{"id":6146,"date":"2023-01-15T18:57:11","date_gmt":"2023-01-16T01:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/?p=6146"},"modified":"2023-01-15T18:57:14","modified_gmt":"2023-01-16T01:57:14","slug":"i-did-that-once","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/2023\/01\/i-did-that-once\/","title":{"rendered":"I did that once…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Over Christmas and new year\u2019s, I was stuck and home getting over the plague of the moment. I had a nasty cough and I found that if I didn\u2019t speak or use my voice I could avoid painful coughing fits.

I consumed a lot of audiobooks, podcasts and YouTube. Towards the end I watched a reaction video to an old Jordan Peterson interview.

A female British reporter asked Peterson to explain why almost all top CEOs are male. His reply indicated that it\u2019s a hard job that most people\u2014male or female\u2014don\u2019t want to do, and it takes working 70 to 80-hour workweeks. You can catch it here at 12:21<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over Christmas and new year\u2019s, I was stuck and home getting over the plague of the moment. I had a nasty cough and I found that if I didn\u2019t speak or use my voice I could avoid painful coughing fits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I consumed a lot of audiobooks, podcasts and YouTube. Towards the end I watched a reaction video to an old Jordan Peterson interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A female British reporter asked Peterson to explain why almost all top CEOs are male. His reply indicated that it\u2019s a hard job that most people\u2014male or female\u2014don\u2019t want to do, and it takes working 70 to 80-hour workweeks. You can catch it here at 12:21<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m my sick haze I flashed on a memory. Throughout my career, I\u2019ve made very intentional choices about the steps I want to take. Years ago, I heard about how high-level executives have to work 80 hours a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That number made me tilt my head and wonder. There are 168 hours in a week. Half of my waking hours would be work. I thought of the people knew who were supposedly in that high level position and I determined that it was a myth. No way did they ACTUALLY work 80 hours, they must have exaggerated. These top-of-the-org-charts types are likely to exaggerate, anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I calculated it is not possible<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n


I was assigned projects at work that had me working 80+ hours a week. Part of the requirement was to track the hours I worked on each project in 15 minutes increments, so I was very sure that I was truly working these hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way it came to pass was I started my day working on European projects at 7 am. I then managed reporting and overseeing on a project that was night work in the Pacific time zone. This work involved holding  daily kickoff for the work that started at 6 PM, and finished somewhere between 2 or 5 in the morning. I slept on the couch with my phone to answer any questions that might come up thoughout the night. I set my alarm to call the team lead by 4 AM to take a report on the work that happened each night and compose a report to the suits about the progress, problems and their remediation plans. Sometimes the work was done earlier. Sometimes they were still going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The workload was brutal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could only do this because it was well planned and the actions were previously decided before we started on this work. It was a HARD LIFT to have to think and write that daily progress report at 4 in the morning. In fact, I created a draft of it the night before after the kickoff meeting when I was more alert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That night work was 6 weeks. I had my taste of 80+ hours of work a week. I know what it takes to actually work that long. Sleep is the first thing that\u2019s lost, followed quickly by clarity of thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still think most CEOs are exaggerating that 80 hours, but the tippy top ones might not be. I am however, convinced that I do not want to choose that lifestyle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are choices. My manager at the time kept asking me if I was ok. I could have asked for help and handed some of the work off. I am not sure that would have been accepted, honestly. It\u2019s possible this might have been some kind of test. But I didn\u2019t have to stay in the game, I could have quit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I knew then, and I still know now what it would take to be that kind of worker. I know with certainty that I CAN do it and that I do not WANT to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much respect for those who do want to do it. Now that I\u2019ve had the sample, and I know the taste of that choice I am finding other ways to fulfil my ambition. I\u2019m making other choices. I can make an informed decision on how I want my career to go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n



I\u2019m my sick haze I flashed on a memory. Throughout my career, I\u2019ve made very intentional choices about the steps I want to take. Years ago, I heard about how high-level executives have to work 80 hours a week.

That number made me tilt my head and wonder. There are 168 hours in a week. Half of my waking hours would be work. I thought of the people knew who were supposedly in that high level position and I determined that it was a myth. No way did they ACTUALLY work 80 hours, they must have exaggerated. These top-of-the-org-charts types are likely to exaggerate, anyway.

I calculated it is not possible

Until\u2026

I was assigned projects at work that had me working 80+ hours a week. Part of the requirement was to track the hours I worked on each project in 15 minutes increments, so I was very sure that I was truly working these hours.

The way it came to pass was I started my day working on European projects at 7 am. I then managed reporting and overseeing on a project that was night work in the Pacific time zone. This work involved holding daily kickoff for the work that started at 6 PM, and finished somewhere between 2 or 5 in the morning. I slept on the couch with my phone to answer any questions that might come up thoughout the night. I set my alarm to call the team lead by 4 AM to take a report on the work that happened each night and compose a report to the suits about the progress, problems and their remediation plans. Sometimes the work was done earlier. Sometimes they were still going.

The workload was brutal.

I could only do this because it was well planned and the actions were previously decided before we started on this work. It was a HARD LIFT to have to think and write that daily progress report at 4 in the morning. In fact, I created a draft of it the night before after the kickoff meeting when I was more alert.

That night work was 6 weeks. I had my taste of 80+ hours of work a week. I know what it takes to actually work that long. Sleep is the first thing that\u2019s lost, followed quickly by clarity of thought.

I still think most CEOs are exaggerating that 80 hours, but the tippy top ones might not be. I am however, convinced that I do not want to choose that lifestyle.

There are choices. My manager at the time kept asking me if I was ok. I could have asked for help and handed some of the work off. I am not sure that would have been accepted, honestly. It\u2019s possible this might have been some kind of test. But I didn\u2019t have to stay in the game, I could have quit.

I knew then, and I still know now what it would take to be that kind of worker. I know with certainty that I CAN do it and that I do not WANT to do it.

Much respect for those who do want to do it. Now that I\u2019ve had the sample, and I know the taste of that choice I am finding other ways to fulfil my ambition. I\u2019m making other choices. I can make an informed decision on how I want my career to go.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over Christmas and new year\u2019s, I was stuck and home getting over the plague of the moment. I had a nasty cough and I found that if I didn\u2019t speak or use my voice I could avoid painful coughing fits. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-random-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6146"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6153,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6146\/revisions\/6153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/writtenbymurphy.com\/wonderblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}