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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

#241
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…

As a 25yo and someone dealing with RSI, I am terrified. What do you recommend for dealing with neck and the back?

Currently, have switched out my mouse for a trackball in the right hand and a trackpad in the left (though occasionally). Next up is the keyboard and chair.

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

#242

I'm a CTO at a YC grad Care Revolutions. There's a lot of comments on what kind of work environment is bad. What do y'all suggest a startup with limited resources do to be an incredible place to work for while also being a highly productive environment? I'm especially interested in suggestions as it relates to your health both physically and mentally!

Base your entire company culture around 40 hour work weeks. If you find people are needing to work more than that to get things done in time, it’s a planning/work load problem, and you need to hire more people.

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

#243
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 find this idea bizarre. It's like humans enjoyed their time for millennia and only now we have to work. For all human history, the conditions of people were dire. Today people might be stuck in an office in their "best year", but people in the past had to toil all day to barely scrape by and didn't even have that many years to live. It's only now that we live these comfortable lives with houses, heating, electricit…

In the book Sapiens the author argues that life was perhaps better before the invention of agriculture, with relative comfort and less time spent on subsistence.

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

#244
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 find this idea bizarre. It's like humans enjoyed their time for millennia and only now we have to work. For all human history, the conditions of people were dire. Today people might be stuck in an office in their "best year", but people in the past had to toil all day to barely scrape by and didn't even have that many years to live. It's only now that we live these comfortable lives with houses, heating, electricit…

Yeah I love coming home from my hard as fuck underpaid job to turn on the TV and see idiots kicking a ball for $100 million dollars.

Something is definitely wrong.

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

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I chose not to have kids. Was a great call becauses kids are like 1,000,000 each (when you factor in investment returns).

The ROI for a child is priceless. :)

Because it’s zero.

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

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find this idea bizarre. It's like humans enjoyed their time for millennia and only now we have to work. For all human history, the conditions of people were dire. Today people might be stuck in an office in their "best year", but people in the past had to toil all day to barely scrape by and didn't even have that many years to live. It's only now that we live these comfortable lives with houses, heating, electricit…

This is actually false. The average American worker today works more hours per year than a 14th century peasant ( http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/08/29/why-a-medie... ). Hunter-gatherers only worked 2-3 hours per day. Despite technology allowing us to work less, we work more. Yes we should be grateful of technological advancement, but too many people are unnecessarily depressed and suicidal, and it doesn't…

So more “vacation”, but dead at 40. Sounds like a great trade.

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I used to get blinding pain in my right shoulder and neck and thought I might have to change careers because it kept getting worse and worse. Tried all kinds of stretching and stuff, some helped, but nothing took the pain completely away. I was in so much pain one day I couldn't use the mouse with my right hand, and began using it with my left hand. The pain gradually went away and I've never had problems since. I th…

For me it's weightlifting, specifically strength training (not bodybuilding) which includes mobility exercises and certain types of exercises that strengthen the muscles that are underworked when sitting for long periods. On example is the serratus anterior. Having a serratus that doesn't work properly leads to numerous shoulder-related problems and back pain. It's all sort of connected.

Stretching is only half the battle. One must stretch the correct muscles (the ones that are too tight, like the pecs and scalenes) and strengthen the ones that are loose and weak (like the rhomboids, serratus and others).

If pursuing weightlifting, which I highly highly recommend, I recommend a real trainer (not most half-baked ones you see in gyms), and spending a lot of time specifically nerding out on exercise physiology, even physical therapy. There are some very good YouTube channels - one of my favorite is Calisthenics Movement.

One simply cannot work in an office or at a computer workstation and expect not to have the body pains of a coal miner by the time you hit your 40's without balancing out muscular strength and joint mobility that you lose by doing this.

Much of strength training, a lot of people are surprised to know, involve neurological connections created simply using muscles in movement patterns that are new. It's very similar to the way you learn proprioception (standing on a skateboard, surfboard, or a subway car without holding onto anything). In the same way, muscles get stronger simply because more fibers are recruited, due to repetitive motions. In the early stages, this is much and perhaps most of the 'gains' in strength.

It's getting late and I've fallen into a rabbit hole. In short, do weight training or SOME sort of mobility work (yoga, pilates, whatever) if you work at a computer for a living. These random HN messages can save you thousands of dollars of future medical bills / PT bills and incalculable discomfort.

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

#248

I'm a CTO at a YC grad Care Revolutions. There's a lot of comments on what kind of work environment is bad. What do y'all suggest a startup with limited resources do to be an incredible place to work for while also being a highly productive environment? I'm especially interested in suggestions as it relates to your health both physically and mentally!

Company I worked for did M/W/F core hours (5 hours) and the rest from home if need be. Then Tuesdays/Thursdays were work from home.

Unreal. Literally the best feeling ever, no stress at all. The job was hard too but that extra degree of control and self direction made a difference.

People are not rats.

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

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are so fortunate to only have to work a 9to5, there is no excuse to waste these years. How many musicians do you know that play in clubs? Most are working two restaurant jobs, renting a room, and scraping money together to buy strings, just for the chance to entertain a crowd for little or no pay. It's all perspective, really.

“Only” work 9 to 5? Don’t forget your commute. And you’ll still need your wife to get the kids to school and pick them up. Hope you earn enough for that and she’s happy st home. And you should help out with dinner and the lunches and homework. And when you get the kids to bed it’s 8 and you’re exhausted. Enjoy your weekend.

I'm wondering what the point of modern society is if village life was more enjoyable.

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

#250

Having a boring office job is really depressing, and it's a shame that you're not allowed to complain about it because there are people in third world countries worse off. Rather than comparing ourselves to impoverished countries, we should take the lead in using our technological advancement to create more humane societies that don't tie people to jobs they hate living paycheck to paycheck. Europe certainly has a be…

As a Colombian myself who studied and worked in the US in the past, I can confirm how the focus on money as the principal mean of finding happiness is specially strong in American culture. This distinction I believe, makes it very hard for people in the US when things don't work out the way they wanted.
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