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  • Pirks - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link

    A few centuries ago most people were working 14 hours a day, just like these nVidia engineers. I'm sure in the distant future this shit will continue. You can say bye to your dreams of 7 hour work day, and a 4 day work week, this ain't gonna fucking happen people, EVEN when robots will replace us. Same shit, same work hard and rest less shit always, be it peasant in 18th century or be it hi-tech engineer in the 21st century.

    People can't be changed by technology, the shit will never end. Period.
  • karasaj - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link

    You sound very doom and gloomy... just because you're working more than 8 hours a day doesn't mean you hate your life. My dad works 12 hours a day frequently as a senior executive and loves his job. I imagine Shield was a highlight or high point of the engineers' working days.
  • Pirks - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link

    Then these poor engineers are virgins and have no sex life, 'cause their wives (if they even had any) immediately had divorced them, no woman tolerates husband who's NEVER at home. Any way you cut it they are fucked. In rare occassion when some wife was spineless and couldn't think for herself and did NOT divorce those people who LIVE at work and chose to withstand this torture - then their kids won't see their father, which is even worse, so maybe some of them are double fucked. This is not gloom, this is real family life man. Get a wife and learn the basics, virgin :P
  • JarredWalton - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link

    Please avoid the offensive and abusive language, Pirks. It's uncalled for.

    While there are plenty of people that may not like the idea of a 14 hour work day, Apple had people wearing t-shirts saying "90 hours per week and loving it" back in the day. I'm sure there are many engineers earning six figure salaries that periodically get put on crunch time for a couple months. Sucks to be them, and I'm guessing that's the "senior team member that quit" portion of the story.
  • Pirks - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link

    Sorry Jarred, didn't mean to offend karasaj or anything. Was just teasing him about realities of family life and work/life balance :)

    I'm sure those Apple virgins didn't love it at all, they were just bluffing. Who would love to work around o'clock and come to the empty house where there's no wife and kids? Only crazy Apple zealots from Cupertino who worshipped Jobs more than their families.
  • karasaj - Saturday, February 2, 2013 - link

    Anandtech needs an edit function >.<

    I'm well aware of the realities of family life and work/life balance. I've spent 7 months in another state co-oping for IBM. I've been in a long distance relationship with my girlfriend for over a year now. My parents are living in a different country. I've spent more than ten hours a day working at that coop and loved it. I'm not married, I'm not some 30 year old with tons of life experience, but with the little bit I have, I have an excellent grasp of what it means to be away from family and to have a ton of work on your plate.

    I traveled for weeks every summer in high school. I probably have more "away from family and working long hours" experience than anybody else I know my age. So please don't try to lecture me on what it's like to live in real life.

    And at GBK and Flanagan: my father was an adopted child who cut firewood for a job in high school. He graduated high school in 3 years and went to west point, and served in the gulf war until he was promoted to captain (and for the record, he hated that. Captain and up is primarily a desk job, and he hated not commanding his soldiers in person).

    He worked as a recruiter and had to travel back and forth for years at a time away from us. He worked as hard as any construction worker you'll ever meet. He's earned his spot. Don't act like he or I was born into wealth because neither of us were. Just because he is what he is now doesn't make him a worthless profit grubbing executive. He manages construction projects across the world; I assure you he is one of the most hardworking men you would ever have the honor to meet.

