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Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

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

#71

Post by baq »

AlexandrB wrote: post #42
mcv wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a very good reason why story points in scrum do not directly relate to time worked. You guess story points only in relation to each other. Over time, you can see how many story points you finish per sprint. By seeing how many story points are still on the backlog, you can estimate how long it will take. Add one or two sprints for unforeseen problems, and there's your estimate. Not based on anyone's guess, but…

If nearly everyone is doing it wrong, the problem is Scrum.

It’s a very naive thing to say. The problem is usually management misunderstanding what scrum is supposed to be. It’s a variant of ‘estimates become deadlines’.

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

#72

Post by zamfi »

scottious wrote: post #53

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 co…

> I think my employer would rather me be a zombie than to just have some time off to recharge.

And you probably don't think you can even ask your employer about this: what would it say about your devotion as an employee?

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

#73

Post by nradov »

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.

Beyond a certain point, if your backlog is continuously growing then your product owners simply aren't doing their job. The backlog should only contain thinks that can realistically be implemented within the next year or so (maybe two). Keeping anything in the backlog beyond that is pointless because by the time you get to it the customer requirements will have changed. So competent product owners need to actively purge backlog user stories which are no longer needed, and act as gatekeepers to limit what gets into the backlog in the first place.

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

#74

Post by internet_user »

bg4 wrote: post #6
grawprog wrote: post #2

I work six days a week. I leave my house at 7am return home around 7pm, pretty much have time to make dinner and chill for an hour so then go to bed and do it again. I haven't really been out and done anything for a few years now. My body is in pain constantly, I'm always exhausted but my sleep is always poor. I don't remember what it's like to not feel burnt out. It's been like this pretty much since I was in my ear…

I did this for years and years and developed a blister on my retina from the never ending stress. Permanent vision problems. It's not worth it!

Can you let us know the actual medical term and how was this linked to stress?

there is a lot of research these days about autoimmune diseases and how they are triggered by stress, but retina blisters is something I never heard about before.

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

#75

Post by spking »

rhcom2 wrote: post #58
andrei_says_ wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's probably time to stop expecting politicians to solve these problems for us, regardless of what they claim on the campaign trail.

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

#76

Post by WarDores »

beat wrote: post #60
aantix wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

I'd like to see a source for "It is already economically viable...". Maybe at current levels of production, but you can't just assume current levels of output in every sector while removing incentives.

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

#77

Post by grawprog »

mcv wrote: post #9
grawprog wrote: post #2

I work six days a week. I leave my house at 7am return home around 7pm, pretty much have time to make dinner and chill for an hour so then go to bed and do it again. I haven't really been out and done anything for a few years now. My body is in pain constantly, I'm always exhausted but my sleep is always poor. I don't remember what it's like to not feel burnt out. It's been like this pretty much since I was in my ear…

That's not healthy. Please take some time off for a vacation and return to a normal 40 hour work week. There's a good reason why people fought for a 40 hour work week. Life is not just about work; you need to relax too. I refuse to work more than 32 hours a week, and that's working out very well for me. I have time for my hobbies, my kids, my friends and family, and I have time to just do nothing at all on occasion.…

I have a decent job, but I have student loans, I live in an expensive city and don't really have the ability to move elsewhere, at least half my cheque goes to rent each month, much of the rest goes towards bills and essentials. The overtime I work is the thing that lets me save money at all, otherwise I'd be living cheque to cheque.

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

#78

Post by Ididntdothis »

mercutio2 wrote: post #65
Ididntdothis wrote: post #5

Americans really need more vacation time. For a while I worked with only 15 days a year. This never gives you the opportunity to ever really relax. Life becomes just one endless meaningless time of working year after year that kills any kind of creativity . I can see this in a lot of workaholics. They just go through the motions of working hard but don’t get much done. And once you have been in that machine for a whi…

“Only” 15 vacation days? I’m not sure if you’re in the US, or if you’re including paid holidays, but 15 days is the average number of vacation days for people with 25 years of tenure in full time jobs in the US. Most people with less tenure get much less. So that wouldn’t be an “only” in the US. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm

15 is “only” in most western countries. Actually in a lot of countries it would be illegal.

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

#79

Post by tombert »

In Academia, it's not too uncommon for people to take extended sabbaticals to focus on a project without being distracted with work nonsense, but I haven't really heard of any company doing that in the US.

I would love to take around a month every year just to focus on a purely technical problem instead of focussing 20% of my time in technical stuff, and 80% of my time going through bureaucratic hoops that seemingly have no reason to exist outside of creating a job for the bureaucrats.

I have an OK job overall, but there's just a metric ton of approvals and paperwork that I end up having to do to actually write code, and as a result I get burnt out fairly often.

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

#80

Post by shantly »

AlexandrB wrote: post #42
mcv wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a very good reason why story points in scrum do not directly relate to time worked. You guess story points only in relation to each other. Over time, you can see how many story points you finish per sprint. By seeing how many story points are still on the backlog, you can estimate how long it will take. Add one or two sprints for unforeseen problems, and there's your estimate. Not based on anyone's guess, but…

If nearly everyone is doing it wrong, the problem is Scrum.

I'm not sure any system's going to do better. There aren't a ton of people who are good at applying (let alone thinking up) systems such that they work effectively and as intended. Too many will slice up and build atop a system then wonder why it's working so poorly, because they didn't understand the purpose of the parts they removed, or why the things they added will screw it up. "Well this is great, but we really need to..." NO. No you fucking don't. Unless you want to screw it up. But the people who get that, and who have the independence of action to prevent others from screwing up their processes, are uncommon. Even in management, which is exactly where that kind of thinking should be extremely valuable.
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