Is there more to life than just work?

[Anonymous]

You sound like a baby . Eat grapefruit and run up and down stairs every hour on the hour

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much do you get paid? Are you making at least $300k and/or a lot of equity in a promising AI company? Then stick it out for a couple more years, otherwise change jobs asap. You need to think of your career as a marathon. If you get burned out and shocked by 14 hour days at 26 you impact your earning trajectory for the rest of your career. In the early years you want to stretch yourself, not traumatize yourself. No clue how someone can do intellectual work for 12-14 hours a day, 4-5 max, anything beyond that is useless work.

+1
The reality is that people are spending a lot of time at work, but they are not producing a lot of results.

In any case, OP, here are the things that are working great for you -
- You have a well paying job, a Master's degree from one of the top CS schools
- Your parents are on board to have you at home and take your time - if that is ever a concern.
- You are young.

My advice to you also will be to don't be too devoted to your work. Get a few strategic wins but carve out some time to take small breaks during the day, do some breathing exercise, get in your steps, make good choices for eating etc. And keep looking for new jobs.

[Anonymous]

One last thing - don't start drinking or gambling, just because things are looking grim. Don't take any step that will make a hard situation worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound like a baby . Eat grapefruit and run up and down stairs every hour on the hour

Agreed

[Anonymous]

Don't sacrifice your mental or physical health for dollars. It's not worth it.

That said, you can work long hours and still be mentally and physically fit. Previous posters have given advice on how - money makes it easier to do so. Maximize the value of your time away from work. That means don't spend it doing laundry or cleaning your apartment. Outsource.

Most importantly, you need to determine if this level of labor is actually necessary. Is everybody clocking 12 hour days every day? Or is it just you / a few of you / your team? I see lots of people work under assumptions they've made without confirmation only to find out they made the cage they're living in.

Either way, try to stick with it for a few years and then pivot. I'm a CISO at a tech company and I'd gladly hire an early career dev with AI experience. I don't know if I'll match your comp, but I'll sure as hell beat your current work/life balance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You sound like a baby . Eat grapefruit and run up and down stairs every hour on the hour

Probably compared to bitter loser oldies like you, OP is indeed very young.

Plus OP's parents support OP, unlike whatever dysfunction spawned you, pp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Reach out to your parents for help if possible.

I would visit my DS/DS, once every 2-3 weeks to sort out cleaning, laundry, freeze ready to eat meals and generally make things easier for my adult kids.

Please tell me you’re kidding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Don't sacrifice your mental or physical health for dollars. It's not worth it.

That said, you can work long hours and still be mentally and physically fit. Previous posters have given advice on how - money makes it easier to do so. Maximize the value of your time away from work. That means don't spend it doing laundry or cleaning your apartment. Outsource.

Most importantly, you need to determine if this level of labor is actually necessary. Is everybody clocking 12 hour days every day? Or is it just you / a few of you / your team? I see lots of people work under assumptions they've made without confirmation only to find out they made the cage they're living in.

Either way, try to stick with it for a few years and then pivot. I'm a CISO at a tech company and I'd gladly hire an early career dev with AI experience. I don't know if I'll match your comp, but I'll sure as hell beat your current work/life balance.

Good advice.

[Anonymous]

This is OP .

I'm working at a fast-paced AI company where the development team puts in 12 to 14 hours a day, not including the commute. We're required to be in the office four days a week. There are ten of us on the team, all between 23 and 29 years old. My team lead practically lives at the office. Seven out of ten of us are overweight now—including me—and the stress is taking a serious toll. While the pay and stock options are great, it's hard to enjoy any of it. The company is aiming to be acquired by another AI company in the next two years, so everyone is hanging on in the hope of a big payout. One colleague already quit because he couldn’t handle the stress, and I feel like I’m not far behind. I'm completely drained by the time I get home. My typical day starts at 6:30 a.m. and doesn’t end until 9 p.m., followed by a 30-minute commute, dinner, and checking emails from the team. I’m in bed by 11:30 p.m., up again at 5:45 a.m., and out the door by 6. Every day feels like Groundhog Day.

