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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

#291

Post by hulahoof »

mathgladiator wrote: post #194
ghettoimp wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Unfortunately if everyone took this route, we'd encounter a whole new stack of problems.

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

#292

Post by hulahoof »

mieseratte wrote: post #282
jasonkester wrote: post #278

There is no downtime anymore. You can never truly get away from work in an age of 4g connectivity everywhere. I'm doing a bit of consulting with a startup at the moment, and one of our team members recently disappeared off on vacation. Good for him, I thought. Two days later, he popped back up on the company slack, working away from his tropical beach. To be clear, this is not a case of digital nomadding. This is 10…

> There is no downtime anymore. You can never truly get away from work in an age of 4g connectivity everywhere. You can. Get rid of your phone. Most of us don't have a job that actually requires a phone, and it's really as matter of your work willing to take advantage of the fact that most of you won't push back when pressed. You can take advantage of the fact that they won't pay for you to carry a phone. I finally g…

A bit less extreme, but I put my phone silent mode about 6 months ago and never set it back.

I was probably checking it more for the first month to be honest, but after breaking my own and others expectations of a swift reply I find it much easier to respond at my leisure.

Edit: communication at work is expected over internal IM and email, and my previous solution was to not give out my number. I feel this works better.

After all, if I'm 3 hours late responding and it was dire I would have been contacted via other means.

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

#293

Post by ILikeConemowk »

mancerayder wrote: post #247
jupiter90000 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

Very interesting comment, just wanted to thank you for it.

I've been meaning to get into calisthenics and have had to push it due to other responsibilities.

One of the problems is that we are all very good at finding excuses. Exercising, hover, even if it's a bit here and there during the day must not take a big chunk of your time. When I managed to stick to my schedule in the past I actually started to enjoy the "grind" the challenge of lasting longer, improving form and so on.

I'll go back at it, thanks!

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

#294

Post by rwmj »

wmeredith wrote: post #112
FlyingSideKick wrote: post #96

How can workers change corporate culture from within to demand work-life balance? I asked an executive VP this at a one of the worlds largest company’s here in Seattle and she said “If the young talent we need coming out of school across the board demanded shorter days and more vacation we would have to comply. But they don’t instead they are awed by an extra $10k on a hiring bonus they might or might not get after t…

Unionize. That’s how we got things like the 40 hour work week.

Yes I was very surprised there is no mention of unions in the article. The writer has supposed to have thought deeply about this issue, but doesn't come to the (to me) obvious conclusion?

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

#295

Post by gambiting »

slphil wrote: post #259
JDiculous wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

To some degree, yes, peasants worked less than modern humans, but also had to extend large amounts of effort to prepare food, attain wood for fires and light, build their own structures, etc. I slightly romanticize medieval life so I won't convince you that their lives were hellish and awful, but we take for granted the amount of work our society does for us. Also, the idea of the high-leisure hunter gatherer is fals…

Women particularly spent almost all spare time making clothing - because a pair of pants could take a month to make. Sure it wasn't backbreaking work in the fields, but it wasn't spare leisure time either.

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

#297

Post by pi-squared »

jasonkester wrote: post #278

There is no downtime anymore. You can never truly get away from work in an age of 4g connectivity everywhere. I'm doing a bit of consulting with a startup at the moment, and one of our team members recently disappeared off on vacation. Good for him, I thought. Two days later, he popped back up on the company slack, working away from his tropical beach. To be clear, this is not a case of digital nomadding. This is 10…

> 20 years ago, there was an expectation that when you left the office, you were unreachable except in an emergency.

Maybe I am sort of fresh in the workforce (3 yrs) but I just don't allow this - if I am not in the office I don't work. I don't have slack on my phone or whatever and I have strict boundaries working 9-5. Does it become worse when I have more exp?

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

#298

Post by JanezStupar »

JDiculous wrote: post #227
DeusExMachina wrote: post #62

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…

This is a persistent myth. I have found the original source of "15 hour work week" study and it turns out that the methodology is completely bunk.

The researcher only categorized "work" as "time spent outside of camp". They did not categorize any of food preparation, shelter maintenance/building and making/mending clothes as "work".

In reality hunter gatherers spend close to 40 hours a week just on food preparation.

Considering the metric, I myself only work a day a month. Because that is how much it takes for me to make money to purchase groceries.

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

#299

Post by JetSpiegel »

jasonkester wrote: post #278

There is no downtime anymore. You can never truly get away from work in an age of 4g connectivity everywhere. I'm doing a bit of consulting with a startup at the moment, and one of our team members recently disappeared off on vacation. Good for him, I thought. Two days later, he popped back up on the company slack, working away from his tropical beach. To be clear, this is not a case of digital nomadding. This is 10…

I had a colleague that interrupted the honeymoon because of a vague "we are swamped with work" remark from an asshat manager.

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

#300

Post by gambiting »

some_account wrote: post #272
smattiso wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I wish I had gotten into video game development rather than app development. Once the game is finished it is (for the most part) complete.

Are you being sarcastic? The game industry is the hardest and most miserable. Surely you haven't missed that.

I guess, if you pick badly then it probably is. I've been working in video games for 4 years now(as a C++ engine programmer) and I'm still enjoying it a lot. We ship a project, millions of people enjoy it, it feels great. The last time I had to do overtime was 2 years ago I think, I'm usually home by 5pm and get to do other stuff I really enjoy. The pay could be a bit better, but seriously, the superb job satisfaction and good work-life balance is worth the slight reduction in pay compared to companies where you hate every second of being there.
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