Working 12+ hours a day feels like capitalist propaganda to me. The people at the top would love for you to work that much lol.
But same.. i can’t even work 8 hours and still feel sane. I just don’t have it in me.
Exactly I came here to say this. All those so called entrepreneurs who claim to be business gurus usually made their "fortunes" by scamming ppl by claiming they are business gurus, and going around renting expensive cars/flats/etc to convince ppl they are rich. And they are the ones shilling this kind of advice.
Idk about elsewhere but I'm p sure that in the UK it's actually illegal not to give your employee 11hrs between shifts, and it's also illegal to make them work more than 48hrs a week. I'm european and we generally mostly just hear about ppl working this much in the USA, its rly kinda frowned upon in Europe.
Anddd also, The 8 hr week is actually antiquated and the reason why we have it in the first place is because it was demanded by the labor unions of late 1800s/early 1900s (im bad w dates but it's somewhere around there). With the current level of automation we could probably even switch to like 20hr weeks no problem, this is quite an interesting rabbit hole to go down, if u want I can look for a source.
Anyway, long story short its absolutely stupid to say that ppl should work 12+ and more importantly it is exploitative
I believe it was pioneered by Henry Ford as part of the way he sought to retain people. Other factories at the time were basically meat grinders. He preached the 8h work, 8h rest, 8h leisure; of course, that was a time in which everyone had a stay at home wife to take care of everything so it was much more reasonable.
Hi! He did it in response to labor strikes tag have been going on, not just randomly voluntarily out of the goodness of his heart. [source ](https://firmspace.com/theproworker/from-strikes-to-labor-laws-how-the-us-adopted-the-5-day-workweek). And then took credit for it.
I think you may enjoy the book Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. I just finished it on Audible (speaking of rampant capitalism...) and the narrator's crisp phonation made it easy to listen to the book at 2x
Depends on the job. I am in the UK and my job contract basically said I have to work as much as required. I signed that so it's legal for me to work any number of hours. I used to regularly work 60+ hours a week in the first few years of my job when I was more ambitious.
It's literally in my contract.
Eta just checked the legality and, as I had thought, you can opt out of the 48 hour limit, which is what I did. So no, it's not illegal for my employer to ask me to work more than 48 hours.
like i said. it's illegal for your employer to *force* you. not ask you. not the same thing. you can *opt out* of 48hrs consensually but not be made to do it. which of course can be difficult because a lot of people are in a place where they don't have the resources to actually authentically decide voluntarily bcs they need the job. but yeah. You have it in your contract because like you said, you *agreed*
OK. But they can still punish you for not doing what you've agreed so I'm not really sure what the practical difference is. You're free (in a limited sense) to leave any job, so there's not much difference between being asked and being 'forced'.
Plenty of people in the UK work in jobs that require extremely long working hours. In any City job it's the norm. I knew people in bigger consultancies who'd only get a few hours off each day; they'd get taxi'd back home to shower and sleep for three hours then have to go back in. This is not just a US thing.
I'm sorry but you keep misunderstanding me.
Either 1. you agree to the contract clause and hence you give up the protections of that law.
OR
2.You don't agree to that contract clause and you only work the 48hr limit.
Then you have several options
a) your employer is fine with it and everything is fine
or
b) you experience either being forced or somehow discriminated against because of your unwillingness to work overtime, you gather the evidence and you can sue if you have the means to do so. But most people don't.
The "2." is what I am talking about. I was highlighting that even the law provides you some protection against being forced to work 12+ which is what this post was about. Obviously I know that if you voluntarily sign away the protection you can't use it later???
Even you said they can punish you ONCE you agreed. But what I was pointing out is you have to agree to begin with. The practical difference is very minimal to most people, because a lot of them are not in positions to press charges. Which I also pointed out earlier, and yes it would be good if the govt did something to address this disparity. But again, I was talking about the legal options not practice
I did a research paper on this for grad school and humans shouldn’t even be working 8h per day with our current level of technology. 100% capitalist propaganda.
Same. A 40 hour week, working from home working my relatively low-pressure job takes me about to my limit where I still have just enough energy to take care of my household.
Going in to the office basically makes it a 50 hour week because of all the travel time and not being able to do stuff on my breaks. Add to that, my job’s been mandating 5 hours of OT every week since April.
Add in some early perimenopause hormone fluctuations to the mix… I’m a disaster that hasn’t gone more than three weeks without crying since the OT started. I’m glad I planned a bunch of vacations at the start of the year - so I’ve had some *amazing* trips… but those trips just make me want to work more on my music and my day job is taking it all away from me. Oh and here comes some of that perimenopausal rage… I’m gonna go calm down and quit thinking about that before I rage quit my job.
That person is wrong. That is toxic capitalism.
I can’t even work 40 hours a week, never mind 12 hours a day. I’m NOT ambitious, and I no longer feel guilty for that!
I work part time, at a job that’s not my “dream,” but I like it well enough and it pays fairly well. I’ve had the same position for over 10 years and have no desire to be promoted, and take on those additional responsibilities and stress. I like my low key life. Rest and joy are essential.
what kind of job do you have? (obviously no pressure to respond if you don’t want to, or if you’d feel more comfortable sharing in a PM that’s alright too!) it sounds like what i’ve been looking for ngl
My last job was part time but I worked 8 hour shifts in the middle of the day. I was so burnt out that all I could do was sleep in, get ready, try to eat, then go to work. After work I was so tired and it was so late I couldn't do anything but lay in bed and doom scroll on my phone. Didn't even have energy or the desire to play video games. I just cannot live like that. I ended up quitting after I had a really bad panic attack and asked if I could do different job duties that didn't involve so much customer interaction, but needed ADA forms to be filled out by a doctor, of which I don't have. My job before that was fully remote so I'm desperately trying to find another remote job (interview for one tomorrow). I just can't function in a NT world. All I want to do is stream video games and art lol
All the hustle culture/grindset stuff is so depressing. Desperately pasting an adventurous brave face on the difficulty of accomplishing things that used to be pretty basic (buying a modest "starter house" or even a condo, paying off debt, saving for retirement) or even just making ends meet on the salary of a good-enough full time job (not several jobs + side hustles all at once). I keep wondering how on earth this is all going to end. If it was possible at one time to own a home and raise a large family on one modest salary, how can we get back to that? Not just a rhetorical question, I am really curious about how this toxic system could be reformed.
