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Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'

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101–110 of 144 posts

Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between being a slave i.e. being owned and being a "wage slave" i.e. operating under significant coercion. We are all coerced to some degree; that's part of being an organism (coerced by nature) and living in a society (coerced by the crushing weight of social interactions). But we aren't owned . Though it's not your intention, this blurring of categories justifies real slavery. If everyone is a…

(Not OP but) I know it’s an unreasonable and probably inappropriate comparison, but I’m also old enough to have watched the demographics of professional computer programming shift from mostly white guys managing mostly other white guys to mostly white guys managing mostly brown people. I really don’t think it’s my imagination that at least some of the mostly white guys doing the managing have adopted more and more of…

HN does have diverse commenters. In a single day, I managed to see 5 distinct comparison that I wouldn't have anywhere else.

Note - this is only just an observation.

Really amusing - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'

#102
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some ways we're moving to something worse than slavery. At least with slaves they were seen as "assets" rather than "temporary rentals". They had to take care of them out of necessity, so their evil had that limit on it. Some of us prefer burnout at reasonable pay than being raped, beaten, and denied all freedoms.

> raped, beaten, and denied all freedoms. Towards the later stages of slavery, the first 2 were outright illegal, and the third is somewhere on par with wage slavery today. It sounds like a hot take on the surface, but modern wage slavery is objectively worse than late-stage actual slavery in some regards. We have not really progressed as society. The only thing that has really advanced is the availability of enterta…

I'm in favour of making slavery legal again for the sole purpose of making people like this slaves for a year just so they figure out how fucking stupid they are.

Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'

#103

A lot of companies are actively factoring this into their HR model. Their model is to hire fresh people and burn them out. Increasingly this is the direction western corporations are moving. Their ideal model is: place performance quotas above long term sustainability, people then burn themselves out, you then fire them for performance reasons, and you have them on an aggressive noncompete and threaten them with it w…

I can see hr getting cheap people, having loyal senior Engineers teach them, then having the cheap young Engineers burn out.

Cheaper than paying 6 figures, and the ones that stick around are permanently under 6 figure earners.

Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'

#104

Just gonna say it, I doubt the solution is yet more apps on the device that is the real source of anxiety. Putting the thing in airplane mode and leaving it in a different room when you get home is going to do you way more good than staring into your phone and swiping away at more apps.

My podcasts make my commute enjoyable rather than miserable. My apps make time waiting enjoyable.

But I basically don't use my phone at home. At most TV and gaming.

Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'

#105
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In some ways we're moving to something worse than slavery. At least with slaves they were seen as "assets" rather than "temporary rentals". They had to take care of them out of necessity, so their evil had that limit on it. Some of us prefer burnout at reasonable pay than being raped, beaten, and denied all freedoms.

> raped, beaten, and denied all freedoms. Towards the later stages of slavery, the first 2 were outright illegal, and the third is somewhere on par with wage slavery today. It sounds like a hot take on the surface, but modern wage slavery is objectively worse than late-stage actual slavery in some regards. We have not really progressed as society. The only thing that has really advanced is the availability of enterta…

'Late-stage' slavery, if it has a meaningful referent at all, refers to chattel slavery in the United States, which is commonly regarded as one of the worst forms of slavery ever devised, much worse than the forms of bondage recorded in (e.g.)classical antiquity and the system of medieval serfdom.

Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'

#107

One's career isnt always the sole reason for burnout, many times one's workload is totally fine, but combined with their work commute, family and other outside influences, they become burned out. We need to take a holistic look at burnout and not just attribute it to career.

Yes, this was what happened to me. My work wasn't stressful...if anything the issue with it was that I was sitting all day doing nothing, which is perhaps stressful. Added on top of that were a stressful commute, issues with the person I was living with, etc. It started as burnout and then developed into CFS. The only real solution is to deal with all the issues, and then give time for your body to recover (which might take a few months).

Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'

#108
I felt like this, thought for a long time it was work. It wasn’t.

Turns out I had a tumor on an adrenal gland, that was over producing aldosterone. That cascaded into a bunch of other weird health issues.

Don’t assume it’s work, get checked out. Connect the dots.

Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'

#109

One's career isnt always the sole reason for burnout, many times one's workload is totally fine, but combined with their work commute, family and other outside influences, they become burned out. We need to take a holistic look at burnout and not just attribute it to career.

Yes, this was what happened to me. My work wasn't stressful...if anything the issue with it was that I was sitting all day doing nothing, which is perhaps stressful. Added on top of that were a stressful commute, issues with the person I was living with, etc. It started as burnout and then developed into CFS. The only real solution is to deal with all the issues, and then give time for your body to recover (which mig…

> if anything the issue with it was that I was sitting all day doing nothing, which is perhaps stressful

I'll second this. It feels like you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop, or for you to be called out on not exercising the will-to-power hustle that the business culture of 2020 expects. A couple of slow months and I start getting paranoid.

Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'

#110
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one actually knows what their first job will be like. But trying to hide that you expect 60-100 hours a week is stupidly counterproductive. Banking, law, consulting are pretty straight up about the hours. People would quit halfway through their first month, their first week of you tried to pull 100 hours on those who didn’t know they’d be working those hours.

A fresh college graduate at age 22 does not understand what 60-100 hours mean. The closest frame of reference they have is pulling an all nighter before an exam or to get a term project done. They can't contemplate their romantic relationship falling apart, the lack of feedback resulting in continuous self doubt keeping them up at night when they're supposed to be resting or how shallow friendships between colleagues…

From my friends who recently graduated and took these jobs in nyc, this wasnt so suprising. They expected to work 10-12 hour days. The familial stuff sucks if you were planning on shacking up at 23, but most people just work their day then drink aggresively in midtown before ubering back to whatever 2k/mo studio tenement they managed to find in brooklyn. Take a boozy trip to the hamptons a couple times in the summer, take your LA trip, go to europe. Suddenly working 12 hour days doesnt seem so bad when you have a rolex on your wrist and a high concentration of adderal in your veins.

I expect in a couple years it will get old, but people are waiting to settle down well into their 30s these days to extend these years of pure adult independence for as long as they can.

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