<p>
</p>
<p>There’s a big difference from working 60-70 hours a week and working 70-90+ hours a week. </p>
<p>Been there, done that. The latter is hard to sustain even as a single person for most without some “down weeks” of 50-60 hours after an interval. Saw plenty of folks who burned out from being forced to work too much of the latter…especially if their “off-times” outside the office aren’t really “off” because they’re tethered to the office via crackberry.</p>
<p>Parent1986, the truth is that this is how it works, which, as I said, is a choice. </p>
<p>However, that is the description of the owners of the company and the people who make the choices and decisions and get the interesting work. 9-5 isn’t.</p>
<p>Do I wish everyone could have a 1% salary, or even 10%, sure, but it is partially a matter of time and committment. It’s not luck.</p>
<p>Think about it this way: go and read the threads with the kids who got into the top 20 schools, and add up the hours they spent working every week. But, it’s not the only choice.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I guess this is evidence that being a dad does not confer any additional wisdom or self-restraint. Facts: manufacturing jobs have been trickling back to the US, and China’s been shedding manufacturing jobs faster than the US and has for decades. Yet Chinese wages are still rising quickly because workers are demanding better conditions and pay - on top of increased worker comp regulations. Stop digging, you’re only making yourself look more and more foolish.</p>
<p>Oh, and not only am I not a student, I’m a liberal. But nice potshot, did you think of that all on your own?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I find quotes like these funny. You have most of the country outraged with banker salaries, but they work 80-100+ hour weeks year-round, year after year. And it doesn’t reduce by much even after you make MD. Everyone wants the wages, they just don’t want to put in the time (and no, I’m not one).</p>
<p>The reality is much the same with any profession though, and poetgrl hit it right on the button. If you want to advance quickly you have to make sacrifices. Too many today want it all - great hours, great pay, great perks, great benefits, great advancement. Real life doesn’t work that way, even Sheryl Sandberg’s recently hailed comment that she leaves at 5:30 is mere smoke and mirrors. A better description is she left the office at 5:30 and worked from home from dinner to midnight…</p>
<p>"If you want to be very successful in business, you work long hours. You don’t work 9-5. 9-5 is not going to advance you into a decision maker. "</p>
<p>For alot of jobs, if you work 9-5, you’ll get fired. The expectation for many entry level salaried positions is a lot. In these jobs, everyone is a hard worker by default working long hours.</p>
<p>“Start addressing your own ignorance and don’t just swallow what your professors tell you. You and PoetGirl should get together and do a study group”</p>
<p>Now that is ignorant. Poetgrl is an extremely successful businesswoman. Bizarre how some don’t understand the realities of what it takes to be successful, especially as a business owner. You don’t just lounge around and have lovely 9-5 hours, with months of paid vacation and weekends off. Any child could tell you that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t think that’s necessarily a good comparison considering the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Plenty of T-20 graduates have had serious issues adjusting to 40-50 hour workweeks, much less 60-90+ hour workweeks after graduating into the workforce. Saw this at past jobs not only with undergrads…but even those in jobs where working 70-80+ was standard and well-known such as biglaw attorney.<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Knew two biglaw associates who quit within the first two years back in the early '00s because they grew fed up with the long workweeks and being tethered via email/phone to the point they can’t plan any leisurely activities with friends/relatives due to dangers of being called back to the office to do an emergency doc review or legal research for a senior associate. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Some T-20 admits attended high schools where the workload was such they effectively coasted to top rank, GPA, and had SATs which were in the zone. Most ended up having a big reality check in their first semester.</p></li>
<li><p>Conversely, other T-20 admits attended rigorous high schools where their academic/ECs took up/exceeded 40-50 hours/week on average…with most of them leaning on the low-end of the scale…especially if they didn’t need to expend as much effort on their academic stuff to do well.* A few also had part-time jobs on top of all that. They found T-20 schools to be manageable for the most part so long as they weren’t burned out. </p></li>