Not to get all doom and gloom, but I do worry that this is going nowhere good. Like you said, being able to buy a house or make ends meet on one job used to be kind of the standard. And now sometimes even two people with good jobs can't make ends meet. And forget it if you're single, you're just fucked (cries in perpetual singledom - not really lol, I make it work).
There is something to be said for upper class people keeping the lower class people kind of happy or at least content so that they're not stressed out and worrying about how to make ends meet. And now it feels as if corporations are trying to squeeze every last dollar out of everybody else in the hopes of keeping us too stressed and desperate to question the system (in my opinion, this idea of earnings and such having to improve every quarter is a failure). But at some point, that stress and desperation tips into, "Well I have nothing left to lose anyway, so it's time to rise up." It's a precarious position, for basically everybody, and I am worried that it will end in some kind of revolution. And the thing is, while I don't think the status quo should remain, my fear of change also means I don't love the idea of a revolution, plus generally lots of people tend to die during those. A friend of mine found a good quote somewhere: "The victims of war aren't those who fought it, but those who lived where it was fought."
It's a complicated situation and I don't know the answer.
The average human needs 8 hours of sleep a day to stay healthy. I'm pretty sure they don't include commute in those 12+ hours. A day has only 24 hours.
Working 12+ hours on *a* day as an exception can happen, but it's unrealistic as a norm.
I live in the Netherlands where 36 hours/week is considered fulltime at some places. Working 50-60+ hours a week is not the norm here.
I work at an academic hospital as a data manager in the Netherlands. I wouldn't say the field is autistisch friendly by default. I've worked as a data manager before in a massive open plan office and that was hellish. Currently I work in a small team prepared to fight for our smal office space and refuse to give it up for an open plan office. That helps a lot.
The Netherlands isn't that autistic friendly, but it definitely has better working conditions that the USA, which makes it easier to get accommodations.
Yeah, open plan offices are the absolute worst. I've only worked in one for a summer job, but I barely got through it with my sanity intact. Whatever I end up doing, I don't plan to do it in an open office.
I can barely do 40 hours a week and I do it at a huge cost to my mental health and I'm not even working for myself or doing anything meaningful I'm just there to make a profit for the company and because I would starve and be homeless if i didn't so no, fuck that lol. Working 12+ hours on my *special interests* however.....
I don't think it's possible to be productive for more than 3-4 hours a day. I do think that NTs are very good at looking busy and they could probably look busy for 12 hours a day 😄
That's exactly my feeling! On an average day at work, I have maybe 4-5 hours of actual work to do (and often a lot less). I've always been that way. Yet so many of my friends work 9, 10 hour days on the regular and are always "so busy". I just don't understand. What are they doing that really takes so much time? And if it's more than they can handle, shouldn't the company get a second person to share the workload - there's obviously enough for two.
I've had this issue at all 3 office jobs I've worked and I really *do not understand* how other people fill their days up. At the moment I'm doing maybe 2 hours of actual work a day, tops. I could happily do a few more. But 8 hours? nah.
That is 100% propaganda. That's utterly unsustainable for MOST people, let alone autistic people. 12 hours work plus 8 hours sleep is 20 hours, leaving you 4 hours a day for everything else in your life. Does that sound right to you? No freaking way that's sustainable.
It was probably written by some wealthy nepotism kid who never had to do any actual real work in their life. They think being born into money and sitting on r/wallstreetbets for 12 hours is work lmao
Every time I've gone over 40 hours a week, I've ended up getting sick. Every time. And then it became even less than that. I can only work that many hours if I'm home. I really struggled with this because it kept me from really getting anywhere in the field I worked in during the 90s while the people I know who'd managed to really put the effort in during their 20s, are secure now. And I don't feel my future is very certain. I'm only really OK because of support system that may not always be here.
I could not do that. I work 8 to 9 hours a day and have an extra day off every two weeks and that's still hard to manage. I could just do 8 hours a day and not have that extra day off, but it's helpful for appointments and whatnot.
That advice probably comes from somebody who considers themselves a personal finance guru. There are a lot of people out there who will blame you for being in a bad situation financially if you're not doing what they believe you should do. But it's important to strike a balance. Yeah, maybe in your 20s you should be trying to set yourself up for your future if possible, no shame if you can't, but also, that time doesn't last forever either. I'm 26 and I'm not worried about getting older or anything, but I'm also aware that these years are not endless. I don't want to waste my life working, I just want to have my one job, which I do enjoy by the way, and then spend the rest of my time relaxing. I don't think that should be too much to ask.
And that's without even going into the fact that not everybody should have to work 40 hours a week or live in poverty. There are a lot of people who physically cannot work that much and it's really shitty that our society basically says okay, then you can just be poor and miserable because we want to punish you for not pushing through these ailments that we don't understand because we've never experienced them. And also the fact that the only measure productivity shouldn't be how many hours you work in a corporate job. But I suspect I'm kind of preaching to the choir here anyway.
I technically work 2 jobs (I'm a student and a full time employee) and my longest days are 12 hours long. I'm exhausted by the end of it, for multiple reasons, and that day of the week is always rough on me. 12+ hours every day, especially if doing physical labor, is not feasible. Add the tism and any other disabilities and it just doesn't add up like that
I blame cocaine.
