Serious question: how would a psychiatrist distinguish "workplace depression" from your garden-variety depression that strikes people outside the workplace?
The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression
21–30 of 48 posts
Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression
#22> concludes an extensive new Danish study. > A study of 4,500 public employees... at Danish schools, hospitals, nurseries, offices, etc. Public employees in Denmark work 35 hours a week, with 8 weeks holiday for teachers and 5 weeks holiday for others. I really do not think this study applies to people who work 12 hours a day with no holidays. Also it was published in 2013
It's banal to say "this was 2013" as if such results age so quickly.
It amazes me how on one hand "Peopleware" (1987) and "The mythical man-month" (1975) are held up as ground-breaking ideals here but a published academic study is dismissed because "it was published in 2013".
As for "Well it's not transferable to 12 hours a day with no holidays", what you're describing isn't reality for most people in most countries. It is not even legal to work 12 hours a day for 5 days a week in any of Europe+.
If you are doing 12 hour days and don't have holidays then you are a slave not a worker.
+ Except UK, but only if you have specifically opted out of the law, otherwise the 48 hour week maximum still applies.
Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe sometimes, not always. I quit to go to a new company, but I would have gladly kept my boss. Actually that's happened to me a couple times.
I've got a "me too" comment. In my first job post university, after about two years, the moment I realized "I don't belong here" was when a coworker in the 80% underground open plan office stood up and asked in a loud voice to be heard by everybody "Does anybody need a few project hours for billing? I've got some hours left in my project that you can have." My boss responded "Yes! I'll take whatever hours you can spa…
I'll me-too your me-too. I had that exact same situation on a job and left because of it. The only question I ever heard from my boss was "Are you billable?" She didn't care anything about technical quality, career development, tooling, architecture, morale; the only thing that mattered was billable billable billable. It wasn't entirely her fault, it came transitively through her from upper management, the entire division only cared about billable hours, but she sure didn't do anything to help either. Classic "shit pipe" rather than "shit umbrella".
The product had a hideous installation process involving hundreds of manual edits to settings in IIS and configuration files. I was deliberately told not to try to improve that via scripting, because they wanted to keep being able to charge customers dozens of billable hours for each installation.
Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression
#24> concludes an extensive new Danish study. > A study of 4,500 public employees... at Danish schools, hospitals, nurseries, offices, etc. Public employees in Denmark work 35 hours a week, with 8 weeks holiday for teachers and 5 weeks holiday for others. I really do not think this study applies to people who work 12 hours a day with no holidays. Also it was published in 2013
It's banal to say "this was 2013" as if such results age so quickly. It amazes me how on one hand "Peopleware" (1987) and "The mythical man-month" (1975) are held up as ground-breaking ideals here but a published academic study is dismissed because "it was published in 2013". As for "Well it's not transferable to 12 hours a day with no holidays", what you're describing isn't reality for most people in most countries.…
I think mods should add (2013) into title.
12 hours a day is not uncommon. Even in EU and public sector, for example doctors in some eastern countries have to work this way.
Anyway, my point is: this study should not be miss represented.
Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've got a "me too" comment. In my first job post university, after about two years, the moment I realized "I don't belong here" was when a coworker in the 80% underground open plan office stood up and asked in a loud voice to be heard by everybody "Does anybody need a few project hours for billing? I've got some hours left in my project that you can have." My boss responded "Yes! I'll take whatever hours you can spa…
I'll me-too your me-too. I had that exact same situation on a job and left because of it. The only question I ever heard from my boss was "Are you billable?" She didn't care anything about technical quality, career development, tooling, architecture, morale; the only thing that mattered was billable billable billable. It wasn't entirely her fault, it came transitively through her from upper management, the entire div…
One of my early software jobs was at a shop and we built conference registration 'pages' (a big form with a bunch of perl stuff behind it).
Each project was... a lot of hand-customization, and usually took 8-12 hours, and we did a few dozen per year (IIRC) and that number was growing. But each one was... a pain.
