Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy • Hacker News Board

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#51

Post by jjoonathan » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 2:48 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #23

rayiner wrote: post #6

The article focuses on professionals, but I don't know if that's the angle I'm concerned about. American professionals work more, but they are also paid more. They also have much better vacation and leave policies. More concerning is the plight of median workers, who aren't making a lot more these days than their European counterparts, but have much worse vacation policies to deal with.

Vacation policies are the least of it. How about the lack of a safety net? Take health care. Civilized people should agree that medical care in a rich country should be available to everyone. The thought of people dying in the streets from preventable disease and injury sounds pretty horrendous. But for the past 20 years we've been fed the same fabricated FUD about socialized medicine that has no basis in reality. Pe…

> lack of a safety net?

That's one argument. Here's another:

Cost:

http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourc...

vs Quality:

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/press-releases/...

http://www.businessinsider.com/best-healthcare-systems-in-th...

EDIT: not sure if downvotes are because people think I'm saying that cost is less important than the lack of a safety net or because people are butthurt over figures demonstrating that universal health care is also cheaper. Please clarify.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#52

Post by cryoshon » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 2:49 PM UTC

UweSchmidt wrote: post #14

Often, when articles highlight bad laws or customs, economical arguments are brought up. Workaholism -> backfires and is bad for the economy and in recent threads here on HN: Workplace surveillance -> backfires, people feel controlled and performance suffers Government espionage in USA -> backfires, people lose trust in US businesses I don't feel that this is the strongest argument. "Please treat us better, it is in…

It's the only argument here in the USA.

It sucks that things are this way, but the only way to justify anything or argue for anything is an appeal to higher profits.

Money is this country's highest value, and all other values such as decency or shared prosperity have been thrown into the garbage and decried as socialism or wishful thinking.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#53

Post by vvvv » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 2:49 PM UTC

ghshephard wrote: post #20

Even worse is the new trend in technology companies to eliminate "Set Vacation". It used to be the case that you felt "obliged" somehow to take your 10 days of vacation a year, because you saw it piling up. Even better, if you were laid off, you could get the vacation in cash, and that helped when you were cut off without a job. But now, a lot of technology companies are saying, "No Set Vacation - you need to negotia…

Is there no legal requirement for minimum number of days off?

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#54

Post by bmj » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 2:51 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #47

cmollis wrote: post #9

It's frowned upon to take any time off in the US. I've seen it viewed as a sign of a lack of commitment or even laziness. Consequently, we take less time off because we're scared we're going to lose our jobs. No one is congratulated for taking time off in the middle of a project for your 'sanity' or 'to re-charge'. Everyone is scared. There is no safety net. It's no way to live, but it's our reality.

I wonder how many people in the US don't take their vacation days because they've read things like this and not because of their own experience. If you're afraid of taking vacation only because of what you've heard from the media, I suggest you try taking your vacation and see what happens. In all likelihood it will be a career non-event.

I've talked to some other professionals about this, and for many of them, they readily admit that they feel like they need to be at work for their employer to function properly. They also admit this is their own impression, not something their boss has given them ("if you take that vacation, I don't know what we'll do without you").

I suggest you try taking your vacation and see what happens. In all likelihood it will be a career non-event

I think this will probably be the case. I know it is for me (I take every last hour of PTO I am given every year, and have been known to request time off without pay, too), but I suspect there are some employers that truly do what they can to discourage holidays (constant arbitrary deadlines, for example).

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#55

Post by switch007 » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 2:52 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #16

cmollis wrote: post #9

It's frowned upon to take any time off in the US. I've seen it viewed as a sign of a lack of commitment or even laziness. Consequently, we take less time off because we're scared we're going to lose our jobs. No one is congratulated for taking time off in the middle of a project for your 'sanity' or 'to re-charge'. Everyone is scared. There is no safety net. It's no way to live, but it's our reality.

