I keep seeing and hearing about successful business people and they all bang on about how hard they work. Like they are the only people who work hard!

My 30 odd years experience in business is that the lower grades work harder, for less and are progressively put upon by their so called "hard working" bosses, to produce more for less.

For decades I worked long hours, often without notice, through the night and at weekends, foregoing a large proportion of my private life. I had no choice! I gained very little from this other than the confidence that I could "work like a dog" if needed to. I did this for someone else's benefit. I gave my committment and my loyalty which i was continually reminded was obligatory, but recieved none back in return and now I am feeling the consequences of all this hard work. loyalty and commitment.

If manipulating and exploitng people is hard work (which to me would be), then I have been a lazy fecker!

It's greed that's the problem here, but i hate militant unions too.

Balance and truth is what we need!

Success is not about hard work, it is about convicing someone else to do it for you. If this takes long hours, fine, but it's not really work is it?

For decades I worked long hours, often without notice, through the night and at weekends, foregoing a large proportion of my private life… I gained very little from this other than the confidence that I could "work like a dog" if needed to.

Which really then begs the question of "why?"

I do some long hours (Builing trade tradition) and recently dropped from 55 to 50 a week by negotiating Saturdays off, but I don't work HARD as such. Or travel very far. Or have much responsibilty. I just go home at 5pm and forget about it. Life's too short for that crap.

The joys of capitalism sir!

If your not rich your a failure in life, looser 😉

nope. i work smart, not hard.

I don't think many people who post on here can honestly say they work hard. 😀

the lower grades work harder, for less and are progressively put upon by their so called "hard working" bosses, to produce more for less.

Thats not true, it's just that the chattering classes are better at pretending they're busy.

I'm crap at my job so need to work hard to compensate.

I've just spent a couple of days working in the public sector where people would struggle to define what they do as 'work'. Never mind working hard.

Christ! Some people are in for a rude awakening when Call-Me-Dave gets going. They're going to have to leave la-la-land and return to the world the rest of us inhabit.

And I'm self employed. Don't work – don't eat is the basic premise. I can't turn work away, so sometimes end up working insane ours. Mind you, I waste a lot of time on here too 🙂

I flip flop between long hard late graft and sitting on my arse paying 0.01% attention to what's going on, i rarely work less than a 10 or 11 hour day though.

things have got tougher recently but there's a recession on so i've just MTFU and got on with it

September or october i can work around 32 paid days on average, probably 100+ hours a week

August i will be working precisely 0 days 🙂

Many many successful people took risk and that is always forgotten.
I left a good job, started a company from nothing and with nothing, now employ 20, they all work hard, sometimes harder than me. But not one of them would up and do it alone. I'll maybe do it again sometime soon. In my view big reward usually comes from big risk..at some point.

Success has got **** all to do with hard work and everything to do with opportunity, but successful people need to believe that they are special, and the dream that hard work will pay off keeps the rest of us with our noses to the grindstone.

I tend to deviate between doing next to nothing to working flat out to meet a deadline.

I cant seem to hit the sweet spot in the middle 🙁

Sorry but I really don't judge success in a monetary way like that.# You are right that a lot of well paid business types are insecure, greedy spineless liars but they are not their money or anything they buy. They are insecure, greedy spineless liars.
Luckily you have a choice to change your circumstances just like they do.

#There are also wealthy and nice business people too. Especially the soon to be roper's new boss 🙂

Roughly the same as scu98rkr 🙂
I do get tired of politicians bleating about policies for 'hard working families' though, why the lack of deference for us singleton slackers?

Working Hard? thats normal you mean. 1st one in and last one out.

I aim to work smarter.

Some stuff can be incredibly hard work – the early stages of entrepreneurial stuff for example, where there can be a lot of time pressure, and you're effectively a one man band with his house on the line.

On the other hand, those who make a lot of money in business often assemble a hard working and extremely competent team of managers below them, which makes the business much easier to run and sell.

this forum is full of communists, david comes close though.
pay is reward for risk when it comes to starting your own firm.
Also pay is reward for skills shortage. contary to popular belief there are not that many people with the skills, experiance and determination to run a company. this is why the labor market for Chief execs is well paid.
If you feel undervalued you need to differentiate. If your skill set is widly available then you are never going to get paid beyond the minimum the firm can get away with. If money is an aim for you im afraid the only way to get it is to expose yourself to the risk of failiure (setting up own business, reskill, etc)
(prepares to get flamed for doing an economics degree!)

well I thought I'd actually post something and here seems to be as good as anywhere!!!

I work very hard for about 10-15 days a month and then do squat for the rest of the month. That said I have recently got back on my bike after 3-4 years off it and my doing squat time is fast becoming consumed with riding fixing and shopping

My 10 – 15 days a month are usually 20+ hour days and have strict deadlines like a production manager, and artist and an audience expecting that if doors open at 7.30, doors will actually open at 7.30 and there will be something resembling a lit stage behind those doors.

I generally see it that those higher up don't necessarily work harder, they just stand closer to the fan that the proverbial may hit!

(edited for spelling)

It really rather winds me up when the public sector is generally assumed to do bugger all and not work hard. Personally my staff and colleagues work very hard, long hours at the drop of a hat in an emergency and regularly put themselves out personally for the job.

Please don't tar us all with the same brush.

Work smarter not harder – but in the modern world we just have to do both!

In my short career (15 odd years or so) the workload has risen and the timelines collapsed in industry (Telecoms).

niallmb – theatre darling?

I'm another who tends to sway from doing not very much into working silly hours solidly for weeks on end.

