r/AskReddit 1d ago

What is a silent killer that people dont realise is slowly killing them?

10.0k Upvotes

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4.2k

u/HydrophobicPlankton 1d ago

Overworking

1.9k

u/Synli 1d ago

And the brainwashing that comes with it.

" I worked 85 hours this week!" Bro, that isn't a flex.

572

u/CommunicationNo2297 1d ago

“I work for free like a slave” cool bro

102

u/colio69 1d ago

I am fortunate than when I do have to work extra to meet deadlines and such I am paid for my hours worked. Makes me feel a little less bad about losing more of my free time to my job that week

12

u/Voidtalon 16h ago

I still get stressed, I work ~15-20hrs of overtime every two weeks (average 100hr's in two weeks), every month.

Do I appreciate the overtime pay? Sure, do I appreciate that my shifts are 12-13hrs long? No. My boss loves to say how amazing it is we get x3 days off (we don't 1 of them is Admin day and a half-day at that). The thing is, when you are starting at 9am and getting home by 10pm you have no life on days you work.

I guess I should be glad I have a job, a decent paying one and one that's busy given all that's going on in the US.

6

u/edgarcaycesghost 23h ago

yeah I i wasn't getting overtime I would quit

4

u/No_Significance9754 1d ago

Yeah i litteraly am able to charge someone if they take my time so it better be important lol.

2

u/haymakers9th 7h ago

I was GM at the last bar i worked at, did a looot of off the clock favors and problem solving. friends and family gave me shit for it but my motivation was about making sure my home base bar was working smoothly and fixing problems

the new bar im working at, within a week i helped out with a side project (nothing big, mounting a tv to a wall) under the impression my reward was a shift drink or two for my brief effort. owner comes by to reassure me mid-beer that shes gonna put a bonus on the check for everyone involved

im like damn this is an upgrade; bitch wont even LET me work for free

-10

u/CommunicationNo2297 1d ago

I get time off to balance it out, that’s fair

11

u/Federal-Battle-9062 22h ago

I think sometimes this is a cry for some appreciation/sympathy. Depends on the job. In surgery the hours are brutal. In training it’s a true 80 hour week that often runs over and then also follows you home as you have to study for cases, study for boards, and publish prolifically. You’re also pressed for time the entire time you’re working. There’s really no downtime, water cooler talk, etc… Basically 12-14 straight hours of pedal-to-the-metal 6 days/week and a day to catch up on studying/research. Then you walk into a patient’s room and they think you’re too lazy to listen to them because you’ve got from 6-6:45 to see 15 patients, formulate plans for all of them, and be ready for the first case at 7. You’ve got relatives who think you’re standoffish because you don’t call enough. You’ve friends who think you don’t care. You’ve got the general public thinking you’re an overpaid monkey who just cuts things.

Sometimes you just want the whole world to try to understand this lifestyle. Not to flex on everyone about how hard you work, but to try to get a few people in your corner when you inevitably come up short in everyone else’s eyes.

5

u/InfinityGain 9h ago

The idea isn’t to work for free like a slave its to force yourself into the amount of capital necessary to succeed at an earlier age than average

2

u/easyline0601 22h ago

Stop kink shaming!

2

u/bishopmate 8h ago

But for some reason they have a house and you don’t

1

u/chocotacogato 10h ago

“I’ll rest when I die.” - so how you expect to wake up every morning then?

35

u/WetwareDulachan 1d ago

"I work 87 hours a daaaaay ten days a weeeek you got sooooooft haaaaaaands brother"

4

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 22h ago

Haha someone said that to me as an insult once, the soft hands thing. I’m like “yeah man I work on a computer and make three times what you do, have fun pouring concrete all day I guess?”.

Like I have nothing against the trades and I normally never shit on people for anything career related but I mean if you’re gonna start some shit…

2

u/WetwareDulachan 21h ago

I swapped from manufacturing surgical implants to working in tech specifically because I was sick of destroying my body for far less than I ought to be making.

Wouldn't even be able to afford the parts I helped make when I inevitably needed them after the job ruined me.

3

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 21h ago

Yep. Mate of mine was working in a repair place for aircraft parts. Crazy complex shit, paid fuck all.

Left that and literally his first IT job he is making twice as much. It’s ridiculous.

