Yeah, I've done several stretches like that. The worst stretch was the years when I worked in corp fin in Manhattan. Looking back at it (70 hour weeks were the norm with periods of 100-110 hour weeks) it was crazy, but because everyone else was working the same hours it felt reasonably normal. The hardest stretch for me, however, were the years when I started my own business. It was harder because I was all over the place--raising money, testing products, running the numbers, doing buildout, interviewing vendors, etc. It was the randomness which made it so hard. I could never get into a groove.
6am-11pm white collar hours being called "tough" make me laugh. I've done that as well. No comparison versus the roughnecking days.
I once got a book deal - on the condition that I have it done in 14 days! It was an "insta book" on a breaking news story. I worked 18 hour days for 22 days straight and wrote 300 pages. It was hell, but weirdly fun. Exhausting in the end. I would not do it again.
To be fair, they're different kinds of "tough". I've done the physically taxing two-job thing (landscaping during the day and working on a loading dock at night) and I've done the desk job with long hours. The former was tough because I was physically beat down. The latter was tough because it required mental sharpness long after the time you should be expected to do it.
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.
I researched and wrote my college thesis in about two weeks. Add another half week for revisions and then I presented it and finally graduated. But that was more to do with procrastination. I still was working from morning through night on it. Over 100 pages with some technical stuff to do as well.
Right now I'm doing 12+ hour days and making 500 bucks a month. Oh, grad school. 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.
Back in the early 70's I used to work double shifts at the mill in Roseburg as often as I could get the work. Worked 12 hours at least twice a week for several years there. Worked 12-14 hours a day logging in the 70's, too. At the time I was young and a party animal. Could afford to party hardy with the extra $$$.
Not sure if I was one of the people you were referring to, but for the record I've never had a white collar job in my life.
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.
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.
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).
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
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.