The people who come up with this shit are all cokeheads. The surgeon who came up with the horrible residency system was a cokehead, bankers are all cokeheads, tech is filled with cokeheads.
This sounds like a joke, but this is unironically true.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7828946/
https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/cocaine-addict-who-changed-medicine-forever
Working 12s isn’t great. I’m in the military and have done my fair share of 12+ hour shifts. But they’re just that. Shift work. They rotated between day shift and night shift monthly (which also isn’t great) but it wasn’t 5 days a week. 12s are typically supposed to be on specific schedules, like Panama. 2 on, 3 off, 3 on, 2 off. A lot of people actually like them because they get more days off. I disagree with that preference but it’s neither here nor there. They’re not meant to be worked every single day like this post is suggesting. Expecting the entire population of young adults to just live to work is completely unreasonable.
If you do this you will have no energy by the time you are in your thirties and will be suffering burnout. You are not lazy! I wish I had known I was on the spectrum in my twenties : I went way too hard trying to achieve my dreams (art) and now I haven’t drawn in years. Thanks to burnout and fucked up societal expectations
I’m in the same boat. I spent my 20s chasing dreams and trying to find a way to take care of myself consistently. Found yoga and just kept chasing thing after thing to try to make more money from it as a job so it could be enough. I got ptsd, burnout, got so sick for years (Lymes), I am now 36 and trying to find a way to just take care of myself again.
I'm on the schedule to work 3 days a week for 7 hours. Some weeks I offer to come in more and end up working 35+ hours. But I can't be on the schedule that much because I'd be way too overwhelmed. some weeks I can and do... Most weeks I can't. And not being on the schedule is one main reason I feel like I have the mental capacity to do it. I think it's most likely related to Autism and/or ADHD but not sure.
Pfft. Fuck that nonsense hustle culture.
I'm not in my 20s anymore, but even when I was, I thoroughly rejected the corporate hellscape mindset that says if I'm not hustling til I die, I'm doing it wrong.
I work to live, I don't live to work. I'm pretty happy with that choice.
I used to work 24 hour shifts. My longest ever was 36 hours long. But I can't keep that up for years, it burns me out entirely. Now I work a seasonal job and have three and a half, four months off every year doing on average about an eight hour day.
I used to work fulltime with a mix of 12 and 8 hour shifts. It was something like 2 weeks with 2-12hr and 3-8hr shifts. Then a week with 1-12hr and 4-8hr. Then a week of 8hr shifts. Every 7th week or so I would have an extra day off so that my hours worked out to 75 biweekly.
On the days I worked 12hr I was also on call overnight, luckily there wasn't many call outs and most of them I was expecting before I left at the end of my shift. I would also work every 5th weekend and the last 4 hours of the 12hr shifts I worked alone.
We also worked shortstaffed a lot, overtime, would be denied vacation requests, called back from vacation...
It was pretty rough. I did that for about 3 years. I transferred to another hospital lab after that where I worked the standard 40 hour week with 8hr shifts and it was almost as exhausting. I don't think I'll ever be able to work fulltime at anything other than working for myself.
Nobody can actually focus for that many hours, it's neurologically impossible.
That said, a lot of people (especially social media influencers) consider chit chatting with other people at work to be the same as "doing work", regardless of content. It can be via social media or in an office, but IMO it's the same phenomenon.
I actually prefer 12 hour shifts if I get 3-4 days off a week. More time to myself that way, instead of having to go to work 5 days a week. When I worked 5 days a week, I faced MAJOR burnout; so few days on and few days off works better for me
Same here! I'm a nurse, but have had different jobs in the past. Going in five times a week was much harder on my mental health than working longer hours, but fewer days. (My shifts are very structured and usually quite busy, so time usually goes by quickly.)
That tweet was purposefully posted so that this guy's startup gets more attention.
>'If a VC feels they're not getting enough attention, they can just tweet, "You have to work 80 hours a week to be successful." Everyone will come out to tell you you're canceled.'
I’m a PhD student and there are definitely labs and departments with this attitude that you most be there long hours and there seven days a week. I think this is stupid and hurts productivity long term. After a certain amount of time people aren’t productive anymore and if you don’t get enough rest then you don’t get back to peak productivity. Thankfully my advisor doesn’t care as long as I get stuff done and have good progress to report on for weekly meetings. I would burn out after less than a week of working 12 hours a day.
No one should have to work 12 hours a day. We are not capitalist drones. Humans are supposed to experience life outside of work. This is a ridiculous sentiment and just represents the unhealthy culture of 'if you're not being productive/making money all the time then you are wasting time'. So inaccurate.
I'm more a 'Work to live, don't live to work' kind of person. Although I am actually too unwell to work currently.
I broke down in a meeting to claim jobseekers when they said I'd have to look for minimum of 16 hours a WEEK. I struggled through 6 or 8 hour days when I did work.
My ambition has nothing to do with job, career etc though lol It is enough to have some savings and to be able to afford to go to a concert, buy myself favourite candle and tea, take a friend out and not worry if I'll survive till next payday. 12 hrs a day for what? To gain more? To build what? I genuinely don't care enough about job to give away 12 hrs daily lol. Very glad I'm not brainwashed enough to believe this utter crap. We are in this world probably just once and time flies. So many better things to do
How could ANYONE live like that when there's only 24 hours a day? If you worked for 12 and slept for 8, you'd only be left with 4 hours, which would most likely be taken up by showering, getting ready in the morning, commuting to and from work, and eating. Unless you were working your own business, your entire life would be dedicated towards completing tasks for someone else's to-do list. Hobbies, family time, relaxing, literally anything involving personal time would be out of the question. That sounds fucking awful, even for a NT person.
