Amen. Cruel and unusual is what this is.

It is possible to do 80 hour workweeks if:

- The rest of your life is exactly where you want it to be. So, this one isn't true for 99% of the population.

- You have the correct mental attitude for it. This isn't true for most of the population either.

- You are doing exactly what you want to do in life. The chance that you could be distracted by another possibility / avenue is next to nil.

None of the above are impossible asks, but they certainly unreasonable. But some managers like to ask anyway, mostly as a form of leverage. If you're foolish or desperate enough to fall for it, then well, only fools and desperate people will give you time week after week to listen to how much you hate your boss / job.

It is possible for anyone to work a 80 hour week.

However is it worth it? If you are single and getting paid a lot it might be - with the idea that you save everything and retire early. If you have a social life at all (including a family) and this is a less than once a year request, taking one for the team is probably the right thing to do, but only if it really is a rare thing.

It is not like you are getting paid more hourly for each extra your put in right ?

If what you suggest is done, then you are basically selling your youth for equivalent time with an older body.

It may even be worse, since a 50 year old you may be worth a lot more /hr than you are now. So it isn't even an equal trade.

I have struggled to understand workoholic mentality for a while. Sure you work more, but to what end. For what ?

I always like to ask, "who wins?". News gets out that Russia is poisoning people critical of it. Who wins? Do they achieve their goals of silencing criticism? Obviously people think negatively of them and think twice before visiting the country. So, who wins?

Good question. In my eyes Russia indeed has really no motive to do this. On the other hand, given the constant demonization of Russia over the last years, this perfectly fits that narrative.

But if the goal was this demonization of Russia, then yeah, that's a lot of motive right there.

Does this mean that any company that targets an ad to men / women only on social media platforms can be sued for discrimination?

No, there are a bunch of areas that have specific laws prohibiting gender discrimination. Employment is one of them, housing and credit also have similar laws, but not most consumer goods and services.

No, this is specific to employment law. You can advertise products or services to whomever you wish. Employment must have equal opportunity.

I mistyped. I meant targets a gender for employment.

I've been a member of some minority almost all my life. On more than one occasion I've been a refugee, a tourist, an immigrant, a high scoring student, the new person.

My rules for success as a minority.

- If you are the minority, never forget this. Ever.

- Don't congregate in a manner that excludes the majority.

- Sure, be proud of who you are and where you come from, but remember that the majority are also proud and they have far superior numbers. So, be sure to operate in a manner that does not offend their pride: include them in your celebrations and be there for them in their time of mourning.

- Be useful. Find ways to be useful.

- Set your goals to be the best example of not just the minority that you belong to but the majority as well.

I've found that whenever a minority breaks one of these rules, they do so at their own peril. They needn't break any laws to gain the scorn of the majority.

It is socially acceptable in India to hire help for cooking and cleaning. It is much less socially acceptable in India to hire help raising the kids.

I liked Udemy until they launched the nerd ad campaign on YouTube. It made me wonder:

- Is that what they think most prospective developers look and talk like?

- Is that what most developers really look and talk like?

You mean this commercial? https://youtu.be/O0QB-b_s2pY

You know it.

China is not a market. It is a very large vendor and customer with many departments. This isn't good or evil, but it may be depending on who you are and what you're willing to stand for.

In a traditional market, the organizers set rules for vendors and customers. The same rules apply to anyone should they decide to become a vendor or customer, but organizers usually avoid becoming a vendor because of obvious conflicts of interest.

If you are a vendor then your customers in China are basically some subsidiary of the very large organization that is China. If you are a customer then you are basically buying from a subsidiary. Since you are dealing with subsidiaries, you have to understand that all the subsidiaries are encouraged to share information with each other to build a stronger China.

Building deeper relationships with a subsidiary means building deeper relations with the whole organization and that means satisfying deeper requirements (taxes, knowledge sharing, local factory, IP sharing, equity sharing). All this is normal if you are say, just two companies doing business with each other. But you aren't. You are a company doing business with an organization who you may be misunderstanding for a market.

Finally, theres the case where two companies merge and share all resources to become a stronger, better organization. Unlike many other countries, the Chinese identity is very much an ethnic and a lingual one. This means that if you are not Chinese, you will never be Chinese. If you aren't already Chinese, then the chances that you will be able to move to China should China become a prosperous society are slim to none.

I wonder if Braintree warned their customers that they will be changing their operations / policy and gave fair warning before flipping the switch.

We need this. For us to be able to compete against internet based startups around the world, we absolutely need this.