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The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

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Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#31

Post by tboyd47 »

Honest question. How much of this is cultural or psychological? Can people be trained not to take so much shit from bosses or automatically make the company's problems their problems?

I ask because at my current job, a lot of work is explicitly motivated by the threat of getting yelled at or publicly shamed in some way. I often wonder if these stressful interactions could just be handled politely but in a way that doesn't automatically turn into work that gets handled invisibly or passed down the chain to some other poor sap.

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#32

Post by mathattack »

someone7x wrote: post #19

> I see a workplace that has become shockingly inhumane. A thousand times this. Very few of the lessons my parents taught me apply in the corporate world. Be honest and straight with people, assume good intent, take responsibility, etc. All that behavior will do is paint you as naive. Sure there's room for honesty and responsibility, but only when used appropriately (strategically). Strikes me as acutely inhumane eve…

There are liability reasons for not giving feedback. If I’ve had a good connection then I will give informal feedback on the phone only.

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#33

Post by remar »

I've had the chance to see the toll that a stressful environment (big tech company) can have on physical and mental health - I've experienced it personally and noticed it in others that I work with.

The part about a big tech company being a stressful environment isn't the thing that surprised me, but rather people's responses to how they react to either being on the receiving side of the stress, and management's failure to respond to this or even try to talk about it.

The thing that bugs me the most about the entire situation is that most of the stress that seems to exist, mostly exists because of people who have no idea what they're doing, make decisions they have no business making. Then you have engineers that either come from cultures that are high in agreeableness, or they've never been very assertive themselves and just accept these decisions, thinking it's a situation of "if I don't do this I'm going to get fired".

Most of the people I work with don't even consider the option of just taking an extended period of time off to prevent being burned out because they're basically tied to their employment due to work visas (you guessed it, Indian and Chinese workers) and a lot of them are trying to support family back home. So even leaving their job and taking extended time off isn't a viable option.

Don't even get me started on how I've seen people's physical and mental health completely deteriorate. I know lots of people in my organization that are extremely depressed and wouldn't even be the least bit surprised if I heard they ate a bullet tomorrow.

This whole industry has just motivated me to work to achieve financial independence/early retirement as soon as I can just so I never have to think about working with incompetent people in my life again, or at least, have the financial freedom to cut those relationships once they do arise. It sucks because I know I'll be working on tech related projects for the rest of my life, but I have to ignore the desire to work on things that will actually make a difference so that I can build up that nest egg to have the financial freedom and peace of mind to actually pursue it.

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#34

Post by ProxCoques »

Don't worry, wage slavery is just a phase we're going though because right now we can't see out of the capitalist bubble we're in.

It doesn't have to be like this, and we will find our way out one day, be it through UBI, AI or other post-capitalist mechanism. Might take a few hundred years though, mind you. Once Trump has been flushed through at least.

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#35

Post by glitcher »

mancerayder wrote: post #16
chaseha wrote: post #5

Dealing w/ RSI has been an eye opener for me. What makes it worse: working on a laptop, working on the plane, having to do long hours in poor ergonomic conditions. What do I have to do to be good at my job? Basically, that. What happens if it gets worse and I can no longer use a computer for at least eight hours a day? That is my livelihood

It WILL become a problem. The biggest issue with RSI and other repetive-use injuries (which happens in many professions and even athletics, especially with bad form) is that it happens slowly, then suddenly. It's so slow that it's discomfort. And you ignore that discomfort, especially as your concentration is on a computer monitor with important stuff to worry about being displayed on it. Also, sometimes inflammation…

Completely agree with these awesome tips.

I began to get problems in my right wrist from too much mousing (and probably using wrong mice for too long). I started switching between right and left mouse usage, and not only did it reduce the pain in the right side, but I found I adapted to left mousing fairly quickly and easily.

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#36

Post by jdminhbg »

lowbloodsugar wrote: post #10
dfsdfdsfds wrote: post #2

It makes it sound as if work was more healthy in the past. Was it? When? I know hunter gatherer times were supposed to be paradise, but anything since then? Farming sounds rather arduous. Or what about mining, or working in factories where safety measures have not yet been invented?

As other commenter says, it's not "this or that", but having said that, quality of life for the middle class was definitely better only a few decades ago. An average job would get you a house, a car and a pension, working eight hours a day, five days a week. And "middle class" meant a much greater range of jobs. Factory work could get you a house, a car and a pension. Time with kids, no worries about the future, or h…

> Time with kids, no worries about the future, or how you are going to eat when you retire, if you get to retire. Good times.

The numbers say you're wrong: http://www.nber.org/aginghealth/summer04/w10466.html

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#38

Post by vernie »

mathattack wrote: post #32
someone7x wrote: post #19

> I see a workplace that has become shockingly inhumane. A thousand times this. Very few of the lessons my parents taught me apply in the corporate world. Be honest and straight with people, assume good intent, take responsibility, etc. All that behavior will do is paint you as naive. Sure there's room for honesty and responsibility, but only when used appropriately (strategically). Strikes me as acutely inhumane eve…

There are liability reasons for not giving feedback. If I’ve had a good connection then I will give informal feedback on the phone only.

If the candidate lives in a one-party state your ass is toast!

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#39

Post by bob_theslob646 »

mathattack wrote: post #32
someone7x wrote: post #19

> I see a workplace that has become shockingly inhumane. A thousand times this. Very few of the lessons my parents taught me apply in the corporate world. Be honest and straight with people, assume good intent, take responsibility, etc. All that behavior will do is paint you as naive. Sure there's room for honesty and responsibility, but only when used appropriately (strategically). Strikes me as acutely inhumane eve…

There are liability reasons for not giving feedback. If I’ve had a good connection then I will give informal feedback on the phone only.

Do you mean liability as in liability for discriminatory hiring practices by providing feedback?

Re: The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees

#40

Post by tnzn »

tboyd47 wrote: post #31

Honest question. How much of this is cultural or psychological? Can people be trained not to take so much shit from bosses or automatically make the company's problems their problems? I ask because at my current job, a lot of work is explicitly motivated by the threat of getting yelled at or publicly shamed in some way. I often wonder if these stressful interactions could just be handled politely but in a way that do…

It's hard to evaluate a percentage, especially since culture and psychology are intertwined. However, there's much research going on about resilience in several contexts, and as far as I know, there are ways to take it easier, however there tends to be cultural factors at stake.

Anyways, while teaching resilience could be interesting, imo we should also make the world a place where we need less of it, for both moral and practical reasons : not everyone may be able to develop enough resilience to deal with it.

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