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Ask HN: Commit suicide (in terms of family time)

13 points by dakiol ↗ HN
So, if you agree to work from the office and on “hardcore” mode, wouldn’t that imply that you are saying goodbye to your family in practical terms?

A simple back of the envelope calculation assuming that “hardcore” means 10h/day instead of the usual 8h/day:

- 10h/day at the office

- 25 min commute each way

- 8h/day of sleep

- 1h/day for chores (shower, dinner, breakfast)

That leaves you 4h/day to spend with your loved ones, plus weekends (unless “hardcore” also means working a little bit on Saturdays. Wouldn’t surprise me). And those 4h won’t be your best hours in the day (you would probably want to sit down at the couch). So anyone staying at Twitter would be committing suicide in terms of family and friends life.

I guess only people without family would consider staying.

Edit: my point here is not to criticise the employer who enforces these kind of practices (“it’s their company and they do whatever they want with it“), because I think that’s the easy path (in my opinion any employer who uses this kind of strategy is a dinosaur); my point is: what kind of employee accepts such a deal?! And we are not talking about any kind of employees here, we are talking about engineers working for (what used to be) one of the top software companies in the world. One may assume these kind of engineers can find work with better conditions anywhere.

15 comments

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mikkergp
So when a worker missed a Tesla function for the birth of their child, Musk was about as understanding as you would expect. According to a new book, he said, “That is no excuse. I am extremely disappointed. You need to figure out where your priorities are. We’re changing the world and changing history, and you either commit or you don’t.”

When employees complained about working too hard, Musk reportedly replied “they will get to see their families a lot when we go bankrupt.”

https://inthesetimes.com/article/elon-musk-once-reprimanded-...

zeroonetwothree
Ok well don’t do it then. Seems pretty obvious. Musk isn’t the only employee in town.
giantg2
I'd scale back the verbiage. If you're being compensated well, then the 2 extra hours a day isn't a big deal numbers-wise. If you feel like it sucks, then the numbers don't matter and you can look for something else.

I was once asked to work an extra hour per day if I wanted a promotion with a 7% raise. I turned it down.

MrWiffles
Anyone who expects employees to do that, for any amount of pay, is delusional and needs psychiatric treatment. Seriously. That dude is nuts. People like him aren't some entrepreneurial heroic archetype to be held up as a paragon of virtue worthy of celebration and emulation; they're a menace to society and should be heavily regulated, if not jailed outright, for weaponizing their enormous economic power to force people into slave-like labor conditions.

Doesn't matter if you're making $150,000 or $150,000,000 a year - no amount of money is worth 18 hours day, 7 days a week working conditions that this guy likely expects as a bare minimum.

[deleted]
(comment deleted)
eps
> unless “hardcore” also means working a little bit on Saturdays

It likely means Saturdays and a little bit on Sundays.

SomeOtherJoe
Apparently, Musk expects up to 80 hours work per week at twitter, see https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-twitter-staff-expe...
Moissanite
The man is clearly delusional if he thinks the output he gets from someone in hours 60-80 is worth having at all. Twitter is a working, finished application - not some MVP being cobbled together in time for a funding round. Firing people as a cost-saving measure I can get on board with, but he is seemingly firing the wrong people then getting the remainder to do nugatory work and burn themselves out in the process.

Are we sure this isn't just some false-flag operation where he torches $45B in a tax write-off and destroys the cesspit of common internet discourse in one self-immolating move?

Alekhine
'Nugatory' is a new one for me.
aiisahik
As an engineer who used to be a lawyer, I can assure you that most big law firm partners (1) have families and (2) rarely see them. 10 hours days are normal. 12-14 hour days are hardcore. Some associates used to have portable beds in their offices so they can grab 2 hours of sleep if they really need it.
dakiol
These practices exist outside the IT world for sure. One of my points is: software engineers don’t have to accept such poor conditions. We certainly can do better (even in times of layoffs and recession)… so I wonder what kind of software engineers decide to accept such terrible conditions coming from a Twitter that allowed 100% remote work and normal working hours. It’s like goin from heaven to hell and not complain about it.
aiisahik
I think there are industries with

- good conditions and bad pay (government)

- bad conditions and good pay (finance, law, medicine)

Over the past 10 years big tech has provided good conditions for very good pay. In my opinion that is going to change for the next 2 yrs.

I refuse to hire engineers in Bay Area because, though they are very good, they are entitled and generally too expensive. The good times will come again but for now I'm hoping the tech folks start coming down to earth again. Don't expect a 400k TC and not expect to grind.

dakiol
Salary is always relative ($120K in SV may seem like a very low salary and only for junior engineers… in Berlin 99% of senior software engineers with 10 years of experience make less than that). But working conditions (e.g., normal working hours, possibility to work remotely) shouldn’t just go away.
superchroma
That's not normal, it's sick. The fact that such behavior is practiced is irrelevant. Some countries use child labor to mine rocks also. This isn't a race to the bottom for working conditions.
high_pathetic
Family aside how can anyone expected to be in any way productive in such mode? Mr. Musk sure does confuse people with machines, I don't see any other explanation.