I see my friends do this all the time and I just want to slap them in the face and tell them to snap out of whatever trance they are in. They work long hours, they are no longer making the time to take care of themselves, or keep up with people they love. They complain how terribly they hate their situation and how depressed it is, but they continue working those 60 hour weeks and bending over backwards to terrible bosses as if that is how it simply is and there is nothing better. It's making me depressed just seeing them slide off like this, all because of these shit jobs they put themselves into. And its not like they can't find other work either, they have good experience, but are so beaten down by the current job that they can't muster energy to commit to a job search on top of that 60 hour work week. You almost have to rip the bandaid off and just quit with nothing lined up.

It's a challenge to recognize those times that your need to work constantly is what you want to do (excited about a technical challenge, avoiding something at home, on an ambition kick), and your boss wouldn't blink an eye if you took the week off rather than work 80 hours.

I wish that had been an option for me as a CS student.. it was hard for me to learn it in the real world where you get lots of "work hard, play hard" speeches.