Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy • Hacker News Board

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#151

Post by Dewie » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:15 PM UTC

fh973 wrote: post #103

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…

You seem to imply that higher GDP of a country is relevant for quality of life of its citizen. Knowing the US and Europe, I was also wondering what this high GDP is about, because it surely does not translate to material wealth. Googling reveals: GDP includes military expenses, bloated health care expenses, bloated education costs, ... I guess that explains the relation.

GDP per capita doesn't say anything about the wealth of the median person, either. Maybe in this case, GDP per capita should be coupled with the gini coefficient, which in the US' case is high (less equality) for a first world country.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#152

Post by rdtsc » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:16 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…

> "No Set Vacation - you need to negotiate with your manager if you want some"

No set vacation means no vacation quite often. Institutional ideology works on unwritten rules. So officially yeah leave any time that's cool, un-officially if you leave and Joe Smith here is working nights then well guess who'll get a talking to be about lack of motivation and performance.

I think the best policy is generous vacation time (4-5 weeks) and being forced to take it. The whole saving for a mini-retirement is problematic. Also I have noticed most people don't recognize burnout. So that forced time to rest and do something else is more beneficial than it appears on the surface.

EDIT: To add. I am becoming more convinced that vacation policy is one of the best proxies that show how much companies care about their employees' well being and happiness. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying companies should do that. It is up to them. They all will say the do though, but that is one metric that shows if they really do or not.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#153

Post by 01Michael10 » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:18 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #114

01Michael10 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You actually think people decide whether to take a vacation or not because of what they read in the media and NOT based on the culture of the company they work at?

Notice what I said here: "If you're afraid of taking vacation only because of what you've heard from the media" If you're afraid of taking vacation because of first hand knowledge about the culture of your company wrt vacations, by all means, be afraid of taking time off.

My point is people are not taking their vacation because of something they read in the media so I think your question and concern were unnecessary.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#154

Post by mattmcknight » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:20 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…

"Thank god for Obama care and the new ban on pre-existing condition limits (i.e. that you could not get insurance if you were sick before). It kept people enslaved into a single job if they ever got sick since they could never afford to lose that health insurance or they'd die."

That is not true. Those protections were provided in 1996 by HIPAA Title 1 [1]. If you had been covered for 18 months, you were no longer subject to pre-existing condition limits.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_Insurance_Portability_an...

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#155

Post by usefulcat » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:20 PM UTC

mncolinlee wrote: post #119

jasonkester wrote: post #83

That Cadillac ad is awesome. I'd never seen it before. It watches like a parody, but at the end you're hit by the reality that yes, this guy is being completely serious. The message really is "sure, I traded away my quality of life, but look at all this stuff! " That's actually the notion that Cadillac is trying to sell. Amazing that they're doing such a good job of it. Fortunately, there's no real trick to getting b…

The ad also inspired several parodies, including this one from Ford. The Cadillac ad is clearly trying to sell to an affluent, white, conservative audience which still believes their hard work and no vacation pays off. In the ad, they show their success with the car they drive. It's a study in market segmentation. Ford's parody spins it around by focusing on social consciousness, eco-friendliness, and diversity, a be…

"... audience which still believes their hard work and no vacation pays off."

People for whom that premise is untrue will still have reason to believe that it is true. Because the alternative--that they spent a bunch of their lives doing things that weren't really that rewarding--would result in too much cognitive dissonance.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#156

Post by brightsize » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:21 PM UTC

rbehrends wrote: post #70

coreymgilmore wrote: post #2

I feel this article is a little weak in one major sense: comparing the US to European countries based on non-working time is okay, but you also need to compare a metric like GDP. Using this, the US is #6 world-wide only behind two European countries. So yes, Euros may get more time off, but the US is a way more economically powerful and productive country economically. Hurting the economy, sure people get burned out,…

The problem with GDP per capita comparisons is that GDP is a bit of a weak measure of economic performance. It is a measure of raw, unadjusted economic throughput (cash flow, essentially), not necessarily a measure of economic performance. It is increased by an inefficient healthcare system (healthcare spending makes up 17.7% of the US GDP all on its own, while most of the affluent European countries are in the 9%-11…

In the past two years, I've spent six months living in Germany. The quality-of-life difference between that country and the US is striking.

