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Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

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Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#91

Post by thrower123 »

decebalus1 wrote: post #10

Bullshit. Vacation [1] IS the answer for burnout. Long vacations are even more ok for burnout. Sabbaticals are the most ok. Guess what a doctor would recommend you do if you're having health issues from burnout? If there's chronic burnout in your company/org then indeed, no amount of vacation will fix that. But neither would flexible work hours or mental health support. [1] Vacation means complete and total disconnec…

One week of vacation is just not worth bothering with. It's not enough time to even disengage before you turn around and come back.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#92

Post by ZainRiz »

bb88 wrote: post #57
beerandt wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlimited PTO is crazy to me. It takes the principles of spelled-out employment terms and throws them in the trash. The "flexible hours" policy was bad enough at my last job. Wildly varying interpretations between different managers and department heads under the same roof.

There's a lot of companies in the world where "vacation" is offered, but the managers will many times terminate those who take it. All it takes is for one or two employees to be terminated after just getting back from a vacation to send a message to the rest of the employees. The right to use benefits has to be enforced by the CEO. If people aren't using their vacations (and effectively losing them), then that sets t…

Some companies I've been at swung in the opposite direction and I was really greatful for it.

E.g. At Microsoft you have a max amount of vacation days that you can accrue before they start expiring, and managers get dinged whenever their directs have expiring vacation days. The result: Managers would encourage taking vacation

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#93

Post by agumonkey »

karaterobot wrote: post #53

When I've been burned out or hated my job, I didn't take vacations, because the crushing realization that I'd have to return to work was almost worse than losing myself in the uninterrupted, repetitive, dead-eyed grind. While on vacation, I'd start thinking about the countdown to the end of the vacation. > Well, root out the real causes of burnout. I'll offer the definition that's made most sense to me. I didn't come…

> Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off.

There's a lot to say about that.

Sometime contexts creates obligations that render reward impossible, you only get a stream of wrong imperatives and lack of benefits.

Sometimes people simply forget how to go for stuff they want. I lived a lot of my life conforming to others orders.. until nothing made sense emotionally. You forget what 'pay off' means for you. Very subtle, very hard. A lot of things in life are negotiating obligations and knowing how to recognize bad deals is key. Freedom is a rare asset :)

Kids have this well set, all they care about is their internal sense of reward.. they'll move relentlessly from rewards to rewards until they're chokeful of them. Social structures blur this into innane amounts of duties that often are invented by morons higher up.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#94

Post by agumonkey »

throw0101a wrote: post #12

See also The Onion : > Man Returns To Work After Vacation With Fresh, Reenergized Hatred For Job * https://www.theonion.com/man-returns-to-work-after-vacation-...

People at the office joke about the fact that when bad weather ruins their vacations, they come back happier to work.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#95

Post by kekebo »

runawaybottle wrote: post #74
throw0101a wrote: post #12

See also The Onion : > Man Returns To Work After Vacation With Fresh, Reenergized Hatred For Job * https://www.theonion.com/man-returns-to-work-after-vacation-...

Lol. Thanks for making my day better. Edit: But to add to the comedy (all comedy is tragedy, and all tragedy is comedy according to the Greeks), that’s pretty much the reason why I don’t take vacations. It’s not going to change anything, so I much prefer to take days off so I don’t completely lose it. The sadness is hilarious.

They may not fundamentally change ones attitude towards a job, but when carefully planned and executed vacations may have the potential for creating some worthwhile times and memories

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#96

Post by agumonkey »

S_A_P wrote: post #54

I had a bad case of burnout 2 years ago. I think for me it wasn’t that I was overwhelmed or otherwise overworked. I was working a lot of hours, but that didn’t bother me either. What got under my skin was that I understood the systemic reasons for all the fires we were having to put out were never going to change. So the burnout was the feeling that I was unable to do anything but tread water.

very much this, powerlessness and also inability to discuss the problem honestly, or even be heard can be the real reason behind the pain

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#97

Post by lazyant »

decebalus1 wrote: post #10

Bullshit. Vacation [1] IS the answer for burnout. Long vacations are even more ok for burnout. Sabbaticals are the most ok. Guess what a doctor would recommend you do if you're having health issues from burnout? If there's chronic burnout in your company/org then indeed, no amount of vacation will fix that. But neither would flexible work hours or mental health support. [1] Vacation means complete and total disconnec…

Yes, and let's stress _long_ vacations.

We need our brains to disconnect and we need at least 4 days to a week to start feeling "on vacation" [citation needed], so anythin less than say two weeks or whatever (milage may vary) and you just came from work or are worrying about going back to work. Last time I went on vacation I forgot for a moment where I worked :-)

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#98

Post by robocat »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #18
thepasswordis wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions end up punishing good workers and rewarding bad ones. Believe it or not, some people enjoy their job, and enjoy being able to excel at it.

You're not looking very hard for counter examples. Is the screen actors guild punishing Will Smith and rewarding struggling, untalented commercial actors? Is the NBA player's association punishing LeBron and rewarding D league players? Is there even such a thing a "superstar" plumber? I mean, I'm sure there are awful plumbers and amazing plumbers - but do how much can they scale, realistically?

I'm not sure what your point is, but famous actors and sports-stars have little to do with labour unions. A labour union is all about fighting for the rights of the undifferentiated many, not the situation where there are named celebrities in a winner's zero-sum market.

When there is a pool of people waiting to take your job, and a company willing to lower working standards, you have little choice but to comply with company requests — unless you are part of a union that collectively acts in the interests of the workers.

For software developers there are forces against unionisation:

1. Global outsourcing. What's the point in unionisation if your job can be done by a motivated pool of workers overseas? A union has little bargaining power at the level of outsourcing complete business units. Or buyouts: I am in New Zealand and whole companies here are purchased by American companies.

2. Many software developers are not easily replaceable. It is difficult to replace a person who has specialist software skills or internal organizational knowledge.

3. There is no pool of easily identifiable talent.

4. Developers have to be dissatisfied with working conditions.

5. Developers have to have reached a ceiling (experienced). In a fast growing industry with technical churn, less experienced developers outnumber older developers? Hard to argue with new blood why unionisation is in their interests?

Edit: I did a quick search for "software developer" on https://seek.co.nz job board and about 1% of jobs were for USD140k+ and most of that 1% were not dev jobs. I know zero developers earning >= $200k. AFAIK pay in NZ for developers is significantly below the US. Opportunity there if you want trustworthy highly skilled remote workers that speak English. Main bummer is NZ is 16 hours ahead so 3PM EST is 7AM NZ time, and Friday in the US is Saturday in NZ https://www.worldtimeserver.com/time-zones/nzst-to-est/

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#100

Post by co2benzoate »

runawaybottle wrote: post #74
throw0101a wrote: post #12

See also The Onion : > Man Returns To Work After Vacation With Fresh, Reenergized Hatred For Job * https://www.theonion.com/man-returns-to-work-after-vacation-...

Lol. Thanks for making my day better. Edit: But to add to the comedy (all comedy is tragedy, and all tragedy is comedy according to the Greeks), that’s pretty much the reason why I don’t take vacations. It’s not going to change anything, so I much prefer to take days off so I don’t completely lose it. The sadness is hilarious.

Why not both? There are many companies and countries where you can do just that. Work a 30 hour week with a month+ vacation a year.
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