[corresation]

The point is that if you worked 50 vs 35 hours at the same job

But isn't that, in many ways, the point? We need to optimize every hour of our life, because life (and in particular youth) really is short.

If I choose to spend my life cutting grass with a pair of nail clippers, I can absolutely get more done spending 60 hours versus 35 hours. But you know, I'd rather pull out the driving lawn mower. That should be all of our goals.

There's a reason many hugely successful people are notorious workaholics - see Elon Musk, Oprah, Marissa Meyer, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey, etc.

This is cargo culting. These people are often "workaholics" because they are highly successful. And in many cases it's hard to even attribute whether it's work or pleasure, because many business heads "put in the hours" that they do because it essentially becomes their recreation: I doubt any of them lie in bed dreading going to "work".

And ultimately that is the dream of all of us, isn't it? To eventually be in a place where we are effectively choosing everything we do, and where our work is completely rewarding and self-satisfying? In no universe can you compare that to putting in more time at a job you don't enjoy.

[RHSeeger]

> If I choose to spend my life cutting grass with a pair of nail clippers, I can absolutely get more done spending 60 hours versus 35 hours. But you know, I'd rather pull out the driving lawn mower. That should be all of our goals.

That's a bit of a straw man there. Yes, you can get more done using a riding lawnmower compared to the folks using clippers. However, once you're using a riding lawnmower you can get more done by putting more hours in.

Putting more hours in just to put more hours in isn't a good thing (otherwise doing it with clippers would be an optimal solution). Putting in more hours because it lets you accomplish more is, in many cases, a good thing.

[corresation]

That's a bit of a straw man there.

It isn't a strawman, though you may be interpreting the comment in a different manner: Proudly boasting about excessive work if you haven't optimized your efforts is not something to consider an accomplishment. Yet it is absolutely common throughout the Western world.

I've always been a "slacker" in the sense that I like to live a varied life. That means when I work I accomplish the most with the least. Many, many people make no such attempt: Thinking back to coworkers back when I was an employee sort, the sorts that did the heroic hours and had the endless late nights by and large accomplished very little, because the metric that they were rewarded on -- at least in their own self-evaluation -- was effort.

So the guy cutting the grass might boast about clipping his yard with nail clippers, just as the developer talking about their 90 hour work weeks spends 88 of them surfing Reddit. This is endemic, and the result is very low productivity because the results aren't measured, the perceived effort is.

[Shivetya]

The blog post was built on a bs argument. Apples and Oranges. Desk job versus physical labor. I guess we could argue since someone who works as a developer makes more per hour than someone at McDonalds they are making better use of their time.

You pull your own hyperbole as well.

Being successful does not make you a workaholic, and being a workaholic does not make your successful. I know more than enough workaholics who are because that is exactly what they enjoy. They work sixty hours because it keeps them occupied. It fulfills them.

The blog fails for the same reason your failing, your comparing yourself to others instead of your own goals. Your goals and your ability to meet or exceed them are what matters. How someone else does that does not, never has and never will. Some do it to push themselves, far too many do it to feel superior. Both are wrong.

[corresation]

I think you will find discussions on boards like HN more fulfilling if you avoid trying to personalize every statement. I don't argue against the hard working meme for self-interest -- I'm a rather successful independent software developer / consultant, and I spent half my day today enjoying coding while lying in a hammock.