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

#361

Post by jdpigeon » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:30 PM UTC

tcoff91 wrote: post #82

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

I dealt with RSI in my hands for almost a year and made a complete recovery by going to the local rock climbing gym and bouldering. It was almost immediate that my hands began to feel better. I also think that my issues were at least in part due to muscle tension which was coming not due to physical issues but due to emotional issues. Keep an open mind and read "The Great Pain Deception" and see if it applies to your…

Lucky. My bouldering 'career' left me with a lingering case of tendonitis in my elbow and kickstarted my mousing RSI issues. Make sure you're doing your preventative exercises!

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

#362

Post by stagbeetle » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:36 PM UTC

retube wrote: post #343

grecy wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree wholeheartedly, and just so you know, once you get out of North America (the USA especially), it's often not like this. There are millions and millions of people out there in their 20s and 30s who work part time and do whatever they want with the other time, because that provides "enough" money for the life they want to live. I personally work roughly 50% time. I work a few years, then a quit and do whatever…

> They don't have a lot of money, but they have "enough" for the life they want and they spend a lot of time surfing Right. and what happens when they get old? how will they ever be able to retire?

Are you asking this as someone who's already in retirement, enjoying what's left of the simple pleasures or are you still working like the typical American and planning for retirement?

It's sort of like most people turning their noses when someone (used to; now it's different) said they were starting a business: "Oh, well what happens when you fail and can't get a job? How will you ever be able to live then?" People find a way and it sounds like the people the poster was referencing, know themselves well enough to make their decisions. While on the other hand, comparing people to the "norm" many times comes from someone who doesn't know themselves and their wants well (or ignores them), and uses the norm as their gauge for "success," or what have you. For a subset of people, retirement isn't something they want or even need. One of the sentiments I hear often from those still working in older age, "What, retire? Now? I've been working my entire life, what the hell am I gonna do in retirement besides die?" or "60 years of doing shit I didn't want, so I could enjoy 15 doing only the things my body allows now."

Life's short. If you want to do things, do them. The only reason you don't is because you live in fear. There will always be drawbacks to going against the status quo, but that's the price you pay to get what you want.

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

#363

Post by deadbunny » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:37 PM UTC

terryf wrote: post #319

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…

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…

So because we have it good now we shouldn't seek to do things better?

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

#364

Post by justinhj » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:45 PM UTC

smattiso wrote: post #225

mathgladiator wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You captured a core reason that I picked up wood working: projects finish. An annoying aspect of software is that it takes a life of its own. It is never done, but there are feature requests, bugs, and updates. You make a table, and that is it. It's done. Sure, you have to clean it, but mostly it will last a while until it breaks down.

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.

I got into video game development. It is mostly fun and interesting work and I have never regretted it. Sometimes when I was younger I was exploited for my passion with long hours or poor pay but the game industry largely grew out of that. It can still be tough especially on triple A games with huge marketing budgets... nothing puts pressure on managers and a team like a 7-8 figure marketing spend or a launch deadline that cannot be moved (sports seasons, movie releases, thanksgiving) Video games are software and software does not like to be told to finish in the next N weeks no matter how many bugs or how complex they are, or new features that have been dreamed up and must be implemted. This is where tales of long death marches come from. Even those are not ubiquitous. Anyway finally I get to your point: games are online now and they often don’t finish at launch. You can now continue to fix bugs and tweak gameplay after launch and have users update. Not only that but work begins on downloadable expansions and some games have live stores and other online services like leaderboards. I switched to the mobile game industry which is a lot less punishing on staff because you rarely have hard deadlines and games ramp up more slowly. They tend to run for 3-5 years so there is no final release. This means more career stability because AAA teams tend to have layoffs after launch and sometimes disband entirely.

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

#365

Post by oillio » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:51 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.

Maybe it does, if he works at Boeing.

The reason we have all these advances that increase our quality of life is because generations have worked their ass off to build them

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

#366

Post by terryf » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

deadbunny wrote: post #363

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…

So because we have it good now we shouldn't seek to do things better?

I never argued that. I do believe that things are much better now than in the 14th century though. That's the comment I replied to.

We should always strive to improve, but the article had the tone of "oh look how bad everything is" while implying that it hasn't always been like that. Things are far better now in almost any quantifiable measure than they have ever been in human history. Not enough people talk about that.

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

#367

Post by delecti » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:51 PM UTC

deadbunny wrote: post #363

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…

So because we have it good now we shouldn't seek to do things better?

No, but because we have it good now we shouldn't frame the discussion to seem that the current situation is dire. We can and should do better, but things are already pretty great.

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

#368

Post by delecti » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

throwa9b8c7d6 wrote: post #318

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 to cancel my honeymoon and my brother's honeymoon because of work. I am an H1B from India working for the American subsidiary of an India company. For a short period of time, I was put on a project that was created by some other team and finally abandoned by the customer. Then, 1-2 years later, new customer management decided to bring the project back to life. Only thing was the new management didn't know it wa…

I want to start off by saying that it was wrong of them to ask you to cancel your vacation, but in the end you threw away your vacation on the hypothetical that they would fire you, only to leave the company voluntarily. It seems like you ended up with the worst of both worlds. If you would have said no, then you'd be no worse off than you are now.

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

#369

Post by vilmosi » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 1:58 PM UTC

xigency wrote: post #243

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…

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.

The book also says how that world was incredibly violent and unsympathetic to the elderly/sick.

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

#370

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, Mar 23, 2018, 2:05 PM UTC

mathgladiator wrote: post #180

Spooky23 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the way our laws protect protected classes make it trivial to hustle employers. I’ve been sued and served with human rights complaints for firing a sleeping employee (I wasn’t checking on the sleep/wake status of employees not in protected classes) and for allegedly terminating an employee because of their protected substance abuse issues. It’s an incredibly time consuming, expensive and stressful process.

Wait, now I have to Google protected substance abuse issues. How is this a thing?

Good intentions and problematic incentives.

Medical conditions give you certain protections for good reason -- otherwise employers would just fire employees with cancer to keep insurance rates down.

99/100 these things are good, but it takes a couple of jerks to make life miserable for all.