<li><p>Most offices…especially corporate ones expect employees to work from morning to evening and/or beyond with only lunch and 2 short breaks…if they’d allow even that. Most high school kids have a lunch break and a gap or two between classes to destress/relax/recharge during a normal school day. Also…they have much more flexibility in how they go about studying/completing their academic/EC work than most professionals with their assigned work…including scheduling naps…even if they work from home. </p></li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>Several HS friends were able to excel despite only having to allocate a small portion of the 40-50 hours of week to academics while most of it was spent on ECs/research/part-time jobs. They spent far less time studying/homework than most classmates…even slackers like myself who studied with them to benefit from their tutoring help. They actually had an amazingly amount of free time for family, hobbies, and hanging out with friends like myself…a slacker in comparison back then.</li>
</ul>
<p>“Do I wish everyone could have a 1% salary, or even 10%, sure, but it is partially a matter of time and committment. It’s not luck.”</p>
<p>Could be. I find it hard to believe that a truly successful person discusses her/his wealth and other private matters repeatedly in a college Internet chat room. I’d think they are too busy. Who are they trying to impress? Successful people tend to be more humble. Maybe I’m wrong.</p>
<p>I find working 70 hours a week ridiculous, even if you make a boatload of money. Split the work among two people instead. Less stress, more jobs.
There should be a maximum amount of hours you can work, even with overtime. France does that:
[French</a> labour laws: Working time and leave < Jobs France | Expatica France](<a href=“http://www.expatica.com/fr/employment/employment_information/French-labour-laws_-Working-time-and-leave_16106.html]French”>http://www.expatica.com/fr/employment/employment_information/French-labour-laws_-Working-time-and-leave_16106.html)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Friends with families who worked in manufacturing and I have been reading a lot of reports saying that. However, none of the regions where my friends’ families live have seen that “trickle” just yet. As far as they’re concerned…they’ll believe it when they see it. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In the 18-19th century lassez-faire capitalist sense…or the late 20th/early 21st century American definition? The latter definition is very nebulous depending on who is doing the labeling and his/her own political leanings.</p>
<p>Just looked at a few of the last posts, and concur with Cobrat. It’s no life. I was up at 3:00 am for an international call, and decided to spend a few minutes checking some of my favorite sites before getting ready to go into the office. I worked til 9 last night…and will probably work this weekend, as usual. At times I say it’s not worth the money, but I’m only a few years from retirement as a single parent (spouse in a nursing home) with 3 kids in college and grad school. My kids grew up with this. Part of the reason I work this hard is that my profession demands 100% commitment, not 60%. Another part of the reason I work this hard is that you have to work harder and be better than your co-workers to survive lay-offs in this economy. Other reasons that I work this hard are that it’s part of my personality, and that it’s become a habit. I don’t know how to walk away from an important project when my clients are anxious for the project to be resolved.</p>
<p>I don’t know yet what my kids’ work ethics will be. Two of them have medical majors in fields where there are some unions (nursing/pharmacy), so perhaps their careers will be very different. One of them is in law school, God Help Him.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m not trying to impress anyone. I’m telling the kids on here who are starting out “how it is.” Also, I genuinely don’t care if they want to work that hard or not work that hard. I’m simply stating: “This is the way that it works.”</p>
<p>As for my success or lack thereof, I’m not humble or not humble. I don’t think it has anything to do with “who I am as a person.”</p>
<p>However, it’s clear when you read these boards that, for some reason, these kids have some sort of strange idea of what they will get for their time innvestment. I don’t know, maybe thier parents taught them that? Or their professors? But, it’s just not true.</p>
<p>With all the natural resources, human talents and technological advances in this country, are we asking our kids to work longer hours, for less pay, and to compete with workers from developing countries that are fueled with our $$, and in the meantime, we tell them that Social Security won’t be there for them?</p>
<p>What about high efficiency and high quality products? People sell their kidneys to buy iPads. Do iPads absolutely need to be produced offshores? I thought we are the most innovative people, at least we produce iProducts, Goggle, Facebook etc that others really want?</p>
