My wife's sister and her husband are both the two "busiest" people you will ever meet. Yet when I spend time with them, I'm reminded of the fact that neither of them is very intelligent (perhaps the wrong word, but put another way they have no depth of understanding about anything outside of their jobs in cargo transport, zero creativity or appreciation of any kind of art, and little to zero knowledge of world events) and they don't seem to progress any quicker in their careers. In fact, as my wife has noted, they have lagged behind us and all of our friends who enjoy a healthy work-life balance. There is nothing scientific here about this anecdote, of course. I think that perhaps the easiest way to be extremely busy all the time is to not step back, take a breath, and think about a more efficient way to accomplish task X.
In a culture where status is attained through work, if you lack the creativity and skills to be a standout wizard who breezes through and builds cool shit that others think they could never do (translations: anyone on HN) then perhaps "busy" is the other way to earn some semblance of status.
I used to be a construction worker. I know what arrogance towards human beings looks like because I experienced it every day by being looked at like an insect by every white collar asshole that walked by. I also know that my wife's sister and her husband didn't think I was good enough for her back then, but now that I make a decent salary they think I'm kosher. Fuck them.
The fact that they both told my wife that they feel art is a waste of time and that artists should all find better things to do didn't help me view them as remotely on our level.
I'm very critical of myself. It is people who lack the capacity to be critical of themselves who act and think like they do. I am better than they are, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I'm not better than them by anything given to me, but because I recognize that I suck and constantly seek to improve myself. They view themselves as amazing people. They aren't.
I assume you're a software engineer? It's a particularly mentally intensive job, and I don't think your experience is easily generalizable. Jobs that don't require that level of creativity and where you can rely more on memorized processes are easier to do for extended periods of time. Say you're an insurance adjuster. Most of the claims that cross your desk are not unusual and do not require special handling. I bet you could do that productively for 8 hours a day.
My other job doing email tech support I struggle to not take a five minute break every hour to clear my head. I still get bellow five hours a day of productivity because I have to sit in a ton of meetings on the off chance that I might need to say something or they just want more eyes on whatever they're doing.
Yes, and sometimes meetings serve only this purpose. For example, oh I'm sorry Mr. X is in a meeting that he has scheduled for every time you call.
FWIW, I'm in the US and we have ~5-6 weeks vacation.
Most of my friends in the US start with 2 weeks, after a few years they get 3 weeks, then these are reset if they change the job, and if they take a vacation, they are either frowned upon or they have to be available to work on a moments notice. I find this utterly crazy.
I know people who feel pressure to work on vacation. The pressure is very real and isn't always related to ambition on the part of those people. Usually they're being exploited by an ambitious manager who has a "hold" of some kind, e.g. exploited person has a child with 2 years left of college and can't afford to lose his/her job.
One Seattle-based eCommerce company forced you to keep pager with you all the times, even on a vacation, if you were an unlucky part of operations.
This can't happen in most European countries, unless the company desperately wants to lose plenty of court cases.
One member of my US family in the midwest worked in an unionized menial job with 1 week of paid vacation including sick days. The rest was unpaid.
Only after I left the unit I was in, was it respected that I was not to be contacted.
Edit: I'd also add I had to work all day on Christmas one year, and I know others in very similar situations.
Friends with a security engineer at a company everyone would know. He can't even get a normal work day right now, or a single day off in a week.
It certainly happens.
In my experience, to get that much leave, you have to work at the same company for 5+ years. And either be highly-paid white collar OR highly paid union.
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/business-economics/the-unite... http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm
I can't even tell you how incredibly "busy" I was during recess in high school. Also during free hours and any kind of down time... so much to do!
(For that matter: I didn't really go to "high school", I'm just using that as the name for my school system's equivalent of year 11 to 13.)
I wouldn't be surprised if the same were happening in the States. I don't believe people can be super-productive more than 5 hours a day unless they work on something they are passionate about or are on drugs.
From my experience, just walking away from a difficult problem, taking time to walk in the forest, relax on the beach, playing sports with friends, doing completely unrelated relaxing things with total focus often leads to sudden inspirations on how to tackle difficult problems. It's like life is telling me to relax and rewards me with great ideas that can be immediately executed, for being just well balanced.
I remember flying with one US businessman between Hawaiian islands, and he curiously asked me how many vacation days do I have - when I told him it's 6 weeks, he went on to complain about how crazy is it in the States, with average of 8.5 day or so of vacation per year.
People, please live your lives!