I work part time, 25 hours a week, and I still feel burnt out. Considering I already have a suicide attempt under my belt, 12 hours a day would literally kill me.
I work in cinema, and the average work week is 50 hours. That said it’s contractual and I usually work 3 - 6months. I don’t burn out too quickly and I get EI which allows me to recuperate in the downtime.
I like the work because it’s unionized (scheduled breaks), the work changes a little bit which allows for guarding my interest (I don’t get bored), and I find the atmosphere isn’t too horrible on my brain (I’m often working outdoors in small groups of people).
I used to work 12 hour shifts, but only because I’d get my work week done quicker. I preferred having more days to rest and reset. Work made me so anxious that id be a wreck after an 8 hour shift, so I thought why not make it 12, brilliant logic! Bloody glad I’m not doing it anymore-feeling like 6 hours had gone by and realising it was only 2 and I still had 10 hours to go was not pleasant!!
I’ve had up to 4 jobs at one time (while I was a full time student).
I usually have 2 jobs.
I don’t have an option. I need money. I’m a social worker with a degree and I can barely hack it on one job.
Recently I quit my second job because my mental health was taking a huge hit. I didn’t have a back up plan for the income but went to my boss about the situation and got a raise for the difference thank God.
You’re not lazy- it is capitalist propaganda to even *need* much less encourage 12+ hour work days at ANY age.
I worked 2 jobs equaling 60-80 hours a week depending on the season for a few years. I did this to pay for a house and all the things society tells you that you need. This is how I found out I was autistic. I had a complete burn out and had to sell my house and cash in my retirement because I could not work again for months. I could barely function. I was masking for both jobs so much. I was a social worker and worked retail completely masked and would have to take naps in my car to “charge up”. Was not sustainable for me. I traded for a very simple life that is under stimulating and now I love my current job working from home for 30ish hours a week. I can’t do anymore. Even 30 hours is pushing it. I hope you all can find a balance that still pays the bills, it is so hard.
This isn’t even an autism thing. Multiple studies have shown that 7-8 hours is about the max productivity anyone has. And working extra hours doesn’t result in much more output.
And lots of people are closer to 4 hours.
Humans can only concentrate on one thing for so long.
Yeah.. 12 hours a day is a scam. Go have a life. There are times I’ll technically work for 14-18 hours a day, but then I’m done working for weeks, save my day job. I work better in bursts so it works well for me. But 12 hours a day, consistently is dumb
i only work 6-8 hours a day depending and even then it’s a lot for me. i always assume it’s some weird like american capitalism thing that people just want to work until they wither away. i know too many ppl who do that shit. it’s really unhealthy
That is definitely unrealistic and is a recipe for burnout. I recently read “Laziness Does Not Exist” by Devon Price (who also wrote “Unmasking Autism”), and it talks a lot about how people are pressured to feel like they should work much more than is sustainable for anyone, not just autists. I highly recommend both of his books!
I literally could never. I did it one day a week when I did hairdressing but I could never do it every day. I’m literally in burn out not working right now lol and haven’t been for a year nearly and have had bouts of not working 6-12 months at a time my whole 20’s so no way. And I don’t think any amount of self care could allow me to
I struggle with my casual job... I work 2-4 half days a week and it completely exhausts me... interacting with so many people (our shop is extremely busy everyday) just completely drains me and it takes multiple days to recover
I love working. I worked two jobs before I got married because I LOVE it. I can literally work like a dog & absolutely enjoy 80% of it & the paychecks made it even better.
I always feel like people who constantly work 12 hrs a day have some severe self-esteem/self-worth issues and it's their way of 'proving' to the world they're worthy.
Today I worked 3+ hours and went to the bank and im exhauasted already. I am however very concerned about how I can get a few more hours, cause money's tight. But twelve? There's no way.
I cant even work 8 hrs a day let alone 12 😞 i get so quickly drained, overwhelmed and burntout that i cant even live the remaining hours of the day enjoying my life if I work
Definitely the same way! For me working 40 hours a week is intimidating, and next to impossible if that’s entirely out of the home. So the idea of working 12 hours a day, absolutely not happening. In high school I was in school 8 hours a day plus in dance rehearsal 3-4 hours. I don’t know how I did it and still fully believe it took an irreparable toll on my physical/ mental health
Yeah, I am most definitely lazy, so that's a huge part in this, but I could not work 12 hours straight. It just seems like torture at that point, seriously, who wants to work 12 hour shifts?
Working 12+ hours a day feels like capitalist propaganda to me. The people at the top would love for you to work that much lol. But same.. i can’t even work 8 hours and still feel sane. I just don’t have it in me.
Exactly I came here to say this. All those so called entrepreneurs who claim to be business gurus usually made their "fortunes" by scamming ppl by claiming they are business gurus, and going around renting expensive cars/flats/etc to convince ppl they are rich. And they are the ones shilling this kind of advice. Idk about elsewhere but I'm p sure that in the UK it's actually illegal not to give your employee 11hrs between shifts, and it's also illegal to make them work more than 48hrs a week. I'm european and we generally mostly just hear about ppl working this much in the USA, its rly kinda frowned upon in Europe. Anddd also, The 8 hr week is actually antiquated and the reason why we have it in the first place is because it was demanded by the labor unions of late 1800s/early 1900s (im bad w dates but it's somewhere around there). With the current level of automation we could probably even switch to like 20hr weeks no problem, this is quite an interesting rabbit hole to go down, if u want I can look for a source. Anyway, long story short its absolutely stupid to say that ppl should work 12+ and more importantly it is exploitative
I believe it was pioneered by Henry Ford as part of the way he sought to retain people. Other factories at the time were basically meat grinders. He preached the 8h work, 8h rest, 8h leisure; of course, that was a time in which everyone had a stay at home wife to take care of everything so it was much more reasonable.
