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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

#201

Post by [deleted] »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #167
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.

"unlimited PTO" is a scam in most cases. I interviewed with one of these companies a few years ago and told them that from my freelance experience 8 weeks per year is the sweet spot for me. The manager got really quiet and the interview ended quickly. I now have a contract with fixed 4 weeks off and everybody takes their time. The people I know who have "unlimited PTO" mostly take off less time. I have never heard of…

[deleted]

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#202

Post by matheusmoreira »

beebmam wrote: post #160
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…

There's one job in the US that is currently experiencing extremely high rates of burnout. ICU Nurses. What can we learn about burnout from them in this current situation? I don't think "Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off." applies for them in at all. They are constantly saving lives and constantly seeing the positive results of their actions. My first guess is tha…

The payoff is the critical patient goes away and is replaced by a new one. More work for all involved. Never ending work. In my country, they say it's like wiping down ice. There's less water now but the ice doesn't ever stop melting.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#203

Post by futureshock »

watwut wrote: post #175
t0mbstone wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about people who build tons of successful things and get win after win after win, but are still feeling burned out? For me, a "win" would be accomplishing something and then getting to bask in the success and take a fucking break and do nothing for a year. Shoot, even being able to take a break for a month after busting my butt on a project for a year would be nice. But nope. You never really "finish" anything i…

Is that really surprising you could not just chill for rest of week?

Yes and no. Am I surprised that a human resource extracting paperclip factory would stive to optimize every last minute of the employee's time? No I am not. Do humans need rest and rewards, to feel special, loved, significant, and appreciated, and do they work better for longer periods of time when they are getting all that, and is it a supprising waste of long term value for short term gain? Yes!

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#204

Post by le-mark »

verve_rat wrote: post #125
awsthro00945 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you can't afford to take a day off, then that's on you my friend. The people on your team can take up your slack if you let them. I work for someone just like you. He hoards all of the meetings and knowledge and "power" (for lack of a better word). Lmao. Nobody else on my team can take up slack because they have literally no space on their calendar. My team is currently at half of our target headcount. Every pers…

Stop killing yourself for someone else's profit. If your team is at 50% head count, then your team should be doing 50% (or less) of its expected work.

Some people like being martyrs and enjoy their drama. Lack of head count? It’s a business problem, a management problem, not my problem.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#205

Post by pietrovismara »

jdavis703 wrote: post #78
ineedasername wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to be miserable in a union. If you don't like the union you just don't deal with it. Ignore their meetings & other communication. In the US at least, Per the SC's Janus ruling, public unions can no longer require fees at all, and the same goes for private unions in right-to-work states.

I don’t think that’s quite so cut and dry. Sure the OP can easily ignore union politics. But I’ve seen unions defending toxic people with seniority. Good luck if the union is going to bat for someone that’s been taken to HR multiple times.

I’ve seen managers/CEOs defending toxic people with seniority. Good luck if the manager is going to bat for someone that’s been taken to HR multiple times.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#206

Post by pietrovismara »

Igelau wrote: post #45
Apocryphon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly, there’s a lot of old entrenched unions who have come to rest on their past laurels and are now mired in bureaucracy and self-satisfaction. One would easily imagine a software engineering union to be the complete opposite of that, as such a union would be completely new and hungry.

And it will never ever go astray.

What a generic and low effort comment. It could apply to pretty much any human organization. Not bringing much to the discussion, really.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#207

Post by pietrovismara »

Afton wrote: post #9
Waterluvian wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be so miserable if it had to deal with a union. Though to be fair I am not overworked or undervalued. I imagine there’s a lot of engineers who large companies just grind through.

Why would you be miserable? Union dues? occasional union communication? I'm just trying to understand what hypothetical issue you feel would be super arduous.

Funnily enough OP could give you no answer. It seems they just spewed without thought some of the anti-union propaganda that is so common in the US. And nowadays in Europe too, sadly.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#208

Post by baobabKoodaa »

void_mint wrote: post #161
beebmam wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's one job in the US that is currently experiencing extremely high rates of burnout. ICU Nurses. What can we learn about burnout from them in this current situation? I don't think "Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off." applies for them in at all. They are constantly saving lives and constantly seeing the positive results of their actions. My first guess is tha…

I would argue that working really hard to keep people alive through covid while society continues to totally ignore and neglect precaution, thus causing further illness and death, is exactly fitting for "working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off".

I don't think it's fair to say that society completely ignores precaution, in fact large swaths of society are sacrificing a lot in order to prevent covid. Especially when you compare to other causes of death, like mobility or obesity. People are willing to sacrifice 100x more to prevent a covid death than they are to prevent a traffic death.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#209

Post by dougmwne »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #165
beebmam wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's one job in the US that is currently experiencing extremely high rates of burnout. ICU Nurses. What can we learn about burnout from them in this current situation? I don't think "Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off." applies for them in at all. They are constantly saving lives and constantly seeing the positive results of their actions. My first guess is tha…

"I don't think "Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off." applies for them in at all. They are constantly saving lives and constantly seeing the positive results of their actions. " That's not really a payoff after a while. I work at a medical device company. When I started I got a kick out of all the great patient stories. Even my girlfriend's life changed from suicid…

From working in the nonprofit space, the mission is motivating, but it's also the thing you are sacrificing for. You are not working towards your personal benefit, but towards an abstract benefit received elsewhere. The pay is low and the opportunities for advancement are often limited. Burnout is very common. You must also work for your own benefit, otherwise you will eventually feel like a sucker, no matter how many lives you are saving.

You end up thinking these bigger questions like, "why is this only my responsibility to sacrifice? I don't see anyone else making sacrifices!" And "Why is it my responsibility to clean up this mess? Those other people are creating the mess for their own profit but somehow I'm the one that has to fix it?"

It's basically inevitable to recoil at being the one always stuck with the bill while everyone else stops even noticing you paid for them.

Re: Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

#210

Post by Fronzie »

jrs235 wrote: post #150
t0mbstone wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about people who build tons of successful things and get win after win after win, but are still feeling burned out? For me, a "win" would be accomplishing something and then getting to bask in the success and take a fucking break and do nothing for a year. Shoot, even being able to take a break for a month after busting my butt on a project for a year would be nice. But nope. You never really "finish" anything i…

A never ending backlog of work to be done. No rest. No jogging. Not even intervals/ladders (sprint a while, then jog a while and repeat). Just sprint. Sprint. Sprint. Until you burn out and collapse.

Well said. The agile/scrum methodologies in practice pushes people to do this: sprint, sprint, sprint.
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