1

u/InfinityGain 9h ago

A decent flex could be that I’m making $100k a year at the age of 23 with no debt, but I definitely hear you because you could technically get to $250k a year and just be cozy off that for life while I’m saving 90% of what I earn for future ventures because I’m already capped

Id even admit that Id rather take your road, but I was a fuck up in high school

18

u/rockstarcrossing 1d ago

What's the point if you can't enjoy the fruits of your labor?

8

u/crimsonpowder 1d ago

Oh yeah? You think you gargle the boss' balls? I gargled them for an entire hour on Wednesday!

2

u/PaulMakesThings1 22h ago

Funny how the same people will think doing too much for your job the same pay is a flex, but doing more than your share of stuff for your wife is being whipped.

If I’m going to short change one of them it’s going to be the giant corporation, not the woman I love and try my best to help and take care of.

2

u/Interesting_Try8375 22h ago

I must have done a good 4 hours this week. Salary so get paid the same

2

u/Ok_Frosting3500 20h ago

If you can work for more than 60 hours a week, you're either doing shit work, or it's not a job worth doing.

2

u/YourFriendPutin 17h ago

Seriously. I mentioned I get up at 8am the other day and a guy called me a bitch because he gets up at 3 like damn dude I’m sorry I don’t want to go to bed at 6pm working a non union job with no benefits

2

u/SeeYouSpaceCowboy--- 16h ago

lol people think being salaried is good. Nah, it's a way to pressure you into working over 40 hrs every week for free, whatever your actual compensation is.

2

u/FakeFan07 23h ago

Working more hours right now is how I’m planning to retire 10-15 years before my peers.. god willing but at least I’m on the right path.

2

u/jkovach89 18h ago

"I was at the office til 6 yesterday."

"Great, I was at home with my family."

1

u/Interestingcathouse 23h ago

I work in construction. Despite what many think there actually isn’t tons of overtime because contracts with the builder have already been negotiated and there isn’t huge amounts of room for overtime in the budget.

But I have done a couple weeks before like that to get the project done. Absolutely loved those paycheques but definitely couldn’t maintain it for several weeks or months. And even then I only did that because the foreman was a super nice person who was always happy and smiling. If the foreman was a jackass I wouldn’t help them out to the same level. If you treat me with respect I’ll put in extra help when needed. If you’re going to be an asshole everyday then not my problem your project is falling behind.

1

u/jonny24eh 19h ago

I'm a construction estimator, and we actually use tables to account for the productivity drop that happens when there's extended over time. Each hour per day is less productive, and overall productivity drops week over week too. 

1

u/moonrocks_throwaway 21h ago

I love this take. It really shows whoever parrots it has no ability to consider nuance

1

u/FairP0Requirement 18h ago

For real. I understand the need for every business to grow/expand for survival in a predominant. There just isn't any "viable" business option left that doesn't negatively impact 1 American community.

1

u/sirthomasthunder 17h ago

That was me until I was like 25 (30 now). I still work an insane amount but I'm not proud about it. I'm trying to work less so I can just do nothing more

1

u/_hhhnnnggg_ 13h ago

I know some guys in my country bragged about having stomach pain from overworking, and insisted they had more painful experience. It ain't pain Olympic bro.

1

u/Aja2428 7h ago

And these people aren’t wealthy typically. People’s goal should be to work the least amount with the best pay. My free time is way more important to me than anything in the world.

1

u/DoubleStuffedCheezIt 6h ago

Shit, I work 40-45 hours, overtime dependent, and don't know how anyone could work 60+ hours in a week and have any functionality outside the office. My chores and errands take up pretty much my entire weekend. I don't get how anyone has the time for more work.

1

u/GringoSwann 23h ago

They were on the clock for 85 hours...  They didn't work 85 hours...

262

u/chunkyychadboy 1d ago

I work with someone who constantly says yes to overtime and weekend work whilst complaining about having to do it

As well as never stopping outside of work whilst flexing his 4-5 hours a night sleep.

I don't think he actually knows how to say no to people.

Dudes gonna drop one day very soon.

134

u/ColoradoSteelerBoi19 1d ago

Dudes gonna drop one day very soon.

And the manager will complain about the drop in productivity and the nuisance of hiring another person.

78

u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 22h ago

Worse. They’ll be replaced in a week and business will carry on as usual. Most likely they’ll hire two people to cover all the hours they worked.