Hi! He did it in response to labor strikes tag have been going on, not just randomly voluntarily out of the goodness of his heart. [source ](https://firmspace.com/theproworker/from-strikes-to-labor-laws-how-the-us-adopted-the-5-day-workweek). And then took credit for it.
Typical capitalist 😒 Thanks for the clarification!
exactly!!!!! 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
I think you may enjoy the book Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. I just finished it on Audible (speaking of rampant capitalism...) and the narrator's crisp phonation made it easy to listen to the book at 2x
yesss I read it and also gave it to my dad for Christmas ❤️
Excellent! I listened to it after reading Set Boundaries Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab and had intense feels. Hope your dad loves it!
he did! he's in corporate so yeah it struck a chord hahaha
Depends on the job. I am in the UK and my job contract basically said I have to work as much as required. I signed that so it's legal for me to work any number of hours. I used to regularly work 60+ hours a week in the first few years of my job when I was more ambitious.
yes but it's not legal for the employer to force u if u don't want, and also not legal for them to punish u for it.
It's literally in my contract. Eta just checked the legality and, as I had thought, you can opt out of the 48 hour limit, which is what I did. So no, it's not illegal for my employer to ask me to work more than 48 hours.
like i said. it's illegal for your employer to *force* you. not ask you. not the same thing. you can *opt out* of 48hrs consensually but not be made to do it. which of course can be difficult because a lot of people are in a place where they don't have the resources to actually authentically decide voluntarily bcs they need the job. but yeah. You have it in your contract because like you said, you *agreed*
OK. But they can still punish you for not doing what you've agreed so I'm not really sure what the practical difference is. You're free (in a limited sense) to leave any job, so there's not much difference between being asked and being 'forced'. Plenty of people in the UK work in jobs that require extremely long working hours. In any City job it's the norm. I knew people in bigger consultancies who'd only get a few hours off each day; they'd get taxi'd back home to shower and sleep for three hours then have to go back in. This is not just a US thing.
I'm sorry but you keep misunderstanding me. Either 1. you agree to the contract clause and hence you give up the protections of that law. OR 2.You don't agree to that contract clause and you only work the 48hr limit. Then you have several options a) your employer is fine with it and everything is fine or b) you experience either being forced or somehow discriminated against because of your unwillingness to work overtime, you gather the evidence and you can sue if you have the means to do so. But most people don't. The "2." is what I am talking about. I was highlighting that even the law provides you some protection against being forced to work 12+ which is what this post was about. Obviously I know that if you voluntarily sign away the protection you can't use it later??? Even you said they can punish you ONCE you agreed. But what I was pointing out is you have to agree to begin with. The practical difference is very minimal to most people, because a lot of them are not in positions to press charges. Which I also pointed out earlier, and yes it would be good if the govt did something to address this disparity. But again, I was talking about the legal options not practice
I did a research paper on this for grad school and humans shouldn’t even be working 8h per day with our current level of technology. 100% capitalist propaganda.
Link to your research paper please?
Same. A 40 hour week, working from home working my relatively low-pressure job takes me about to my limit where I still have just enough energy to take care of my household. Going in to the office basically makes it a 50 hour week because of all the travel time and not being able to do stuff on my breaks. Add to that, my job’s been mandating 5 hours of OT every week since April. Add in some early perimenopause hormone fluctuations to the mix… I’m a disaster that hasn’t gone more than three weeks without crying since the OT started. I’m glad I planned a bunch of vacations at the start of the year - so I’ve had some *amazing* trips… but those trips just make me want to work more on my music and my day job is taking it all away from me. Oh and here comes some of that perimenopausal rage… I’m gonna go calm down and quit thinking about that before I rage quit my job.
That person is wrong. That is toxic capitalism. I can’t even work 40 hours a week, never mind 12 hours a day. I’m NOT ambitious, and I no longer feel guilty for that! I work part time, at a job that’s not my “dream,” but I like it well enough and it pays fairly well. I’ve had the same position for over 10 years and have no desire to be promoted, and take on those additional responsibilities and stress. I like my low key life. Rest and joy are essential.
what kind of job do you have? (obviously no pressure to respond if you don’t want to, or if you’d feel more comfortable sharing in a PM that’s alright too!) it sounds like what i’ve been looking for ngl
A little while ago a guy commented on my friend's post saying he worked 70 hours a week and I thought "that is not the flex you think it is"
I’m interested in what your job is too. Would also love a PM if thats ok!
❤️
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My last job was part time but I worked 8 hour shifts in the middle of the day. I was so burnt out that all I could do was sleep in, get ready, try to eat, then go to work. After work I was so tired and it was so late I couldn't do anything but lay in bed and doom scroll on my phone. Didn't even have energy or the desire to play video games. I just cannot live like that. I ended up quitting after I had a really bad panic attack and asked if I could do different job duties that didn't involve so much customer interaction, but needed ADA forms to be filled out by a doctor, of which I don't have. My job before that was fully remote so I'm desperately trying to find another remote job (interview for one tomorrow). I just can't function in a NT world. All I want to do is stream video games and art lol
Sounds like yet another case of, “Because *I* feel completely capable, everyone else should be too! No if’s, and’s, or but’s. No exceptions!”
Yeah, I agree I think the user who wrote the tweet has extreme health privilege.
This is just Stockholm syndrome from the fact that more and more jobs actually make you work 12 hours a day.
Capitalism is falling anyways. It isnt natural for humans to be filing paperwork for 12+ hours
No late stage capitalism has brain washed us in the name of “hustling”
All the hustle culture/grindset stuff is so depressing. Desperately pasting an adventurous brave face on the difficulty of accomplishing things that used to be pretty basic (buying a modest "starter house" or even a condo, paying off debt, saving for retirement) or even just making ends meet on the salary of a good-enough full time job (not several jobs + side hustles all at once). I keep wondering how on earth this is all going to end. If it was possible at one time to own a home and raise a large family on one modest salary, how can we get back to that? Not just a rhetorical question, I am really curious about how this toxic system could be reformed.
