I’ll intellectually/emotionally/physically hard as answers. For me its either 12 hours straight “punching tubes” on a very large scotch marine firetube boiler at the beginning of my career or Easter around a decade ago when I was working with troubled teens and had to engage in 5 separate protective holds in one 16 hour double shift. The former was all physical and the latter was a combination of emotional and physical.
I once worked for 32 hours straight in a print shop to get a project out the door. Print shops (especially then) were fucking insane pressure cookers. The same intensity as an ER only stupid because instead of lives being on the line it was money. A lot of money, but just money. Early 00’s, everything was output on film back then. Had a weird error in an image that was used throughout a catalog. Normally, you could send a working signature through to the press, but the image was in every signature except the cover. I tried every possible trick I knew to get it to work, output film to test it, back to the drawing board. But yeah, 32 hours straight on this one thing. Finished up at around 4am, drove home but just kind of kept driving. Slightly delirious. Parked on top of a ridge off the shoulder and watched the sun come up. Went home and slept for I don’t even know how long.
32 straight is fucking brutal!
There was a lot of adrenaline needed to get through it. I very much don’t suggest anyone ever do it.