I spent some time putting a lot of configurable stuff in a a config file, and some runtime checking of the configs, and dynamic behaviour, and... we had something that would make setup of the form and most 'custom' requests down to about 1-2 hours max.
I wasn't filling out my timesheet, and someone said "you have to put what project you were working on"... so I filled in 42 hours (over 2 weeks - part time here and there) for "project X" and... holy crap I got a verbal beating. We're going to lose this client - we're overbilling, we're gouging, etc.
I tried to very little avail to demonstrate that... we can keep charging 12 hours ($2500? IIRC) for the pages in future, but now they'll only take an hour or so. Apparently I was talking to the wrong people because they thought I was advocating fraud, and I probably almost got fired over that. My code was erased, everything was put back the way it was, they 'ate' the overage to the client (read... I just had 42 less billable hours for 2 weeks) and ... I was sort of 'demoted'.
Had only been there a month or so, and I think had I been able to explain to the owner (a tech guy, and decent business guy) what I'd done, he might have understood. My cube was only 30 feet from the guy. In my eyes at the time, though, I thought this wrath was coming from him through someone else. Looking back now, I doubt he was even aware of it.
Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression
#26I had a problem of burnout in the past. My boss was an asshole, he lacked any planning or technical skills, he want impose his point of view without listen anyone opinions. He change assigned priority every seconds and want to take technical decisions without any knowledge.
He was crusty when someone try to reply to him and explain a different point of view. He changed position during the time trying to earn merits and charge others to his own faults. He ever defend one of two employees who he like, even if they are completely wrong. Also holiday planning was a nightmare: he pretend to stay one month in holiday and we have to cover this period (I come from Italy where everyone usually go in holiday in August).
Unfortunately he was one of the founder and of the owner of the company. When he decided to sell his share, we opened a big bottle of champagne. Now, with a democratic, polite boss (that is also a technical guru) the climate in the office is great and no one want to leave.
Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression
#27It is funny to see this on the same day as the Amazon story, especially with the comment about how Bezos, in the wake of the negative press, encouraged people to come forward and report issues they see. People did, and he fired those who complained. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12260891
I was going to reference the Hundred Flowers Campaign, but it looks like a lot of people got there before me.
Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression
#28This is content which the typical bullied and vulnerable employee loves to read: 'Yes of course. It's my boss who drove me into depression.' Don't want to sound too cynical but a job is a job at the end of the day and life is more complex. Just blaming the boss for all the misery is a bit too easy. I expect to get downvoted because more people reading here have a boss than the other way round (I guess).
None of this actually disputes the article. Perhaps it Should be obvious that if you work in a soul-draining environment, with a horrible boss or where you are bullied or harassed by other employees, you'll likely be miserable. After all, most folks spend a great portion of their week working, commuting, or getting ready for work. Just a job, sure, but a substantial part of life as a whole for many folks.
If you want to start looking for examples, start visiting different fast food places or smallish chain stores, such as pharmacies. Regularly. You can tell a difference between the ones with a good boss and a bad one by watching employees. Sometimes you can tell that one supervisor is bad using the same metrics.
If you are still unsure, go out and get one of these jobs. Then transfer and see how it is run differently.
These are the same jobs, but have differing satisfaction levels.
Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression
#29There's also this very real phenomenon: "Retaliation: A Guide for Vindictive Bosses" - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffschmitt/2012/12/10/retaliati...
[deleted]
Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression
#30> concludes an extensive new Danish study. > A study of 4,500 public employees... at Danish schools, hospitals, nurseries, offices, etc. Public employees in Denmark work 35 hours a week, with 8 weeks holiday for teachers and 5 weeks holiday for others. I really do not think this study applies to people who work 12 hours a day with no holidays. Also it was published in 2013
I'm pretty sure the results would be even more true for 12 hours workdays.
I recently switched jobs and dropped from 40 hours to 35 hours a week and only feel much more productive from it.
Working 70 hours week is a guaranteed way to have a mediocre productivity and quality of life. In the end you spend half your time fixing your own mistakes and waste the other half writing said mistakes. You're then much more vulnerable to anything listed in the article.