And re. the "senior" people working hard, my boss earns lots of money and works long ish hours (though whether he works harder or longer than me is debatable), however, he is VERY good at his job and he is also the guy who put his house and family on the line to start the business. he deserves his money for taking that risk.

I suppose it depends on your definition of 'hard' work. Is it sitting at a desk grafting for 10hours or is it the results you achieve?

I find alot of my 'work' is done at 5am when I wake up thinking about how to resolve issues / people / stuff. I have very few tasks that I personally own or could sit in isolation and work 'hard' to get done. My job is all about getting others to do things. It is the results you get that are important, not how 'hard' you work

I work hard (i.e long hours, busy and generally under pressure).

Our work generates cash on a time charge basis, and the higher priced fee earners are actually less profitable than more junior fee earners – therefore anyone who isn't a senior associate or partner gets shafted until they bleed.

To be fair though, I would be bored if I wasn't constantly feeling like i'm going to keel over and there's always the carrot of partnership to drive you along when you haven't seen your family in a month.

ho hum.

i saw a comment earlier regarding public sector employees – i think it was a bit unfair to be honest. I've acted for local authorities in the past and there are some extremely hard working people there, however there are some real slackers too (just like there are in the private sector! But I suppose it may be more difficult to hang onto your job if you are lazy in the private sector).

I couldn't work in the public sector mind you, I like a culture of hard work, which I don't think is promoted in the public sector.

Although, I wouldn't mind the flexi time and pension! I probably wouldn't have to work for the rest of this year if I was on flexi time!

I work as hard as I need to to satisfy the requirements of my job spec and provide enough evidence for my company to put me through training course etc that will make me more employable and better paid in the future.

no less, no more

I work for Yossarian PLC, a company set up to provide smiles and good things for me, my wife and kids. no-one else

Man did not descend from the trees in order to go to work. I wish more people would remember this and stop basing their self esteem on what they do, rather than who they are.

i define 'hard work' as rocking up to a venue at 4am, unloading 2 or 3 40ft trailers, climbing ladders of hours on end, eating crap and lifting lots of heavy stuff until x o'clock the next morning.

the most tiring aspect of my job is however sitting on my fat bored arse for hours on end

I also understand that heavy use of the grey cells can be just as tiring, i've never had an office bound job so this falls outside my experience. Mrsmw seems to get very tired using her (not inconsiderable) grey cells

Our work generates cash on a time charge basis, and the higher priced fee earners are actually less profitable than more junior fee earners – therefore anyone who isn't a senior associate or partner gets shafted until they bleed.

Been there, done that and don't envy you at all.

I'm fortunate not to have to work long or unsocial hours.

I work in an office with a couple site visit per week.

So little in the way of danger, some moments of pressure and reasonable pay.

I find it mostly very, very dull though…..

I would be more inclined to 'put more in' to something more interesting.

How hard you work is relative right?

I mean a manual labourer might not be so fit and strong but be working at his limit each day but still under performing when compared to someone else stronger.

On the other hand a desk worker might work 10 hours doing the best he can but still not produce the results that his uncommonly bright colleague can do in less hours whilst also spending time arguing on STW?

So how much do we reward the subjective effort put in or do we should we just care about the output?

Capitalism innit

In my experience a lot of managers "work hard" by putting in long hours of seagull style (flies in, sh1ts everywhere, flies off) interference with their minions, pointless meetings, and other sundry interruptions, therefore causing the people that do the work to get nothing done all day.

I work as hard as I need to to satisfy the requirements of my job spec and provide enough evidence for my company to put me through training course etc that will make me more employable and better paid in the future.

no less, no more

I work for Yossarian PLC, a company set up to provide smiles and good things for me, my wife and kids. no-one else

Man did not descend from the trees in order to go to work. I wish more people would remember this and stop basing their self esteem on what they do, rather than who they are.

Here here, I work to fill in the time between rides and spending time with my wife

mrmichaelwright – no, concerts. can't be doing with all the lovies in the theatre side of things (no offence if any of them reside here). Used to do theatre but the money's verging on offensive for how hard theatre techs work and there's just a much bigger buzz with music.

who'd you work for or are you a lancer

corporate whore myself, my annual dabble with rock and roll extends to the RAD heights of Daniel O'Donnel's tours 🙂

there's a couple of lampies on here (technically i'm not really a lampy although i do have my lampy hat on today)

Yes I work very hard

I'm confused about this public sector bashing. I don't know where you're going but here our staff in some departments start at 7, leave at 10 when the Councillors meetings have finished, and only get paid for half of that. Others rack up 30+ hr flexi time which they never take. Some of us cancel plans to go to festivals at the drop of a hat because work needs doing and another department needs help.
Some people in the public sector doss about. Some people work their behinds off. IME of private sector, it's not different here.
I work hard. But I like my job. So I'm the idiot who ends up finding broken things to fix when I'm quiet.

mrmichaelwright – freelance lampie. I occassionally dabble in the corporate world but i have an allergic reaction to suits and therefore can't really be in the same room as several for a prolonged period of time!!!!

drop us some contact details to mrmichaelwright@hotmail.com if you want

there's often a shortage of lampies in the midlands and one of the main ones is about to get out of the game.

mind you, i see you describe yourself as an LD, does that mean white gloves are a pre-requisite? 😉

currently blocking out a whole room of suits using a combination of this website, facebook and itunes. My 8 generics and 4 movers can look after themselves for now.

I work 14 * 12 hour shifts a month – so more time off than on. 4 of them are nights where I just watch sky movies and have a nap. The 10 day shifts I plan my rides and look at the web! 😛