

I used to be an automotive controls engineer. 100hr work weeks were not unusual onsite, the norm was 80hrs. And you can end up onsite for anywhere from 2-10 months depending on the job. The 100hr weeks were usually only for a few weeks when production starts up again. But it’s the whole culture, there is a lot of pressure from the customer to get production back up. And most of the industry veterans I worked with loved bragging about the 36hr days they had worked in the past to “get the job done”. It’s like a cult, they get into the mindset of “well I did it so everyone else has to too”.
Sometimes it didn’t even make sense. I had a project Engineer (job lead) stay overnight with the night shift mechanics who were fixing a weld on our VDL (elevator for car bodies). He said that it was so he could make sure they lined it up correctly and test it. He could have done that when we came in the morning, there was a day shift mechanical crew if we had any issues.