I don't know how you can believe this unless you somehow also believe professionals are at the top.

In the case of professionals, the extra work is generally optional for extra rewards.

You can have a career as a software engineer with a 40 hour week if you want. It just won't be at Amazon.

You can have a career as a lawyer, just not at big law.

Professionals get to opt in and get commensurate rewards. The factory workers didn't get anything extra for their extra efforts.

> generally optional for extra rewards

Rewards like burnout, lower quality of life, worsening relationships with friends and family...?

The problem is actually a vicious circle. People work more to be valued more, which causes others to work also more so that they can compete. The company benefits from this and takes it as the new normal: deadlines shorten, workload increases, and it stops being optional to become "optional", as in "you can opt out of more work, but get ready to find another job soon". Now you have a whole group of workers burning themselves out for marginally more money and status, while the company they work for makes more money.

And no, it doesn't just happen at Amazon. This happens to software engineers everywhere.

Of course, it's not by far the same situation as factory workers, but there's a serious problem with the work culture in software, specially in the US.

> Rewards like burnout, lower quality of life, worsening relationships with friends and family...?

But what are those things worth to you? As they have different values to everyone.

A friend of mine is currently working on his software project at work (and this is for a massive non tech company, so it is not as if it is a startup). It is 6AM on a Sunday and that is what he is doing. And he is doing it out of boredom as he is in many ways the stereotypical software guy.

Another good friend is in Seattle. He logged in to work at midnight today while chatting with me. Why? He has nothing else to do.

I spend 100+ hours at my computer a week and have since high school. Spending a greater percentage of that time coding for work does not meaningfully impact my quality of life other than taking away from commenting on forums or my hobby of solving innovation challenges. Whether I am unemployed or facing a major deadline, I am going to be online anyway.

I get why long hours would be terrible for people with families requiring attention or girlfriends or those who like hiking, but a lot of software engineers (like me or the aforementioned friends) have none of those, making more work very cheap for us.

> And he is doing it out of boredom as he is in many ways the stereotypical software guy.

I don't know any software person who works at 6AM on a Sunday.

>He logged in to work at midnight today while chatting with me. Why? He has nothing else to do.

Does he have time to find anything else to do?

> Spending a greater percentage of that time coding for work does not meaningfully impact my quality of life other than taking away from commenting on forums or my hobby of solving innovation challenges.

Being online and working is not the same at all. Maybe for you, for not most people.

> but a lot of software engineers (like me or the aforementioned friends) have none of those

Several things:

1. Not having anything other than your job is bad. Full stop. Maybe a handful of persons can work in that situation, but having such a messed up work-life balance is bad for your health, there are plenty of studies on this.

2. Have you asked why this happens? Maybe it's not just people who like that, but people who have no other options due to companies "forcing" those hours.

3. Is this beneficial? How much productivity can someone get out of the last 2 hours of a 12-hour work day? How much is that extra work worth?

4. Are you and your friends ready to take on those workloads for your whole life? Because it's hard to get out of that dynamic.

5. Burnout is a serious issue. Burnout can lead to depression, can lead to losing your job, to having serious health problems... It's not a joke. It's a serious risk.

>1. Not having anything other than your job is bad. Full stop. Maybe a handful of persons can work in that situation, but having such a messed up work-life balance is bad for your health, there are plenty of studies on this.

It's not for you to decide where anyone derives their meaning and happiness in life or how many hours they should work. You can only decide this for yourself.

>2. Have you asked why this happens? Maybe it's not just people who like that, but people who have no other options due to companies "forcing" those hours.

There are always options. It's up to you to find the niche that works for you.

>3. Is this beneficial? How much productivity can someone get out of the last 2 hours of a 12-hour work day? How much is that extra work worth?

Depends on the individual.

>4. Are you and your friends ready to take on those workloads for your whole life? Because it's hard to get out of that dynamic.

Their decision.

>5. Burnout is a serious issue. Burnout can lead to depression, can lead to losing your job, to having serious health problems... It's not a joke. It's a serious risk.

It's each individual's risk to take. If someone wants to work 12 hours a day, it is their decision. "Full stop"

> It's not for you to decide where anyone derives their meaning and happiness in life or how many hours they should work. You can only decide this for yourself.

Everyone decides these things for themselves indeed, but that shouldn't stop others from having opinions regarding those decisions, or giving unsolicited advice to help others stop hurting themselves. I for sure hope my friends will step in and try to stop me if I go down the path of self-destruction.

And also, anyone is free to ignore the advice given by others. Which is a good thing, for much of it is bad advice.

It’s not just their decision, that’s the thing. Crazy work hours are generally harmful, even people who “find meaning in it” can get burned out. And if companies allow and encourage staying more hours, it creates an environment where people can’t choose to work sane hours. And it’s not even an issue of giving more value or anything, because most time the extra hours don’t bring in additional productivity.

Most importantly, it’s not an isolated thing. It’s not just one or two persons doing it: if it were that it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s a generalized culture issue that should be taken seriously and not only viewed in terms of individuals.

I have seen many people work much longer than 8 hours a day without issue or burnout if it's what they like doing. Hell, I do so as well. Burnout is not simply a function of hours worked, it's a function of perceived ROI on those hours. Obviously people shouldn't be working 20 hours a day as that's not sustainable and work product will be low quality, but 8 is not the upper bound for a lot of people.

