Woman Shares What Helped Her To Create The Life She Has Now By Advising People To “Work On The Weekends”, Sparks A Debate On Twitter
Inspector Harold Francis Callahan from Dirty Harry once said “Opinions are like a@#holes, everyone’s got one.” I mean, everyone’s got the right to one, it just so happens there’s a piece of anatomy to equate it to when it comes to proving a point. Language is fun.
Anywho, this includes unpopular opinions as well. Like one shared by Twitter user Jordan Kong (@ImNotJK) who shared that “the best thing young people can do early in their careers is to work on the weekends.”
This, in turn, started a huge debate—mostly a one-sided one, disagreeing with the statement, but some did see some sense in it, supporting the idea.
More Info: Twitter
They say that if you wanna get somewhere in the world, you gotta work hard to do it
Image credits: Bark via Flickr
So, a week ago, Jordan Kong tweeted out what she called an unpopular opinion, effectively urging young people to work weekends during the earlier parts of their careers.
The idea seemingly stemmed from the premise that young people have less commitments, more time, and ample energy to be invested into their futures by working harder now.
One woman extended this to working harder during the earlier days of one’s career in her unpopular opinion on Twitter
Image credits: ImNotJK
This in turn sparked a bit of a debate among tweeters
Image credits: orchestructive
Image credits: West_Syed
Another tweeter elaborated upon it, supporting the idea since young people have next to no experience, knowledge and reputation when it comes to their career, so their best asset is hard work.
Well, while some supported Jordan’s idea, most were against it, for a number of reasons—the first and foremost of which was that it encouraged people to effectively overwork themselves, supposedly for little to no pay in response to that.
Jordan elaborated more in the form of replies to people discussing the topic
Image credits: ImNotJK
Image credits: ImNotJK
Image credits: ImNotJK
Image credits: ImNotJK
Others pointed out that while this has positives, the negatives will surely come in time—negatives like health issues due to overworking, issues with being able to set healthy boundaries, all the while allowing bosses and managers to blur the line between a healthy employee culture and optimized (maximized) profits. And then there were those who said it’s not an unpopular—but rather a bad—opinion.
Needless to say, this started a huge debate. Granted, it’s leaning more to the side of those against it, arguing it’s not healthy, but there were definitely those who understood the reasoning behind the hustle.
For the most part, people were against this idea of working weekends when you’re young
Image credits: geekgirldiva
Image credits: musicologyman
Image credits: mohamadtm91
Image credits: llewbu
Besides Jordan responding to some of the tweets she got from those joining the debate, just yesterday (a week after her original post), she also elaborated on what she said previously.
Others were of a different opinion
Image credits: paulg
Image credits: enhao_li
Image credits: irtsaca
Image credits: bcrabl100
Image credits: KiraNovember
In a nutshell, Jordan explained that she came from a poor immigrant family; working hard was her only key to success. Work wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies, but despite that, she found joy and purpose.
She did reach a point where it became taxing health-wise, but despite all of it, she came out victorious, and she still wouldn’t trade any of it as she outworked her peers and earned opportunities that were “typically reserved for white guys who went to Harvard and Stanford,” and not “an introverted, short, nerdy Asian female.”
Image credits: ErrataRob
Image credits: GerdaBreitwies1
Image credits: CharizardLaw
But that’s her. She saw success in hard work as she saw this in her colleagues and that’s what worked for her since the early days. Might not work for everyone, though.
A week after her original tweet, she elaborated on her opinion with a thread
Image credits: ImNotJK
Image credits: ImNotJK
Image credits: ImNotJK
Image credits: ImNotJK
Image credits: ImNotJK
Image credits: ImNotJK
Image credits: ImNotJK
Image credits: ImNotJK
The tweet gained some modest virality, gaining a bit over 16,000 likes and the same amount of quoted tweets, with also making some headlines and even being quoted on Imgur, where it gained nearly 4,000 upvotes with over 128,000 views. If anything, it stirred quite a bit of a discussion among tweeters.
You can read the whole thread here. But before you go, what are your thoughts about this? Share your thoughts and your experience with work in the comment section below!
