Good companies see that the 80 hour weeks and crisis mode aren't sustainable, even in fields that sometimes demand them.
I work in a field that does have genuine crises that demand 100 hour weeks sometimes - environmental response. But the jobs where we put in those kinds of hours are real emergencies - the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Hurricane Katrina response, the anthrax contamination in Washington after 9/11, the Challenger disaster - things that are totally unplanned, time-critical, and affect people's lives, not just someone's bottom line.
And even in those, there are limits. I worked a smaller oil spill response last summer, and we were doing 84 hour weeks as a plan. But we were also strictly limited to two week stretches, and then at least a week at home to recharge.
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I work in a field that does have genuine crises that demand 100 hour weeks sometimes - environmental response. But the jobs where we put in those kinds of hours are real emergencies - the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Hurricane Katrina response, the anthrax contamination in Washington after 9/11, the Challenger disaster - things that are totally unplanned, time-critical, and affect people's lives, not just someone's bottom line.
And even in those, there are limits. I worked a smaller oil spill response last summer, and we were doing 84 hour weeks as a plan. But we were also strictly limited to two week stretches, and then at least a week at home to recharge.