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Burnt out on a three-day week

jennywanger.com

21–30 of 68 posts

Re: Burnt out on a three-day week

#21

Ultimately the common thread in most of these cases seems to be a lack of purpose and meaning in life in general, not really an issue with the specific work environment. The purpose of life is to make meaningful human connections, become wiser, become a better person. This is something that some combination of family, traditional social structures and religion used to provide for a lot of people. "Create shareholder…

Do you think it could be a combination of things? Like, in order to avoid burnout you need some degree of meaning but also some degree of success and positive work environment.

I'm coming at this from the perspective that I've been struggling with a lot of burn out and I'm mostly proud of who I am and what I do but I'm stressed because I constantly have to compensate for society's failure to reward people's contributions.

That could just be me though. I definitely agree that I think that meaning and purpose is a big thing that people are missing now.

Re: Burnt out on a three-day week

#22
post #19

Reads like an AI generated ad for coaching. Someone please chime in if you feel otherwise but IMO this one is not worth the read.

That means we are crossing the line and people can't tell anymore. Most likely this is the author's story enhanced with AI and then edited. That is the future I think.

Slop is slop, whether you edit it in or whether you generate it de novo.

Re: Burnt out on a three-day week

#23

Ultimately the common thread in most of these cases seems to be a lack of purpose and meaning in life in general, not really an issue with the specific work environment. The purpose of life is to make meaningful human connections, become wiser, become a better person. This is something that some combination of family, traditional social structures and religion used to provide for a lot of people. "Create shareholder…

> The purpose of life is to make meaningful human connections, become wiser, become a better person

That maybe your own opinion. The older I get the more I realize that the ignorance is bliss - the less I know the better, nothing drains my energy more than human connections and I don't have to be better or worse, I'm just perfect the way I am and if anyone doesn't like that, it's their problem and not mine.

Re: Burnt out on a three-day week

#25

Burnout isn't about the number of hours. Burnout occurs because you are actively doing something that you fundamentally don't believe is worth the time. I can work 80 hour weeks if it is a project that I am invested in or find interesting and feel zero burnout. I am working on a project currently I don't believe in and often I work maybe 6 to 10 hours of a 35 hour week and find it difficult to care about the work.

It's not as easy as that though; most people I know that ended up burnt out were the opposite, where they were actively doing everything that they fundamentally did believe was worth the time. Saying "yes" to every new responsibility, getting really enthousiastic and excited for every new opportunity, wanting to be involved and engaged with everything that comes in their path. Burnout starts (for these people) when they start to take work home, when they do extra in their free time, when they keep busy with work or something work related right up to the point where they go to bed.

This is where employers fail them. I get that employers actually want dedicated, committed, enthusiastic employees, and that these employers (and managers) do the same thing, taking their job home, living for the job, etc. But it's their job to protect their employees and themselves. If a manager finds out one of their employees is taking their job home, they should intervene.

But this is the double edged thing that managers - and lawmakers - have to deal with.

Re: Burnt out on a three-day week

#26
post #19

Reads like an AI generated ad for coaching. Someone please chime in if you feel otherwise but IMO this one is not worth the read.

That means we are crossing the line and people can't tell anymore. Most likely this is the author's story enhanced with AI and then edited. That is the future I think.

I think you're probably right

Right now I have a mental block with reading ai written or ai enchanced text. So unless the article has a pre-2021 date... I'll ask ai to summarize it

I think I'll eventually have to get over that bias

Re: Burnt out on a three-day week

#27
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That means we are crossing the line and people can't tell anymore. Most likely this is the author's story enhanced with AI and then edited. That is the future I think.

Slop is slop, whether you edit it in or whether you generate it de novo.

It seems enough people appreciated the story to upvote it though... but that assumes HN's algorithm is fair, it's free of bots, and the people voting are critical and honest on what they upvote.

Re: Burnt out on a three-day week

#28
post #18

Hey Claude - The information in this essay is fine, but you have got to stop leaning on correctio as a rhetorical device. The whole essay is built on it. We've talked about this before and it's grating because you use it in every piece of writing you produce. It's just not how people write.

[dead]

Re: Burnt out on a three-day week

#29
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That means we are crossing the line and people can't tell anymore. Most likely this is the author's story enhanced with AI and then edited. That is the future I think.

Slop is slop, whether you edit it in or whether you generate it de novo.

I disagree, I think this is too black and white.

In my opinion, it boils down to what ideas/experiences were seeded.

In this article for example, the author is clearly sharing their first-hand experience, therefore injecting observations from reality and their own reflection on top of it, and they then probably shaped/refined it with AI.

A slop, as I see it, is when you generate content from a very thin prompt and then share it as is.

Re: Burnt out on a three-day week

#30
post #18

Hey Claude - The information in this essay is fine, but you have got to stop leaning on correctio as a rhetorical device. The whole essay is built on it. We've talked about this before and it's grating because you use it in every piece of writing you produce. It's just not how people write.

two new words / terms learned today, correctio and epanorthosis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epanorthosis) - thanks, it's worth millions⸻no, morbillions!
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