Un-Hustle Culture

Tough Things First

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11d ago 8:47

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Working from home may have seemed like progress over hustle culture, but has it brought on something worse? Un-Hustle culture. In this Tough Things First podcast, Ray Zinn says one bad work ethic has led to a worse work ethic.

Rob Artigo: Let’s talk about hustle culture. One of the soundbites we use in the intro for this podcast is… It’s one of my favorites from you. You say, “If you think you have to work 80 hours a week to be successful, then you’re dead wrong.” So when I was looking for topics for the podcast session, I saw the words hustle culture on the internet, and I immediately thought of that quote. So hustle culture is the belief that you have to grind it out 24/7. And I imagine you’re not a fan of hustle culture.

Ray Zinn: No. Not at all.

Rob Artigo: Looking at hustle culture, I imagine that you’ve had a lot of experiences of seeing it. Some people would call it A type personalities. Some people say that, “I’ve enjoyed working at this company or this firm,” and other people say, “Look, I don’t like working at that one because the idea is that you’ve got to run like a Mad Man around and continue to work.” I hear about this, like Wall Street is… For young people, there’s this hustle culture where they’re basically working 24/7 and they’re working at 100 miles per hour because they’re trying to outdo everybody else. And I imagine there’s a huge amount of burnout that can go along with that kind of mindset.

Ray Zinn: Yeah. I’m not sure everybody suffers from this hustle culture, but certainly they’re getting involved in it. I had a guy who worked for me for four or five years. I didn’t see him get a lot done during the day. In other words, he was there… I mean, he’d come in at 7:00 and he wouldn’t leave until 7:00, so he was working 12 hours, but he didn’t get a lot done. And so I decided I was going to… He didn’t work directly for me. He actually worked for a couple of people below me. But I noticed that he had a lot of magazines on his desk, and so I would just swing by his office periodically just to see what he was doing. And I see him reading these magazines. When he went to lunch one day, I decided just to go in his office and look to see what magazine he was reading because he had a stack of about 10 or 12 magazines. And there were magazines on cars, on sports, on flying, on cooking. I mean, it was all different kinds of magazines that he was looking at.

Of course, this is kind of giving away my age because now they just look on the internet and do the same thing. But I asked him. I said, “Gary…” Because he didn’t know I’d looked at his stack of magazines. I said, “Gary, so what is it you’re doing with all these magazines? I mean, you’ve got a stack of them there.” He says, “Oh, I’m getting up-to-date on things that will help our company.” And I said, “Like what?” And he says, “Oh, just take different kind of marketing tools and techniques that are.” And I said, “Would you mind just showing me what magazines it is you’re looking at that are going to help the company?” He’s, “Oh. He said, “Don’t worry about it.” And he grabbed the whole stack of them and put them in his desk. And I said, “Why’d you do that?” He says, “Oh, you’re busy. You’re too busy for this sort of thing, so I don’t want to disrupt what you’re doing.” But he would just turn beet red.

He was so embarrassed over it, I’m sure, because he didn’t want me to know what books he was reading or magazines he’s reading. And we have the same darn thing that’s happening with the internet and people looking at stuff that has nothing to do with their job, but they’re spending time, in other words, they’re just wasting time, just because they want people to know they’re working 24/7 when they’re really not, so… Or is the other one, you just say the class A personality where they’re always kissing up to the boss and they’re trying to show that they’re really producing for the company and it’s that hustle thing. So I don’t see much hustling anymore because people work from home and I know darn well they’re not working 24/7 from home. So-

Rob Artigo: Yeah. And you got to imagine that the internet and X and other distractions are there and there’s nobody to see that the person is not being productive. So if you got away with it at work when you were in the office before, imagine how much less productive people are because of those distractions. I mean, that magazine story is perfect for this because one of the things is that if you are working 24/7 or you’re trying to put that out there, some studies show productivity actually tanks after 50 to 55 hours each week anyway. If you get to the point where you’re burned out, you’re going to look for distractions. So he’s there all the time. So he gets like, “Oh, I got to fill the time with something else that’ll take my mind off of how much I’m thinking about these other things,” and your productivity goes down.

Ray Zinn: Well, I know… Another example of one of my employees is that he would take a two-hour walk. In other words, he would… About 11:30, he’d take off and then I wouldn’t see him again until 1:30 and his car was still there. So I asked him one day. I said, “So where are you between 11:30 and 1:30?” He said, “Well, I take this walk.” And I said, “So why?” “Oh, I get out in the fresh air and I get to do some exercising.” And he said, “I’m still working. Oh, I’m working. Don’t think I’m not working.” And I said, “Well, I didn’t say that. I just wondering what you’re doing.” And he said, “Well, I’m exercising my brain. I’m exercising my legs and my body and the company really benefits from what I’m doing.” But he was literally… Every day he was gone for two hours and he says he was walking. Maybe he was. But that’s another way we’re wasting time.

We’re thinking we’re putting in 80 hours a week when we’re only putting in maybe 10. Don’t think you’re productive or you’re busting your butt for your company just because you’re working from 7:00 to 7:00,” as they would. And I think because of COVID and a lot of people are working from home, they’re not working even 20 hours a week. So this hustle thing is just really diminished since people have worked from home doing these… We call them these bubble bath Zooms where they’re in the bathtub doing a Zoom call at the same time. So they call it the bubble bath Zoom, so… Anyway.

Rob Artigo: I hadn’t heard that. Hadn’t heard that term. Well, our listeners can join us and the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. If you have questions for Ray, you can just ask them there. He’ll get back to you. Your questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray Zinn on X and Facebook and LinkedIn, and pick up Ray’s books, Tough Things First and the Zen of Zinn series, One, Two and Three and on sale now, The Essential Leader, Ray’s new book, 10 Skills, Attributes and Fundamentals that Make Up the Essential Leader. Thanks, Ray.

Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.

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