It is a shame that we live in that culture in which you need to constantly pretend to be overworked in order to be seen as productive and efficient.
I agree with you, a lot of people in Silicon Valley are taking it easy one or two days at week while working from home, or leaving early while still pretending they are working 15 hours a day.
Unfortunately businesses (and especially those in Silicon Valley) are obsessed with the idea of looking productive. The amount of work done doesn't particularly matter; it's far easier to point to the plucky young SDE killing themselves by working 80 hour weeks at lower productivity levels rather than the developer who does his 40, gets shit done and then goes home.
There's this strong concept of self-sacrifice as a way of ensuring company success. Sacrifice your life, sacrifice your friends and family for the sake of the company mission. It's only when people start demanding better hours and less abuse will a debate start to arise. And it likely won't be one with a respectful tone.
I agree, but in tech and other highly paid job, workers are actually PROUD to work long hours (and sometimes weekend).
There is that whole narrative that was created that working in a startup/big tech company for long hour is really cool.
People are lying to themselves and to each other to fit into that narrative (Some are really working like crazy, but not the majority of the ones saying so).
I see this mentality a lot and I just don't understand it.
It's an especially odd thing to say when you're all working on the same team, doing similar work: it kind of translates as "I'm so inefficient it takes me twice as many hours to do the same work as the rest of you! Go me!"
No amount of debate, or even enthusiastic agreement, on the part of the "we" that would see this message, would ever result in meaningful changes, if this trend is being driven/caused by upper management.
I posit that it is, much like the trend toward open office plans (which have seen plenty of discussion, if not healthy debate).
Come the end of the day I'm way less productive that the start. It has nothing to do with pretending. I'm just not able to think as clearly or solve problems as quickly.
It's not about being productive and efficient. It's about the company wanting to make sure they've got full value out of you. If you're not working at capacity then they're wasting money.
I agree with you, a lot of people in Silicon Valley are taking it easy one or two days at week while working from home, or leaving early while still pretending they are working 15 hours a day.
We should have a healthy debate about that