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Mental health in software engineering

vadimkravcenko.com

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Re: Mental health in software engineering

#201

Post by jkaplowitz »

mr_mitm wrote: post #166
badpun wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe, you don't generally get "sick days" - you're entitled to stay at home or in hospital for as long as it takes for you to get better (even for years, if necessary). In the meantime, your salary is paid by the state, so you're not an unproductive burden for your employer. At least that's how it works in Poland.

True, but that also means you cannot take a day off because you're not feeling it. You need at a doctor to attest that you're physically incapable of working. And in Germany, the employer has the right to demand a doctor's note from day one.

My understanding of Germany's rules is hat a policy about needing notes from day 1 has to be in the contract, otherwise the requirement kicks in on day 3 or 4 (I forget which). And the doctor's note doesn't have to claim that you're "physically" incapable - mental health problems also qualify.

Re: Mental health in software engineering

#202

Post by bluGill »

paulcole wrote: post #191
bluGill wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition as a leader your best use is often to be interrupted with questions from junior engineers. This means you can never (or rarely) get into a flow where you are productive, as you are getting close someone interrupts your thought with a question. As such if you have time to work on engineering (which you should make to stay sharp) it needs to be something unimportant to the business so that you can be late.…

> In addition as a leader your best use is often to be interrupted with questions from junior engineers. I kinda disagree w/ this. I get better results from helping people understand this: https://www.techtello.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/decisio... And then making sure that they're taking action when they should take action and getting help when they should be getting help. This means they are wrong sometimes but…

Kindof, but a lot of time has been wasted figuring out something that someone else already has done.

Re: Mental health in software engineering

#203

Post by fwip »

Clubber wrote: post #197
threetonesun wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm still waiting for the USA to "innovate" on a way for everyone to get health care, although sometimes I suspect the lack of a solution there and general lack of regulation at large is part of why American has such "high innovation".

We're pretty close. Obamacare covers a lot of people and employers are required to provide it if they have over 50 employees. Any hospital is required to treat anyone who comes in, regardless of ability to pay. It's sloppy and it's expensive if you don't qualify for ACA subsidies, but if you want healthcare/health insurance in the US, you can most likely get it if you try.

Conflating health insurance with health care is a common American mistake.

Having the ability to pay every month for health insurance doesn't do much to protect you from losing everything to health-related bills. Unless, of course, you are rich enough to afford the 'Cadillac' health plans.

Re: Mental health in software engineering

#204

Post by neilv »

surfingdino wrote: post #27

I used to be in (moderate) awe of young college drop-out CEOs. Then I worked for a couple of them. Now I refuse to work for startups that have 20-somethings at the top, because they really do not know how to manage or lead. They are motivated by fear of failure and having accomplished nothing so far they treat others like garbage. Avoid.

I suspect that there's no good reason that a 25 year-old can't be a great startup CEO.

I think one key tricky part is that -- even if the 25yo starts with being all-around smart, and unusually aware&humble, yet nevertheless tackling something big -- is that it's very hard to know when they should listen to team/advisors (and which), vs. when they should do a contrary thing that they think is the smart thing.

Maybe that's doable well enough, if they have all those good qualities, and happen to be exposed to a good team/advisors.

(Side note: It doesn't help that various facets of the fields are filled with bad practices/advice, as well as outright intentional deception and manipulation. If you read PG's essays early on, that was a time when you might expect a fellow techie and businessperson to have smart and well-intentioned advice, wanting you to succeed. That's absolutely not the norm anymore: you're much more likely to get bad advice today, no matter where you look, and more likely to encounter individuals and institutions trying to manipulate you. Even when you can filter that out first-hand, you're still getting a lot of it second-hand, through their influences on smart&decent people who you do let influence you.)

Re: Mental health in software engineering

#205

Post by AppleBananaPie »

I have experienced most of what you have written about and have taken many similar steps :) The major difference being I would describe myself still at the level of a juniorish engineer.

My only addition and I'm very curious as to your opinion: I think mental health / physical health is more impactful in software engineering than most other professions. At least for me, if I'm sick it directly impacts my working memory and ability to focus. I always tell my friends I could do yard work just fine, yeah I'd feel like crap still but I could do it. If I'm trying to code something difficult often times I can end up making zero progress or arguably negative progress if I'm sick long enough as I lose context of code changing around me.

