
Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work? - mistersquid
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/26/business/against-hustle-culture-rise-and-grind-tgim.html
======
sgspace
I have recently been applying for a new software engineering job. Any job that
has included in the listing for job responsibilities: "A passion for what you
do", I have not applied to.

The amount of jobs I have skipped due to this "job responsibility" is
ridiculous. I am good at what I do. I will come to work, work a full day maybe
even longer, then go home and unwind or do something non software related. I
am not trying to burn out. Why is it not enough to just be good at your job
and work an honest day every day? Why do I have to love every moment of it as
well? I am not going to fake it because that lead to burnout at my last job.
Who has a passion for writing crummy software for someone else anyways?

By skipping those jobs, I think I have found the right one where I am
surrounded by down to earth like minded people who are still good at what they
do. I start in a couple weeks and I am actually looking forward to working
now.

~~~
cc81
I like being around people who have a passion for software development. That
does not mean that they are working themselves to death but the curiosity will
end up making them better developers.

As a .NET developer you usually get a MSDN licence from your company and that
will give you a generous amount of "free money" on Azure. My passionate
colleagues have read up on what you can do and tried some cool things while
most of my other colleagues have never even logged in to it.

My passionate colleagues might read an article from Hackernews about web
architecture at lunch because they think it is interesting while my less
passionate colleagues browse Facebook.

~~~
icebraining
I think "passion" is too strong (probably a result of word inflation, like
"awesome" and such), but yeah, having someone to work with who actually gives
a shit about what they're doing is much nicer. It's not even about the
company, just the process itself.

~~~
rzzzt
David Mitchell agrees with you:
[https://youtu.be/Bz2-49q6DOI](https://youtu.be/Bz2-49q6DOI)

~~~
scrollaway
Off topic but thanks for that. :) I didn't know David Mitchell made youtube
content. He's one of my favourite british TV personas! Love him on Would I Lie
To You.

------
agensaequivocum
I'm 25 and while I enjoy software engineering I would much rather just spend
time with my wife and child. I work only for the well-being of my family. My
first priorities are God and family, and it is here that I know my purpose in
life.

~~~
dqpb
I'm going to say this in the politest way I know how to - because I'm not
trolling you, I sincerely care about the sanity of my fellow human beings.

When you make God a priority, it is most likely that you're prioritizing a
fictional lense on your worldview.

Thats fine if it's a choice, but it's cruel to train that kind of thinking
into children before they've had a chance to experience the world in it's raw
form, and have learned how to discern fact from fiction.

~~~
JunkDNA
As a parent I have a strong desire to raise my children with the same values
that I have. For people who practice organized religion, you can’t really have
the “values” part without the religion part. It all fits together into a
cohesive whole. Young children also have a strong desire to mimic their
parents, while at the same time wanting to know “why?”. How does one explain
to kids why you’re celebrating a religious holiday or headed off to
church/synagogue/etc... without teaching them about God? Most organized
religions also have imperatives for passing on the knowledge to children. It’s
totally incompatible with a person’s own belief system to not raise their
children in their faith.

Many people for thousands of years have devoted their lives to the search for
Truth. It is a journey that takes a lifetime. I don’t believe there is some
moment in time where one is able to discern fact from fiction when it comes to
the big questions of the meaning of life.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>As a parent I have a strong desire to raise my children with the same values
that I have. For people who practice organized religion, you can’t really have
the “values” part without the religion part. It all fits together into a
cohesive whole.

Then you should probably examine whether your values can stand up without the
false axiom you're using to shore them up. I'm not saying they can't! But you
need to check. And if they do, so much the better: you can pass on good values
and avoid teaching your children nonsense.

~~~
0db532a0
You should look up the definition of axiom, and possibly look up the concept
of phenomenology.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I'm quite aware of the definitions of both. What did you mean to say?

~~~
0db532a0
Firstly, your expectation that an axiom be true belies your misunderstanding
of what an axiom is. Secondly, your expectation that something at all be true
independently of personal experience shows your lack of acquaintance with
phenomenology, or at least a refusal to understand it.

------
mathieuh
I actually do really like work (wouldn’t say ‘love’), am 23 and have a
consulting side-hustle which pays somewhere like 220% more per hour than my
salaries job.

I’m not doing this consulting work because I love software so much my day job
isn’t giving me enough satisfaction, I’m doing it to earn well-needed money.

I got into heroin addiction a couple of years ago and built up a decent debt
(in total probably about 50% of my annual income). Put simply, I need
somewhere to live and something to eat. I’ve interviewed at other companies
which offer me about 40% more than where I’m working now, but my company has
stuck by me so I’m going to stick by them.

Basically, I wonder how many people are working like this due to circumstances
beyond their control.

Workers fought for centuries to get the 40-hour work week, something seems
wrong when we’re stating to go the other way.

