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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

#41

Post by remar »

osrec wrote: post #24

Work has become a strange thing. I see people foregoing their best years stuck in an office, in the hope they can enjoy their later years. What utter nonsense. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but society has got something very wrong, as our work culture seems to surgically remove the wonder and enjoyment from our days. Hardly surprising that it drives people to ill health. Glad I broke out of that cycle a long…

I'm sure you're aware of this, but a lot of people just don't have the financial freedom to even begin thinking about a decision like this, or it ends up requiring a lot of energy to make that plan viable. And as you've probably experienced, energy is not exactly abundant after a day/week/month/etc in an environment like that...

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

#42

Post by saas_co_de »

retrac98 wrote: post #27

I’ve always found it very effective to use a “just say no” policy to out of hours work or more work than I can handle comfortably. People stop taking advantage when you stop letting them. More than you might expect actually respect it. I don’t think this way of working has hurt my career progression, and it’s certainly done wonders for my mental health.

100% true.

> I don’t think this way of working has hurt my career progression

I am sure it has helped.

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

#43

Post by bmpafa »

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.

Most any form of helping someone out carries risks. Part of what makes acts of kindness praiseworthy is the acceptance of those risks for the sake of another person.

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

#44

Post by cyberpunk0 »

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…

"Not take shit from your boss" = "get fired by boss for 'insubordination' "

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

#45

Post by adamson »

dfsdfdsfds wrote: post #9
sjg007 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with work in the past being more healthy. It is not a this or that situation.

The way it is written suggests "the workplace" used to be better: "But I would say that with all the evidence I’ve encountered — and it’s not perfect evidence — I’ve seen nothing inconsistent with the statement that the workplace has generally gotten worse" - "I see a workplace that has become shockingly inhumane." Of course it is still valid to ask how a healthier workplace could be created. Just the notion that thi…

I interpreted "the workplace" as him referring narrowly to white collar work (either in an office doing clerical/technical work or in a mobile setting like a salesperson).

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

#46

Post by diab0lic »

derwiki wrote: post #26
osrec wrote: post #24

Work has become a strange thing. I see people foregoing their best years stuck in an office, in the hope they can enjoy their later years. What utter nonsense. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but society has got something very wrong, as our work culture seems to surgically remove the wonder and enjoyment from our days. Hardly surprising that it drives people to ill health. Glad I broke out of that cycle a long…

Do you have a job now? If so how is it better?

Judging from his profile he consults now: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=osrec

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

#47

Post by someone7x »

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.

And there are competing humanitarian reasons for giving it. The sadness is that our laws choose the institution over the individual.

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

#48

Post by glup »

ProxCoques wrote: post #34

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.

As I was reading this I was thinking "uh oh, here comes the techno-utopian nonsense", but then I got to the "few hundred years" part. Yup, sounds about right. Cheers to dialectics.

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

#49

Post by minikites »

As I type this comment, there are 46 other comments, not one of them using the word "union". That's the only feasible method I can see to enact large scale change. CEOs and other executives aren't going to change out of the kindness of their hearts, as evidenced by the fact that they could start at any point and still choose not to.

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

#50

Post by ExcelSaga »

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…

It kills me every time, but I NEED my paycheck more than I prefer to help my fellow human.

You're not wrong, or a bad person for doing this, and I do it too. We are weak people though, and as a group we're the reason why the line keeps getting pushed and pushed until we don't even remember where it started.

At some point we're going to have to push back, and the longer we wait, the harder and longer we'll have to push.

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