The same holds true if I'm stressed or anxious or whatever.

This can probably become a cycle with the things you mentioned that makes it easy to trend downward.

Thanks for sharing your story :)

Re: Mental health in software engineering

#206

Post by yodsanklai »

chollida1 wrote: post #177

I'm not terribly convinced that software engineering is harder on someone mental health than being a doctor, lawyer, sales, engineer, professional athlete, teacher, or any other white collar profession is. All of these have their specific stressors, all of these professions have loads of articles about how people are leaving these professions due to how hard they are. All of these jobs tend to lead to them consuming…

> People take sick days all the time for mental health

When you take a sick day, you're not supposed to say what's your issue.

Re: Mental health in software engineering

#207

Post by onion2k »

tiznow wrote: post #193
hayst4ck wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctor, lawyer, and athlete are "jock" professions, while software engineering is very much a "nerd" profession. These words represent status and general level of attractiveness and therefore access to attention and sex. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, and professional athletes all experience social reward and/or social contexts to their work. Software engineering is interfacing with an unthinking, unfeeling machine for…

It's weird, I've harped on a few of these points in conversations with others (usually when talking about "sexy careers", and why people don't hold coders in the same regard as doctors) but your words made me realize why I'm trying to become a developer. The dealing with the machine rather than people is something I'm willing to run with more than anything, right now. Not wholly a function of unmet needs, but address…

The dealing with the machine rather than people is something I'm willing to run with more than anything, right now.

Software engineering is an incredibly people-focused career. You will need to be able to work with other devs, stakeholders, support, users.. everyone really. Going into a tech career thinking that it's somewhere you can avoid people is never going to work out well.

Re: Mental health in software engineering

#208

Post by tenacious_tuna »

yodsanklai wrote: post #206
chollida1 wrote: post #177

I'm not terribly convinced that software engineering is harder on someone mental health than being a doctor, lawyer, sales, engineer, professional athlete, teacher, or any other white collar profession is. All of these have their specific stressors, all of these professions have loads of articles about how people are leaving these professions due to how hard they are. All of these jobs tend to lead to them consuming…

> People take sick days all the time for mental health When you take a sick day, you're not supposed to say what's your issue.

I go back and forth on this; on the one hand, yes, I don't owe my team an explanation about why I'm taking STO. On the other, me making it clear that I'm taking a mental health day may encourage another engineer (possibly a more junior one) to do the same if need be: emphasizing that mental health is a facet of overall health.

Re: Mental health in software engineering

#209

Post by bxguff »

hayst4ck wrote: post #187
chollida1 wrote: post #177

I'm not terribly convinced that software engineering is harder on someone mental health than being a doctor, lawyer, sales, engineer, professional athlete, teacher, or any other white collar profession is. All of these have their specific stressors, all of these professions have loads of articles about how people are leaving these professions due to how hard they are. All of these jobs tend to lead to them consuming…

Doctor, lawyer, and athlete are "jock" professions, while software engineering is very much a "nerd" profession. These words represent status and general level of attractiveness and therefore access to attention and sex. Doctors, lawyers, teachers, and professional athletes all experience social reward and/or social contexts to their work. Software engineering is interfacing with an unthinking, unfeeling machine for…

any person earnestly applying a nerd and jock mentality to adult life should find a nice patch of grass to touch and talk to more people

Re: Mental health in software engineering

#210

Post by JohnMakin »

chollida1 wrote: post #177

I'm not terribly convinced that software engineering is harder on someone mental health than being a doctor, lawyer, sales, engineer, professional athlete, teacher, or any other white collar profession is. All of these have their specific stressors, all of these professions have loads of articles about how people are leaving these professions due to how hard they are. All of these jobs tend to lead to them consuming…

> Has any company come out against mental health in the past 20 years?

Sorry but this is really naive. They won't come out and say it explicitly, because they can't, but many companies will just find a way to quietly replace you or hold you back in the organization if you are public about any mental issues.

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