(I have been clean of heroin and all drugs except nicotine, alcohol and
cannabis since around mid-August, I don’t keep track of the date anymore
because last time I got clean I got completely fixated on it)

~~~
s0l1dsnak3123
I commend your loyalty (and the grit and determination required to pull back
from addiction), but I have to agree that such loyalty will not benefit you
long term. Stay loyal to your boss and to those who helped you through tough
times - but don't mix that up with a loyalty to the company as a whole.

~~~
muzani
Agreed. I worked with an incredible boss and company, probably the best period
of my life.

But later, the boss took a step back, hired someone for the CEO spot. The
company aggressively hired people and attracted a lot of really bad types with
their hiring policy. Whole thing started to go downhill rapidly within two
years. Same company, entirely different culture.

------
potatofarmer45
My very first job was in finance on Wall St at a bulge bracket investment bank
(read: big name fancy boohah bank).

I did it not because I like finance and I thought working 100 hours a week on
excel was fun, I did because I had no idea what I wanted in life and a job the
most prestigious / best paying job at the time available to a graduating
student was in finance.

Most the people I started with (trading), didn't last more than 2 years. I
burned out and quit the day I got my bonus after 1 year. But you see a pattern
in all the people who stay. They don't love the work, they love the money and
the prestige of the work. After a while, it becomes your identity and even
though most bankers hate their jobs, they pretend to like it because there is
nothing they can do elsewhere that offers them the same perks.

I worked with a guy who complained to me every single night when we worked
together almost 10 years ago. He said he was going to quit once he reached XYZ
arbitrary milestone and go work at an NGO. Last time I checked, he is still
there. Now he has a wife, kids, and a lifestyle that requires a lot of money
so he can't leave. He also says now that he "loves" his job, but like in the
article, he is fooling himself. It comes out after a few drams of scotch.

~~~
GarrisonPrime
>But you see a pattern in all the people who stay. They don't love the work,
they love the money and the prestige of the work. After a while, it becomes
your identity...

Sounds like what I saw in the medical field.

------
chrisseaton
> Why Are Young People Pretending to Love Work?

But I do love my work. I'm not pretending. I do look forward to sitting down
to work on Monday morning. It's creative, fun, fulfilling, and satisfying.

I just feel sorry for the author that they're so relentlessly incredulous that
anyone could find joy in doing something.

~~~
eertami
But would you turn up to your work on Monday morning if it didn't pay you a
salary?

Even people that "love" work usually know that it isn't the thing they would
most want to spend their time doing if they had the choice.

~~~
PakG1
This is the real test. If money was taken care of, I'd probably be doing
something else with my time. In my case, I've found the most fulfillment
volunteering in very remote areas. My job is good, but I'm under no illusion
that I love it or that it loves me.

~~~
thoman23
If money was already taken care of, I would absolutely be building software
(and playing music). I just wouldn't be doing it at my current job (the
software part...my music would be frowned upon at work).

------
dsaavy
While I enjoy my work, you’ve got to have breaks even from things you love. It
seems doubtful that even if someone is in love with something, they try to
spend all day, every day thinking about it or doing it. Heck, I love my SO and
my dogs but I need breaks from them as well lol.

Some people love work, some people don’t. That being said, the excessive
propaganda that work, work, work doesn’t typically benefit the person working
as much as those they report to, like the article points out. That seems to be
the main issue rather than an entrepreneur trying to materialize their dream.

~~~
pizzazzaro
But listen - someone has to babysit the datacenter, just like taking out the
trash, or fixing people's plumbing.

When even low level _retail_ job listings demand _A Burning
Passion!!!!!11oneoneeleven_ for the terrible job?

They're trying to find the people who would do this work anyway, without
getting paid for it. Why?

So they can pay us all less. When we work partially for the privilege of what
we do, money matters less... and we can get away with expecting less.

Anyone else? Is too busy fitting this mold to even be able to ask for a raise.

------
d357r0y3r
There are multiple things happening here. I don't think a majority or even a
double-digit percentage of young people have what this author is calling
"hustler" mentality, but we'll ignore that, and focus on the people who do
have it. Thoughts on "hustle" culture in no particular order...

\- Some people are legitimately trying to build a business and be first to
market. There are arguments for and against burning the midnight oil, but it
could be a rational thing to do.

\- Some people are filling a void in their lives left by the evaporation of
community, family, and church. The "hustler" types typically live away from
their family, don't have kids, and certainly are not going to church.
Immersing yourself in a lifestyle with other people struggling, in the same
way, is a decent way of feeling like you're a part of something.

\- This is probably just a thing in places like NYC and SF where you're
surrounded by hyper-successful people at all times. That's why they call it a
rat race.

FWIW, I've never been able to work anything like a 12-14 hour day unless it
was something I truly wanted to do. There was no pretending.

~~~
SquishyPanda23
You raise an interesting point about filling a void.

I have talked to more than a few hustlers who had fairly deep rooted issues
around failure and rejection and not amounting to enough.

