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Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

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Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#111

Post by tome »

refurb wrote: post #95
Tsagadai wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ford makes $776,348 per employee. I will take a stab in the dark and say that the assembly worker is making substantially less than that regardless of whether it is $20k or $100k car while still producing far more value than the cost of either vehicle. http://csimarket.com/stocks/singleEfficiencyet.php?code=F

As already mentioned, that is revenue, not profit. If you take $1000 worth of material (costs) and make something you can sell for $2000 (price), then you've created $1000 in value, not $2000. My point is that the value created by a worker doesn't define the salary (although it creates a cap, you can pay more than value created). A great example are lawyers. With the glut of lawyers out there, a lot of lawyers are ge…

> you can pay more than value created

"can't", presumably.

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#112

Post by darkr »

gerbilly wrote: post #75
droithomme wrote: post #16

So "instead of" taking an annual vacation, one should limit their work hours to 48 hrs a week, organize their time better, and take up a hobby like knitting. I've got a better idea. Keep the vacation and cut work hours down to 40.

>I've got a better idea. Keep the vacation and cut work hours down to 40. Pff, more like we should go to 35hrs with mandatory _paid_ overtime and also _increase_ vacation to 6 weeks. And also demand reparations for all the stolen time. (Real pay hasn't increased since 1970.) After that we can talk about taking it further.

> Real pay hasn't increased since 1970

It has, it's just been pretty shallow growth. That flatlined in the late 90's. And then fell to 1970's levels in 2008/2009

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#113

Post by darkr »

golergka wrote: post #63
Retric wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My taxes are inflated so rich can pay a lower percentage than I do or even just skim off the government. Beyond that, my Rent and healthcare costs are ridiculously inflated, but you can find a lot of padding in other areas. FYI even just at the federal level things are effed up. 33.9% of taxes collected are payroll taxes, but social security caps at ~120k. Hint it's just a tax, you can receive benifits without ever w…

I'm not from US, please stop assuming it about HN readers already. Also, the percentage of income as basis for tax doesn't make any sense. I don't pay a percentage of income for broadband or Netflix or insurance, why should payment for government services be different?

Because taxes aren't a personal payment for government services for yourself. You're paying into a shared fund on a capacity basis so that _everyone_ can have access to those services.

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#114

Post by mbrock »

mikekchar wrote: post #82
EC1 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What part of it isn't true though? Don't look at how it reads, just read the words. I feel the same way, like you're being stomped in the face every day by an invisible boot except nobody knows who's wearing it, but we all feel it. We are collectively losing our identities and blending into one due to how hyper connected we are and how available cheap forms of entertainment are. It's all quite eerie. I still haven't…

Earlier someone said that they want to opt out of the whole thing. Although I'm not you and I can't know precisely what you are feeling, I'm going to make an educated guess that this is the key to your freedom. This invisible boot is an illusion. I once read an article on privilege. The idea is that if you were a slave owner, you could "promote" some of your slaves to be "head slaves". This privilege creates a kind o…

From the "eerie" mindset, your comment is exactly on point as Big Brother-type soothing propaganda.

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#115

Post by leonroy »

berntb wrote: post #80
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to how I perceive most of the rest of everyone. What weird fear-drugs are they even on?

I have been on both sides of the fence. I had continuous allergy problems without knowing it for a large part of my life. Among the effects were a minor depression. When I got rid of the allergies I had a bit of an identity conflict, I wasn't the one I thought. My humour and world view weren't as dark, I liked people more. It is a strange to adjust your self image so much after 40.

Did change in diet play a part in getting rid of your allergies?

I only ask because a great deal of recent research suggests our behaviour is strongly affected by our gut bacteria which are in turn affected by our overall diet.

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#116

Post by thorin »

stuff4ben wrote: post #22
FreedomToCreate wrote: post #12

These points are spot on, but I also believe these are common sense things everyone knows. The issue is that its extremely difficult to detach from the digital world and many jobs require you be available at any time. A a previous job (they named themselves after a fruit) I couldn't even think about turning my phone off. I was pretty much on call 24/7. Companies are global, and there are always problems to deal with…

Yep, my company has the same tendencies. Some folks I work with have their phones configured for company email which I refuse to do. When I'm home, I'm home and it's the only time I have with my family. When they're all asleep and the wife is watching her netflix, I'll usually jump on the VPN but turn off email and IM so I can get real work done. Most of my days are sadly filled with meetings and email, the 30-60 min…

While I understand your pov,why don't you flag to your boss if your feel you are spending too long on meetings and emails and find time during your actual working day to do that work. I'm a family man too and I've made a decision that any evening work except emergencies will be stuff I enjoy such as researching a new technology experimenting in code watching tech videos or reading tutorials not corporate "work"

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#118

Post by sbank »

simplemath wrote: post #8

Overworked? Everyone is overworked. We live in a post scarcity industrial world, or very very close to it, and bad actors have gobbled up the spoils of the huge gains in productivity in the last 50 years. How much of the entire economy is predicated on grey money? How much of your time is indirectly consumed by this leviathan? The more I think about it, the more i want to opt out of the entire fucking thing.

Where do you live? Because if you live in the western world and in a country with a reasonable amount personal and financial freedom, you are out of your freaking mind.

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#119

Post by q-base »

From reading the comments a lot of people take a really negative spin on this for some reason. I only see it as trying to explain that if you rely on vacations alone then you could still be overworked and stressed. They only dim the symptom but does not cure the disease. If you are overworked and stressed a vacation might help in the short run but if you go back into the same routines, then of course you'll end back where you were before taking the vacation.

What they do advise instead is working on the disease itself and try to manage your day-to-day better instead of ONLY relying on annual holidays. They aren't saying you shouldn't take holidays only that they won't cure all your stress permanently.

I think this is good advice. Not groundbreaking or new knowledge, but still - good advice!

Re: Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

#120

Post by Qantourisc »

diogenescynic wrote: post #42

As someone who routinely has more work than they can finish in an 8-hour work day, the headline and article strike me as tone-deaf and victim blaming. It's simply not possible to solve the overwork problem entirely by 'good habits' alone. When you do a good job digging ditches, often your reward is a bigger shovel. When you do well, somehow more work finds it's way to your desk. I don't think you can always be findin…

My take on this is easy: if you have the occasional overtime, sure I'll pitch in. If it's however a structural imbalance, I will not sacrifice myself for it. The tricky part is stopping to care to get things done in time, when it's a structural problem. If you don't, it will eat you (eventually).
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