[Anonymous]

How much iou make

[Anonymous]

Have you ever worked in a manual labor job? You really need perspective for hard work. I’m sure you are very skilled and earned it, but the reward is high pay AND potential huge payout, not a 4 day work week. Google, a huge established company, expects 65-hr work weeks of their AI engineers — you are at a startup so this is not surprising.

Just stop snacking, drink more tea, and hold out for two years. The whole point of this is that brass ring where you never have to work again. Don’t throw that away.

That said, how much equity do you have as a percentage of company? Do you have protections from dilution or clawbacks? In recent years investors and founders have gotten better at hoarding the upside of a big exit, so maybe get a lawyer to see if this will really pay off

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Life is also much more than playing pickleball, piano, and guitar, and working out. You need $ in order to afford a certain quality of life. Most people realize that maximizing employment potential early on in a career is key to achieving a higher income and more job satisfaction sooner rather than later. Applying the brakes early will give you more free time, and a permanently impaired earning capacity, which will impact you for the rest of your life.

Maybe you're a person who can be content with little $; I'm told they exist. Most people, however, prefer more $ to less, and find a way to balance the requirements of a demanding professional life against a reasonable amount of leisure.

Early on, leisure should take a back seat in that juggling act, but should still be there even if at a modest level. Over time, as you become wealthier and more financially secure, you can slowly change the relative balance of work to leisure, and your leisure time will be enhanced by your greater wealth - you can have nicer possessions, nicer vacations, and more financial security. That last consideration is arguably the most important of all. It may enable you to retire earlier than would otherwise have been possible, at which point your quality of life could potentially increase exponentially when compared to needing to work many more years because you took a professional off-ramp early on and were permanently relegated to a lower level of income and, probably, job satisfaction. I certainly was happier at work the higher i rose in the organization - money, respect, power, flexibility, all come with professional achievement. You can tell other people what to do, instead of always being on the receiving end.

I’d argue most people don’t realize this. Plenty of hard working people focus way more on savings and maxing out a 401k, then they do climbing the ladder. But the latter will often result in better returns. I did a terrible job saving in my 20s but I’m now in my 40s with a high earning and flexible job. Now it’s easy for me to throw $100-200k a year into investments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is OP .

I'm working at a fast-paced AI company where the development team puts in 12 to 14 hours a day, not including the commute. We're required to be in the office four days a week. There are ten of us on the team, all between 23 and 29 years old. My team lead practically lives at the office. Seven out of ten of us are overweight now—including me—and the stress is taking a serious toll. While the pay and stock options are great, it's hard to enjoy any of it. The company is aiming to be acquired by another AI company in the next two years, so everyone is hanging on in the hope of a big payout. One colleague already quit because he couldn’t handle the stress, and I feel like I’m not far behind. I'm completely drained by the time I get home. My typical day starts at 6:30 a.m. and doesn’t end until 9 p.m., followed by a 30-minute commute, dinner, and checking emails from the team. I’m in bed by 11:30 p.m., up again at 5:45 a.m., and out the door by 6. Every day feels like Groundhog Day.

Hey OP. I had similar hours and environment after college. I hated my life. Hated it. I felt lost since I didn’t have other options (besides more of the same) and knew I had a high paying job. I was depressed and thought the rest of my life looked like this.

This isn’t forever even though it feels like that now. Once you’ve hit the year or two year mark, start looking. You should network now to the extent you can manage. You can find better jobs and ones with fewer hours. Try to get promoted now, do what you can to build your resume.

It doesn’t seem like it now but grinding it out can pay off.

[Anonymous]

Don’t quit your job, you will regret it. Down shifting to a lower paying career would be disastrous. The money will make it worth it, trust me.

[Anonymous]

Your health is more important than this work. You don’t want to drop dead from a heart attack in your 20s