> There is no safety net. That's a wonderfully succinct way of describing the US. It seems like in a lot of EU countries if you fail there is something to catch you (higher, longer, easier to get unemployment pay for one example), whereas there really is no lower limit on how low the US will let you fall (e.g. healthcare is a privilege not a right in the US). They do say that the US has some of the highest anti-depre…

>It seems like in a lot of EU countries if you fail there is something to catch you (higher, longer, easier to get unemployment pay for one example)

For the avoidance of doubt, that does not include England (these days). People with cancer in the final stages are declared fit to work

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#56

Post by JackFr » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 2:53 PM UTC

claybinion wrote: post #27

JackFr wrote: post #17

And yet compared to those European countries, the US experiences significantly higher GDP per capita. Doing work and getting paid for it hardly seems like it's hurting the economy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP... As to the studies cited in the article I would point to the OECD labor productivity statistics which, in the aggregate, seem to disagree. http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?Data…

Can you explain what you mean by your last paragraph? The inability to find meaning and indentity in ones work causes people a psychic crisis to leave their jobs even temporarily? That problem is an imagined hurt to the economy?

What I mean to say is that Amercians are overworked because they like to be overworked.

Typically an American's sole sense of identity comes from his or her job, and while we give lip service to 'happiness' as our life's goal unless happiness means ambition and success in one's work, you are an oddball.

The problem isn't that Americans are hurting the economy with over work; the problem, if you want to call it one, is that because we have nothing else in our lives, we don't mind that we're overworked.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#57

Post by gejjaxxita » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 2:53 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #17

And yet compared to those European countries, the US experiences significantly higher GDP per capita. Doing work and getting paid for it hardly seems like it's hurting the economy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP... As to the studies cited in the article I would point to the OECD labor productivity statistics which, in the aggregate, seem to disagree. http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?Data…

The US has a lower population density than those European countries, more natural resource is divided between fewer people. That is the primary reason for the higher GDP per capita.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#58

Post by bmj » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 2:53 PM UTC

octo_t wrote: post #36

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #12

>The United States is the only advanced country that doesn't guarantee that its citizens will get paid vacation time and holidays I find the reasoning consistently maddening. What they should be saying is that there is no federal mandate for private employers to pay workers during vacation/convalescence/maternity leave. In point of fact, for government workers there is paid annual/maternity/paternity leave which ends…

> and in effect becomes a mandatory leave this is a good thing, as the rest of the evidence presented in the OP suggests. People should take all the leave they are entitled to.

I've pointed this out in other threads about this subject, but there are actually employers who pay out a bonus to employees who use 100% of the PTO in a given year.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#59

Post by _delirium » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 2:53 PM UTC

walshemj wrote: post #30

thegeomaster wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How big a sample size of Europeans does your consultant have? Your claim that "Europeans go on vacation and projects get held up and they can never catch up again" is... dubious at best.

Yes I know a CTO who worked in the valley (I think he reported to Vint at one point) and the UK. He commented that the USA workers didn't produce more even though they only had 2 weeks vs the 5+ the civil service T&C derived uk workers did. spent far more time goofing off and gossiping and taking sneaky long weekends to go skiing was his comment.

Danes who work in the U.S. are often very surprised by the lack of organization in American workplaces. People work long hours but they seem somewhat haphazard hours, at least from a foreign perspective. Meetings are a particularly big cultural friction point: Danes expect a meeting to start exactly at a specific time, have an agenda distributed at least a day ahead of time, stick to the agenda, and end at exactly the agreed ending time. So you have a 10-11am meeting, you get going on the main topics of discussion at 10:00 (not 10:15 after 15 mins of small-talk and waiting for stragglers to come in), people have come prepared with what they're discussing, and it's guaranteed to be done by 11:00.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#60

Post by _delirium » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 2:54 PM UTC

autokad wrote: post #38

thegeomaster wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How big a sample size of Europeans does your consultant have? Your claim that "Europeans go on vacation and projects get held up and they can never catch up again" is... dubious at best.

i made a statement, backed it up by mentioning productivity, and then made a reference to a real world example that I have observed, unlike the article that just mostly made platitudes. if you'd like further evidence, the EU area has an unemployment rate close to 12%. companies are not anxious to hire europeans for one reason or another.

Almost all the EU unemployment is in the countries with long working hours and shorter vacations, oddly enough. Scandinavia, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands don't have high unemployment. People work reasonably short hours, take long vacations, and the many consulting companies here have no problem getting contracts, both within Europe and worldwide.

The European countries with major economic problems are in the south and east, where they tend not to have as generous vacation and hour policies in the first place. If you work with a Greek or Spanish consulting company, they will be there any time you want, bringing everyone into the office at 3am on a Saturday their time, if you ask for it. Good luck getting a Danish company to do that! Yet the Danish companies are not having trouble getting work.