Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break • Hacker News Board

Re: Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break

#141

Post by at-fates-hands » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

asoneth wrote: post #135

joegahona wrote: post #4

I would love to know how they are measuring the success of this measure -- and I'm not being cynical. How would one even begin to weigh the tradeoffs of closing business for everyone for an entire week against the increased productivity upon return and something woolly like "improved morale." What if giving everyone a week of twice a year was actually beneficial to the company? Or even quarterly? Many companies alrea…

If the effects are minor I think it will be difficult to measure the impact on any one company given the number of confounding variables. In that case the only way to determine the correlation between these kinds of things and business success might be to gather enough statistical evidence across industries.

This was my reaction, not to mention, while everybody takes the week off, the work will pile up with nobody working.

Nothing like coming back to the office after a week off and you're already back up to your eyeballs in work, the moment you step back into the office.

Re: Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break

#142

Post by ppf » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 3:22 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #69

silicon2401 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very subjective statement. The pandemic has been bar none the best period of my life. Increased physical and social distance from other people, no need to emote in public thanks to masks, no need to commute, greater accommodation for non-social options like self-checkouts. My physical and mental health have skyrocketed, and as a result I feel like I've been on vacation for a year and half, despite only taki…

I've never been so envious of happily married people in my life. Being single throughout this ordeal has broken me mentally, particularly at an age (31) where I'm staring down the last couple years of being able to meet someone my age. And the prospects coming out of it are grim. For people with a happy home life, this may have been a good time. But for the isolated, work from home, single people with no long term so…

It really sucks for people like you at the moment, and I really feel for you. Saying that, being happily married but with two small kids (both under 2, for most of lockdown) was no joke either.

Re: Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break

#143

Post by Benjammer » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

allochthon wrote: post #138

I've been working remotely for about five years, now, and I love it. I've always been curious about working at Twitter and Google, and I was vaguely hoping that they'd start looking at full-time remote hires across their engineering orgs. I value remote work more than I do the possibility of working at Twitter or Google, so it is a little wistfully that I realize I might never follow up on that curiosity.

I know for a fact that at least some teams at Google are hiring for full-time remote right now.

Re: Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break

#144

Post by dnate » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 3:26 PM UTC

fatjokes wrote: post #20

asim wrote: post #2

Good. We're taking all of July off at my company. Why? Because covid was an incredibly hard period for all of us and we as humans need a break. Somehow we all just seem to expect things to keep going like nothing changed. We all just seem to be expected to gloss over the pains of isolation, potential death and stress of work and life with no separation or boundaries. We made a conscious decision at my place of work t…

Company-wide month off sounds amazing. Would you be willing to name it (would be great PR for them). If not, would you give a sense of geography, industry and size?

Size of 9 employees according to linkedin

Re: Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break

#145

Post by 55555 » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #109

deregulateMed wrote: post #56

I never found vacations to be useful for burnout. What does work for me is having a 40 hour work week. If I'm doing the same job for 50+ hrs/week, I start to dread the work. That said, this is drastic, seems like something other than burnout is going on.

whenever i go on vacation the first day or two are fun and relaxing but eventually i spend the rest of the week wishing i was back at work

I feel this, but for me that means I haven't gotten fully into vacation mode. The goal is to not think about work at all, and don't do any. Once that feeling goes away, you're on vacation. It takes me ~2 eventful fun days. I can tell I've gotten into vacation flow when I go back to work and the first 2 days back are just as difficult.

Re: Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break

#146

Post by dharmab » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

Adobe does two of these every year, one in winter around the holidays and one in July. From my perspective as an individual contributor, there are a few advantages:

- With no feature/project work that week, there is zero pressure to check email or slack.

- Teams are forced to build systems that are automated, resilient and documented enough that most of the staff won't need to be contacted during the shutdown week.

- The business has to prove it can run with just the necessary amount of staff for operations and customer support. (These staff generally work with their managers to take an equal amount of time off.)

