Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

uni-mainz.de

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 216 posts

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#181

Post by tayo42 »

christophergs wrote: post #32
29athrowaway wrote: post #12

If you are burned out watch the talk "Pushing through friction" by Daniel Na. That talk inspired me and saved my job.

Thanks for the recommendation, talk was indeed banging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bxZuzDKoI0

IDK if i totally agree with some of the examples. Like the new guy coming in and saying how everything can be different and better, just listen to me. That is irritating, unhelpful usually because you don't have all the information yet. It makes two assumptions, that the team isn't competent enough to realize it, and that your current view of whats on fire is more important then everything else going on.

The other example of the guy saying from the outside, their fix will only take 2 weeks. That's an estimate from someone who doesn't have the whole picture, if your asking another team. The resolution was to pester people and write up long docs to convince them its worth it. This is immediately adding on to your estimate of time.

This idea of friction seems like its more a question of trade offs and prioritizing work. Is it worth going through all this effort and context switching to try to see if this thing can be done. Is it worth distracting other people. I think calling it friction means we could possibly be undervaluing work that is prevented by this friction. Ill have to think about it more

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#182

Post by crucialfelix »

meaydinli wrote: post #41
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but some of the info is silo'd on me What's preventing you from sharing this information or making it accessible to your other colleagues?

Thank you, that is a good question. I haven't thought of it from that POV. Nothing is preventing me aside from my work-load, and the feeling that I am letting everybody down every second this project is further delayed.

I do this too. Try scheduling 30 min or 1 hour to write docs or specs to share the knowledge in your head. Just that activity will help you to psychologically move the project off your shoulders.

I did a lot of work these past months and now my team is able to use that code, fix bugs and get things done faster and safer. That's the motivation you want to feel.

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#183

Post by diffrinse »

tartoran wrote: post #66
echelon wrote: post #25

I just want a no-pay sabbatical. Three months, total reset of energy levels. We should all have that option. I would take a lot less money (-$50k or more) if I got to take a quarter off every year. Four day work weeks would be another compelling alternative. Two days a week are not enough time to get chores done. There's no time for relaxing. If I ever create a company, I'd love to offer these options.

Absolutely. We need to carve a new normal. I personally would be a lot more productive after a 3 months of rest. I asked my former employer if I could take some unpaid time off, and of course I was flexible on timing so that their impact was at a minimum. The answer was no.

Continuous delivery, amirite?

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#184

Post by barrenko »

agumonkey wrote: post #129
fakedang wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody ever looks at a person driving a ferrari and thinks, "wow, they must have washed a lot of dishes to afford that car," and yet we still think "if I just wash these dishes hard enough I'll drive a ferrari one day." I'm saving this quote to tell people this later on.

the twist is to make others wash dishes obviously

"Caesar built a bridge" old saying, meaning others built one "for him".

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#185

Post by ninja-z »

giantg2 wrote: post #94
zo1 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ridiculously unfair and I'm sorry borderline abusive. If you guys are in a potentially precarious situation financially, then there is absolutely no justification why she should spend most of her earnings on entertainment whilst the bulk of your earnings go to necessities. Any excess earnings from you and her should go towards your family savings for future financial security, your children and retirement. Ent…

Thanks for the input. It's not a precarious financial situation right now. As long as I have this job, I should be able to support us. I just won't have much money or time for hobbies (the hobbies I do partake in add value, like a garden and mushrooming for food). I also don't have the option of switching jobs. I've talk about cancelling unnecessary things unless she pays for them (the only thing is netflix). She sai…

You should reconsider the therapy option, it can be worth the money. I’m coming from a similar situation. Went to marriage therapy for 6 months then gave up on that since I thought it was going nowhere. To my surprise a few months after that ended, some deep issue which was real root cause was revealed and now we are finally addressing it and turning the corner on improving the situation.

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#186

Post by thejackgoode »

baxtr wrote: post #45

I quit my stressful job end of August. Luckily I have a smartwatch. By chance I checked my resting heart rate recently. I was quite shocked to see a stunning continuous 20% drop since then. I guess it was the right decision to quit.

This is the case for me as well. I have noticed similar increase (~52 => ~62 avg sleeping BPM) for the last two months and last week have been diagnosed with anxiety/depression and I am also burnt out. I love the objectivity it provides.

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#187

Post by Pyramus »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #23
kaybe wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A fundamental law that governments should have is that your employer cannot harm your health. A small note: Germany does have a law like this. (I cannot find anything about it in English though.) https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

Pretty sure the Health & Safety at Work Act (UK) [1] meets this requirement. There's various common law things related to duty of care and negligence that probably apply less specifically too. I'd really expect every democratic country to have some form of law requiring employers take care of their employees -- they should expect to do something in return for leeching off ones production of value. [1] https://www.hse…

That is correct, but the bar for enforcement is very high when it comes to mental health. E.g. I remember a case of a police officer suffering from depression (?) but "only" stressing folks out is not enough unfortunately.

In addition, you have to show a causal relationsship, which again is a lot more difficult for mental health as there are usually several factors at play even though work might be the pre-dominant one.

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#188

Post by ciceryadam »

giantg2 wrote: post #40
rychco wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Myself and most of my millennial peers feel this way exactly. Some are still hopeful that they'll own a home & raise a large family like their parents and grandparents did, but the rest of us aren't so sure.

I have a house and one kid. My wife wants another kid and complains that out house is too small (it's 1800 sqft). I hate my job but have no other options to support us. I honestly wonder how I did not listen to all the advice of other people about not getting married. Even at this same job I was much happier years ago. Part of that was because I hadn't been disillusioned yet, but I think part of it was also that I ha…

My sister and I grew up without separate kid rooms, and the whole apartment size was 650 sqm. Tell your wife that size doesn't matter!

On a serious note, did you day to day work changed in the last couple of years?

If not, you could be stuck, and you should talk to manager about getting a different set of responsibilities. Part of what's fun in IT jobs is learning new stuff.

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#189

Post by AntiImperialist »

ehnto wrote: post #171
DangitBobby wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to work for a company where I can take a significant pay cut to work 30 or even 35 hours in a typical work week.

38 hours is the standard work week in many countries, which I only mention to let you know that you are asking for a very normal thing. Totally reasonable.

You mean countries like Norway where pay for Senior Engineers is 1/4th and the income tax is around 45% (+25% VAT on after-tax income)?

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#190

Post by ehnto »

AntiImperialist wrote: post #189
ehnto wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

38 hours is the standard work week in many countries, which I only mention to let you know that you are asking for a very normal thing. Totally reasonable.

You mean countries like Norway where pay for Senior Engineers is 1/4th and the income tax is around 45% (+25% VAT on after-tax income)?

Yes, but the OP wants less pay for less work which is fair but not an option at lots of tech companies.

So you either play the overwork game or don't get to play at all. That's all part of the golden handcuffs routine, along with stock holdings etc. Give your life to the company or bugger off, no middle ground.

That's why I wanted to point out that it's entirely reasonable. It's just a different work/life weighting, people should be able to still work in tech and not have an 80/hr week.

Post reply on HN