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

#181

Post by kache_ » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 6:46 PM UTC

Hermitian909 wrote: post #112

kache_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work remotely as well and I observe that a lot of people are available outside their regular working hours. I think remote work is part of the problem: the additional blurring between work and life will askew your work life balance. Pager duty can burn you out, but it really depends on how much you get paged and how many people are on rotation.

Very true, though the flip side of this as that some of us take advantage of remote work to have more flexible lives. For example, yesterday I had a block of deep work scheduled for the afternoon but wasn't really feeling it. So I went on a long hike instead, came home, and worked from 6-9. I'd need outrageous amounts of money (even for tech) to consider pager duty though, it sounds hellish.

It really depends. In the last 6 months we only got two pages. For us, it's just the minor inconvenience of having your computer on you at all times.

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

#182

Post by aantix » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 6:56 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #169

rayiner wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should people who work support those who choose not tow work (as opposed to people who cannot work)? Work is an important value. Whatever economic viability the U.S. has to experiment with weird social ideas, it's because of generations of people who believed in work as a moral imperative.

This is the trap of equating "work" with "make money". Not all work is economically lucrative, even if it may provide real human value. Consider artists, for example. The arts don't pay very well, to the point that lots of people who would like to be full time professionals cannot afford to do so. But it adds tremendously to our social wealth.

>But it adds tremendously to our social wealth.

All art adds to our social wealth?

Like anything else, some art does, lots probably doesn't. And how do we decide what is bringing us value? Which art should be promoted and which is just a scam, a big pile of poop put in a mason jar?

We circle right back to capitalism. Giving the populace a mechanism to vote for what has value and what doesn't. Money. Attention. Time. Esteem. Fame.

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

#183

Post by hedvig » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 7:22 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #136

beat wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why should people who work support those who choose not tow work (as opposed to people who cannot work)? Work is an important value. Whatever economic viability the U.S. has to experiment with weird social ideas, it's because of generations of people who believed in work as a moral imperative.

There is no one group "supporting" another group.

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

#184

Post by lotsofpulp » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 7:34 PM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #144

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…

Most companies would love to do away with the expense of health insurance and all of the administrative headaches and costs that come with it. But since most full-time white collar jobs offer health insurance, changing jobs might change your coverage some but won't leave you insuranceless. Now if you want to go out on your own or create/work at a startup, health insurance can be a big issue.

Big companies already have the HR staff to deal with health insurance. It’s in their interest to keep health insurance tied up with employment, as it gives them an advantage over small business and individuals, because individuals who work for small businesses that don’t offer health insurance have to pay for it with post tax dollars.

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

#185

Post by beat » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

andrei_says_ wrote: post #161

rhcom2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the Democratic primary candidates.

Which is indeed very hopeful. The level of institutionalized corruption including in how money selects who appears on ballots makes this a difficult process. This is a great reminder of the root issues we need to deal with. https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_...

After having looked at it for a long time, I'm convinced that "institutionalized corruption" is a pleasing myth with no grounding in reality.

Money in politics flows to candidates who already agree with those who control the money. It doesn't go to change the minds of those who disagree.

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

#186

Post by beat » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

aantix wrote: post #182

beat wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the trap of equating "work" with "make money". Not all work is economically lucrative, even if it may provide real human value. Consider artists, for example. The arts don't pay very well, to the point that lots of people who would like to be full time professionals cannot afford to do so. But it adds tremendously to our social wealth.

>But it adds tremendously to our social wealth. All art adds to our social wealth? Like anything else, some art does, lots probably doesn't. And how do we decide what is bringing us value? Which art should be promoted and which is just a scam, a big pile of poop put in a mason jar? We circle right back to capitalism. Giving the populace a mechanism to vote for what has value and what doesn't. Money. Attention. Time.…

Capitalism has a built-in failure mode. As Peter Thiel (not exactly a commie, him) points out, capitalism only functions in its failure mode. The ideal world that all the economists and conservative politicians argue for, where pure competition sets the price, is a race to zero. In ideal capitalism, profit is impossible. Profit only happens where there is friction that prevents the market from working fully.