This is present in all populations, but I personally have noticed that it's
strikingly common among people trying to create startups compared to other
groups of people I talk to.

~~~
d1zzy
The same is true for many great athletes, they are "running from something".
It makes a lot of sense that at the very top of any human activity only those
that have had the talent, a bit of luck and _very importantly_ sacrificed
everything else over it will make it. And that's much more "easier" to do when
there's something in their lives driving them strongly towards that goal.

I wouldn't even say that's a bad thing. The achievements of those people push
humanity forward and even if you focus on the person, if they wouldn't have
done that what makes you think they would have otherwise been happy and
productive members of society?

------
JDiculous
As uninteresting as most modern day employment work is, what bothers me most
is the lack of concern for the meaning of one's work.

I'm all in favor of people "hustling" and working hard if it's for something
that benefits humanity and/or something they genuinely want to work on. But
most people aren't taking us to the moon or curing cancer, they're selling
crap people don't need. The dystopian motivational quotes in the article are
like the business version of "keeping up with the Joneses"

Not that there's anything wrong with selling shakeweights. But I wish that
instead of this #hustle culture, our culture was more geared towards making
the world a better place. Of course for this to ever take place, at a minimum
we'd probably need to end the precariousness of our economic system and free
people from the servitude of boring 9-5 jobs (eg. UBI).

But until workers see through the billionaire employer-brewn Kool-Aid and stop
giving in to this propaganda, the young will continue to get exploited and
waste their lives pursuing crap that will make a few rich, but ultimately
doesn't add any value to society. But the fact that this article was even
written by such a prominent publication gives me hope that the mainstream is
beginning to see through the facade, or at least finally stop perpetuating the
gospel they've been forced to preach.

~~~
claudiawerner
The notion of meaning in work was covered originally by Marx drawing on ideas
from Hegel. Even Marx's fiercest detractors found his theory of alienation
brilliant, along with the theory of commodity fetishism. It's a shame to me
that many people end up rediscovering these ideas independently rather than
seeing just how deep the insight of past thinkers has been and applicable to
the modern day too.

------
iheartpotatoes
I question the author's conclusion of a truly subjective experience. It feels
like fancy gatekeeping. The cross-references to social life are in interesting
way to tease out meaning, but ultimately the dude is calling people "posers"
with a richer vocabulary.

I'm 53 and I still don't know if I have really "liked" my work/career in tech
that started in the late 80's. I got off on my 80-hour weeks when I was in my
20's, but there was a direct result from my efforts (first silicon!). It's
always been a challenge, and at some points broke me down (e.g., awful task,
asshat manager), but I've always thought: "Welp, I gotta do something, might
as well be something that pays well." I suspect the rest has been after-the-
fact self-conditioning. But I'm almost done, and I look forward to retiring
and doing more tech projects I never finished, so I guess I really did enjoy
the career?

------
coleifer
I think some people are confusing the point. It's not about whether or not you
enjoy your work. It's about the glamorization of working more than others.

I think a critical mass of people have bought into the belief that overwork is
equivalent with success. That dedication to work is heroic. So there's
signalling going on, a desire to cultivate the image of being a winner (in
this narrow sense). There's also naivety... people who buy into this and
aren't just signalling but truly think working in this way is somehow
reflective of the superiority they desire to possess. So there's a cyclical
effect, one group feeding back into the other.

~~~
gerbilly
> I think a critical mass of people have bought into the belief that overwork
> is equivalent with success.

Basically it's another one of those misunderstanding implication fallacies.

They are saying:

hard work <=>success (equivalence)

When really:

success => hard work (hard work is necessary for success)[1] hard work =/>
success (hard work is not sufficient for success)

[1] Mostly.

------
bjornlouser
“Welcome to hustle culture. It is obsessed with striving, relentlessly
positive, devoid of humor...”

I remember a time when humor helped build trust and friendship at work.

I remember laughing at work...

~~~
decebalus1
This is one of the things which really rubs me the wrong way. I've rejected a
couple of offers over the years simply because the interviewers came off as
weird robots with poles up their asses (that unfortunately includes Google,
where the people I met couldn't take a joke but had no problem laughing about
others). You CAN crack a joke without being unprofessional, especially if it's
about the profession. I don't understand why people choose not to do that.
Humor is one hell of a stress coping mechanism and inside jokes are a side
effect of having a cohesive team.

------
Waterluvian
I dunno. I absolutely love what I do. 95% of my days don't feel like work. I
work from home so I see my kids a ton more than I used to. I go to the park
with my oldest after lunch. I have flexible hours. I do interesting stuff that
challenges me. And I get a ton of freedom to design and implement solutions
that I think are best (and learn from my mistakes). Finally, I've never once
been pressured to work more than ~40 hours a week.