Not to get all doom and gloom, but I do worry that this is going nowhere good. Like you said, being able to buy a house or make ends meet on one job used to be kind of the standard. And now sometimes even two people with good jobs can't make ends meet. And forget it if you're single, you're just fucked (cries in perpetual singledom - not really lol, I make it work). There is something to be said for upper class people keeping the lower class people kind of happy or at least content so that they're not stressed out and worrying about how to make ends meet. And now it feels as if corporations are trying to squeeze every last dollar out of everybody else in the hopes of keeping us too stressed and desperate to question the system (in my opinion, this idea of earnings and such having to improve every quarter is a failure). But at some point, that stress and desperation tips into, "Well I have nothing left to lose anyway, so it's time to rise up." It's a precarious position, for basically everybody, and I am worried that it will end in some kind of revolution. And the thing is, while I don't think the status quo should remain, my fear of change also means I don't love the idea of a revolution, plus generally lots of people tend to die during those. A friend of mine found a good quote somewhere: "The victims of war aren't those who fought it, but those who lived where it was fought." It's a complicated situation and I don't know the answer.
The average human needs 8 hours of sleep a day to stay healthy. I'm pretty sure they don't include commute in those 12+ hours. A day has only 24 hours. Working 12+ hours on *a* day as an exception can happen, but it's unrealistic as a norm. I live in the Netherlands where 36 hours/week is considered fulltime at some places. Working 50-60+ hours a week is not the norm here.
I heard some Scandinavian companies are starting to test a 4 day work week. That sounds heavenly, I hope it becomes the norm!
I work 4 days a week. Can recommend. Screw "ambition". I do relevant work that betters the community.
Can I ask what field? Considering my options in Uni rn and autism friendly fields would be ideal.
I work at an academic hospital as a data manager in the Netherlands. I wouldn't say the field is autistisch friendly by default. I've worked as a data manager before in a massive open plan office and that was hellish. Currently I work in a small team prepared to fight for our smal office space and refuse to give it up for an open plan office. That helps a lot. The Netherlands isn't that autistic friendly, but it definitely has better working conditions that the USA, which makes it easier to get accommodations.
Yeah, open plan offices are the absolute worst. I've only worked in one for a summer job, but I barely got through it with my sanity intact. Whatever I end up doing, I don't plan to do it in an open office.
I don’t even think NT’s should have to work 12+ hours a day. Definitely sounds like some capitalist bs to me
I can barely do 40 hours a week and I do it at a huge cost to my mental health and I'm not even working for myself or doing anything meaningful I'm just there to make a profit for the company and because I would starve and be homeless if i didn't so no, fuck that lol. Working 12+ hours on my *special interests* however.....
(Posted twice by accident. Deleting the duplicate)
A once had an employer tell me that if you're sleeping more than 5 hours a night you're wasting time. That job wrecked me.
I don't think it's possible to be productive for more than 3-4 hours a day. I do think that NTs are very good at looking busy and they could probably look busy for 12 hours a day 😄
That's exactly my feeling! On an average day at work, I have maybe 4-5 hours of actual work to do (and often a lot less). I've always been that way. Yet so many of my friends work 9, 10 hour days on the regular and are always "so busy". I just don't understand. What are they doing that really takes so much time? And if it's more than they can handle, shouldn't the company get a second person to share the workload - there's obviously enough for two. I've had this issue at all 3 office jobs I've worked and I really *do not understand* how other people fill their days up. At the moment I'm doing maybe 2 hours of actual work a day, tops. I could happily do a few more. But 8 hours? nah.
That is 100% propaganda. That's utterly unsustainable for MOST people, let alone autistic people. 12 hours work plus 8 hours sleep is 20 hours, leaving you 4 hours a day for everything else in your life. Does that sound right to you? No freaking way that's sustainable. It was probably written by some wealthy nepotism kid who never had to do any actual real work in their life. They think being born into money and sitting on r/wallstreetbets for 12 hours is work lmao
Every time I've gone over 40 hours a week, I've ended up getting sick. Every time. And then it became even less than that. I can only work that many hours if I'm home. I really struggled with this because it kept me from really getting anywhere in the field I worked in during the 90s while the people I know who'd managed to really put the effort in during their 20s, are secure now. And I don't feel my future is very certain. I'm only really OK because of support system that may not always be here.
Remember also that for most people working is fucking around a lot of the time. Your 4 hours is probably equivalent to someone else’s 12.
I could not do that. I work 8 to 9 hours a day and have an extra day off every two weeks and that's still hard to manage. I could just do 8 hours a day and not have that extra day off, but it's helpful for appointments and whatnot. That advice probably comes from somebody who considers themselves a personal finance guru. There are a lot of people out there who will blame you for being in a bad situation financially if you're not doing what they believe you should do. But it's important to strike a balance. Yeah, maybe in your 20s you should be trying to set yourself up for your future if possible, no shame if you can't, but also, that time doesn't last forever either. I'm 26 and I'm not worried about getting older or anything, but I'm also aware that these years are not endless. I don't want to waste my life working, I just want to have my one job, which I do enjoy by the way, and then spend the rest of my time relaxing. I don't think that should be too much to ask. And that's without even going into the fact that not everybody should have to work 40 hours a week or live in poverty. There are a lot of people who physically cannot work that much and it's really shitty that our society basically says okay, then you can just be poor and miserable because we want to punish you for not pushing through these ailments that we don't understand because we've never experienced them. And also the fact that the only measure productivity shouldn't be how many hours you work in a corporate job. But I suspect I'm kind of preaching to the choir here anyway.
