Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week • Hacker News Board

Re: Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

#51

Post by thaumasiotes » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:00 PM UTC

yabadabadoes wrote: post #43

thaumasiotes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It depends on the industry but there's too many people who are de facto actually at work every waking moment If "at work every waking moment" means "needs to be able to respond to emergencies", then this is actually the norm for everyone in the world until very recently. Anyone who doesn't have an employer is "at work every waking moment" by this definition. Peasants, housewives, aristocrats... Given the nearly 100…

Given that chauffeuring is driving and we were driving before Uber existed, it seems strange that people expect compensation when driving for Uber and count it as part of their labor time?

Try to make the correspondences in your supposed analogy explicit. I'll wait.

My parent comment is not complaining about excessive labor time. He's complaining about being on call. Is it strange that people expect compensation for being on call? That depends on what you're willing to consider "compensation". No one is clocked in at an hourly rate while on call because the labor laws prohibit that, but that's an artifact. On-call positions are viewed as more undesirable than otherwise and pay compensation accordingly.

Re: Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

#52

Post by rixrax » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:00 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #17

CalRobert wrote: post #8

"Conducted by telecommunications company TollFreeForwarding.com, " an odd source, but OK. I work remote from a place outside the US. Last thanksgiving my boss (from the US) was on Slack. So were... all but one of my US colleagues. I see them writing at all hours of the night. On a work trip it was more or less assumed I'd work from 9 AM (8:30 ish really if you count coffee before) until 10 PM. I'm not on pagerduty an…

> It depends on the industry but there's too many people who are de facto actually at work every waking moment If "at work every waking moment" means "needs to be able to respond to emergencies", then this is actually the norm for everyone in the world until very recently. Anyone who doesn't have an employer is "at work every waking moment" by this definition. Peasants, housewives, aristocrats... Given the nearly 100…

You mean emergencies such as your hot shot boss calling you 2am because he wants to discuss some bullshit idea he just had?

I’ve worked in a couple of places where this kept happening. First time I was junior enough to care and put up with it. Everyone understand: this is not normal. Unless you specifically signed up for pager duty sort of job, no one should put up with this.

Re: Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

#53

Post by scottious » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:00 PM UTC

A year ago I had a 6-week paternity leave at 33 years old. It was the first time since I started my career that I was able to unplug for a significant amount of time.

This time off was truly a magical time for me, and even though I had to do a ton of work around the house and with the baby, I felt a sense of purpose. I started to feel like a real person again.

I came back to work and I made some huge gains for the company for a short period of time... my creativity was back, my motivation was back. The things I did after paternity leave paid off a huge amount and had ripple effects of increased productivity for the entire company.

Then, I burned out again. Now I'm just a zombie who occasionally writes code and counts down the hours until I can go home. It's obvious to me that I just need some extended time to myself, but that doesn't fly in America. I think my employer would rather me be a zombie than to just have some time off to recharge.

Re: Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

#54

Post by andrei_says_ » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

2sk21 wrote: post #36

Just a couple days ago there was a big discussion about an article that said that early retirement will lead to cognitive decline. Work and burn out or retire and vegetate? Surely there are some better alternatives?

Retirement for me would mean working on what I love and only that. Presuming that my creativity and contribution are dependent on having an employer is shortsighted.

And I can’t imagine being an exception.

Re: Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

#55

Post by realbarack » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:01 PM UTC

2sk21 wrote: post #36

Just a couple days ago there was a big discussion about an article that said that early retirement will lead to cognitive decline. Work and burn out or retire and vegetate? Surely there are some better alternatives?

There are alternatives. For example: https://basecamp.com/books/calm

Re: Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

#56

Post by wonderwonder » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

GiorgioG wrote: post #3

Sprints? I love sprints...I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel day in, day out. Seriously, screw scrum and 'agile'

But what about the relief of getting a release out to production? Immediately followed by the crushing stress of getting started on the next impossible sprint.

yeah, agile is not fun.

Re: Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

#57

Post by mmsimanga » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:02 PM UTC

strictnein wrote: post #11

GiorgioG wrote: post #3

Sprints? I love sprints...I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel day in, day out. Seriously, screw scrum and 'agile'

The feeling of never finishing anything is probably the thing I hate must about agile. Just little bits completed off an ever growing backlog.

I work in BI building data marts and reports. First we used to have what I would term technical user stories. Build this report, change that cube, build that mart... Then we added analysis stories and off late we now have design user stories. Our sprints are two weeks. One sprint ended up being the developer checking a tick box. But it took a whole month to complete because we had a two week analysis sprint and another two week "implementation" sprint. But guess what we successfully completed all our user stores.

Re: Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

#58

Post by rhcom2 » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:03 PM UTC

andrei_says_ wrote: post #47

beat wrote: post #28

So why do they stay at these awful jobs? Health insurance. Fear of losing, or even changing what they have (sometimes accompanied with some very real and not just anxiety out-of-pocket costs running into the thousands of dollars). Decoupling health insurance from employment is the #1 thing we could do to improve quality of our work. But in the long run, I dream of a day when wage labor is looked back on as nearly as…

Employee provided health insurance guarantees cheap labor and easy to abuse employees who must make a very hard choice if they are to lose health insurance. Who would lobby for changing that balance and who would finance the campaigns of politicians that support such a reform?

Most of the Democratic primary candidates.

Re: Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

#59

Post by naringas » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:03 PM UTC

throwaway129917 wrote: post #40

The American Aristocracy wants a return to slavery. Not in name, just in practice. This project is nearly complete.

> This project is nearly complete.

wrong, it is already complete.

But it's a sort of softer (or blurrier) slavery.

one difference between old classic slavery and modern employment slavery is that the slave-employees are not bound to a single master. They are "free" to change employers. But they aren't really free to quit working altogether. Only people who own enough assets are free.

And surely it could be argue that I exaggerate, that people are indeed free to enterprise and try to make it on their own, as business owners (only really possible if you have enough assets to begin with). But then "the market economy" will subtly force them into hiring employees.

If the only way to be "free" is through the enslavement of others, is that true liberty?

Re: Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

#60

Post by beat » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #38

beat wrote: post #28

So why do they stay at these awful jobs? Health insurance. Fear of losing, or even changing what they have (sometimes accompanied with some very real and not just anxiety out-of-pocket costs running into the thousands of dollars). Decoupling health insurance from employment is the #1 thing we could do to improve quality of our work. But in the long run, I dream of a day when wage labor is looked back on as nearly as…

How will people be compensated relative to their work value?

Why do we need to work?

edit: I am 100% serious about this. It is already economically viable, if society chooses to do it, to simply guarantee food, decent housing, and health care to everyone, whether they work or not. At that point, what we do with our time becomes a choice, more than the choice of "work or go homeless and starve". People could still choose to exchange their time and skills for money, and most would, I think. But the coercion of the current system, and the "safety net" holes in that coercion, would disappear.