Given how I code at the end of a 60 hour week, that's a pretty scary thought when it comes to an environment where the simplest oversights can lead to a loss of life. Hopefully for those working crazy hours there's a couple well rested reviewers of the work.
If you're really into something or it's a necessary part of your life 100 hr/week is doable. Many small business owners put in those kind of hours. Once either of those stop being true your work output quality goes to shit pretty instantly though.
If you love what you are doing, is that not what life is about?
I won’t lie to you, there were some truly 100 hour weeks, but for the most part I worked precisely 96 hours per week in the PhD program and I loved it.
6 days of 16 hour days. It was fantastic. I had 3 labs and used parts of 4 others across 4 buildings, ran my main research and several skunkworks side projects, and optimized every moment I could. 3 years of that (with a week here or there for a holiday)
I was happy.
When we are pursuing something we are passionate about, when we are completely immersed in that thing, it is the greatest tribute to being alive.
I either was reading research papers or walking between buildings while eating, I automated some reactions and characterization so that I could read research papers while at the gym, and did numerous other things that made a 3 person project no problem for one person.
But to come off that high is hard. Everything seems slower when I’m not in that groove. I get bursts of it, but really being in that flow is such a joyous thing.
I hope those working on the module for those crazy hours were doing so because they were passionate about it. If not, then you are right to ask “what kind of life is that?”
Your question implies that there is a right answer and there isn't. I think your question is more accurately stated, "why doesn't everyone think or feel like me?"
Dedicating one's life to one's work (including long hours) can be very high quality: if you have an active interest in what you do, pride in what you produce, and you see yourself as not just doing some task that some employeer/customer told you to do, but you see your work and its output as symbolic of your own personal standards, then the rewards are more than sufficient payoff for the time spent. And the time spent itself can be quite pleasurable, too, even if time spent is very high.
Of course, if you've not managed to find something in life that both makes you feel that way and allows you sustenance, you're probably going to ask the very question you did. Human experience is simply more broad than that.
My point isn't about whether sustained 100 hr weeks are sustainable, it's about whether 100 hr weeks introduce a level of risk that is dangerous for what they're working on. It's not a question of motivation, it's a question of physiology. Either they're working sleep deprived, or they're getting less than two waking hours off work per day. Either of those would contribute quite a bit to a mental state that is more likely to make errors.
I guess it takes a certain kind of person to work a job like that. I would have lasted roughly a week. Good to have passionate people I guess. Hopefully they aren't getting exploited too badly.
I've thought about trying to get a job at SpaceX just so I could get some stocks. I fully believe that company could have a trillion dollar valuation in 10 years, which means working there for just a year could allow me to retire early. However, knowing how much pressure these people are under, and seeing they recently fired a large portion of their workforce at once, I was like, nope. Maybe if I were an American, but as a foreigner, no way I'm relocating to the US so I can be under pressure and risk getting fired and sent back for no fault of my own.
If you have a green card (and most likely you'd need to renounce your other citizenships) you can work there. ITAR and other CUI (and even a lot of classified stuff) is only restricted for foreign nationals.
Yes. And you are not a foreign national. ITAR does not apply to US citizens OR permanent residents. It even allows some refugees and asylees.
In fact, Clifford Chance LLP recently settled after improperly terminating several green card employees, believing that they couldn't work on ITAR projects[1].
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[ 5.3 ms ] story [ 48.1 ms ] threadhttps://outline.com/LqnKkg
[0] Seriously, I wish we could stop linking to techcrunch until they get their UI back in good shape.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19252350
And a more comprehensive article from NasaSpaceFlight:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/02/spacex-gains-frr-gre...
Launch is scheduled for 2:48AM EST on March 2nd.
Hope it was all worth it.
I won’t lie to you, there were some truly 100 hour weeks, but for the most part I worked precisely 96 hours per week in the PhD program and I loved it.
6 days of 16 hour days. It was fantastic. I had 3 labs and used parts of 4 others across 4 buildings, ran my main research and several skunkworks side projects, and optimized every moment I could. 3 years of that (with a week here or there for a holiday)
I was happy.
When we are pursuing something we are passionate about, when we are completely immersed in that thing, it is the greatest tribute to being alive.
I either was reading research papers or walking between buildings while eating, I automated some reactions and characterization so that I could read research papers while at the gym, and did numerous other things that made a 3 person project no problem for one person.
But to come off that high is hard. Everything seems slower when I’m not in that groove. I get bursts of it, but really being in that flow is such a joyous thing.
I hope those working on the module for those crazy hours were doing so because they were passionate about it. If not, then you are right to ask “what kind of life is that?”
Dedicating one's life to one's work (including long hours) can be very high quality: if you have an active interest in what you do, pride in what you produce, and you see yourself as not just doing some task that some employeer/customer told you to do, but you see your work and its output as symbolic of your own personal standards, then the rewards are more than sufficient payoff for the time spent. And the time spent itself can be quite pleasurable, too, even if time spent is very high.
Of course, if you've not managed to find something in life that both makes you feel that way and allows you sustenance, you're probably going to ask the very question you did. Human experience is simply more broad than that.
> if I were an American, but as a foreigner
IIRC, regulation limits SpaceX to only hire Americans so you couldn't get a job there even if you wanted & SpaceX wanted!
In fact, Clifford Chance LLP recently settled after improperly terminating several green card employees, believing that they couldn't work on ITAR projects[1].
[1]: http://exportcompliancesolutions.com/blog/2018/09/20/u-s-per...