Personally I use that week in summer to disconnect from work and do something theraputic for myself- go for a 7+ day motorcycle ride, preferably through places where internet connections are poor.

Re: Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break

#147

Post by not_jd_salinger » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 3:27 PM UTC

ramesh31 wrote: post #89

golergka wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> particularly at an age (31) where I'm staring down the last couple years of being able to meet someone What? I'm 33, only a few months into my current relationship, and I have to say that dating is so much better at this age than it ever was.

>I'm 33, only a few months into my current relationship, and I have to say that dating is so much better at this age than it ever was. You can get lucky. There are certainly unicorns out there. Or you can date younger, if you're ok with that. But by and large, women and men work on different timelines. And you don't realize this as a man until it hits. The vast majority of women are out of the dating pool by 30. And…

> you've both ossified into separate individuals with rigid expectations and assumptions about life

This is the real issue, not the dating pool.

The obvious evidence against the dating pool is that a fairly large number of divorced people I know getting into serious relationships and married again fairly quickly regardless of their age when the divorce happens.

All of the unhappy single people I know (and there are some happy ones that don't mind) share the same paradoxical thinking: I'm unhappy with how my life is, and I want to be in a close relationship with someone, but am absolutely unwilling to change anything major (sometimes even minor) about who I am, what I believe or how I live.

It seems obvious, but if you are unwilling to change anything about your life, then the only changes you experience are going to be those that are thrust upon you, such as the pandemic.

Re: Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break

#148

Post by fruzz » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 3:28 PM UTC

allochthon wrote: post #138

I've been working remotely for about five years, now, and I love it. I've always been curious about working at Twitter and Google, and I was vaguely hoping that they'd start looking at full-time remote hires across their engineering orgs. I value remote work more than I do the possibility of working at Twitter or Google, so it is a little wistfully that I realize I might never follow up on that curiosity.

I think you're right, but I don't think this organizational discomfort with remote work will be true of the next batch of hip companies to work at. So you may yet get your chance. :)

Re: Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break

#149

Post by lotsofpulp » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

NationalPark wrote: post #123

ramesh31 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I know people who met and got married in their 40s... It all depends on what you're looking for I guess. Certainly you can get married in your 40s. But at that point having a single child, let alone a few, becomes a monumental task. It's not an imaginary deadline. Fertility falls off a cliff at 35 [0]. [0] https://www.kinderzeit.org/en/fertility-by-age/

> becomes a monumental task Even ignoring the fact that fertility treatments exist... 1 in 4 healthy women in their 20s and 30s will get pregnant in any single menstrual cycle. (The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists, 2018) 1 in 10 healthy women in their 40s will get pregnant in any single menstrual cycle. (The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists, 2018) hardly monumental

Getting pregnant is not the only risk factor that rises.

Re: Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break

#150

Post by ramesh31 » Tue, Jun 22, 2021, 3:30 PM UTC

dragosmocrii wrote: post #133

ramesh31 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and aren't living in some rural area (or san francisco lol) That was a good laugh. I think in retrospect spending my 20s in San Francisco had a lot to do with now being single in my 30s.

Why is that? What's wrong with SF for dating? (just curious)

>"Why is that? What's wrong with SF for dating? (just curious)"

Where to begin?

The tech industry is massively skewed towards male, so right off the bat your odds of meeting someone in your work life is near nil. Then, with the complete lack of affordable housing, there's no such thing as just being a single 20-something living independently and supporting yourself on a non-tech salary. Bare minimum subsistence income is about $80k. So that filters out the vast majority of women who are in non-tech careers and simply cannot afford to move there.

At that point you're basically left with the lucky few locals who have parents that bought houses in the 80s/90s and live with them rent free, or the unicorn types who make enough to live in SF independently.

From that vanishingly small pool of women, you're now competing with the guys who made startup money or have the $300k+ FAANG gigs and can afford luxury vacations, nice condos, BMWs, etc.

An average dude doesn't stand a chance.