    Again, sweeping generalizations about a person you've never met based on a single statement are offensive, often untrue, and downright pointless. Just because you haven't been successful in your life or aren't happy with where you are (I can obviously tell based on how antagonistic you were) doesn't mean you can look at somebody who's worked for their position and say "well he's not trying as hard as me"

    For the record, he's the youngest "senior executive" to ever be promoted, ever, in the history of the company (a fortune 500 engineering company founded in 1890, by the way).
  • Pirks - Saturday, February 2, 2013 - link

    No matter what you say leaving your family for life at work is a bad, evil thing. This is what I've been saying from the very beginning. Some naive utopia dreamers proclaimed that robots will free us from heavy work and will leave us with normal kind of work, 8 hour a day, 5 days a week, maybe even less. This is bullshit. amount of work time and divorces and unhappy kids grows, not goes down, women keep pushing birth later and later and later because their career and effing money and ability to buy effing fancy BMW and iphone and all sorts of stupid fashionable shit like that pushed on them by big brands and constant ads is more important than raising family properly and having kids at proper age of 20, not at 45 when they look like effing grandmas. Shit I've seen my neighbor woman recently who gave birth to her first kid at the age of 42, gosh she's ugly like hell now, jeezus :((( I'm now pwning your dad or anything, if you're a soldier of course it's no family life, but I meant general society, normal working people, not outliers like Afghanistan vets and sailors and stuff like that.

    You think I despise your father but this is wrong impression, I respect him. And at the same time, IN GENERAL, NOT relating to your father, I think leaviung family for work is really bad, having kids too late is very bad too, having divorce and letting kids live with just one parent instead of two is very bad either.

    I just hated stupid idiots who were telling us that technology will free us from at least heavy work burden in most cases. This turned out to be lies. It atually got worse, 8 hour work week 5 days with 2 days off is a stuff of dream for many, and it's getting worse as high tech progresses.

    Don't take it personal please. I don't blame your father for what he's done but still leaving family for work is very very bad thing in GENERAL. Kids need parents, especially young ones. You're killing them when you're away for ages and ages. This is cruelty, this is very bad. That was my original point as well.
  • Pirks - Saturday, February 2, 2013 - link

    "I'm now pwning" == "I'm not pwning"
    stupid forum without the edit button :(
  • cosminmcm - Monday, February 4, 2013 - link

    I totally agree with you. I always try to leave as early as I can from work, and come as late as possible. It's not my firm after all. Don't want a raise or anything, as long as you negociate a good salary from the begining you don't need that for some years to come. And when you need a raise, change the job and negociate a better salary.
  • Murloc - Thursday, February 7, 2013 - link

    no one with a brain ever believed that stuff.
    Anyway you're completely free to work only as much as you need to survive and spend more time on building a family.
    It's a personal choice though. Live and let live.
    Truck drivers and sailors don't have to abandon the idea of having a family just because you think it's wrong that they won't be with their kids everyday. It's not fair to them, and you'd be screwed if they all gave up that line of work for a more local job. They sacrifice a lot by doing that kind of job and have the right to have a family and not be judged for it.
  • karasaj - Saturday, February 2, 2013 - link

    The hell? Sounds a TAD like trolling.

    My parents were married, and a week later my dad shipped to Kuwait. They didn't even have a honeymoon for a year. When I was born, he worked 5 days a week in another city, and drove back every week 4 hours there and back, just to be with us. He travels to and from south carolina, Canada, Australia, and Houston all the time. I assure you he isn't a virgin with no sex life. Just because you hate your job and can't imagine working for 12 hours a day doesn't mean everybody hates their life and can't catch a break like you. And before you accuse me of making some sweeping generalizations, look at your own post.
  • HisDivineOrder - Saturday, February 2, 2013 - link

    Or perhaps those poor engineers were well compensated, players (don't hate the players, hate the game), enjoy playing the field with dozens of different women every night when they ARE free, and otherwise enjoy working their late hours when they do.

    Instead of locking themselves into marriage, a mortgage, this bill and that bill and whatever PTA meeting they have next, what their choir group wants to do on Saturday night, going to Church, etc, they get to work doing what they love. Then when they aren't doing that, they go out on the town, pick up girls, and ignore the not-really-awesome call of "family life."

    When they're older and they might want that, they still have enough money and have progressed in said company enough to take better hours, have lots of disposable income, and can enjoy the joys of monogamy or duogamy (if they're really rich) with plenty of time to do so.