My one issue is that I can't picture any other job ever being this compatible
with how I want to live my life. I worry it'll never be this good elsewhere.
Happiness handcuffs, if you will.

~~~
Eldandan
Oof! This is where I am with teaching post-secondary at a non-research
institution in California. 6 weeks of Winter and 6 weeks of summer off, with
added pay to teach those intercessions? Scheduling classes so I get every
Friday off? Yes please!

I still dream of getting into more technical work where I get to solve
interesting problems, but figuring out how to best teach a class and reduce
equity gaps is a meaningful, interesting problem. If I ever find a different
line of work I at a tech company, I worry about having the freedom and
flexibility in my current job to raise my family in the same way.

------
crack-the-code
Here are some of my reasons why I love working (and working hard):

1\. I actually enjoy programming and working with others.

2\. Sense of purpose. Working with others towards a common goal.

3\. Reward. The harder I work, the more I increase my chances of greater
financial output.

4\. Recognition. When my boss or peers acknowledge my accomplishments, it
makes me feel proud.

5\. Growth. A lot of my personal development has come from wisdom gained
through work.

------
viburnum
If you're lucky, and many tech workers are, at the beginning of your career
work can be insanely fun because, unlike school, you're finally spending most
of your time doing the one thing you're good at it, you're gaining skills
rapidly, and you're getting paid to do it. The thrill wears off after a few
years.

~~~
d357r0y3r
Eh, I'm like...7 years in or so. It's still pretty fun. It feels good to
develop expertise and to have valuable insights that people are interested in.
If I were still doing the same job as when I started, I think I'd be very
bored.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
Work is not some uniquely arduous activity. I blog for fun, as a writer I'm
sure she would find that to be "work". Even playing video games could be work
nowadays. Sex and going to restaurants could also be work to some people. If
the "work" is cool and rewarding it could be good. The writer probably grew up
in an era where work is divorced from achievement and the results are all
sucked up by some far away corporation. Then it sucks, but the problem with
that is not work, but that somebody is stealing the credit for your work.

------
firloop
I'm happiest when I'm working hard on meaningful problems that I care about.

I also understand that everyone doesn't feel that way. I think that's okay
too. I don't understand why this needs to turn into a debate or perpetual
flame war.

------
riyadparvez
Being an outsider, the thing that stand out most about North American culture
is that it is extremely self-promotional. Granted, self-pormotion exists more
or less is all cultures. But what makes it different here is self promotion is
actively encouraged as a virtue. I think 'I love my work', along with many
other behaviors, can be attribute to this self-promotional culture.

------
assblaster
I wrote about this previously, but here it goes again:

I think the 7 day "work" week is the most life-relaxing way to work.

I try to work 7 days a week. Some days I work 3 hours, some rare days I work
36 hours.

When I'm not working, I'm enjoying that time and not stressing out regarding
income taking time off, because I know I have given it my 100% and not held
anything back.

It is satisfying. I feel relaxed at work. I feel well rested.

I think the 5 day work week is soul-crushing: there's just enough time off
from work that you dread coming back, and there's enough time at work that you
feel overworked.

40 hours over 7 days is a little over 5 hours per day, and sprinkling in a
couple 12 hour days spreads the remaining work to 5 three-hour days.

~~~
sonnyblarney
You're going to grind yourself to death.

The huge advantage of the 7th day is that you _know_ you cannot work, nobody
else is working, that it's pointless and you can relax. It's 'the time for not
working'.

When you work 'every day' \- the nagging of 'maybe I can do something' always
exists.

If you put in your time on the 5 days, then you can have this 'I know I gave
it 100%' feeling.

Also, knowing that you can 'finish stuff on the weekend' I find makes one even
a little bit more likely to procrastinate!

I've lived extensively in both worlds (i.e. 5, 6 , 7 days) and I think 7 will
catch up to you. It caught up to me.

~~~
danlugo92
Given your experience, what are your thoughts on five 6-hr days vs four 7.5hr
days (but these 7.5 hours must be fully productive otherwise I cannot bill
them).

~~~
sonnyblarney
I would say it's likely a personal issue, you may want to try to see what
works for you.

I think the most important thing is that there are 'hard lines' i.e. you have
time which you know to be 'yours'. The bleeding of personal time into
professional time takes its toll.

Also, not relevant to your case, is the 'every day' nature of 7 day a week
work - I believe this to be grinding as well, and it extracts a hidden cost on
your health.

------
Spooky23
Society has systematically devalued things like family, marriage and
community.

It’s like a variant of Orwell’s vision. The proles are probably the happiest
ones.

------
muzani
There's a book, Flow. It was written in 1990, meaning that the research
doesn't even involve millennials, but rather the Boomers. It's not even
research for productivity; the goal was to find _when_ we are happiest.

In it, it describes that most workers actually enjoy work. About 47% for blue
collar up to 64% for white collar. Whereas during their leisure times, it's
20% for blue collar, down to 15% for white collar.

However, the catch is that when at work, they describe that they would rather
be doing something. There's a paradox that motivation is lowest when at work,
even though they feel happy, strong, creative, satisfied. And that they look
forward to periods like watching TV where they feel more weak, dull, and
dissatisfied.

The book doesn't have a solid theory as to why this is so. Maybe we have a
cultural stereotype that we're supposed to hate work. Maybe we feel forced to
do it against our will.

Modern society seems to actually restrict flow. We're constantly interrupted
by social media and messaging. We have open offices where everyone can
interrupt one another. There's less situations where we can just sit down and
lose ourselves in work. A blue collar worker can tune the world out while they
cut grass and assemble cars, while the engineer has to deal with a barrage of
emails and stand up meetings.

So, it's quite possible that work now is less enjoyable than 30 years ago.

