60 hrs? I remember my first part time job.
60 hrs is the standard for my industry (industrial construction). I’d say 90% of my career for the last decade has been 6 days a week, usually 58-60 hrs.
In 2016 I did a 3.5 month stint of 12 hrs/day, 7 days a week, with every other Sunday off. December 2017-May 2018 I did 6 months of those same hours. I haven’t had a sick day in 9 years and even when working a lot, we still exercise 3x/wk, get plenty of sleep, and eat healthy.
Everyone’s different, some people think 40hrs is terrible. As long as I’m hourly or on a day rate I have no problem picking up extra hours, especially now that I’m to the point that I can take sabbaticals in between longer projects.
Am I correct in assuming you work straight days?
To provide 24/7 coverage we swing from night shift to day shift every week which limits the maximum working days in a row to 6. Normal shift with changeover is 13 hours, 16 hours max.
How would you say your personal life / relationship(?) was affected by averaging a 78 hour work week for 6 months?
Yes - this was only day shift. Usually 6-6 or 7-7. The first long stint of 12’s in 2016 was very physical. I was in a refinery climbing through pipe racks in a harness in Louisiana heat for about 9-10 of the 12 hours. I lost around 8 lbs the first month and I was already thin.
The second stint was 90% office work. I came into a terribly failing project as it was about 80% complete and was responsible for turning a lot of it around. It was the most messed up and stressful job and 6 months of my life. I was getting paid time and a half and held on. I was appreciated by the people that mattered at least (had up to 22 direct reports at one point) I left that job last summer.
As for your questions - I am married and my wife doesn’t work. My wife is truly an amazing woman. She doesn’t work (we don’t have kids) but she makes my life as easy as possible to work those hours, and even during my regular 60 hrs the rest of my career. She makes breakfast while I’d get ready in the morning. She’d cook and pack delicious, healthy meals. She ran all the errands, all the shopping, etc. so while I worked a ton, my time not working was spent at the gym with my wife several times a week, we still did date nights every weekend, lots of Netflix and relaxing during the week.
I had worked similar hours while young and single (usually 10 hrs 7 days a week) and it was somewhat hard but I enjoyed the money and being young helped.)
I can’t stress how fortunate I am to have such a supportive wife (and I make sure she knows that). She never, ever complains about my hours, she’s more mustachian than me, etc. Since I am a contract worker, we’re now to the point that we can take good sabbaticals between jobs. Unfortunately (we’ll, fortunately too) I’m about a year into what will be a 2.5 year stretch of straight work. its leveraging us towards FIRE fast.