has anyone here worked like really really hard?

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In the Army when not deployed we'd have 24 hour duties... and of course when deployed you pretty much were always working. Well... there was a lot of card playing too. ;)

I've worked 15 hours in a day recently... when we working on a major deployment (software) of when troubleshooting things... which sucks... and I have a crackberry that constantly gets me to work whenever... but I also can go running at lunch... or play basketball on company time... or work 1/2 a day whenever so I can't complain. I can also work from home sometimes... but I don't really like that.
 
Junior officer of a submarine is pretty tough duty, but being in port during an upkeep period is probably the most intensive in terms of hours, responsibility, danger, technical acumen required and sense of mission.
 
This doesn't compare to you guys. The most I've had to do is school-related. I did a semester of Anatomy and Physiology in 12 days, and averaged about 14-16 hours of just anatomy per day. That's just studying though, so it doesn't really count with the work kind of stuff you guys are talking about.

As far as work, I've only had long individual days. A few days with soccer training for 4 hours plus about 12 hours of manual labor for a flooring business. I don't see that as being abnormal though.
 
I've worked some 18 hour days. That shit's miserable, and not fun for the family either.
 
Working on a TV show is 15-18 hour days. The week starts at 6am and often ends at 4am late Friday night. But I was a supporting role so I didn't work every day and it's not really the hardest job in the world. But I did work those long hours that you asked about.
 
Most people at Nike don't really work that hard. At least that's my opinion from a previous employee. They also don't seem to pay very well (although the benefits are good) because everyone wants to work for them...they can get talented people for cheap. Besides, what designer (or IT nerd) would love to say they work for the swoosh. My longest day was when I had to make a conference call to Europe at like 6:30 and then stay until 8:30 to make a conference call to Japan. Then again, they gave me a project too big for an "intern" and I spent a whole lot of time at home working on the project. I even came in one weekend and worked four hours of overtime and got yelled out because it wasn't in the budget. That's the only reason I worked long hours there though.
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My dad works for Nike and they run him absolutely ragged. 80 hour weeks, soul crushing by all accounts, he pretty much suicidal at this point. Fuck those people.
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Nike does not pay well. My dad works for Nike keeping all the Nike store computers running (It is actually a pretty high end job on the Tech side as he worked his way up to the point they have offered him a pretty high position in this division but he doesn't want it because the hours would be even worse). He only gets about 60k a year (after taxes) which is chump change for the hours he has to work. His hours are...

7am - 8am conference call (M-F)
8am - 6pm non stop work at the office (M-F)
1-2 hours a night - work from home on the laptop and phone and e-mail (6 days a week - including Saturday)
Also, some nights he'd work something like... Wednesday at 6pm - Thursday at 6am... Its horrid.
Also, about once every couple months (in my dad's field) he goes to Europe for a week... that may sound nice, but its horrible. Its 7 days of complete work... no extra pay... no extra days off... no nothin' but extra work and a bunch of flying (He is in Holland right now)... Just him and his boss. I can't even imagine the hours of this but if I had to guess from the talks i've had w/ him i'd think about 14-15 hrs/day - 7 days a week.

They give good benefits I guess, but I wouldn't work for Nike personally. And for being in such a nice company, and working so many hours (but they have him on salary) they don't pay nearly enough unless he would take the promotion but the accountability and extra work/hours would be insane as well (for a somewhat marginal increase in pay).
 
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MrJayremmie said:
Nike does not pay well. My dad works for Nike keeping all the Nike store computers running (It is actually a pretty high end job on the Tech side as he worked his way up to the point they have offered him a pretty high position in this division but he doesn't want it because the hours would be even worse). He only gets about 60k a year (after taxes) which is chump change for the hours he has to work. His hours are...

7am - 8am conference call (M-F)
8am - 6pm non stop work at the office (M-F)
1-2 hours a night - work from home on the laptop and phone and e-mail (6 days a week - including Saturday)
Also, some nights he'd work something like... Wednesday at 6pm - Thursday at 6am... Its horrid.
Also, about once every couple months (in my dad's field) he goes to Europe for a week... that may sound nice, but its horrible. Its 7 days of complete work... no extra pay... no extra days off... no nothin' but extra work and a bunch of flying (He is in Holland right now)... Just him and his boss. I can't even imagine the hours of this but if I had to guess from the talks i've had w/ him i'd think about 14-15 hrs/day - 7 days a week.

They give good benefits I guess, but I wouldn't work for Nike personally. And for being in such a nice company, and working so many hours (but they have him on salary) they don't pay nearly enough unless he would take the promotion but the accountability and extra work/hours would be insane as well (for a somewhat marginal increase in pay).
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Man, that sounds exactly like what my dad did about 5 or 6 years ago. When I was a kid, they actually almost transferred him to Barcelona and then to Belgium, then they didn't. God dammit that would have been awesome.

He was a pretty high end IT guy, something about the software that run that Nike store cash registers or something, I never really got what he did. But recently they eliminated his position and gave him a new one because he'd been with the company for so long, since 1992. He makes a hair over 100k a year, but he hates his life, so what's the point?
 
