"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
In article , Matt Barrow wrote:
Personally, I'd rather have the shorter working week and the time off!

I'll take the 70 hour weeks and still have enough to take several nice
vacations each year.

So long as you can get the vacation time;

I work for myself (I own the company).

at least when working in the
US for a major computer firm people worked the 70+ hour weeks and were
expected to not take their paltry two weeks of paid leave.

To every instance there is a reciprocal.

And as I said, suit yourself. OTOH, many nations have a lagging (and
diminishing) standard of living and are gritting their teeth in ENVY.

I'm sorry, but I work to live, not live to work.

Me too. I work 70 hour weeks for 10 months of the year and 40 hour weeks
when we do a month at our summer home.

Unfortunately, I've run into SOOOO many people (professionally and
personally) that don't have much (or any) motiviation, but they expect
people that are willing to work to support them (welfare). Some entire
nations operate that way.


Although I *greatly*
enjoy what I do, after that experience, sorry - no more unpaid overtime
until I'm either running a business or in upper management if I so
choose to eventually follow that career. I can still do office work even
if I was to have an accident and end up in a wheel chair (or just get
old). But I don't want to be 80 years old and look back and say that I
wish I had gone out and done something that required youth and fitness,
but didn't to get some more unpaid overtime in at the office!

I felt that way too, until I had kids and then got laid off at 43 years old
in a dead job market. Now, it's worth it for the independance, the
prosperity (lot's more) and I even take more, longer, and better vacations
than when I was working in the corporate world.


It cost me dearly (in lost income) to take months off when I finished

The purpose of working harder/longer is to have the time/resources to play
longer/better.

with the project I was working on in the US, but it was worth an order
of magnitude more than the lost income to fly my Cessna 140 across the
US from coast to coast. That trip was priceless.

As was my trip two years ago to Virginia to see my son commissioned in the
Navy. We took our Bonanza and made a couple stops along with way both going
out and coming back. Nine days and $8K total.