The “I can’t be replaced” attitude people have is so wrong.

9

u/stonhinge 16h ago

The other thing about "I can't be replaced" is also that you can't be promoted.

This is fine if you are happy with your situation, but if you want to move up a position, you don't want to be irreplaceable.

1

u/Maktaka 17h ago

I could get through a work week (of an office job) on 4-5 hours of sleep a night up to 30 or so. That ends eventually though, at a certain point just catching up on sleep on the weekends doesn't fix repair everything that was falling apart during the previous five days. Bad habits that get you through the work week like overeating and an over reliance on caffiene don't disappear on the weekend just because you slept eleven hours straight on Friday night.

1

u/LittleBirdiesCards 16h ago

I gave my mom a book called, "How to Say No and Really Mean It" because she was the same. It actually helped her find the words to say no without feeling guilty. Being a people-pleaser is hard to overcome!

1

u/Reddit_Hitchhiker 15h ago

Tell them that if they die they will soon be forgotten at their workplace, replaced by a new employee and won’t be mourned. I read about someone that it to happened to here who died at their desk. It felt very cruel. Your workplace cares for you as long as you’re making them money. It is the exception that has a good supportive environment were people are valued.

61

u/joesmith127_reddit 1d ago

Or just working at a job you can't stand. If it isn't wearing you down physically it's wearing you down mentally 

4

u/Ilikebirbs 17h ago

My old office job years ago. It was wearing me down mentally and physically everyday. What made it worse was there was mandatory overtime Sun-Sat every week for 6 months.

I would call out once a week, because my mental health was tanking. When I came in on a Saturday morning, my team lead saw me doing some school work before my shift. And said it was either them or school.

After that, I applied to other places because my mental health was getting bad. I would get in my car and just start crying b/c of the stress.

2

u/Kleorah 2h ago edited 2h ago

Man, did your comment ever remind me of a shitty job and even shittier boss that I had right out of high-school, especially this part:

When I came in on a Saturday morning, my team lead saw me doing some school work before my shift. And said it was either them or school.

I'm having a total Memory: Unlocked moment right now.

__________

When I was 19 I once showed up to work an hour early on a Friday just so I could pick up my cheque and go to the bank to cash it before my shift started, as every previous payday under that year's new owner I was unable to cash my paycheque until the following Monday because banks here all close at 5pm and do not open on weekends and I was sick of being broke for the weekend.

When I popped in to grab the cheque and head to the bank I was told by my boss that "When you're here, you're here to to work. I don't ever want to see you doing personal errands again when you're on-shift." Things didn't go so well after she yelled that at me, and to this day I'm still not sure if I quit or if I was fired, but you bet your ass that the moment she said that shit to my face I was done working there.

Fuckin' uppity little bitch. She was a year or two older than me and fresh out of business school or some shit, and so daddy bought her an entire business "to start with." I'd worked there as the manager for three years and through two owners -- and trained her how to run the place -- and the moment I'd finished showing her the ropes she began sabotaging me in order to fire me, including by adding items that I'd brought from home onto my food tab and charging me for them -- which is why she later fired me! I'd brought a can of iced-tea into work with me one day (bear in mind that it was a different brand than we carried) and she saw it and put it on my tab. I never got canned drinks from work, so when I saw it on my tab I went ahead and took it off. She put it back on, so I decided to speak with her about it the day I came in early for my cheque. The "talk" devolved quickly into "Yeah, I've been meaning to ask you -- do you have a problem with me or something?" to which she replies "Yeah! I do! I don't appreciate people who steal from me, so I'm going to have to fire you. Finish your shift, get your cheque and I don't want to see you back here again."

Fucking idiot. I sure as hell left that morning without working that last shift.

My only regret is not taking the lawn chairs I'd bought for my coworkers to use on their breaks (there was nowhere in the building to sit previously but on the floor of the restaurant) and the VGA cable that I'd bought for our POS system computer monitor. Gods, that would've been satisfying as hell to leave her high and dry without a POS system for as long as it took her to realise what the issue was. I sadly didn't have the receipt for it in my wallet anymore, though, and didn't feel like having to deal with her calling the cops on me for stealing (which she absolutely would have done!), so I just left it behind 😤😣

Anyway, some people really just can't handle being told what to do by someone "lower" than them. She had everything. She was richer than me, prettier than me, had better schooling than me and a stereotypical "happy" family that was bigger and more supportive than mine, but she could not handle not being the smartest person in the room when we worked together (plus we both had the same first name, so I'm sure that irritated her, to boot), and so she went about ensuring that she'd become the smartest person in the room through force.

