Hacker News Reader

All work and no play will eventually burn most people out as it's very unbalanced. At 90 hrs a week there couldn't have been time for much else.

View on HN

Ah, but what if your work is play for you?

And what if family stuff occurs like work?

I worked 90 hour weeks sometimes in grad school. But otherwise, only when I've billed by the hour.

I have yet to see a job that would be entirely play. There is always some amount of boring/tedious stuff that comes with it. I think the people trying to tell me a job is play are trying to sell me something. Family stuff could be work to someone, it's just work you're not paid for.

True. But say you bill at $200 per hour. You can subcontract the boring stuff. You can pay for cleaning and yard work and stuff. But boring family stuff you can't subcontract, like hanging out with boring relatives, or going to the opera. And when that prevents you from having fun at $200 per hour, it's doubly frustrating.

If you're billing your full rate after 32+ billable hours, you are ripping off your customers. I don't often accept pull requests from coworkers after that. They tend to be full of subtle bugs that are hard to spot.

True. But if a client is pushing me with rush work caused by their own poor planning, it's not my problem. Indeed, it's not unheard-of to bill extra for rush work.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com