    Plus, having done so well by avoiding worrying about family life early in their life when they should be focused on their career, they did much better at their job and got farther up in the company.

    Richer, they can pick up younger women with longer productive years ahead of them who are hotter. They could also make sure to pick up a pre-nup so when the hot, young chick turns out to be a meh wife, well... she can get nothing.

    Being wealthier and wiser, said engineer can also probably swing getting custody of their child (if they like) and if not, pay the young thang a decent alimony.

    He has his family, he has his life, and he endures the realities of "family life" without compromising his job or his passions. This hypothetical engineer can do this because he shrugs off the shackles of the traditional life and embraces the reality we live in today.
  • Pirks - Monday, February 4, 2013 - link

    "enjoy playing the field with dozens of different women every night when they ARE free" - no, they won't play with dozens of different whores because they know about AIDS and they'd rather prefer to stay alive more than 5-10 years you know

    "Instead of locking themselves into marriage, a mortgage, this bill and that bill and whatever PTA meeting they have next, what their choir group wants to do on Saturday night, going to Church, etc, they get to work doing what they love" - I feel sorry for you if you think only AIDS carrying whores can be fun to be with and family is only about mortgage and PTA meetings, you seem to have quite a perverted view of reality

    "they did much better at their job and got farther up in the company" - and then when they have all the money but no time since they are executives they would just hire some shitty teenage nanny and they won't see their kids ever again, why bother spending time with family if you can pay some else to pretend that they care? Do you seriously think you can buy love for your kids?

    "They could also make sure to pick up a pre-nup" - yeal like real hot sexy gold digger is going to allow them to have a pre-nup, keep dreaming. These pros make those engineers so hory no pre-nup is required :)))
  • Pirks - Monday, February 4, 2013 - link

    hory==horny
  • JKflipflop98 - Sunday, February 3, 2013 - link

    What a complete and utter dipshit you are.
  • gbk99 - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link

    "senior executive" ...that is not a real work, with your feet on the table. Have him try unloading a truck by hand or construction. Then he can come home and say I worked. What he does better labeled as fooling around.
  • justaviking - Sunday, February 3, 2013 - link

    Interesting thread. Definitely off-topic from video cards with game bundles.

    I have to chime in about ",,,is not real work, with your feet on the table."

    I have literally picked rocks, stacked bales, and performed a wide variety of manual labor in exchange for a wage. I also know what a desk job is like. While they are completely different, to think that a desk job is not work is simply wrong. Of course there always exceptions (an undeserving boss or a lazy construction worker) but generally speaking both people do work hard and earn their pay.

    In particular, a friend who was an auto mechanic (car repair) complained about his boss sitting in the air conditioned office while he (my friend) did the real work and make money for the shop.

    But when it was time to go home, the mechanic was done for the day. No burdens. No worries. Meanwhile the boss was worrying about how to pay his mechanics next week. Working on next month's advertising budget. Debating which repairs on the building to make and which to defer. Can he hire another mechanic because business is growing, or will hiring another mechanic help attract more business, or does he have too many already?

    In addition to dealing with those issues (plus unhappy customers) during the day, the boss has those burdens and responsibilities weighing on him in the evening and on the weekends.

    If the mechanic makes a mistake, the shop loses a few hundred dollars. If the boss screws up, the shop can lose thousand or even tens of thousands of dollars, and they might have to lay off one of the mechanics. Meanwhile, my friend is at home with his feet up on his coffee table, enjoying his beer, and complaining about the boss who does nothing but sit in the air conditioned office, not realizing that the boss is still at the office that very moment.

    There is also the aspect of responsibility. It's not always easy. You go home tired and exhausted, just in a different way.