<p>I know almost no one who just works 9-5, and most of my friends are people with ordinary, seemingly average-paying jobs. Furthermore, many folks have to be very careful to keep their jobs, because should they lose them, they couldn’t easily get another one for reasons other than unemployment statistics. My sister, who just has a bachelor’s, is doing a job that her company now only hires PhD’s to do. My brother-in-law was recently laid off and says to get another position exactly like what he had, he needs an additional degree and several certifications.</p>
<p>“Master’s degree employment is probably much higher BUT I’d imagine that is due to other factors and not necessarily because of their degree. In most cases, a masters degree right out of college is not worth it.”</p>
<p>In some fields, such as counseling, social work, and urban planning, the master’s degree is required for entry-level positions. These professional master’s programs also have a fieldwork component.</p>
<p>[U.S</a>. Multinationals Add Jobs, but Mostly Abroad - WSJ.com](<a href=“U.S. Multinationals Add Jobs, but Mostly Abroad - WSJ”>U.S. Multinationals Add Jobs, but Mostly Abroad - WSJ)</p>
<p>Those companies, which include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., International Paper Co., Honeywell International Inc. and United Parcel Service Inc., boosted their employment at home by 3.1%, or 113,000 jobs, between 2009 and 2011, the same rate of increase as the nation’s other employers. But they also added more than 333,000 jobs in their far-flung—and faster-growing— foreign operations.</p>
<p>It is quite a racket that companies are selling their employees. Work long hours and you might just become an executive like me and get all the perks, stocks and bonuses I have. </p>
<p>Of course those execs only get those perks and bonuses if they get you to work twice the hours for the same salary. They will throw you a bone every now and then to keep you at it. Companies employ psychologists to learn just how far they have to go to keep employees working at increased levels before they give up. As you get older and wiser and begin to understand the dynamics you realize that the majority of you have been had and that it will not happen for you. The you look around and realize you have missed a good part of the only life you have here on earth chasing their gold ring. The execs retire early with their gains made from exploiting you.</p>
<p>I remember my dad, back in the day, when wives started going to work. It wasn’t wives working that bothered him at all. His only thought was “great…now everything will cost twice as much”.</p>
<p>Technology has made it possible for you to be expected to work every hour of your life.</p>
<p>This rat race has become insane. </p>
<p>It had to be said.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Sorry that you work at such a company. My CEO is still working very hard in his old age and I don’t see him quitting. The building I work in has a lot of millionaires in it and that includes a lot of non-managers.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>My wife has always been a SAHM. I guess I have a generous employer.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Yup. But some find work enjoyable.</p>
<p>There’s a video on the WSJ main page that goes with the article. It says that companies are generally hiring overseas employees to generate more revenue in those countries. I guess it makes sense to hire locally but it also might provide opportunities for US college graduates that are willing to work overseas.</p>
<p>Speaking of videos, I especially enjoyed the one in the Guardian and NYT and elsewhere of
Murdoch caving to his corruption while his enterprise is being tried and indicted. :)</p>
<p>All the kids I know who had to “settle” for overseas jobs can’t wait to come home. </p>
<p>Who would want to live long term in a developing country? Not many. The glamor quickly wears off.</p>
<p>My kids, not once, have indicated the slightest resentment to the baby boomers and their EARNED entitlements.</p>
<p>Too bad so many see this topic as an opportunity to float their political agendas.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>My wife used to work with a lot of expats in Singapore and Australia. In those days, companies were pretty generous as to what they provided expats and their families. I don’t know if that’s true today. I’ve been to Australia several times and wouldn’t have a problem living there. Same with Singapore. Singapore was an option on the back burner for our son as he would have relatives and a place to stay there.</p>
<p>The son of a friend of mine took a job in Australia and then moved to Brazil to be near his girlfriend. I’m not crazy about living in Brazil but he’s made it work.</p>
<p>I also know people that moved to the US from China and India and then moved back for economic opportunities. One of my co-workers works in a town where there are many Indian and Chinese business-folks and they have residences here and abroad.</p>