I can't afford to leave my job, I would only be able to sustain myself for ~1 year. I think I would be satisfied if I only had to work half as much: 4 hours a day, 20 a week. Now I just need to find that job...
In my country (Netherlands), most employers are amenable - if not legally required - to allow you to work part-time, IIRC over half the workforce here works part-time - could be 36 hours (so you get an afternoon a week off, or a day off every two weeks, or a day off if you work 4x9 hours), 32, some even work only 24 hours. So basically it is possible, and I think in the US too you can negotiate to work less hours.
I quit the tech industry (2015)
41–50 of 276 posts
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#42We talk about externalities. A chemical company pours toxins into a river, an automaker knows its products kill X people per year. These are tangible, understandable. But we don't yet think of the effects on the workforce as social externalities. Industrial safety has made the workplace a much safer space physically, but not mentally. The reality is, a great many jobs make us sick. Depression, anxiety, heightened agg…
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#43We talk about externalities. A chemical company pours toxins into a river, an automaker knows its products kill X people per year. These are tangible, understandable. But we don't yet think of the effects on the workforce as social externalities. Industrial safety has made the workplace a much safer space physically, but not mentally. The reality is, a great many jobs make us sick. Depression, anxiety, heightened agg…
Unfortunately we're not good at handling externalities we can't easily measure.
""" She has said that the real inconvenient truth is not just that there is environmental pollution, which there certainly is, but that there is also social pollution. The work hours that companies are demanding of their employees are causing the breakup of marriages, burdens on raising children, and general disruption to family life. And the family unit is an important source of social support.
You can see this in stories from my book — the GE guy who’s on the road all the time and never sees his kids until he finally decides to quit. So she coined the term “social pollution,” and I think it’s a wonderful term. """
""" t’s true. He takes three points and puts them together. The first point, which is consistent with data reported by the World Economic Forum and other sources, is that an enormous percentage of the health care cost burden in the developed world, and in particular in the U.S., comes from chronic disease — things like diabetes and cardiovascular and circulatory disease. You begin with that premise: A large fraction — some estimates are 75 percent — of the disease burden in the U.S. is from chronic diseases.
Second, there is a tremendous amount of epidemiological literature that suggests that diabetes, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome — and many health-relevant individual behaviors such as overeating and underexercising and drug and alcohol abuse — come from stress.
And third, there is a large amount of data that suggests the biggest source of stress is the workplace. So that’s how Chapman can stand up and make the statement that CEOs are the cause of the health care crisis: You are the source of stress, stress causes chronic disease, and chronic disease is the biggest component of our ongoing and enormous health care costs. """
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#44Does this person have a family and kids? I don’t see how anyone can do this unless they contribute nothing to their families or extended families. Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life. Most people in the world have either ailing parents and/or spouse and kids to take care of.
It's not selfish not to have kids. And in western countries, spouses/parents can take care of themselves financially.
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#45Does this person have a family and kids? I don’t see how anyone can do this unless they contribute nothing to their families or extended families. Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life. Most people in the world have either ailing parents and/or spouse and kids to take care of.
Of course, if they do, and they're offloading the burden on to other people (a partner who now has to take up more work on their own, for instance) then that's different.
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#46We talk about externalities. A chemical company pours toxins into a river, an automaker knows its products kill X people per year. These are tangible, understandable. But we don't yet think of the effects on the workforce as social externalities. Industrial safety has made the workplace a much safer space physically, but not mentally. The reality is, a great many jobs make us sick. Depression, anxiety, heightened agg…
Looking around me, I do know a fair amount of people quitting tech. To become a sport or management coach, a sound designer, a bar owner, a writer, etc. But a lot of those people seem to struggle even more now than they were when being in tech.
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#47Does this person have a family and kids? I don’t see how anyone can do this unless they contribute nothing to their families or extended families. Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life. Most people in the world have either ailing parents and/or spouse and kids to take care of.
> Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life It's not selfish not to have kids. And in western countries, spouses/parents can take care of themselves financially.
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#48Does this person have a family and kids? I don’t see how anyone can do this unless they contribute nothing to their families or extended families. Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life. Most people in the world have either ailing parents and/or spouse and kids to take care of.
self-ish is not a bad thing.
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#49Does this person have a family and kids? I don’t see how anyone can do this unless they contribute nothing to their families or extended families. Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life. Most people in the world have either ailing parents and/or spouse and kids to take care of.
> Sounds to me like a very selfish view of life It's not selfish not to have kids. And in western countries, spouses/parents can take care of themselves financially.
I don't think I'll have kids. It's the one vote I've got. Why would I stake anything I care about on a society that will almost certainly fail them?
Re: I quit the tech industry (2015)
#50We talk about externalities. A chemical company pours toxins into a river, an automaker knows its products kill X people per year. These are tangible, understandable. But we don't yet think of the effects on the workforce as social externalities. Industrial safety has made the workplace a much safer space physically, but not mentally. The reality is, a great many jobs make us sick. Depression, anxiety, heightened agg…
Do we have some tangible numbers on the long term situation of those "quitting tech" people? Like, ok, they open a wind-surfing school, but then what? Does that work, are they more fulfilled and able to work the next 10+ years in that situation without burning out? Or do they go back to tech after a while because grass is always greener, and a job is a job and there are not as much fulfilling jobs as we would like to…
You're right about the grass being greener. The tech industry is an absolute plague, but most other industries are just as bad.
In the long term, and for most of us, the only way to escape this garbage system is to blow it up.