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Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week

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201–210 of 218 posts

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

#201

"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…

How do you say the current rate is much lower? By your definiton everyone on Earth still is at work to respond to their home being set on fire, but now many people are also on call to respond to a shopping website being mildly inconveniently down at a time most people are asleep, in a system which is abusively, inhumanely, choosing to define that as an "emergency" and choosing to make that happen as often as possible by squeezing design and engineering and planning resources, because both of those choices (uptime, and fast development) are more profitable, and screw the human factor.

It's a totally different scenario.

Even in situations where there are lives at risk, medical systems, or power grid control, there are plenty of options for planning in advance, for redundancy, for employing people in different time zones. When a peasant has to respond to their house burning, they're motivated to put the candles out before going to bed. When a peasant has to respond to their email system being down, but they're not allowed to allocate more time or money to fix it, that's worse.

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

#202
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

Not necessarily to be expected, part of the goal of access to healthcare for all is that people can get treatment sooner, before problems get so bad, and get healthier, sooner. Over time if that was effective, medical costs would trend down. America doesn't seem to do that, paying more for the same treatment than other countries, but high healthcare costs are not caused by workers paying them.

But let's say that is expected, healthy people are now paying more to cover the needy. It's a kind of forced charity, and there are good reasons for personally disliking being forced to cover others expenses, sure.

But then your answer to this is to quit your job, and live off your investments? "Making your money work for you" is a polite way of saying "live off the work of others". The dividends and investment growth in that lifestyle come directly from the work done by the still-employed. Your future dream life will send you in the direction of being a shareholder squeezing and extract maximum money from the still-employed, because your survival depends on their work. In a world where everyone saved for financial independence and the pool of workers was ever shrinking, your income would dry up, so the incentives will be upon you to stop the still-employed from doing do what you did - pulling up the ladder after you.

That is, while it won't be outright legislated in a single bill in plain terms like Obamacare was, you will be all-but mandating that other people work to keep you alive, or supporting systems and legislation which has that effect. The very thing you are complaining about, being forced to help others, in your opening paragraph, will still be a system you take part in and support. You're saying "if I am compelled to pay for others, that's evil Socialism" and "if others are working themselves ragged supporting me that's great, self-interest individualism at its best".

screw those who continue to work themselves ragged as they are now subsidizing many people, like my possible future self, [..] while we just exit the game itself.

You aren't exiting the game. You can never exit. The moral answer is to not be the leech you think is so deplorable, and keep working to keep yourself alive. When you can survive on your savings without growth beyond inflation, without dividends, and with spending the principle, then maybe retire. If everyone pitches in, with more people working, there won't need to be screwed over employees working themselves ragged. That ought to benefit society collectively, which will benefit you in roundabout ways.

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

#203
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

> don't think you can even ask your employer about this I wonder how much of that is in our own minds, though - my boss is a pretty cool Chinese guy, and I tell him I need time off to deal with something, he says no problem, let me know when you’re back. But I still feel like I’m being silently judged - not just by him, but by everybody.

> But I still feel like I’m being silently judged - not just by him, but by everybody.

Does "everybody" include you, too, by the way? Are you actually just judging yourself for taking time off, and assuming everyone else is?

Do you judge others for taking time off too?

I don't have an agenda here, really, except the point out that this being "in our own minds" is not that different from "assumptions that come from our culture"...

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

#204
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Bingo. The problem with healthcare-for-all is it's impossible to pay for without raising taxes across the board eventually, regardless of how much the candidates swear that it won't, and the voters know it. If you want European-style healthcare systems, you'll need European-level taxation.

(This is also why UBI won't ever get off the ground; voters aren't stupid. All that money has got to come from somewhere.)

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

#205
post #194
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friction isn't necessarily innovation. When you pay $6 to get popcorn at a movie, it's not because they've created better popcorn. It's because they've created a local monopoly where you have no choice but $6 popcorn or nothing. Really, the vast majority of profit is from non-innovative friction.

You do have a choice - the choice not to go to an overpriced theater. People vote with their dollars all of the time.

And yet advertising works. If we really believed people have free choice, there would be no uproar about Russian interference in elections, or political advertising on Facebook and Twitter, because it wouldn't sway people's behaviour in any way. Certainly you aren't ordered around in total, but you are a finite amount of brainpower with well known biases and failure modes, and Capitalism is rewarding those who exploit them and condition people's behaviour most effectively.

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

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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

Your general position that Americans often don't get a lot of vacation time by the norms of developed countries isn't wrong, but your choice of data is. That table is 23 years out of date, and it was only for employees at "small private establishments", which generally means --------- As of 2017, the average in the US is around 15 days after 5 years, 17 days after 10 years, and 20 days after 20 years. https://www.bls…

I couldn’t figure out in what year my bls link was published; thanks for finding better data, 23 years old is terrible.

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overtime would be a lot easier to swallow if you were paid, say, time and a half for weekday overtime and double for weekends or holidays. But, no, most tech employees aren't paid anything extra for it, so management has no incentive to reduce the amount of overtime you actually work. I had one boss who acted very concerned and would keep telling me not to work so late. But at the same time he wanted the same amount…

> Also, commuting time should be paid as work time. There are so many people with crazy commutes that don't get paid a dime for it. I seem to recall that some European country had in fact required companies to pay for their employees' commutes. The US should follow suit. Yes, we need more discrimination against poor people who can’t afford to live near job centers.

This seems like it would have the opposite effect as it would allow for higher earners to work further out and decrease demand for in city housing.

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

#208
post #139
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think incentives are removed? Is "work or starve" the only incentive? I'm not talking about a beachfront mansion and a Ferrari in the driveway for everyone. I'm talking about not starving. Want to be more than the bare minimum? Then choose to work. Don't care? Then don't work - not that people who don't care are effective employees anyway.

Have you tried purchasing health care before? It's not inexpensive. There's no way we could guarantee food, health care, and housing for everybody with no work requirement. Only a really stupid person would believe this could work. You're really stupid.

We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to work because we're barely at the productivity to sustain ourselves given our current obligations. For instance, in order to fund CalPers, we need a lot of people to do productive work. That's on a multi-decade timer.

Which is odd, given that we produce more stuff than ever before. We have a couple of problems - a lot of the things we need most (dedicated time from doctors, teachers, etc.) are affected by Baumol's cost disease and in other categories, like housing, we have legally mandated shortages (it's illegal to create enough homes near transit, amenities, and jobs) so we will, by definition, never have enough.

Doctors also have legally mandated shortages, yes. And cost disease is a characteristic of a system not really something you can treat while retaining the other constraints (no homes, guaranteed pension returns, restrictions on number of workers, etc.)

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

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, commuting time should be paid as work time. There are so many people with crazy commutes that don't get paid a dime for it. I seem to recall that some European country had in fact required companies to pay for their employees' commutes. The US should follow suit. Yes, we need more discrimination against poor people who can’t afford to live near job centers.

This seems like it would have the opposite effect as it would allow for higher earners to work further out and decrease demand for in city housing.

If an employer has to pay someone more if they live further away, then someone who lives closer is a preferable candidate for the job. So a person who was born into a family that already lives near offices or city centers has an advantage over someone who was born further away (typically lower cost of living areas).
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