~~~
0db532a0
I decided to leave my last job with a month’s notice due to a few reasons, one
of which was constant noise and interruption. I was in the process of
finishing a project with no further input needed, and I wanted to leave behind
something I was proud of.

Given that I had no reputation to protect there, without asking anyone, I
moved into a disused room, no windows, completely isolated from the rest of
the office and spent my whole days cracking out code alone. I was never
happier, and I’ve never got so much work done in an office in my life.

------
vivekd
Some people are just conscientious, they love work and feel they have to be
engaged in some work - whether it be meaningful work or pointless drudgery -
for their life to be worthwhile. My mom is like that. I think the article is
overly focused on these sorts of people. There are tons of people out there
who are more relaxed and want to take it easy - in fact I would say that's the
majority.

Sure some companies and employers are highly conscientious and they seek out
conscientious employees. It's sad because conscientious people are more
readily taken advantage of by employers. But at the end of the day it's just a
personality and I don't know how well we can apply the label to all
millennials. My experience has been that early boomers are the most
conscientious people, probably more so than any generation that came after
them.

I would argue that with millenials some of that hustle culture we're seeing is
not necessarily a work nature, but more desperation. Here we have a generation
coming of age into hard economic times. Many have high hopes but believe that
their lives will be worse financially than that of their parents. It's natural
that some of them would adopt a hustle mentality as a way to struggle against
that.

------
sixo
Because the idea of your job and your life being separate is ridiculous, an
artifact of a first-generation middle-class that burgeoned in the second half
of the 20th century and was largely just happy to have money and security.

We - the young people now - want a lot more, and to some extent we're willing
to close the gap between what-we-want-to-do and what-we-do-for-work from both
sides so we're not living in a perpetual disharmony like our sad parents did.

------
spaceflunky
I can't believe no one has said it, but I have a theory that says working hard
and making yourself inaccessibly busy is a new status symbol.

In a world where it's difficult to buy even the most modest of homes and
unreasonable to buy a sports car if you have no home in which to put it,
making yourself seem like you can't possibly get away from your desk because
too many people need you is the nouveau status symbol.

------
zepto
Isn’t the answer obvious?: Work has become much more precarious again and
looking like you aren’t into it is a competitive disadvantage that few can
risk.

~~~
maccio92
Or maybe some people actually do love the work they do... Are people really
this disenfranchised that they can't possibly imagine that some people really
are doing work they enjoy? I love my career and the work I do is fulfilling
and gives me a sense of accomplishment

~~~
zepto
Do you think most people love their work the way you do?

------
manmal
I think a part of the problem is caused by ubiquitious caffeine consumption.

On caffeine, I'm driven, and want to code more, and start new projects, and
meet people, and never stop thinking, and hustle towards the future. I also
never stop to question whether my goals are worthwhile, or at least good for
me. I just "love the chase" on caffeine.

Off caffeine, I'm considerate, more withdrawn, and enjoy life as it is, being
in the moment. Life is more "real". I take breaks, talk to family on the
phone, cook myself a meal, smell the flowers.

Our generation runs on coffee. 64% of people over 18 in the US drink at least
a cup every day [1], with rising tendency. "Programmers are machines which
turn coffee into code", and other similar memes aplenty. I believe that a side
effect of taking in caffeine is to be driven and motivated during the day, and
of weak willpower at night, leading to excessive social media usage. It makes
the hustle itself a means to an end.

1: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-coffee-conference-
survey/...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-coffee-conference-
survey/americans-are-drinking-a-daily-cup-of-coffee-at-the-highest-level-in-
six-years-survey-idUSKCN1GT0KU)

~~~
leowoo91
Biggest mystery haven't been solved yet: why coffee makers are still
complicated?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Well you can have instant coffee, or an air-press, or ... addicts get a bigger
hit when they establish a religious experience through ritualising their
consumption. One of the difficult things about giving up cigarettes is giving
up the paraphernalia, the sense of occasion, the ritualised actions that start
the happy hormones as Pavlov's bell initiates salivation. Your hands
themselves are almost separately addicted to the actions, unwrapping a packet,
sliding out a cigarette, tamping the tobacco, wheeling the flint on the
lighter; each action a stepping up of the anticipation of drug-satiation.

Now, with coffee one can do the same: the steam and coffee-incense rise like
the smoke from a thurible; beans clink, machines whirr, chrome shines in the
bright halogen light of the kitchen. All subtle sensory inputs hailing the
ever-closer hit of caffeine.

------
Bucephalus355
lol yesterday I saw an ad from JP Morgan on Twitter...”why young people don’t
just want a paycheck”.

The ad led you to page that talked about how a charity in Seattle got
basically 2 weeks of free work from an entry level dev at a JP Morgan
event...and now the dev works at the bank.

The subtext of all this of course, wink wink, was how to pay your employees
less by giving them something, anything, other than the one thing they
actually need, money.

------
randomacct3847
I cringe at the interview question of “why do you want to work here?” and the
dance you play in saying anything and everything accept for “the paycheck.”