In Germany, it appeared that ordinary people could both afford to, and were inclined to, partake often in small pleasures such as having a Bier and a bite at outdoor cafes in the summer. The streets were lined with these cafes and restaurants, most doing a brisk business. I never saw so many cut-flower shops in my life. The small pleasure of flowers was both affordable AND something that was on the minds of ordinary people, something that one would never encounter in the US.

Here, such things are looked upon as frivolous luxuries, and financially they are that for the 99%. If you can afford such things as cut flowers, then, we're told by our betters, you can also work for less money or work more for what you're earning currently. Why do you deserve luxuries, peon?

Despite what the pro-workaholic, GDP-flaunting people in the US would say, Germans on the whole seem to be quite materially prosperous. But with that, they are culturally prosperous in a quality-of-life sense too. They seem to expect it, whereas in the US a high QoL is reserved for the wealthy.

Obviously I'm not saying that every German lives this way, necessarily. But I think that this cultural observation is accurate. I think if average people in the US would be brought to understand that they too could have a modest life containing a big helping of everyday pleasures and without life-sucking, excessive work expectations, there'd be a revolution.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#157

Post by selectodude » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:21 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #100

hnnewguy wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is North Sea oil, right? Hard to generalize from. Wasn't really generalizing, just stating fact. Norway has far fewer proven oil reserves than Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Algeria, Ecuador, Nigeria and on and on... Oil is not a panacea. The combination of a progressive culture and resource endowment tends to win. But don't assume that the latter is most important.

> The combination of a progressive culture and resource endowment Don't forget having a relatively culturally and ethnically homogenous population (when compared to countries like the US), something that is often forgotten when holding up Scandinavian countries (esp. Norway) as a model.

And the fact that there are fewer people in Norway than there are in New York City.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#158

Post by kajumix » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:21 PM UTC

The entire first world could get by with 100% time off on the back of the poor of this world. Why not just lose the pretense and admit that the rich americans and europeans can truly afford to spend all their days idle, consuming stuff imported and made elsewhere by people who work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, while you all spend your days debating 35 vs. 40 hours of invaluable pretend work. Such hubris.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#159

Post by todd3834 » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:22 PM UTC

nickthemagicman wrote: post #98

jasonkester wrote: post #83

That Cadillac ad is awesome. I'd never seen it before. It watches like a parody, but at the end you're hit by the reality that yes, this guy is being completely serious. The message really is "sure, I traded away my quality of life, but look at all this stuff! " That's actually the notion that Cadillac is trying to sell. Amazing that they're doing such a good job of it. Fortunately, there's no real trick to getting b…

That guy is the poster child for the Materialistic Self Entitled Baby Boomer Me Generation. Materialism and greed are literally everything that is wrong with the world. Spoilied Douchebags like he and his generation are a legacy hangover from post-WW2 America, a time of middle class economic excess greater than any the HUMAN RACE has ever seen. Americans aren't exceptional in any way. We just got lucky by being the o…

You can find hard workers everywhere including but not exclusively in America. I suggest you should want to wait before a Communist country becomes the next world power unless you would prefer to be told what to do. Clearly you are angry, maybe for a good reason, but I think your anger is misdirected at Americans.

Re: Workaholism in America Is Hurting the Economy

#160

Post by VLM » Tue, Jun 24, 2014, 4:22 PM UTC

"keep the nose to the grindstone"

LOL there's a classism component that a guy spending 60 hours in the office, 30 of them on facebook, twitter, amazon, or HN, is an office overtime hero, but a guy using a shovel 39 hours a week while being paid for 40 is a lazy slacker who should be fired.

Aside from the class problem, another big problem is in a euro country with low income inequality, it means something to divide the total pie by the number of roughly equal people eating it. But if you have a pie where almost all the pie will be going to a couple fat guys and half the "eaters" are going to starve then dividing the pie by the number of "eaters" is utterly meaningless, or at least it is not comparable to the more equal country. It is a meaningless math problem.

If I bring a pack of oreos to work and serve them at a meeting as a snack/bribe, then dividing the pack by the number of people means something. If I bring in a bag lunch and eat every single oreo by myself other than maybe giving one to my college buddy while everyone else in the dept looks on jealously, then the division result is meaningless, or at least not worth comparing.

In a "let them eat cake" scenario if 12 people eat 12 equal-ish sized slices, the average slice size means something. In winner takes all USA, one fat dude eats the whole cake and 11 get nothin and the numerical average means nothing, nothing at all.