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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

#161

Post by GordonS »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #80
GordonS wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I was in a Scottish city of only 200k people, so not nearly the worst by any stretch, but still bad enough to result in soul-destroying journey times during rush hour :(

Unfortunately, cycling isn't an option for everyone.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#162

Post by gerbilly »

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…

Man I used to have jobs where I'd come in at 10:30 and leave by two, and I mean in a normal company that 'expected' 9 to 5.

I've never owned or used an alarm clock.

I did however manage to save the project on more than one occasion.¹

When people complain I tell them I'm an ability guy, not an availability guy. If they don't like that then I move on.

¹ One time I hacked a buggy compiler we received from IBM that was preventing us from presenting a demo at a trade show. I did it in 8 hours and we made the trade show in time.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#163

Post by m0zg »

ethagnawl wrote: post #151
m0zg wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a consultant I'd bill my hourly rate for travel to and from the customer's office. This achieves two things: 1. Reduces stress, because all of a sudden your commute is not a total waste of time 2. Makes your client feel better about you working from home

I wish I had the guts to add this sort of stipulation to my (non-existent) standard contract.

It's usually not even in the contract (most contracts were supplied by customer). Contracts usually have something to the effect that the customer will pay for travel. You can justify this by saying that because your place of business (usually your home or office) isn't nearby, and your work does not require you to be on-site, you will charge for the actual time spent on travel to and from customer site. You have to be firm on this, and be prepared to walk away if they refuse. I haven't once encountered any pushback, though, even though my hourly rate was pretty high. Also, where I couldn't park for free, I'd pass through parking as an expense. Clients are cool with that too. Somehow they don't allow any of this shit for regular employees, for reasons that I don't quite understand. :-)

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#164

Post by manmal »

dragonwriter wrote: post #158
manmal wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a healthy mind, there is a causal hierarchy: Reality > your perception of reality > emotions (strongly simplified!). You are suggesting that stoicism means manipulating emotions, at the bottom of the hierarchy. What (to me) it means is manipulating the perception of reality. I agree that shoving aside emotions won’t do you much good, except in the short term (e.g. not punching the boss in the face). Long term emot…

> In a healthy mind, there is a causal hierarchy: Reality > your perception of reality > emotions (strongly simplified!). That's certainly the conceit of rationality, but realistically the last two have a complex two-way relationship where often, perhaps most often, the reverse order of those two elements dominates.

I agree that, short-term, emotions change perception of reality. Or at least, past trauma and other experiences from the past feed heavily into perception. But my own experience is that the link from perception to emotions is more profound and effective. A few words, formulating crucial information, can turn around your emotions 180 degrees. „I‘m pregnant“, „You have cancer“, „I‘m sorry“, etc. The other direction seems way more subtle to me.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#165

Post by Mandatum »

mgkimsal wrote: post #141
madcaptenor wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s an “office”?

imagine a small open-area bullpen workspace, but just big enough for one person. now imagine there's a door between that area and others like it.

Like a single-person meeting room/phone room?

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#166

Post by Falkon1313 »

jammygit wrote: post #108

If one was a founder who wanted to have their startup succeed without crushing your teams mental/physical health, how would you do it? I understand the founder accepting it as a cost themselves, but when the company's existence depends on speed, how do you balance the push with survival? Are there any good case studies?

- It's understandable that you're super-excited and willing to work 18-hour days to make your business a success. Probably not healthy, but understandable, because it's your baby. Don't expect that from others, because it's not their baby. They have their own babies (and hobby projects, friendships, etc.) that need their attention.

- Consider an employee with 4 kids in different schools, each with different after-school activities, a spouse who also works, and an ailing parent/grandparent who needs care and won't be around much longer. Try to target your expectations for workload and time available to be appropriate for that hypothetical employee, in such a way that they can still live their life and care for their family while also being an effective and valuable employee.

- If you're in software, plan for zero-downtime deployments from day one. Architect and develop for it from the beginning. Don't ask your employees to stay up all night doing deployments and maintenance during a 'quiet time' window in the middle of the night. It's not hard to do daytime deployments without taking the system offline if it's designed for it from the start, but it can be a major challenge to retrofit that ability.

- Continually reassess your deadlines and priorities. If your deadlines are actually hard due to external factors, consider what can reasonably be cut to make the deadline. If they're soft, consider focusing more on priorities of what is most important rather than deadline dates. Seek to relieve pressure rather than creating it, by focusing on what's most important.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#167

Post by thatcat »

geezerjay wrote: post #156
FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The thing is, highly skilled employees are only effective if they work in a coordinated manner towards a common goal, and the people in charge of coordinating the teams are... Managers. To put it differently, in a 6-man team each employee is responsible and held accountable for around 1/6th of the productivity, but the team manager is responsible and accountable for 100% of the effort. Hence managers earning higher s…

The manager is not responsible for doing any work, only meta work. The metric of work output measures mgmt value input indirectly. You need to look at their actual interaction and analyse the meta work they do directly to get a true account of the value a manager provides.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#168

Post by ethagnawl »

m0zg wrote: post #163
ethagnawl wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I had the guts to add this sort of stipulation to my (non-existent) standard contract.

It's usually not even in the contract (most contracts were supplied by customer). Contracts usually have something to the effect that the customer will pay for travel. You can justify this by saying that because your place of business (usually your home or office) isn't nearby, and your work does not require you to be on-site, you will charge for the actual time spent on travel to and from customer site. You have to…

> most contracts were supplied by customer

This is precisely why I don't have a standard contract -- which, after doing this for a number of years, still seems very odd to me. A while back, I hired a lawyer to revise and amend a contract _supplied by customer_ only to have it rejected because of the time and effort it would have taken their lawyers to review/revise/amend my changes. As I understand it, this same line of reasoning would also prevent (most) of my clients from signing a contract presented by me. This makes businesses sense, and I've since learned that it's standard practice, but I resent that I'm the one who has to make the take-it-or-leave-it decision about whether to work _for_ this client, as opposed to _with_ this client.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#170

Post by pault »

m0zg wrote: post #163
ethagnawl wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I had the guts to add this sort of stipulation to my (non-existent) standard contract.

It's usually not even in the contract (most contracts were supplied by customer). Contracts usually have something to the effect that the customer will pay for travel. You can justify this by saying that because your place of business (usually your home or office) isn't nearby, and your work does not require you to be on-site, you will charge for the actual time spent on travel to and from customer site. You have to…

> Somehow they don't allow any of this shit for regular employees, for reasons that I don't quite understand.

It's because contractors are capex and employees are opex. I'm on a staff augmentation contract at a rate 2x the salary cap for the most senior employees. They keep begging me to convert but can't because I would be taking a $100,000 pay cut. It's a ridiculous situation.

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