The health care toll today’s work culture exacts on employees • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by letsgetphysITal » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:13 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #349

terryf wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work my ass off. Lot more hours than would be technically necessary. High tech as well. I've also gone hiking in the mountains in California. Been on the beach in Italy. Walked around in the center of Munich. As a 14th century peasant I probably never even knew those places existed. I can also get pain medication if I have a headache. I can go to a doctor to fix my broken bones if I happen to get one. Oh, and the l…

But that is a false dichotomy. Your working long hours in an office in no way helps or correlates with the ability of being able to travel, or to have headache medication.

Work long hours to make money to pay for nice things like travel and medication because those things take time and effort to create and time spent creating should be rewarded and we reward people spending time working long hours creating things with money.

So yes, it does correlate.

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

#352

Post by dancek » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

xedrac wrote: post #237

mathgladiator wrote: post #194

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).

My kids are worth more than all the money in the world as far as I'm concerned. Besides, there's a lot of cushion in that $1,000,000 figure. Frugality is so underrated.

Agreed. If raising a child were to cost $1M in 20 years, that would average $50k/year. I earn about as much and have two kids, so I imagine I would have noticed if it was that expensive.

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

#353

Post by mathattack » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:15 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #129

btilly wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Liability as in the more that you have said, the more likely it is that a lawsuit will be filed based on a misunderstanding of what you did say. It doesn't matter how unlikely the lawsuit is to win on the merits. Fighting in court and discovery both bring costs and distractions that institutions would prefer to avoid.

Its more like protecting the company from a Manager going of piste and saying we don't hire xxxx for these sort of jobs.

Exactly. A manager can say overqualified and the company gets sued for age discrimination.

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

#354

Post by terryf » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

andrepd wrote: post #349

terryf wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work my ass off. Lot more hours than would be technically necessary. High tech as well. I've also gone hiking in the mountains in California. Been on the beach in Italy. Walked around in the center of Munich. As a 14th century peasant I probably never even knew those places existed. I can also get pain medication if I have a headache. I can go to a doctor to fix my broken bones if I happen to get one. Oh, and the l…

But that is a false dichotomy. Your working long hours in an office in no way helps or correlates with the ability of being able to travel, or to have headache medication.

Technically, you're probably right.

Realistically I also like to live in a nice house, do have to (well, by choice obviously) take care of three kids and like to enjoy a luxury here and there.

That takes money. I have tried multiple times to build my own companies, but sadly haven't been successful in that.

So that's for the travel argument.

As for the headache medication argument - I have that only because thousands of people have spent a lot of time in offices and labs developing those drugs and treatments.

Personally, my work mostly revolves around making wind turbines more efficient at producing energy by helping with data analysis. I also like to think that's my small way of offsetting the environmental damage I do by travelling. It's probably not enough, but still. something. So yeah, I'd say spending time at the office correlates quite nicely.

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

#355

Post by terryf » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:18 PM UTC

letsgetphysITal wrote: post #351

andrepd wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that is a false dichotomy. Your working long hours in an office in no way helps or correlates with the ability of being able to travel, or to have headache medication.

Work long hours to make money to pay for nice things like travel and medication because those things take time and effort to create and time spent creating should be rewarded and we reward people spending time working long hours creating things with money. So yes, it does correlate.

ooh. much better put than my longer rant in sibling comment.

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

#356

Post by pharke » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:19 PM UTC

slimshady94 wrote: post #270

rland wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I have given a lot of thought to. I saw footage of a gazelle being hunted by a cheetah. My reflexive thought is -- how unimaginably horrible. Here is an animal which is evolved specifically to hunt you down and kill you. And every moment you spend trying to live is a moment lived in fear of this awful creature. What a life! My horror does not even compare to the horror of this life. But, watching th…

The gazelle is not self-conscious about it's life, and whether it's muscles are beautiful or not. It will never sense the beauty of what you're describing - from it's point of view, it will just feel fear, pain, then die. Perhaps a higher-dimensional being would also see some beauty in our life that we cannot comprehend currently - like the gazelle can't comprehend it's Olympic flow, a human can't comprehend the long…

The gazelle may not be able to reflect on the meaning of its existence but it is certainly capable of experiencing its actions and environment. A lack of self-awareness is not a lack of enjoyment, it may even heighten it. Think of the droves of people working to afford some time to simply live in the moment, to experience the raw beauty of nature or a physical challenge. Without a self or ego projected into the future, every minute of the gazelle's life is like that. As you say, an animal can feel fear and pain but they are also capable of feeling relief, pleasure, and even joy.

If you attempt to quantify life in such terms you may run into issues, our longevity is meager when compared to a giant tortoise or a simple koi fish, for all of our progress and the safety it grants us we still succumb to the same fate, we still suffer and all of our works are washed away by rain and time.

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

#357

Post by wu-ikkyu » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:20 PM UTC

DeusExMachina wrote: post #62

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 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…

>At the same time I think we should be grateful that we live in the best life conditions ever seen by humanity.

What metrics did you use to determine this, other than life expectancy? A zoo animal may have a longer life expectancy, but a free animal arguably leads a more satisfying life according to their nature.

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

#358

Post by wu-ikkyu » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

tuukkah wrote: post #290

some_account wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article criticizes American work culture for very good reasons. Of course we should work and have jobs, but that doesn't mean work needs to be like it is in America. Do you guys in America even know how it is in Sweden for example? We don't have this competitive culture, and companies are trying hard to make their employees feel good at work. Nobody really works full 8 hours at big companies and nobody is stresse…

Plus the month-long paid summer vacations! EDIT: To be more precise: typically ~20 days in the summer and additional ~5-15 days in the winter. Averages by country, Sweden 26 days: https://www.europeandataportal.eu/en/highlights/which-countr... 34 days (minimum?) when you include the 16 paid public holidays such as Christmas, New Year, Easter, Midsummer: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-most-...

From what I've seen, 10 days vacation per year seems to be the norm in corporate US, though I know people who get even less than that.

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

#359

Post by kofejnik » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

antonkm wrote: post #302

tuukkah wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus the month-long paid summer vacations! EDIT: To be more precise: typically ~20 days in the summer and additional ~5-15 days in the winter. Averages by country, Sweden 26 days: https://www.europeandataportal.eu/en/highlights/which-countr... 34 days (minimum?) when you include the 16 paid public holidays such as Christmas, New Year, Easter, Midsummer: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-most-...

It's more often 5-6 weeks. As a Swede I always feel alien to the hours Americans seem to put in. I'm a consultant and work roughly 35h/w in Sweden. I often find this a bit too much, given that the work I do is disconnected from anything "real". Sure, my clients are always happy and I do fun things, but my family and friends is what's real. I truly believe we should automate everything and let humans decide by themsel…

hey, if you have too much work, I'd be happy to help with some of it (preferably web dev and ML in python) -_- dy (a) deepmagic.io

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

#360

Post by dwater » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:26 PM UTC

retube wrote: post #342

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…

> Hunter-gatherers only worked 2-3 hours per day. They were also dead by 35.

That is misleading. Infant mortality was high, but for those who lived past childhood average lifespan was not that far off from what it is today. https://condensedscience.wordpress.com/2011/06/28/life-expec...