On my last job we worked some grueling shifts preparing FDA submissions. What made it worse was the boss was such a shit. One weekend I worked Friday from 7 AM to 10 PM no break, Saturday 7 AM to 9:30 PM, Sunday 7 AM to 4 PM because she gave me 3 chapters Friday morning to have completely written before Monday AM. I emailed them to her Sunday and she called me and my boss at home that night to scream at us because she did not like our work. She literally screamed at me for a solid hour because the line dividing text from footnote was 1/4" too short.

She also promised me 2 weeks off in compensation for all the unpaid OT I worked but when I asked for one day after the project was complete so I could go to a daytime baseball game, she said "you're exempt, you don't get compensation"
 
i get to work around 8:45am and am outta there just before 5pm, never really gone beyond that.

awesome pay, great bonuses, car park, car allowance, expense accnt, basically autonomy for the most part.

id hate to be doing 16hr days :(
 
Man, that sounds exactly like what my dad did about 5 or 6 years ago. When I was a kid, they actually almost transferred him to Barcelona and then to Belgium, then they didn't. God dammit that would have been awesome.

He was a pretty high end IT guy, something about the software that run that Nike store cash registers or something, I never really got what he did. But recently they eliminated his position and gave him a new one because he'd been with the company for so long, since 1992. He makes a hair over 100k a year, but he hates his life, so what's the point?
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Yep, they do sound similar. But 100k a year isn't bad at all with Nike benefits. 60k (after taxes) is just chump change for that kind of work/hours.
 
MrJayremmie said:
Yep, they do sound similar. But 100k a year isn't bad at all with Nike benefits. 60k (after taxes) is just chump change for that kind of work/hours.
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I don't know about taxes in Oregon but isn't that about the same, 100k before and 60K after taxes. I live in Cali, make a little over 100, and only take home about 5500/mo.
 
KingSpeed said:
Working on a TV show is 15-18 hour days. The week starts at 6am and often ends at 4am late Friday night. But I was a supporting role so I didn't work every day and it's not really the hardest job in the world. But I did work those long hours that you asked about.
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does everyone really memorize all their lines or do they just study right before the scene, then say it and then forget it?
 
Back when I was a blue collar worker, I had a shift from 6am to 5pm, then I came back for the night shift, and the machinery broke down, so we were there all night doing things by hand, and that was from 11:00pm to 8:00am, so it was basically an 18 hour day.

But now I'm white collar, and they won't even let us get overtime. I get paid almost 4x as much as I did at my blue collar job and it's a helluva lot more satisfying. Most manual labor jobs are very repetitive and mind numbing.
 
I don't know about taxes in Oregon but isn't that about the same, 100k before and 60K after taxes. I live in Cali, make a little over 100, and only take home about 5500/mo.
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Oh, did he say before taxes? I didn't realize he did. I guess its close, not the same but much closer yeah. That changes a lot.
 
BlayZa said:
i get to work around 8:45am and am outta there just before 5pm, never really gone beyond that.

awesome pay, great bonuses, car park, car allowance, expense accnt, basically autonomy for the most part.

id hate to be doing 16hr days :(
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Hmm...what do you do? And define awesome pay ;-)

To put the Nike thing in perspective, during college I was a summer intern there once and made $18/hr, which for an internship is pretty darn good.

But putting it up against my $65 + overtime I get straight out of college, and I can say that Nike doesn't pay that well relative to what it would have to pay for the talent without the appeal of working for Nike.
 
I earned two graduate degrees simultaneously from two completely separate universities. I suppose that would qualify. Scheduling was a bear.
 
AgentDrazenPetrovic said:
nah, with manual labor you'd probably end up feeling satisfied by the end of the day. sitting in an office and working all day sucks ass.
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Trust me after a 10 hour day of Hot Tar Roofing you do NOT feel satisfied.. worst job of my life!
 
AgentDrazenPetrovic said:
beats working on Microsoft Excel spreadsheets for 10 hours in a row!
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lol you would think so.. but I have done both.. being on a roof that is tarred in black.. on a 105 degree day.. handling 500 degree tar sucks.. plus you have to wear long sleeves and stuff to keep it from splattering on you. But yes Spreadsheets are a bitch.. I hate those things.
 
KingSpeed said:
Working on a TV show is 15-18 hour days. The week starts at 6am and often ends at 4am late Friday night. But I was a supporting role so I didn't work every day and it's not really the hardest job in the world. But I did work those long hours that you asked about.
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Any shoot is very tedious. I can agree with that. Some of my filming sessions have run just as long and there is so much to consider that it becomes a massive strain.

For me, working in a creative field is often deadline oriented so all day/all night work sessions aren't uncommon when you have to meet expectations and deadlines. I've done similarly long jobs digging ditches and while that is physically taxing, being relied on for creative ideas on top of the time it takes to create something is very emotionally taxing, especially when the idea just isn't there. It's very difficult being creative on demand and then explaining those ideas to uncreative people.

In my field, I work at least 50 hours every week (on a slow week) but i've never totally disconnected from my work even when I'm at home "relaxing."

Of course, the biggest frustration comes from the fact that creative is the only field where EVERYONE feels just as qualified as you to make decisions and produce work. I don't tell my electrician how to wire my house or my doctor hwo to perform surgery... really tiring having to constantly defend your professional existence to people who don't understand it.
 
I worked extremely hard - 80 hour weeks - for about 10 years. The good news is, now I don't have to anymore. The bad news is, those 10 years are gone and I'll never get them back. But, you make your choices and live with the consequences.

barfo
 
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