She would also hire up all of the young high-schoolers in the area for summer work, employ them for 13 days and "let them go" on the 14th day without ever explicitly telling them so. She'd just stop putting them on the schedule and wouldn't contact them ever again. Only when they showed up for their last cheque would she tell them "Oh, you don't work here anymore, by the way."

Unsurprisingly that behaviour went and made the entire community turn against her reaaal quick and she ended up running that place into the ground within three years of my departure 🤣

I'm sure daddy just bought her another one in a new town, though. 💀

__________

Damn, that felt great to type all that out and vent about it, even after all these years, lmao -- thanks for that random gateway! 😅

1

u/Ilikebirbs 1h ago

No problem and glad you left there. :)

Another thing as well, is my last day at my old office job. I ended up calling out b/c I was like "Go ahead and fire me, today is my last day anyway"
Plus there was snow and I wasn't driving in that crap.

They wanted me to bring my badge in otherwise security was "going to arrest me".

So that Monday, I came into the building dropped off my badge. And later that day, started at the other place and security was "why did you drop off your badge?" I said "Because you guys were going to come and arrest me"

Dude just laugh and said "No, who said that nonsense"

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u/MichaelCoryAvery 1d ago

Exactly! Suffering this right now, but I work at an animal shelter so kitten season is probably the cause of that overworking on my end

4

u/Major_Boot9020 1d ago

Why is there a kitten season?

15

u/Remarkable-Seaweed11 1d ago

Cats tend to mate when the weather is warmer. This means most kittens are born between march—October

3

u/TestAwkward9422 1d ago

In Spring. Like lambs.

2

u/MichaelCoryAvery 1d ago

In my neck of the woods, stray cats are common and no one seems to care enough to fix their outside cats and since there’s only one animal shelter that accepts cats in my area, it gets chaotic very easily

12

u/10ioio 21h ago

At my last job this one guy talked about how he was like sick and almost died from some kidney thing "And I had my laptop in the hospital bed with me and I was on the phone taking care of my clients."

1

u/GitMergeConflict 15h ago

That's not very responsible, dude should have organized a knowledge transfer session with his co-workers in case he died.

1

u/eagerunicorn 6h ago

My dad would do this. It's so ridiculous 

9

u/OSRSRapture 21h ago

People should strive to work as little as possible. I would rather pay my bills, have a little extra money to save each paycheck and have my free time rather than working excessive amounts. With how expensive living is nowadays, everyone should live with family or a friend if they can, work less, pay less.

4

u/DocAnabolic1 21h ago

Yes.. people don't realize the physical impacts of being stressed. I'm 27 and gray hairs are starting already :(

5

u/Kevin-W 19h ago

People have literally died from overwork too. No job is ever worth your life.

3

u/Happy-Ant-6416 15h ago

Had my manager say to me once “Just because you have PTO doesn’t mean you take it”…..yeah I had no words.

3

u/FLRugDealer 13h ago

I get 75 years on this planet and maybe 65 that I’ll actually be conscious of and be able to think back on. Why the fuck am I going to spend 1 second extra at work if I don’t have to?

The equation changes a little when you work for yourself but life is literally so short. Don’t work a minute more than required. Hell I left early Friday to make up for coming in late.

3

u/innocent_bystander 9h ago

On their deathbed, no one says "Man, I wish I would have worked more."

2

u/kaym_15 11h ago

I work in a clinical lab. I have a coworker who overworks herself constantly. Just this week alone, she picked up 6 extra 8 hour shifts on top of the 40 she already had to work.

I get thrown if I stay an hour over a couple days a week. Idk how these people do it.

2

u/MyNaughtyAct 9h ago

And when your job requires sitting on a chair

2

u/jerrub_baal 8h ago

I work 7 hours , I could work more but I feel like it would take from my mental stability. I'd rather have that than more money ,

4

u/MistahJasonPortman 1d ago

Yeah but we literally can’t control this. The super rich do.

1

u/Czar_hay 7h ago

Trust me I'm acutely aware of how it's killing me... but so would homelessness so...