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Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#71

Post by CalRobert »

patient_zero wrote: post #2

What I find sad about this (and other articles like this) is when the time comes within the article to lay out how to avoid burnout and stress, the list nevver includes ways to spend less time working. It's almost like an unspoken rule. I know that to recommend that is to take a chance with your livelihood but I really hope that we can at least stop blaming ourselves for the ridiculous work/life ratio we currently mu…

This times 1000 - it's amazing how often my colleagues talk about how they worked on something over the weekend or just take it for granted that I want to keep chatting about their crap after 6 PM. Or bosses who say "can you deploy that?" when it's 5:30

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#72

Post by CalRobert »

blablabla123 wrote: post #25
patient_zero wrote: post #2

What I find sad about this (and other articles like this) is when the time comes within the article to lay out how to avoid burnout and stress, the list nevver includes ways to spend less time working. It's almost like an unspoken rule. I know that to recommend that is to take a chance with your livelihood but I really hope that we can at least stop blaming ourselves for the ridiculous work/life ratio we currently mu…

I think employees also need to start taking care of themselves by not following up on every single spontaneous request and also to find something else in time when things turn too toxic. At least for me I can say that I don't follow up on every single request I get, especially when it's many little ones after "the heavy lifting" is done. Management must also learn that this is not bearable. Of course one needs to be…

This is doable when you have rock-solid confidence that you will never be let go (or you have fuck you money).

Otherwise, there's always gonna be another chump in their 20's who thinks they're just putting in their dues before being able to dial it back a bit, and you're competing with them.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#73

Post by FranzFerdiNaN »

escapecharacter wrote: post #23
kartan wrote: post #7

> Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread We are making employees lives miserable to reduce the need of planning for companies. Quite often management lacks the emotional maturity needed in their positions that hides normal mistakes that are part of the job, push for unrealistic schedules and sometimes even get into bulling as a way of getting what they want. 8 hours plus commute time, that has increased as ci…

Crazy idea: what if management was a licensed, regulated career, like traditional engineering, or being a nurse. Like if you have more than 5 "direct reports", you need to get a certification?

Crazier idea: don’t make management the only route to higher salary, pushing loads of incompetent people into it for purely monetary reasons. Reward highly skilled employees for their skill set and experience.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#74

Post by Iamhisalt »

It’s okay to just say No to your employer and walk.

Burnout is real. I got burned out at my last gig 2 years ago and I am still recovering from it mentally and physically - fighting depression and my new autoimmune disease. There’s no reason you should die for a job.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#75

Post by scruple »

ravenstine wrote: post #65
scruple wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we work for the same company? It's _infuriating_ to watch the same people make the same mistakes time and time again. Where is the accountability? Where has the integrity gone? Was it all a lie? What exactly is the _point_ of this charade?

It's indeed a charade. Maybe it wasn't in the beginning, but it inevitably becomes a charade once a company reaches a certain age and size. What happens is that, once a company is reliably making money for everyone, the need to "innovate" and make things more "efficient" is dramatically reduced. At the end of the day, most people want to just show up to the office, do what they're told(what they don't actually want t…

IMO, there's only nothing wrong with this behavior because it's so widespread as to be normalized and accepted. If people are content to be frauds, that's their prerogative, but it's making life for the other half a living hell.

edit/ I should probably also make the point that, IME, there's 2 broad cohorts that I'm speaking generally about. Those cohorts are people who are capable but checked out, burnt out, etc... and the other are people who are not capable yet are never held accountable to that fact. I am railing against the second group, because they actively cause harm, again, IME.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#76

Post by Gibbon1 »

scottlocklin wrote: post #63

I remember sitting in rapture listening to a retired Chevron executive describing the way white collar work used to be. You basically got hired at a megacorp for life. If things didn't work out after the first couple of years, you were gently taken aside, given nothing new to do, and given a salary and an office for an entire year to find a new position. I was flabbergasted. Only professors with tenure or certain gov…

I talked to a Chevron Exec while stuck on a ski lift 30 years ago. Back then if they canceled or finished a project they just redeployed the workers to other projects. Vastly different than the current system where they just lay everyone off at the end. If things weren't working out bosses would just transfer employees to a role better suited to them.

You'll get arguments this is more efficient cause free markets blah blah. However I know one semiconductor company in the valley that bucked that trend. Everyone went home at 5-6pm. Didn't work weekends. They just moved people around instead of firing them. And they totally crushed their competition over 20 years.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#77

Post by GordonS »

Zenst wrote: post #43
kartan wrote: post #7

> Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread We are making employees lives miserable to reduce the need of planning for companies. Quite often management lacks the emotional maturity needed in their positions that hides normal mistakes that are part of the job, push for unrealistic schedules and sometimes even get into bulling as a way of getting what they want. 8 hours plus commute time, that has increased as ci…

For many the commute more than hits your daily stress quota, even before work contributes. So you can end up starting your day stressed, be that public transport sardines and delays or playing car upon roads so gridlocked that the terminology car park seems more apt. This to reach an office at some arbitrary time everybody seems to follow of the 8/9am start. Hence you have this sudden rush into cities around that tim…

> playing car upon roads so gridlocked that the terminology car park seems more apt

I spent 5 years making a 1 hour (each way) commute by car, a distance of 8 miles (also each way). It was soul destroying! Wasting 2 hours of my life every workday just felt so meaningless!

Eventually I moved out of the city to a small town 10 miles out of the city, and only then did I realise just how awful it had been. I'm now lucky enough to work from home 3 days a week and work 1 day in the office - and it's only a 20-25 minute drive.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#79

Post by wozer »

noir_lord wrote: post #69
HillaryBriss wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making employees lives miserable to reduce the need of planning such a great point. we seem to live in a zero-planning world now. i'm surprised at how often, at least in app programming projects, i go to great lengths to show a manager how the app is progressing and where it's ultimately heading, and get no meaningful course correction or even a "that looks great" then, the other shoe drops: after the app is comple…

It's largely identical in enterprise programming. I have a lovely and smart boss but I can not get him to look at stuff properly until after I roll out a potentially massive change to our internal ERP. Real money on the line as well. I think a lot of it is that non-programming managers don't really grok on the intrinsic level the vast complexity that can be under the skin of a seemingly simple change. In fact that is…

Somehow this even happens with programming managers. I feel like we have a real crisis of leadership in software development.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#80

Post by AdrianB1 »

GordonS wrote: post #77
Zenst wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many the commute more than hits your daily stress quota, even before work contributes. So you can end up starting your day stressed, be that public transport sardines and delays or playing car upon roads so gridlocked that the terminology car park seems more apt. This to reach an office at some arbitrary time everybody seems to follow of the 8/9am start. Hence you have this sudden rush into cities around that tim…

> playing car upon roads so gridlocked that the terminology car park seems more apt I spent 5 years making a 1 hour (each way) commute by car, a distance of 8 miles (also each way). It was soul destroying ! Wasting 2 hours of my life every workday just felt so meaningless! Eventually I moved out of the city to a small town 10 miles out of the city, and only then did I realise just how awful it had been. I'm now lucky…

8 miles is a 30 minute bicycle ride (for me) in the city, and my city is in the top 5 by worst traffic in the world. Except for winter time, I never use a car to go to work, it would take me 1.5-2 hours for 10 miles (in each direction). There are options bicycles and scooters.
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