~~~
ryanianian
It shows if the candidate has seriously considered what the company does, how
it operates, and what would mean for them to join the company.

It also helps the interviewer take stock of what the candidate is looking for.
If the candidate does well they can circle back to those interests and sell
the candidate on the company a bit.

~~~
mnm1
It also shows the company and person asking this are completely out of touch
with reality, basically arrogant idiots who think their candidate has time to
research and make up a lie to answer their questions just like he has time to
do the same for the other five hundred or a thousand job postings he replied
to. It shows arrogance and way too much self-importance, both huge red flags
for any employer. But at least they can target the best liars in their
applicant pool.

------
gchamonlive
The title is a little misleading. It leads us to believe that young people
pretend to love work regardless of working conditions

> I saw the greatest minds of my generation log 18-hour days — and then boast
> about #hustle on Instagram.

This summarizes the idea better. It is unnatural to love an activity that
simply drains you of all your time and energy. I "work" all the time. I'm
always doing some course, doing actual work, learning, practicing different
skills, but mostly I do it in my free time.

The author questions then the surprising nature of the relationship young
people have with extremely time consuming jobs, and I believe that is a valid
criticism. We need to protect the youth from believing it is OK to reduce the
daily routine to sleep and work. Health, mental and social problems all rise
from such situations and cost a lot of money from society, from having to
waste time and money on therapy specifically to counter those issues that rose
from work abuse, to ultimately crippling depression and suicide

------
hkon
In my experience, the ones who shout the loudest about passion and
motivational quotes have the least knowledge to get the work done. Sure they
put in long hours, only to have their spaghetti code fail at the first attempt
of running it.

Sick and tired of it frankly, so I prefer to avoid those boys.

------
nie
I used to be the young people who love the work and made the work dominate my
work life balance. My reason was quite simple: I felt this is the first time I
have my ability validated, furthermore I was constantly surpassing my own
expectations, I don't want it to stop. So in other words I don't belong to the
group that are pretending to love work.

For a long time I automatically think others must felt the same way. On the
other hand I think it's not efficient nor effective to pretend that you love
your work: you are evaluated based on your performance/competence anyway,
although in work environment we like to call it your "enthusiasm", the
pretending only works in certain working environment with a certain culture,
theoretically.

------
CM30
I've been wondering the exact same thing. Especially in regards to working
hours and what not. Seriously, when did work go from '9-5' (or something
similar) to 'let's do as much overtime as possible'?

Too many young people seem to be treating work like a community/social club
thing rather than a work for hire one, and forgetting that work is really a
means to make money rather than the entire meaning of their existence.

Maybe this also explains why hobbies seem to be on the way out in general. To
a world where your passion 'has' to be your main job, the idea of doing
anything for fun must be a dying trend.

~~~
chrisseaton
> Maybe this also explains why hobbies seem to be on the way out in general.

I don't understand where you're seeing this - I think people are becoming
_much more_ serious about hobbies these days.

People don't just go jogging - they do ultramarathons. They don't just enjoy
baking, they set up baking tutorial YouTube videos. They don't just watch
movies, they write their own fan fiction and get it published. They don't just
play with toys, they build Arduino robots.

This is the age of the amateur professional in hobby areas.

------
LawnboyMax
> _Perhaps we’ve all gotten a little hungry for meaning. Participation in
> organized religion is falling, especially among American millennials. In San
> Francisco, where I live, I’ve noticed that the concept of productivity has
> taken on an almost spiritual dimension. Techies here have internalized the
> idea — rooted in the Protestant work ethic — that work is not something you
> do to get what you want; the work itself is all._

This feels true...

------
hnuser355
Haha, I agree. I always had arguments with my dad where he’d say you have to
have a passion, etc. and I’d be like “Dude, I don’t care about that extra
stuff. I just want money”

Of course now I’ll play along since pretending to be passionate about office
politics or JavaScript is part of making money.

I work a lot more than the minimum but the part outside my work week is all
very long term fundamental stuff I hope will help my career over the decades

------
burlesona
Is it just me or is this article exceptionally “New York City?”

The work culture here in SF, in my experience anyway, is not at all like the
article describes.

~~~
akhilcacharya
I agree, but despite never being a New Yorker and still reading NYTimes every
day I always forget that it is a _New York City_ paper first. And because of
it, I really shouldn't be surprised that part of their outlook is going to be
focused on the elite circles available in NYC.

------
rayiner
> When did performative workaholism become a lifestyle?

During the Protestant Reformation? Another sign of young peoples' rightward
drift:
[https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/generation-...](https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/generation-
zs-rightward-drift).