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

#187

Post by eeZah7Ux » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #49

nbrempel wrote: post #14

I find that If my work isn’t meaningful, it can really drain the life out of me (even more than truly demanding jobs). I wonder if a couple generations ago people felt just as burnt out. It seems like this generation is the most burnt out but who knows. With everyone connected all the time, I doubt people are getting proper rest between work. If you’re answering emails over lunch, you’re still working and not resting…

A couple generations ago people didn't have the luxury of feeling burnt out. They just had to get to work if they wanted to eat; asking about burn out wasn't even a relevant question. That situation still obtains for most people in poor countries today.

Feeling burnt out is not a luxury and not a choice. Not even a bit.

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

#188

Post by hiram112 » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 7:48 PM UTC

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.

Be careful what you wish for here. Since Obamacare, most white collar workers will admit that their insurance is worse and simultaneously more expensive. That's to be expected, because those who pay insurance and are healthy are now paying for many people who previously had less of a safety net. No free lunch and all.

Obamacare has twisted some of the incentives of actually working, though. Many of us in groups like /r/financialindependence have calculated that it is now to our advantage to eventually quit work altogether, structure our investments and distributions to ensure we are right below the line where subsidies (from those who continue to work) will pay our way, while we just exit the game itself.

It will do nothing but screw those who continue to work themselves ragged as they are now subsidizing many people, like my possible future self, who have many dollars hoarded away, but refuse to be forced to work for everyone else any longer without the extra renumeration that is now sucked out by the government. And this is one of the problems with socialism.

If things move to a single payer social system under a Warren or Sanders presidency, I'd probably quit my job tomorrow. Those who continue to play the game will be working more and more for less and less.

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

#189

Post by aantix » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 7:56 PM UTC

beat wrote: post #186

aantix wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But it adds tremendously to our social wealth. All art adds to our social wealth? Like anything else, some art does, lots probably doesn't. And how do we decide what is bringing us value? Which art should be promoted and which is just a scam, a big pile of poop put in a mason jar? We circle right back to capitalism. Giving the populace a mechanism to vote for what has value and what doesn't. Money. Attention. Time.…

Capitalism has a built-in failure mode. As Peter Thiel (not exactly a commie, him) points out, capitalism only functions in its failure mode. The ideal world that all the economists and conservative politicians argue for, where pure competition sets the price, is a race to zero. In ideal capitalism, profit is impossible. Profit only happens where there is friction that prevents the market from working fully.

And that friction is innovation.

Something that adds value. That isn't a commodity. That would be hard to copy.

Innovation's biproduct is profit.

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

#190

Post by pcwalton » Fri, Nov 01, 2019, 8:42 PM UTC

scottious wrote: post #157

rayiner wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your premise were true, you'd expect countries offering more vacation time to have higher productivity per hour worked. ( I.e. more efficiency, even if less total production.) Instead, the U.S. has among the highest levels of productivity per hour worked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)... . Americans are much more productive, even on a per-hour basis, than people in advanced democraci…

If I'm reading the Wikipedia article correctly, then Norway is outpacing the US and they have 25 days of vacation per year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b... So it seems to me that there are a lot of confounding factors here. Do we actually know what causes GDP/hour to go up and down? It doesn't seem directly related to vacation time. It seems to me more like the Wikipedia article you li…

Yeah, as another data point, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong are way below the US on the GDP-per-work-hour metric. Yet if you've ever been exposed to office life in any of them, you'd know that their work/life balance is far more tilted toward work than the US. You'll also notice that they have less per-hour GDP than countries with more statutorily mandated paid leave. I don't think we can really glean anything from this chart as to the effects that vacation time has on productivity.