
Japanese reporter died after clocking 159 hours of overtime - matthberg
http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/05/news/japan-work-overwork-woman-dies-karoshi/index.html
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wahern
Assuming it was spread relatively evenly throughout the month, 159 hours of
overtime means she basically worked 80-hour work weeks that month.[1] That's
much less shocking than it seems at first glance, especially considering she
was only 31.

I'm not arguing that it's healthy or wasn't grueling--her particular
activities might have been particularly grueling, and perhaps there were other
circumstances at play--just that I'm sure plenty of people here have worked
80-hour work weeks back-to-back.

10 years ago a colleague and I spent about 4 months only sleeping 5 days each
week, working through the night twice each week on our "side project".
Recently I've been working through the night once each week (including
yesterday/today), though it feels more difficult now than I remember when I
was younger. (FWIW, I'm one of those people who really needs and appreciates
sleep--minimum 8 hours to feel normal. By contrast my father has only slept
about 4-5 hours each night for his entire adult life, a superpower I've always
been envious of.)

[1] According to Wikipedia
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_labour_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_labour_law))
anything over 40 hours/week is overtime.

