at my job that I literally already worked a lifetime of 40 hr weeks.. just in a crazy condensed fashion. They instituted a rule at work you couldn't get overtime over 80 hrs a week and you weren't suppose to put in that many hours.. umm ok so I'm at a customer site, there is a massive outage and I just go back to the hotel while the customers site is completely down until the new work week? really? Lots of 100 hr weeks in my stupid "go-getter" years.

I may not have worked smarter but at least I learned how to make my money work smarter.

 

[Markola]

I’m reading a biography about Elon Musk and it makes me wonder whether his massively self-driven nature is going to someday leave him like Howard Hughes.

 

[Nick12]

I’m reading a biography about Elon Musk and it makes me wonder whether his massively self-driven nature is going to someday leave him like Howard Hughes.

Both were odd eccentric brilliant visionaries. Musk even smoked weed, drank whiskey and talked about planes vertically taking off and landing in a past interview with Joe Rogan.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Working in hard jobs cost many people in my parent’s generation to lose both their health and lives.

Working in not so hard jobs are costing many people in our generation to lose both their health and lives.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I have some friends and family that are retired military. On deployment they worked minimum 12 hour days sometimes 16 hours a day 7 days a week. When they transitioned back to civilian life work hours some said it was a piece of cake compared to working hours serving our country.

There was a lot of down time during my military years, but there were lots and LOTS of 24+ hour crew duty days, too...especially after 9/11. It wasn't uncommon to "time out" and have to take a "break" from flying duties to get your cumulative hours down (flying way too many hours than is sensible for the human body).

There's nothing like being put on alert (basically on call) for 72 hours and get alerted 69 hours into your alert...you know, at 11:50p on a Sunday night and then start your 24 hour work day (which didn't start until an hour later) that would ultimately get you to your final stop somewhere in the middle east at 8:30 in the morning...and of course, you would be scheduled to fly again in a short 12 hours; It could a miserable existence.

The flight time limits were waived for a long time and it took a toll on your body, no doubt about it. Don't confuse it with R&R though...it wasn't even close to being a good deal. Usually you would be sent out on a trip KNOWING you would exceed your hours, so you just wound up sitting in a hotel (or tent) for a couple of days until your average hours dropped enough to get you back in the air. I was even stupid enough to take 4 full time college courses at the same time in late 2002 (by correspondence) while flying my ass off. Oye...just the thought of it makes me want to take a long nap!

Fast forward to law school and I couldn't help but snicker whenever a classmate would whine about "long nights of studying."

 

[ExPatKiwi]

Times have changed you need to do more than just work hard. Once upon a time you only use to get fired for "cause" but now many Megacorps have mandatory annual 20% performance culling. No matter what please pick 2 out your 10 staff for under performance severance thank you HR. These days you need to wear body armor that protects you from being stabbed in the back. Yet companies wonder where staff loyalty and company culture has gone.

 

[Lewis Clark]

I have some friends and family that are retired military. On deployment they worked minimum 12 hour days sometimes 16 hours a day 7 days a week. When they transitioned back to civilian life work hours some said it was a piece of cake compared to working hours serving our country.

While deployed on submarines I rarely worked less than 16 hours a day, every day, for the entire length of the deployment, three or four months per deployment. The main exceptions were the rare days we were granted a short stay in a liberty port.

There were even several weeks while in home port when I was scheduled to be in different training exercises 24 hours a day, every day for a full 5-day work week. And I was not the only one. Ridiculous requirement during peace time.

And then there were the warfighting inspections at the end of some deployments where I would be lucky to get a total of 6 or 7 hours of sleep during the three-day inspection.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

While deployed on submarines I rarely worked less than 16 hours a day, every day, for the entire length of the deployment, three or four months per deployment. The main exceptions were the rare days we were granted a short stay in a liberty port.

There were even several weeks while in home port when I was scheduled to be in different training exercises 24 hours a day, every day for a full 5-day work week. And I was not the only one. Ridiculous requirement during peace time.

And then there were the warfighting inspections at the end of some deployments where I would be lucky to get a total of 6 or 7 hours of sleep during the three-day inspection.

Oh, inspections; GAG ME!!! I love seeing posts on Facebook from fellow retirees who are "pining for the good 'ole days"....they seem to only remember the extended crew rests in Hawaii, enjoying Oktoberfest in Germany and spending 2 weeks in New Zealand waiting for the POTUS to attend a G7 conference. They forget the *other* parts of the bull squeeze that took up 96% of the career.

 

[Lewis Clark]

Oh, inspections; GAG ME!!! I love seeing posts on Facebook from fellow retirees who are "pining for the good 'ole days"....they seem to only remember the extended crew rests in Hawaii, enjoying Oktoberfest in Germany and spending 2 weeks in New Zealand waiting for the POTUS to attend a G7 conference. They forget the *other* parts of the bull squeeze that took up 96% of the career.

