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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

#251

Post by throwaway8800 »

knob wrote: post #188
jjjensen90 wrote: post #23

This 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, I hope somebody finds this useful: I setup a 1 second "silent" mp3 as the notification sound for emails, messages, etc. If the phone actually rings, I pick it up. Yet the email notifications (got seven email accounts on the phone), the text messages, Telegram, Whatsapp... they are just silent now. Hope this helps someone!

This is great; thanks!

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

#252

Post by throwaway8800 »

doubleplusgood wrote: post #243
cryptarch wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Signal group perhaps? Think of the children! (Telegram isn't secure and choosing stickers over security will yield more stickers and less security.)

Sure, works for me.

Count me in too.

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

#253

Post by cmorelli »

nul_byte wrote: post #80
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #57

Earlier 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.

My observation is that this is far more a function of the business' product/market fit than it is the size or age of the business. When you're struggling to pay salaries and bills, and there's no end in sight, often the business (knowingly or not) overworks and stresses their teams to try to make up ground. Unfortunately, the last 3-5 years have seen a lot of very high-risk seed investments in products that seem to have no actual viable path to revenue, which fuels this belief that startups are the problem.

This is not to say startups are without risk; they obviously carry risk. My point is simply that you can absolutely find a startup that will provide you with a reasonable work/life balance. Remember, interviews are as much for your benefit (if not more) than they are for the business. Use the opportunity to ask them about their product, their revenue, their roadmap. You'll probably get a good idea of how hectic things are.

And for any founders/employers out there - respecting the personal lives of your teammates will actually make them far more productive, not less. Aside from just being the right thing to do, it also has the benefit of earning their trust and respect, which will keep them with you.

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

#254

Post by BinaryIdiot »

sotojuan wrote: post #175
nul_byte wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I work at a startup and leave after eight hours. They're not all bad.

Yup, even with my story the very first start-up I worked at wasn't that bad with the hours. We had the occasional crunch time, sure, but I rarely worked more than 8 hours a day. It really depends on management style, the stage of the start-up, and how technical management is (the less technical the more customer promises and more hours for employees to work, in my experience, because they don't entirely understand what is or isn't doable in a specific timeframe and burn-out is a lot harder to explain to someone non-technical).

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

#255

Post by defined »

sbarre wrote: post #168
nul_byte wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cros…

I will vouch for this. A large company in many cases behaves like

    $startup_dysfunctionality + $dysfunctionality_from_fast_post_startup_growth + $years_of_wild_hiring + $years_of_reorgs + $useless_and_obstructive_policies_and_standards

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

#256

Post by jankedeen »

Zelmor wrote: post #138

What 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…

Cats are cool. They love you and hang out regardless. I've followed this pattern recently and realized that there is a balance that can be met in the middle. Do the easy stuff all and any of the time and do the hard stuff as little as possible. That way you can make the $$ and stay sane.

The trick there is to at least do the hard stuff some of the time so you stay up to date and ready for the next thing.

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

#257

Post by BinaryIdiot »

Pigo wrote: post #206
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #57

Earlier 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…

I totally relate. I'll never forget my first anxiety attack, what makes it so bad is that you don't know what's going on, and that only makes your anxiety worse. First my mouth went numb and then it started spreading down to my chest and right arm, I thought for sure I was having a heart attack. I thought anxiety attacks were just freaking out of something in particular. I was relatively relaxed when it first hit me.

Right? This was my second one, too as I had one at my previous job (also a start-up working with the same folks). My first one was apparently incredibly minor because I thought I just had some labored breathing and soreness but that last attack...I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I too always thought an anxiety attack was someone just freaking out because they can't handle something and they're being a little bit of a baby, etc. Boy did my attitude change completely. I had no idea!!

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

#258

Post by cmorelli »

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.

For better or worse, SV is home to a lot of incredibly high-risk investments, and a large of early startups.

Startups with a lot of money on the line and no path to revenue will do crazy things that frequently lead to toxic work environments. Raise $10 million for a product that doesn't have a market fit, hire 10 people, provide them no clear vision for your business or product, tell them to make money, and watch as your business gets pulled in 20 different directions, employees fight, and people stress out. It's not likely to end well for anyone.

It's definitely going to be more common in places where riskier investments are more likely to happen. Uber, as an example, was last valued at nearly $70b and loses nearly $800m every quarter. I would imagine that kind of cash burn with no clear path to profitability is incredibly stressful on everyone. It's almost certainly the cause for many of the horrible decisions that seem to have been made there, and the same thing can apply at smaller scales to earlier businesses.

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

#259

Post by philh »

golergka wrote: post #154
toomuchtodo wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, we should still strive to give that person alternatives. "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle". -- Plato Edit: @aaron695: that is what I was trying to communicate

Why do we, in general, accept any personal decision that does not interfere with other people, but refuse to accept the ultimate decision a person can make in regards to his live? I'm not suicidal at the moment and feel that my life has some purpose - but why would I assume that a person who is suicidal knows less about his own life than I do?

I believe that most people, if prevented from suicide, are glad to have been prevented. You might want to read http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/25/in-defense-of-psych-tre...

Personally, if someone told me in advance that, if they ever attempted suicide, they'd like me to not interfere - then I'd accept that. But I have a friend who's alive because she hadn't told me that, and I did interfere, and she's glad I did.

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

#260

Post by jankedeen »

jupiter90000 wrote: post #33
joeblubaugh wrote: post #2

Please know that if you are feeling hopeless, like you are a failure, and that there is no recovering, there are people who will help you. You are not your job or your accomplishments, you are worth it and there are people who love you and will help you. In the Bay Area, call (415) 781-0500 to talk with someone who can help. http://www.sfsuicide.org/

If someone is in the state of mind of wanting to take their own life, will they desire to call to talk to a stranger on a hotline? "In spite of their popularity and attractiveness, so far there is no conclusive evidence on the effectiveness of suicide prevention hot lines and crise centres" (2004) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1414695/

TBH I did once and they were angry and rude.
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