I definitely definitely disagree.... it's not about how much time free time you have... you create a pattern at a workplace and it's difficult to take it back! It won't be appreciated all the time and you know what you are doing? Making it difficult for the next generations! I can't even count how many employers have asked me to work more, to work on weekends, to work without days off, you know why? Because there was a worker before me that used to do that! No! My free time is valuable and i don't give it away for more experience that's just the cheese on the trap! Don't do that it's not worth it and it doesn't make you more productive anyway and there are plenty of studies that prove that!
And they expect to not pay you overtime, which in the US is technically illegal but they don't tell employees that. Fortunately for me (unfortunately for a former employer), I did know. Got my OT after I'd quit, and no regrets. You want me there extra? PAY ME. Otherwise it's eroding the rights of workers, and encouraging the idea that "career" equals "identity"....
Load More Replies...I think she's confusing desire vs effort. Working weekends because you think you need to (or because the workload is so high that you have to) is much different than working weekends because you love the job or believe in the company and want to make it successful. And there's no guarantee that hard work will pay off -- one of my first jobs was at an internet startup -- I worked a *lot* of extra hours, but the work was fun and enjoyable, and I ended up socializing a lot with my coworkers, so I wasn't really missing out on social interactions), but that company ended up running out of money and going out of business, so all of that hard work was for nothing... but I don't regret it, that was one of my most fun jobs.
Hear hear. I’ve bosses who had “drive.” Really it was more of a compulsion for busyness. They worked long hours and liked to see other people working long hours but we never got ahead of the curve and there was never interest in making things efficient—it was like they measured productivity by how quickly our tires spun in the mud, and not by the speed of our forward direction.
Load More Replies...I was told by someone that constantly working outside of your set hours demonstrates that you're not able to manage your time properly. I think people also need to realise that what motivates or is viewed as success by one person is not necessarily the same in everyone - and that's perfectly alright
^^^ This. I had a coworker years ago who worked evenings and weekends and sneered at the rest of us for going home at 5:00. But he did almost no work during the actual working day, preferring to talk/rant non-stop about his pet peeves. He literally never shut up, so of course he had to come in on weekends to get his projects finished.
Load More Replies...I definitely definitely disagree.... it's not about how much time free time you have... you create a pattern at a workplace and it's difficult to take it back! It won't be appreciated all the time and you know what you are doing? Making it difficult for the next generations! I can't even count how many employers have asked me to work more, to work on weekends, to work without days off, you know why? Because there was a worker before me that used to do that! No! My free time is valuable and i don't give it away for more experience that's just the cheese on the trap! Don't do that it's not worth it and it doesn't make you more productive anyway and there are plenty of studies that prove that!
And they expect to not pay you overtime, which in the US is technically illegal but they don't tell employees that. Fortunately for me (unfortunately for a former employer), I did know. Got my OT after I'd quit, and no regrets. You want me there extra? PAY ME. Otherwise it's eroding the rights of workers, and encouraging the idea that "career" equals "identity"....
Load More Replies...I think she's confusing desire vs effort. Working weekends because you think you need to (or because the workload is so high that you have to) is much different than working weekends because you love the job or believe in the company and want to make it successful. And there's no guarantee that hard work will pay off -- one of my first jobs was at an internet startup -- I worked a *lot* of extra hours, but the work was fun and enjoyable, and I ended up socializing a lot with my coworkers, so I wasn't really missing out on social interactions), but that company ended up running out of money and going out of business, so all of that hard work was for nothing... but I don't regret it, that was one of my most fun jobs.
Hear hear. I’ve bosses who had “drive.” Really it was more of a compulsion for busyness. They worked long hours and liked to see other people working long hours but we never got ahead of the curve and there was never interest in making things efficient—it was like they measured productivity by how quickly our tires spun in the mud, and not by the speed of our forward direction.
Load More Replies...I was told by someone that constantly working outside of your set hours demonstrates that you're not able to manage your time properly. I think people also need to realise that what motivates or is viewed as success by one person is not necessarily the same in everyone - and that's perfectly alright
^^^ This. I had a coworker years ago who worked evenings and weekends and sneered at the rest of us for going home at 5:00. But he did almost no work during the actual working day, preferring to talk/rant non-stop about his pet peeves. He literally never shut up, so of course he had to come in on weekends to get his projects finished.
Load More Replies...
32
48