I had some fun moments that I recall fondly. Some include swim calls in the Gulf Stream dozens of miles off the coast, watching a movie topside under the stars while on the surface, training exercises with other Navy units, and shooting test missiles.

But they were few and far between amid the long hard work and the bull squeeze.

 

[Nick12]

While deployed on submarines I rarely worked less than 16 hours a day, every day, for the entire length of the deployment, three or four months per deployment. The main exceptions were the rare days we were granted a short stay in a liberty port.

There were even several weeks while in home port when I was scheduled to be in different training exercises 24 hours a day, every day for a full 5-day work week. And I was not the only one. Ridiculous requirement during peace time.

And then there were the warfighting inspections at the end of some deployments where I would be lucky to get a total of 6 or 7 hours of sleep during the three-day inspection.

Thanks for your service! My former college buddy Skip worked on a submarine for several years. The stories he told about the living conditions, the bathrooms, the long hours , the workload is not for everyone. He did however came back from liberty back on time to the sub drunk as a skunk.

 

[Markola]

"Hard work never hurt anyone" is wrong

Times have changed you need to do more than just work hard. Once upon a time you only use to get fired for "cause" but now many Megacorps have mandatory annual 20% performance culling. No matter what please pick 2 out your 10 staff for under performance severance thank you HR. These days you need to wear body armor that protects you from being stabbed in the back. Yet companies wonder where staff loyalty and company culture has gone.

It went the way of At-Will Employment. Forget them. As soon as I saw what a one-way relationship the American workplace really is, I determined to use them toward the goal of taking care of myself. Now, some 28,000 of the best corporations around the world whose securities I own support me in my effort, every morning, to sleep in until I wake up.

 

[Winemaker]

W*rking as a supervisor in a coal mine was hard w*rk; hands down, bar none. Wind chill factor in the winter, humidity in the summer, 40# of gear, tools, testing instruments strapped to waist, and in some cases, mud, water and more mud and water. Steel toed rubber boots, and later the Matterhorn boot, klunking around, checking on people, projects, and making examinations, for 8-10 hours, then writing reports and filling out the books for another hour or so. But at the end of the day, you had a great sense of accomplishment.

 

[foxfirev5]

Working hard sitting in an office or working hard building a house for 70 hours a week is a difference. Working hard is different to different professions and have different health effects.

Very true. I remember many of the construction guys that worked for my DF barely making it while working to 65. Many were totally broke down by 60. Years of finishing concrete, laying blocks, asphalt paving, roofing etc. took it's toll. Some were able to take lighter duty jobs but the sad truth was there weren't many.

That's where the new ideas about moving the retirement age to 70 and beyond are pure BS.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Very true. I remember many of the construction guys that worked for my DF barely making it while working to 65. Many were totally broke down by 60. Years of finishing concrete, laying blocks, asphalt paving, roofing etc. took it's toll. Some were able to take lighter duty jobs but the sad truth was there weren't many.

That's where the new ideas about moving the retirement age to 70 and beyond are pure BS.

My FIL owns a few businesses of which the oldest is a construction company. He is well into his 70s and still works everyday...and at times does pretty hard work. He's not in the greatest of shape medically but I think the hard work does him pretty good. He has some employees that still work for him that he went to HS with and they still work pretty damn hard as well.

 

[Murph]

Now, THERE’s a reliable source.

 

[jeffmete]

Like they say, keep your nose to the grindstone and you will end up with a short nose!

 

[Montclairbobbyb]

Nonsense! Hard work is what made (and STILL MAKES) America great, although I worry that we're becoming weak, lazy, and self-righteous, looking for shortcuts and being less willing to take personal responsibility for our actions (including accepting discipline and punishment when deserved). Nobody wants to hear it, but we've seriously got to TOUGHEN UP!!

 

[steveark]

I started as an intern and was running a billion dollar company by the time I was 41. But I never worked the long hours many of my competition worked, I just made sure that the company understood just how many millions I had added to the bottom line. They paid and promoted on results, not on effort. It was a small company in terms of numbers of employees with lots of expensive equipment. And lots of low hanging fruit since computers were in their early days and I knew how to use them to solve problems.

 

[scottpush]

Sometimes hard work and long hours are needed but that should never be the norm. Moderation is key.

 

[kingkarmann]

Ultimately it depends on which end of the shovel you are on

 

[Nick12]

In general no one in my opinion works as hard and long as us in the USA, perhaps Japan also. Does anyone know how much vacation time, hours worked etc residents in Europe do? Tourists learn the hard way when trying to visit certain countries different parts of the year when it seems the town or city has gone away on vacation.

 

[KCGeezer]

This old tune came to mind.

 

[Asabino]

There’s a difference between “hard work” and working long hours as well as working smart!