    Non-physical labor does not equate to not-working.
  • justaviking - Sunday, February 3, 2013 - link

    I really should have said, "managerial job" when I said, "desk job," since this started talking about engineers, most of whom have desk jobs... but the point is the same.
  • mars2k - Monday, February 4, 2013 - link

    I never work more than 7 hrs a day. Please don't tell my boss.
  • Pirks - Monday, February 4, 2013 - link

    lucky bastard :)
  • IUU - Tuesday, February 5, 2013 - link

    " this ain't gonna fucking happen people, EVEN when robots will replace us. "
    I used to think as you do, but I am not sure anymore. It is like a caveman saying:" whatever magic might exist in the future , I am sure people will continue to walk to get from a to b, and continue to hunt for their food". I guess caveman's thoughts turned out to be prophetic but then again not quite true.
    If robots replace us(which doesn't sound totally cuckoo in view of recent developments in robotics), this will be so disruptive for our everyday rhythms, that we will not know how to handle it. Add to this, the coming of more efficient handling of available energy sources( don't be disheartened by those who like to insist, this will never happen speaking about the terawatts of power our modern civilisation needs), the more efficient, fast and automated handling of matter, the increase of average life span over 100 years, and you get the picture.
    I may sound extremely optimistic, but in reality I am rather pessimistic. We have not developed concepts, social, financial and moral about how a society, that excludes humans from every meaningful productive process(as we imagine it today), would function. This is why I am afraid that our dreams will eventually come true, but they will be a nightmare.
    As for the Nvidia guys, I am sure that 14hrs/day is a stretch, but a phenomenon that:
    a) is usually met in intelligent/active people that are more creative during certain periods(bursts of creativity).
    b)is usually met in people leaving in a distorted financial and social environment that have no other means to survive/achieve their goals than to work for more than 80hrs/week and sometime for more than 100hrs/week.
    In the first case this may not be good, but it is ok, because it comes from free will.
    In the second case it is neither good nor acceptable, because it is a violation of human rights.
    In my life I have fulfilled the criteria for both the aforementioned variants.
  • JeffFlanagan - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link

    Not passion, malicious high-level management that knows they can overwork the people that provide their cushy living.

    The people who produce great things should be rewarded, not tortured with insane hours for the profit of execs with zero skills.
  • russki - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link

    If a person works such hours, they are the only ones that can be blamed for it.
    There's plenty of jobs, you can quit and find another one. But the fact that people had to work 14 hour days means they're understaffed. Also I hope they got OT pay.. if they didnt they'd be pretty stupid.
  • JarredWalton - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link

    It's called a salary. Paid vacation, medical benefits, and very likely NVIDIA pays its top engineers well. But when there's a crunch to hit a goal (e.g. this HAD to be done by CES or it would all be for naught), well, you might get a bonus but they don't have to pay overtime.
  • Death666Angel - Friday, February 1, 2013 - link

    nVidia would be fined huge legal fees here in Germany for those work hours. 10:45 hours (10 hours work, 45 minutes recess) are the maximum allowed in almost all professions and you have to have 11 hours of downtime between shifts.
  • rabidpeach - Saturday, February 2, 2013 - link

    In america, there are rules like this (fines for no Over Time) for hourly employees, like if you're paid $xx/hour. If you are "salary" you can spend your whole life in the office and not see an extra dime. No law prevents that. Salary employees are usually white color and get "benefits" that makes up for this but there are no hours on the job related rules for them.
  • Peanutsrevenge - Monday, February 4, 2013 - link

    It's

    InB4 Project SHIELD can play Crysis (by proxy).

    not and if you need one more reason to like the idea: Project SHIELD can play Crysis (by proxy).

    newb :p
  • JarredWalton - Monday, February 4, 2013 - link

    So, it's incorrect because I failed to completely dumb down the English language? [Rolls eyes]

    Actually, what's really funny to me is the insane flame war up above with crazies going off on both sides of the "what a 14 hour work day, 7 days per week" means. Talk about going WAAAAY off topic....
  • A_Reader - Monday, February 11, 2013 - link

    Pirks used to troll on Dailytech. I haven't seen him in ages.

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