The mantle of greatness on my shoulders is getting heavy. It sounds horrible but I totally get why so many of us fall to either affairs, alcohol, or divorce.
Its just SO unrelenting. Its a nightmare. I have no energy to do anything after a 60 hour work week, cooking, cleaning, walking youngest to bed until 11 pm and then waking up at 5. One day off a week. I’m just so fking over it 🤢
I did it for six months straight around 7-8 years ago, and then on and off as required since.
I was fine with it when I was enjoying work and my work had variety in it - I could do my regular day with a bit of OT in the office, then go build stuff with my hands for a few hours in the shop.
At another job after that, 60s were more difficult because it was work from home, but I still did them as required because I could set my own schedule for the OT and half the time I was drinking and gaming simultaneously (some of the tasks required me to do something and wait on the computer to do compute). But still, the variety of work was key - I had to be able to change tasks and spend at least 10 hours on something that was interesting and different.
A 60 hour work week is stupid, imo. It takes up far too much of your personal time. Like anything, you can do it for a period of time, but it isn’t sustainable as it starts to eat into other aspects of your life.
It’s taken me nearly a year to transition away from a 50 hour standard week and constantly feeling like I should be working more. I had to learn how to just sit at home and do nothing, like drinking a coffee watching dawn come for ten minutes uninterrupted.
idk just sharing my experience. summary is that it’s possible short term if you enjoy it, but you need specific circumstances to be met. I was lucky my job gave me autonomy and flexibility, it wouldn’t have worked otherwise. and obviously I got paid overtime, I’m not working for free. and at both jobs I felt like I was appropriately compensated. I quit the first job when they stopped compensating me appropriately. I toned down the extra work at the second in the same situation.
*I want to add that in recent years I’ve done the 50-hour standard week because I thought the trade-off was worth it - I was being compensated fairly, getting regular wage increases, enjoyed the work environment, and it allowed me to afford a house comfortably enough (never mind that housing shouldn’t cost this much). I knew I was making a couple years of sacrifice to set myself up for the following decade at this company. Even if the work environment is worse now, I still prefer this to commuting to another job with less flexibility and autonomy.