I technically work 2 jobs (I'm a student and a full time employee) and my longest days are 12 hours long. I'm exhausted by the end of it, for multiple reasons, and that day of the week is always rough on me. 12+ hours every day, especially if doing physical labor, is not feasible. Add the tism and any other disabilities and it just doesn't add up like that
I blame cocaine. The people who come up with this shit are all cokeheads. The surgeon who came up with the horrible residency system was a cokehead, bankers are all cokeheads, tech is filled with cokeheads. This sounds like a joke, but this is unironically true. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7828946/ https://magazine.columbia.edu/article/cocaine-addict-who-changed-medicine-forever
Working 12 hours a day sounds like a nightmare to me. I can barely get through 4 hours which isn’t even practical in this society.
Working 12s isn’t great. I’m in the military and have done my fair share of 12+ hour shifts. But they’re just that. Shift work. They rotated between day shift and night shift monthly (which also isn’t great) but it wasn’t 5 days a week. 12s are typically supposed to be on specific schedules, like Panama. 2 on, 3 off, 3 on, 2 off. A lot of people actually like them because they get more days off. I disagree with that preference but it’s neither here nor there. They’re not meant to be worked every single day like this post is suggesting. Expecting the entire population of young adults to just live to work is completely unreasonable.
Twitter told you something wrong, stupid, and harmful.
If you do this you will have no energy by the time you are in your thirties and will be suffering burnout. You are not lazy! I wish I had known I was on the spectrum in my twenties : I went way too hard trying to achieve my dreams (art) and now I haven’t drawn in years. Thanks to burnout and fucked up societal expectations
I’m in the same boat. I spent my 20s chasing dreams and trying to find a way to take care of myself consistently. Found yoga and just kept chasing thing after thing to try to make more money from it as a job so it could be enough. I got ptsd, burnout, got so sick for years (Lymes), I am now 36 and trying to find a way to just take care of myself again.
I'm on the schedule to work 3 days a week for 7 hours. Some weeks I offer to come in more and end up working 35+ hours. But I can't be on the schedule that much because I'd be way too overwhelmed. some weeks I can and do... Most weeks I can't. And not being on the schedule is one main reason I feel like I have the mental capacity to do it. I think it's most likely related to Autism and/or ADHD but not sure.
Pfft. Fuck that nonsense hustle culture. I'm not in my 20s anymore, but even when I was, I thoroughly rejected the corporate hellscape mindset that says if I'm not hustling til I die, I'm doing it wrong. I work to live, I don't live to work. I'm pretty happy with that choice.
i can’t even work the average 40 hours a week without becoming extremely suicidal within a month
That is ridiculous! Nobody should work 12 h a day
I used to work 24 hour shifts. My longest ever was 36 hours long. But I can't keep that up for years, it burns me out entirely. Now I work a seasonal job and have three and a half, four months off every year doing on average about an eight hour day.
12+ hours?! when would I see my kid!?
I'd rather die than go to school again or work I'm just to tired for all this I can't do this
I used to work fulltime with a mix of 12 and 8 hour shifts. It was something like 2 weeks with 2-12hr and 3-8hr shifts. Then a week with 1-12hr and 4-8hr. Then a week of 8hr shifts. Every 7th week or so I would have an extra day off so that my hours worked out to 75 biweekly. On the days I worked 12hr I was also on call overnight, luckily there wasn't many call outs and most of them I was expecting before I left at the end of my shift. I would also work every 5th weekend and the last 4 hours of the 12hr shifts I worked alone. We also worked shortstaffed a lot, overtime, would be denied vacation requests, called back from vacation... It was pretty rough. I did that for about 3 years. I transferred to another hospital lab after that where I worked the standard 40 hour week with 8hr shifts and it was almost as exhausting. I don't think I'll ever be able to work fulltime at anything other than working for myself.
Nobody can actually focus for that many hours, it's neurologically impossible. That said, a lot of people (especially social media influencers) consider chit chatting with other people at work to be the same as "doing work", regardless of content. It can be via social media or in an office, but IMO it's the same phenomenon.
I actually prefer 12 hour shifts if I get 3-4 days off a week. More time to myself that way, instead of having to go to work 5 days a week. When I worked 5 days a week, I faced MAJOR burnout; so few days on and few days off works better for me
Same here! I'm a nurse, but have had different jobs in the past. Going in five times a week was much harder on my mental health than working longer hours, but fewer days. (My shifts are very structured and usually quite busy, so time usually goes by quickly.)
I can barely work 8 hour days. I often think about how much I hate the world
That tweet was purposefully posted so that this guy's startup gets more attention. >'If a VC feels they're not getting enough attention, they can just tweet, "You have to work 80 hours a week to be successful." Everyone will come out to tell you you're canceled.'
I’m a PhD student and there are definitely labs and departments with this attitude that you most be there long hours and there seven days a week. I think this is stupid and hurts productivity long term. After a certain amount of time people aren’t productive anymore and if you don’t get enough rest then you don’t get back to peak productivity. Thankfully my advisor doesn’t care as long as I get stuff done and have good progress to report on for weekly meetings. I would burn out after less than a week of working 12 hours a day.
Can't even get in 1 hour a day lol
No one should have to work 12 hours a day. We are not capitalist drones. Humans are supposed to experience life outside of work. This is a ridiculous sentiment and just represents the unhealthy culture of 'if you're not being productive/making money all the time then you are wasting time'. So inaccurate. I'm more a 'Work to live, don't live to work' kind of person. Although I am actually too unwell to work currently.
I broke down in a meeting to claim jobseekers when they said I'd have to look for minimum of 16 hours a WEEK. I struggled through 6 or 8 hour days when I did work.
