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Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

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Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

#221

Post by jjm »

All, Hear me out. The first thing you need to overcome is not your wallet, or your options, timing or any other thing. It is -- your mind.

If you experience this level of pressure, quit. And then start looking. Do not be influenced that your boss is the boss of your life or your career for that matter.

If you've got a family to take care of, quickly join a consulting firm. Worst case you'll have to travel some, but it buys you some mental time to start looking for another job. And it sure beats Hell. People WILL tell you to not quit but they won't know how much pressure your in. They don't need to know. Just quit and find a better place. Garden, paint, chill with your espresso, take up that book you never read, or that new lang you never used. Do something positive.

You hold the power to fix this. Quit, and find a new Job. Do it for yourself, do it for your family, for your friends, do it for open source communities that you contribute to.

There is always a way out, and don't let anyone make you think that the only way out is a tiny little door -- to hell. Because what they don't tell you is that the door is fake. Your already in hell.

Bust down the walls of your mind and get out.

Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

#222

Post by sjg007 »

skrebbel wrote: post #87
defined wrote: post #25

This is not unique to Uber. I have worked in toxic environments that depleted and debilitated me to the point that, in two cases, I was psychologically completely incapable of even thinking about finding work for three months after being laid off from one, and quitting the other. It doesn't even take abusive bosses who don't like you, although that just makes it far worse. It simply takes being treated like a robotic…

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.

You could call it the Steve Jobs problem... or at least he is a well known face of it.

Amazon apparently has similar issues as well so it is not just startups.

The worst are whisper campaigns of passive aggressiveness.

Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

#223

Post by clint »

zappo2938 wrote: post #218

Mental health is often an issue that comes up on Hacker News. Perhaps, Y Combinator can contribute to the community yet further by providing research and services for mental health issues which plague the tech industry.

It would be really great and important if HN would partner with Open Sourcing Mental Illness (OSMI): https://osmihelp.org/

Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

#224

Post by clint »

Ed Finkler is doing great work with his non-profit Open Sourcing Mental Illness. They are currently looking for 2017 corporate sponsors, so please talk with your employers about it!

It would also be a nice move of HN to help them out since this is a huge problem in the startup world!

Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

#226

Post by farax91 »

trustfundbaby wrote: post #106

Man, this really hit home. That guy's life could have been mine. I had this almost this same experience 2 years ago (we were at the job for the same length of time even, five months), and it led to a long period of depression for me. I didn't kill myself, but I have to tell you, I could see how someone could. In my circumstance I interviewed as a Senior Engineer, and got offered a Lead engineer position because appar…

I don't think the two situations are comparable. You were a bad engineer in over your heard.

Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

#227

Post by pdimitar »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #219
pdimitar wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with you, but you're overestimating the desire of most devs (at least most I ever knew) to hop between jobs. Yes we're sought after but that doesn't mean we want to re-adjust 4 times a year.

Of course, what I meant was that if your employer is forcing you to work 60 hour weeks you shouldn't fear threatening to quit as if you have to follow through on your threat it's unlikely you will be without employment for long. Unfortunately, in a lot of industries people don't have this luxury.

I agree with this, yes and thank you. I talked about people with more specific requirements like myself (100% remote being example).

Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

#228

Post by sandhundred »

jjm wrote: post #221

All, Hear me out. The first thing you need to overcome is not your wallet, or your options, timing or any other thing. It is -- your mind. If you experience this level of pressure, quit. And then start looking. Do not be influenced that your boss is the boss of your life or your career for that matter. If you've got a family to take care of, quickly join a consulting firm. Worst case you'll have to travel some, but i…

Can't afford to quit, thanks though. Work or die.

Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

#229

Post by abalone »

throwanem wrote: post #162
abalone wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The parent comment noted they fell out of touch with their friend.

As for your confident advice, that's only true for you. The Uber engineer who took his life had a loving family.

Everyone having suicidal thoughts should be screened by a psychiatrist. Sometimes it takes medication and medication saves lives.

Re: Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

#230

Post by pdimitar »

To me this is a failure of Uber of course, but also of the guy's wife. She is supposed to be his best friend, life partner, and a lover. If she couldn't detect that her partner needed urgent help then I am afraid he didn't have the happiest marriage out there. Same goes for his family, how can they even claim they're his family if they never detected this?

Therapists most of the time don't amount for anything. They put a suit and a tie, they are well-instructed how to fake confidence and never betray lack of understanding. Most of them are as cold as a brick wall and I am not at all surprised the therapist wasn't of any help.

Toxic work places will always exist. Competitive "alpha" pricks who tell you that you must always work harder won't disappear from the gene pool anytime soon. We must learn to cope, or at best, avoid them. Failing that, we need a supportive partner and a family.

If we don't even have that, then yes, people are committing suicides.

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