> And if companies allow and encourage staying more hours, it creates an environment where people can’t choose to work sane hours.

Yes they can, they just have to accept that they will get compensated and rewarded less than people who generate additional high quality work. That should be fine and is fair; those people working 8 hours are deriving value from other activities. It's not reasonable to say "I demand everyone works 8 hours because I want to work 8 hours and I don't want any ramifications for making that decision".

Some people may want to work more than 8 hours a day, but a separate question is what maximizes personal and corporate productivity.

I've seen research suggesting that workers can get increased productivity working over 40 hours a week for several weeks, but after that, productivity actually goes negative relative to a 40 hour week, because more mistakes are being made that will require rework.

> I have seen many people work much longer than 8 hours a day without issue or burnout if it's what they like doing

For how much time? There is a clear association between more working hours and more burnout [1] and health problems [2] that can be delayed for decades.

> Yes they can, they just have to accept that they will get compensated and rewarded less than people who generate additional high quality work.

Sorry, but in most places this doesn't happen. I'm lucky to be out of those environments, but the expectation tends to be that everybody works those hours or they're out, even if they're producing the same high quality work (also, I highly doubt that more hours equals more high quality work: productivity decreases after a certain point, specially in software, that's why 6-hour work days are being discussed so much). I still remember a friend being glad that he convinced his manager to "only" work 10 hours a day, because he was literally losing hair due to the extra work. This guy liked what he was doing and at the beginning said "it doesn't matter, I'm happy working these hours.

> It's not reasonable to say "I demand everyone works 8 hours because I want to work 8 hours and I don't want any ramifications for making that decision".

Well, this is the law in most countries in Europe. Overtime is heavily regulated (enforcement is another matter, unfortunately) precisely because business pressure can be disguised as "individual decisions". When a lot of people start working more hours, it puts pressure on people who fulfill their contracted hours, and who might not want or be able to put those extra hours.

In the end, it's a balancing act between giving some people the freedom to work the hours they want and helping the company put pressure on others to do more hours than they were contracted for (in other words, changing their work conditions without negotiation) or give others the freedom to do the job they were hired and paid for without pressure to do more than what was negotiated. Me, I prefer to err on the side of caution and choose the action that doesn't harm the health and well-being of the employees.

1: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302591873_The_Assoc... 2: https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/24/3/422/477763

> It's not for you to decide where anyone derives their meaning and happiness in life or how many hours they should work.

The quote you reply to says nothing about meaning and happiness, just health.

And no matter how much meaning and happiness you believe you are getting, when your body and mind give out, that choice will be taken away from you and you will be taking time off from working, just not in a very pleasant way.

>Not having anything other than your job is bad

By "not having anything", I assume the OP is referring to things that give meaning.

>And no matter how much meaning and happiness you believe you are getting

This is awfully presumptuous and condescending.

>when your body and mind give out, that choice will be taken away from you and you will be taking time off from working, just not in a very pleasant way.

You mean when I'm not able to sustain long hours anymore? I'll have enough money saved to simply cut back on work. No spiraling health crisis necessary.

> I'll have enough money saved to simply cut back on work.

That part is the key. Otherwise it is just self imposed indentured servant-hood.

> 3. Is this beneficial? How much productivity can someone get out of the last 2 hours of a 12-hour work day? How much is that extra work worth?

Many studies have shown that extra work has negative value, particularly in intellectual disciplines.

You need to find something else to do and encourage your friends to do the same. This is incredibly unhealthy in so many ways. This is the gateway to anxiety, depression and physical disability. The human body is not meant to sit in front of a computer that many hours.

You will pay a price. Maybe not today and maybe not tomorrow, but you don't stay young forever.

Please help yourself before it's too late.

> Professionals get to opt in and get commensurate rewards.

More like professionals are forced in, but get commensurate rewards. Employment isn't flexible enough for people to really choose extra work for extra rewards. The "typical" (average, median, raced-to-the-bottom, whatever) amount people are willing to work and the typical amount they're willing to work for dictates what jobs are even out there. When you need roughly replaceable workers, you give them all roughly the same deal, so professionals aren't just competing on wages vs skill, but on the whole necessarily-mostly-homogeneous package.

I'm happy to have these extra benefits well above a living wage, but I'd take a fraction of my comp for a fraction of my hours in a heartbeat, but we're in a world where a FAANG wage/hour means basically FAANG hours.

When I was working in a factory (summer holiday job during my A-levels), onetime was paid at time-and-a-half.

Now I’m a software dev working in an office, the base pay is much better, but there is no overtime.

One of my neighbors mentioned that they were offering triple time to work the 4th of July at the factory he works at. He didn't want to work, and thankfully there were enough people interested in the offer that he could have the day off.

> You can have a career as a software engineer with a 40 hour week if you want. It just won't be at Amazon.

Even if you are a software engineer you can make top-tier, simply insane amounts of money at most big companies with a sub-40 hour workweek.

It is simply a matter of finding the right team and having a good manager. The former is something you can affect and the latter can be luck. But you can definitely make some of the best compensation in CS and have cushy working hours if you play your cards right.