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Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
161–170 of 317 posts
Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
#162My heart goes out to the whole family. A while ago, a long long friend of mine suddenly messaged me out of the blue reminiscing on old times and stuff. I could sense something was amiss. I planned an impromptu trip to see him. I didn't bring anything up...we just chatted about the good old times, cracked a few inside jokes etc. He was visibly much better when I started back after a few days. We promised to be in touc…
Please encourage your friend to see a psychiatrist. It may save their life.
Not that you're necessarily wrong, but you're not necessarily right, either. I've been in not too different a place, and I can say with some confidence that all the psychiatrists in the world don't add up to one good friend who cares.
Look after those relationships, folks. Lose them and they're gone forever.
Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
#163This was so difficult for me to read. I have struggled with extreme anxiety and chronic depression and brushed up against the thought of there being no way forward or out but suicide. During the closest calls, I was making the most I ever had, living in a nice house, etc. It didn't really matter though. I felt a tightness in my chest and a boiling kettle of acid in my stomach from the second I woke up until the secon…
> I had a Pavlovian response to the sound of email arriving on my phone, to the point where it would be in my nightmares. I went through a rough period last summer where a project I was involved in was a complete disaster. I basically spent 24x7 terrified that a new "emergency" was going to roll in on my phone via email with a stakeholder telling me how this new issue was ruining their life and how disappointed they…
I was so pumped to get a smartwatch, but in stressful times I would nearly rip it off my wrist if it vibrated.
Eventually I set it so that only whatsapp messages alert me. Everything else can wait.
Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
#164Anyone notice how quickly this got removed from the front page?
It's still there as of this writing.
Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
#165What I have found out over the years is that having roughly 4-6 months worth of living expenses in the bank (unblocked and accessible within 24 hours) alleviates stress. Figure out how many months worth of savings makes you feel comfortable, and have an 'oh shit' budget figured out for times of willing/unwilling unemployment. For example, I can cut my spendings by 40% in case of unemployment simply by cutting luxury…
It's easy to forget that depression isn't rational. A depressed person may worry that they're unhirable and won't be able to find a job in those 4-6 months. They may expect that any job they do find will be as bad as the current one, or worse. If they're on a visa, they may worry about deportation and having to upend their lives if they leave their current job. They may worry that a gap on their resume will affect their career prospects. They may worry that their friends and family will judge them if they're unemployed for a while. Etcetera ad infinitum.
Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
#166Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I had a Pavlovian response to the sound of email arriving on my phone, to the point where it would be in my nightmares. I went through a rough period last summer where a project I was involved in was a complete disaster. I basically spent 24x7 terrified that a new "emergency" was going to roll in on my phone via email with a stakeholder telling me how this new issue was ruining their life and how disappointed they…
I was so pumped to get a smartwatch, but in stressful times I would nearly rip it off my wrist if it vibrated. Eventually I set it so that only whatsapp messages alert me. Everything else can wait.
And the whatsapp messages can wait too - it's an asynchronous communications technology.
Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
I keep reading stories like these on HN, yet I don't know a single person who has experienced anything even remotely close to this. I don't live in the Bay Area. Are SV startups, in general, really this badly managed? If I add up all anecdata from reading HN comments about toxic work environments, I get the impression that 50% of the Valley is run like this. I have a hard time comprehending how this can happen.
It's sample bias. People who experienced dramatic things are far more likely to comment about them. The community is large enough that even a relatively tiny sample produces many comments under this effect.
Thanks. I was hoping it was just this.
Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well said. I've worked at 3 start-ups and at all of them I've worked long, grueling hours with the most recent one I was doing at least 65 hours a week (typically longer especially with a 3+ hour commute). I became severely burned out to the point where I didn't want to look for work or do much of anything. I was depressed and had severe anxiety. I went to the hospital with an anxiety attack so strong that I literall…
This is why I am highly sceptical of start ups, and it would take a helluva a lot for someone to convince me to join another. I prefer big corps, as its possible to control you work load a little more and transfer internally if you get a bad boss.
Yeah I don't think it's that simple. In my current job (team of 30) we work with lots of very large corps (telcos, finance, airlines, etc), and I've been exposed to the internal workings of their IT & dev teams, and in almost all cases I've seen intense mismanagement and high-stress environments.
Imagine the stress that comes with figuring out new tech and solving new problems at the level of a startup, and then cross that with the financial stakes, entrenched processes and the management abstraction that exist in a large corporation, and you can see how big corps have their own versions of the same problem..
The combination of feeling like you're responsible for solving massive problems but have none of the ability to influence or determine how they will be solved is a terrible situation to be in.
Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
#169Get the hell out of SV. It's become a pressure cooker because of many, many reasons.
Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress
#170This was so difficult for me to read. I have struggled with extreme anxiety and chronic depression and brushed up against the thought of there being no way forward or out but suicide. During the closest calls, I was making the most I ever had, living in a nice house, etc. It didn't really matter though. I felt a tightness in my chest and a boiling kettle of acid in my stomach from the second I woke up until the secon…
> I had a Pavlovian response to the sound of email arriving on my phone, to the point where it would be in my nightmares. I went through a rough period last summer where a project I was involved in was a complete disaster. I basically spent 24x7 terrified that a new "emergency" was going to roll in on my phone via email with a stakeholder telling me how this new issue was ruining their life and how disappointed they…
Notifications has always been one of the dissonant topics in our industry. We constantly complain about interruptions in our jobs, how it kills our productivity, yet we keep inventing new ways of interrupting us.