~~~
curuinor
compare to the data:

[http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/01/17/generation-z-
looks...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-
like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/)

~~~
rayiner
That survey looks at current views, not views across generations at the same
age. Older people are more conservative on average, but there is evidence that
millennials and Gen Z are more conservative than their parents and
grandparents were at the same age: [https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-
conservative-millenn...](https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-conservative-
millennial-no-longer-a-myth/)

~~~
pseudalopex
You have a good point, but that article is not convincing. Most of the claims
don't consider other generations at the same age either. The statistic about
abortion comes from a push poll conducted by an anti-abortion organization.
The claim about Obamacare is cherry-picked from an Atlantic article about how
cherry-picking polling results can make young people look very conservative or
very liberal!

------
eli_gottlieb
Honestly, at this point, I'm expecting that anyone participating in "hustle
culture" is either self-consciously referencing _Sorry to Bother You_ or just
letting me know they are, in the immortal words of Douglas Adams, a bunch of
mindless jerks who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

------
thinkingemote
This is mainly a US cultural phenomenon through the Protestant Work Ethic.
Europe had more Catholicism but the immigrants to America were puritans.
Anyhow the idea is that by working hard you are good.

It's not something new it's in the very fabric of American society and
culture. Work is good, lots of work is better.

------
redleggedfrog
This is so perfect. Those poor kids got duped into thinking that somehow
grinding their young life away will eventually get you somewhere. Hardly
anyone gets into the NBA, or gets to be top drug dealer, or has their startup
get bought for millions.

But, well, someone needs to be the hopeful drones I guess.

------
buboard
what the hell are people doing working 130 hours? I kind of get it if your
work involves sitting in an office thinking of how to unify gravity and
quantum physics, but if a tech worker takes so much time to work he either
doesn't know how to use the tools or is not good at it.

> Participation in organized religion is falling, especially among American
> millennials. In San Francisco, where I live, I’ve noticed that the concept
> of productivity has taken on an almost spiritual dimension.

This is probably closer to the truth. How many people make friends outside of
work anymore? Esp. when people live in a big multicultural city with everyone
moving every few years, work is the one place that actually feels like home.

------
ravenstine
stagnant wages + media glorification of big tech = millennials fighting for
studio apartments

------
mesozoic
Funny while they work themselves to death I'm just sitting here barely working
by putting a little forethought, planning, and efficiency in the mix. Seems
like the amount I work drops by 25% and my pay goes up by 25% a year.

------
nyxxie
All of the measures in this article to increase morale about work aren’t
exploitative unless they’re being used to exploit workers. I don’t think the
author made a really good case for this; instead they argued on the snuck
premise that employers naturally want to squeeze their slaves dry and used
that to conclude these measures are evil attempts to propagate “burnout
culture” (look! A shiny new Term for us to use).

In reality, this is easily explained as an attempt to merely increase positive
feelings about work. I like the work I do, but a negative working environment
is infectious and is usually a big productivity sapper for me. The tech
industry has plenty of managers attempting to juice their slaves for as many
hours at the keyboard as they can get, but I think carved cucumbers
encouraging people in their work is mutually exclusive to that issue.

------
tathougies
Because they don't have families, social ties with friends have been loosening
for decades, and there really isn't anything else to live for.

I can count many colleagues from the past few years for whom work is their
main social group.

------
sevensor
Is it coincidental that two of the defining features of the Victorian era --
overwork and prudery -- are making a return at the same time? It's a strangely
conservative turn for young urban people to take.

~~~
defterGoose
_citation needed_

------
kome
Because, unless you are in some market niche, surviving got really
complicated.

> It is obsessed with striving, relentlessly positive, devoid of humor, and —
> once you notice it — impossible to escape.

That's the world we build for ourselves. Let me quote a passage from Max
Weber, in his book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism":

"The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so. For when
asceticism was carried out of monastic cells into everyday life, and began to
dominate worldly morality, it did its part in building the tremendous cosmos
of the modern economic order. This order is now bound to the technical and
economic conditions of machine production which to-day determine the lives of
all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly
concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force."

If others are stepping the game up, we have to step the game up too if we want
to survive.

Is this good or right?

~~~
whatshisface
They call it the Puritan work ethic, but I'm pretty sure the Puritans had
kids. It's more like the "Japanese population collapse work ethic."

