Re:Great Hacker != Great Hire (2004)
by tristor on Monday December 21, 2020 @01:36PM
(#25497871)
>And the endurance to put in productive 80-100hr work weeks for decades.
That's called drugs.
I am not being flippant, I think there's a whole other segment not fully touched on by this article that needs to be addressed in this subthread. More hours is not always better, and folks who can sustain this typically are using some sort of substance to do so. Whether that substance is as mild as caffeine in the 10 shots of espresso they have a day or they're railing lines of coke in between high-stress meetings, they aren't doing this off their own natural energy, and it takes a serious toll on their physical and mental health which they may not even be aware of.
I speak this from experience. I'm one of those people who was known as a "super-hacker" doing "80-100hr work weeks", and what most people didn't realize was I was downing between 20-30 shots of espresso a day. I actually ended up hospitalized at one point due to severe dehydration caused by constant mass intake of caffeine and not enough fluids. It almost caused me to have renal failure, and basically was the wake up call that represented a turning point in how I thought about work-life balance. It certainly helped advance my career and gave me a mythical reputation, but it was in no way healthy, and it ultimately didn't serve the interests of my team at that company, only the interests of the executive leadership who profited off my extra hours of work for which I was not compensated fairly.
That's called drugs.
I am not being flippant, I think there's a whole other segment not fully touched on by this article that needs to be addressed in this subthread. More hours is not always better, and folks who can sustain this typically are using some sort of substance to do so. Whether that substance is as mild as caffeine in the 10 shots of espresso they have a day or they're railing lines of coke in between high-stress meetings, they aren't doing this off their own natural energy, and it takes a serious toll on their physical and mental health which they may not even be aware of.
I speak this from experience. I'm one of those people who was known as a "super-hacker" doing "80-100hr work weeks", and what most people didn't realize was I was downing between 20-30 shots of espresso a day. I actually ended up hospitalized at one point due to severe dehydration caused by constant mass intake of caffeine and not enough fluids. It almost caused me to have renal failure, and basically was the wake up call that represented a turning point in how I thought about work-life balance. It certainly helped advance my career and gave me a mythical reputation, but it was in no way healthy, and it ultimately didn't serve the interests of my team at that company, only the interests of the executive leadership who profited off my extra hours of work for which I was not compensated fairly.