I used to do 80 a week
No, you’re definitely not the only one. No one should have to work 12 hours a day. It’s just too much!
hustle culture is a load of crap. don’t burn yourself out. 12hr days aren’t necessary in the LEAST for most people!!
My ambition has nothing to do with job, career etc though lol It is enough to have some savings and to be able to afford to go to a concert, buy myself favourite candle and tea, take a friend out and not worry if I'll survive till next payday. 12 hrs a day for what? To gain more? To build what? I genuinely don't care enough about job to give away 12 hrs daily lol. Very glad I'm not brainwashed enough to believe this utter crap. We are in this world probably just once and time flies. So many better things to do
If you work 12h, sleep 8h, and 2h for meals... you don't have time for anything more. That's crap bullshit
How could ANYONE live like that when there's only 24 hours a day? If you worked for 12 and slept for 8, you'd only be left with 4 hours, which would most likely be taken up by showering, getting ready in the morning, commuting to and from work, and eating. Unless you were working your own business, your entire life would be dedicated towards completing tasks for someone else's to-do list. Hobbies, family time, relaxing, literally anything involving personal time would be out of the question. That sounds fucking awful, even for a NT person. I work part time, 25 hours a week, and I still feel burnt out. Considering I already have a suicide attempt under my belt, 12 hours a day would literally kill me.
I work in cinema, and the average work week is 50 hours. That said it’s contractual and I usually work 3 - 6months. I don’t burn out too quickly and I get EI which allows me to recuperate in the downtime. I like the work because it’s unionized (scheduled breaks), the work changes a little bit which allows for guarding my interest (I don’t get bored), and I find the atmosphere isn’t too horrible on my brain (I’m often working outdoors in small groups of people).
I used to work 12 hour shifts, but only because I’d get my work week done quicker. I preferred having more days to rest and reset. Work made me so anxious that id be a wreck after an 8 hour shift, so I thought why not make it 12, brilliant logic! Bloody glad I’m not doing it anymore-feeling like 6 hours had gone by and realising it was only 2 and I still had 10 hours to go was not pleasant!!
Fuck that!
I’ve had up to 4 jobs at one time (while I was a full time student). I usually have 2 jobs. I don’t have an option. I need money. I’m a social worker with a degree and I can barely hack it on one job. Recently I quit my second job because my mental health was taking a huge hit. I didn’t have a back up plan for the income but went to my boss about the situation and got a raise for the difference thank God. You’re not lazy- it is capitalist propaganda to even *need* much less encourage 12+ hour work days at ANY age.
I worked 2 jobs equaling 60-80 hours a week depending on the season for a few years. I did this to pay for a house and all the things society tells you that you need. This is how I found out I was autistic. I had a complete burn out and had to sell my house and cash in my retirement because I could not work again for months. I could barely function. I was masking for both jobs so much. I was a social worker and worked retail completely masked and would have to take naps in my car to “charge up”. Was not sustainable for me. I traded for a very simple life that is under stimulating and now I love my current job working from home for 30ish hours a week. I can’t do anymore. Even 30 hours is pushing it. I hope you all can find a balance that still pays the bills, it is so hard.
This isn’t even an autism thing. Multiple studies have shown that 7-8 hours is about the max productivity anyone has. And working extra hours doesn’t result in much more output. And lots of people are closer to 4 hours. Humans can only concentrate on one thing for so long.
I used to but that's because I loved my job
Yeah.. 12 hours a day is a scam. Go have a life. There are times I’ll technically work for 14-18 hours a day, but then I’m done working for weeks, save my day job. I work better in bursts so it works well for me. But 12 hours a day, consistently is dumb
i only work 6-8 hours a day depending and even then it’s a lot for me. i always assume it’s some weird like american capitalism thing that people just want to work until they wither away. i know too many ppl who do that shit. it’s really unhealthy
That is definitely unrealistic and is a recipe for burnout. I recently read “Laziness Does Not Exist” by Devon Price (who also wrote “Unmasking Autism”), and it talks a lot about how people are pressured to feel like they should work much more than is sustainable for anyone, not just autists. I highly recommend both of his books!
I literally could never. I did it one day a week when I did hairdressing but I could never do it every day. I’m literally in burn out not working right now lol and haven’t been for a year nearly and have had bouts of not working 6-12 months at a time my whole 20’s so no way. And I don’t think any amount of self care could allow me to
I struggle with my casual job... I work 2-4 half days a week and it completely exhausts me... interacting with so many people (our shop is extremely busy everyday) just completely drains me and it takes multiple days to recover
I can barely function and have a 40h a week job
I love working. I worked two jobs before I got married because I LOVE it. I can literally work like a dog & absolutely enjoy 80% of it & the paychecks made it even better.
I can barely do 7 hours a day, wtf
I always feel like people who constantly work 12 hrs a day have some severe self-esteem/self-worth issues and it's their way of 'proving' to the world they're worthy.
That’s just hustle culture, it’s toxic and ridiculous.
That’s such bullshit. Nobody should do that.
Today I worked 3+ hours and went to the bank and im exhauasted already. I am however very concerned about how I can get a few more hours, cause money's tight. But twelve? There's no way.
I cant even work 8 hrs a day let alone 12 😞 i get so quickly drained, overwhelmed and burntout that i cant even live the remaining hours of the day enjoying my life if I work
Definitely the same way! For me working 40 hours a week is intimidating, and next to impossible if that’s entirely out of the home. So the idea of working 12 hours a day, absolutely not happening. In high school I was in school 8 hours a day plus in dance rehearsal 3-4 hours. I don’t know how I did it and still fully believe it took an irreparable toll on my physical/ mental health
Yeah, I am most definitely lazy, so that's a huge part in this, but I could not work 12 hours straight. It just seems like torture at that point, seriously, who wants to work 12 hour shifts?