------
renholder
Relevant John Lennon lyric[0]: " _A working-class hero is something to be..._
"

[0] - [https://youtu.be/D77dbv-xNfE](https://youtu.be/D77dbv-xNfE)

~~~
Eli_P
Check out lyrics of this[0] glam rock song from 1986. Reflects this whole
thread over and above.

[0] [https://youtu.be/nM_yNG2htsg?t=61](https://youtu.be/nM_yNG2htsg?t=61)

------
RickJWagner
It's a big cycle.

WW2 vets were the hard workers of the 50s, followed by the Flower-Power
hippies of the 60s, followed by the Yuppies of the 80s, followed by the
Slackers of the 90s.....

------
TheOtherHobbes
Not a new problem:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement)

------
esoterica
> Today’s messages glorify personal profit, even if bosses and investors — not
> workers — are the ones capturing most of the gains. Wage growth has been
> essentially stagnant for years.

Everyone loves quoting this statistic out of context. Median wages have been
stagnant but compensation for the top 10% (and the top 1% especially) have
increased substantially. All those poor exploited FAANG engineers fall at
least into the top 10% by income (120k/year), and very large fraction of them
into the top 1% too (~300k/year). It's amusing how techies love to complain
about being victims of capitalist oppression when in reality they are, by a
very, very large margin, massive beneficiaries of rising inequality, not its
victims.

~~~
akhilcacharya
I agree. IMO, we're seeing a pretty intense class stratification to go along
with it, even between FAANG's.

------
011110111
“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the
office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” — Jack Kerouac

------
creddit
Why is the NYT shaming people for loving their work?

------
solarkraft
My company has some pretty good benefits. It's full of great people. I spend
lots of time there. It's mostly enjoyable.

------
alexandercrohde
Maybe I missed it, but where is the evidence that a majority of young people
are pretending (or even claiming) to love work?

~~~
intuitionist
The editor who wrote the headline seems to have confused a corporate branding
strategy with what the actual workers are saying. Seems kind of hard to
reconcile the high support for socialism among American youth with the idea
that they’re hustle cultists.

------
joduplessis
I think I'm getting tired of people villainizing a love for your work &
industry.

Within reason of course - but I think we're seeing a knee-jerk reaction to the
hustle philosophy that has historically permeated the industry. Moderation
never sits in the corner of the right or the left - you can still enjoy your
field without working until 10pm every night.

"It has exported its brand of performative workaholism to 27 countries..."

Why polarise the issue even further with journalism that is so bias. And
perhaps dig up some "pre-success DHH mantras" before extolling his anti-hustle
rhetoric.

------
vertline3
I doubt they are the "greatest minds of his generation" that probably goes to
someone like Terry Tao

------
quaunaut
God damn, do I hate cynicism.

The entire tone of this article, written by someone whose beat is literally
"Startups and venture capital for the New York Times" according to their
Twitter bio, is so absolutely beyond patronizing and Knows-Better-Than-You
that they can't possibly fathom the idea of people both enjoying work, and
having a purpose that is a long way off.

So you're working for someone else's startup right now. They're getting rich
off your work. Is the idea that you might be working to prepare yourself for a
next job, a startup of your own, somewhere where you have a larger piece of
the pie, completely unreasonable? Not all of us came from families that can
afford to put us up for the time it takes to get the funds to start. Others of
us already have families and want something better.

Furthermore, yes, this generation really does seem to give a fuck about making
the world a better place. It often materializes in ways that personally enrich
ourselves, but such is capitalism: There's literally no way to be widely
effective at helping people that doesn't also enrich yourself along the way.
Hence why all the largest charities have significant government sponsorship
alongside, and Religion is more commonly seen today as the ignorant hideaway
for homophobia, sexism, and the status quo. But many of us also think that we
have an idea, that might just work, that is hard to execute on. So why not
work toward it?

I'll never fault someone for hating their job. My first gig was being the
locker room towel boy for a bunch of fat, sweaty rich people in the densest
population of poverty in America at the time(Fresno, CA). The job I got before
I became a professional coder was delivering car parts in Claremore, OK, for a
guy who store rumor said did some stuff to kids. At that job, I worked 80-90
hour weeks and only billed 50 because I both didn't know what I was doing, and
was afraid of being yelled at by my boss.

But for those of us who have something better than that, who enjoy bettering
themselves at their craft, while making stabs and tries at something better-
why be a cynic about our day job is still a job? Yeah, it's the rat race. But
I'm not doing it for a big house, or a car, or fame or fortune. I'm doing it
because I hope I can say I left this place better than I found it.

------
sudovancity
I enjoy software engineering for about 8 hours a day

------
chkaloon
This writer sounds like a slacker.

------
drugme
Because they've internalized - quite unconsciously, it would seem - the
dominating ideology of their time:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism)

------
throwawaycanada
Fear.

------
sonnyblarney
They're not faking it, they believe they have impact and are finally able to
have the identity and distinction of 'real responsibility'.

They are 'grown ups now' able to live their lives and do real things.

That said - this for those in decent jobs and most of the generation actually
doesn't believe that 'hard work' is a defining quality. I looked up the
reference but sadly could not find it but from 'greatest generation' to 'baby
boomers' to 'gen X' \- they all put 'hard work' as a top 5 characteristic of
their gen. Gen Y/Z are the first to not include this. It may be a matter of
semantics or wording, or even their perception of _others_ in their generation
as opposed to an objective reality.

------
nononotnot
leading the witness.

Some are some are not.

clickbait nyt

------
golemotron
Signaling.

~~~
golemotron
Why is this downvoted?

~~~
Retra
Reasons.

