Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout • Hacker News Board

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#11

Post by klenwell » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 7:19 PM UTC

> The sad thing about the metrics-driven performance culture the Times describes at Amazon is studies show overworked people perform worse.

I'm glad the author made this point and backed it up with a reference. It reaffirms something I already believed (whether on the basis of personal experience, something I'd read before, or mere wishful thinking, I couldn't tell you so the reference helps). It is a sensible constraint that came to mind in reading all the tech workplace horror stories that the Times's Amazon piece inspired.

While reading that Times article I checked out the link to their 14 sacred principles. The funny thing was that I agreed with most of them. They were all ideas that occurred to me over the course of my career working independently, with small companies, and especially now in corp.

The one thing that was missing, I felt, was a Rule #15: Never work more than 8 hours a day.

Without it, it's no surprise you end up burnt out or living in the sort of dystopian workplace documented in the Times' Amazon article.

But then I suppose, as has been pointed before, long work hours are more about cultural signaling and penny-wise-pound-foolish accounting than really improving productivity.

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#12

Post by joslin01 » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

I worked extremely hard at my last start-up to the point of being completely burnt out. I'm happy because it made me stronger, but I'll never forget being over and for about 4-5 months after, never looking at a computer. I didn't want anything to do with them for awhile, and pursued a vicious "I'm gonna go pro in golf" campaign (can't take the idealism/ambition out of a true entrepreneur).

I'm really happy now, but I understand burn-out at a much deeper level than I had before. There was a time when I would think "just get over it," but now I understand it has very real effects. When you don't want to think, it's not always a simple case of laziness. It takes work to switch into your "system 2" (as called by "Thinking Fast and Slow") -- your focused mindset. Then once you're in this mindset, it's no picnic.

What's fascinating is that if you stay in system 2 for too long, you begin to show signs of paranoia and depression. You become withdrawn and isolate yourself further from society. You might hypothesize this is a natural reaction of an _injured_ animal, but it's hard for you to understand that your brain is exhausted and needs to rest. Instead, you say "go faster!" and it begins to try to come up with more & more schemes to prevent you from going into system 2. Fantasies that would have meant nothing to you well-rested are now of utmost importance because you're actually procrastinating because you're actually fatigued.

Burn-out is a real thing. I love work and I work very hard, but there's times when you have to say "You know what, this weekend is all mine." Those are the weekends I sleep anywhere from 10-14 hours each night, and not because I'm indulging, but just like muscles, my brain is resting and hopefully "growing".

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#13

Post by mattzito » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

One of the things I always encourage people to do as part of an acquisition is to handle the transition gracefully (1 year-ish), and then start looking around for what else you might want to do inside the acquirer. Often there won't be anything, and you can just bide your time or flee the scene - but other times there might be a perfectly interesting job elsewhere in the organization that you can use to build your skills, beef up your resume, and live out your golden handcuffs.

But too many people that I see just sit there, quietly miserable, while their product dies around them.

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#14

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 7:22 PM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #2

Random thoughts: It's nice to hear about a situation closer to most startup outcomes. When Matthew notes that someone sent him the acquisition terms and the founders made out well while line level / low level managers basically got nice severances, it's something everyone here should keep in mind. It's great if founders make out well as long as everyone else does too; it's when those outcomes diverge that it rankles.…

[deleted]

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#15

Post by fredgrott » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 7:24 PM UTC

tajen wrote: post #4

x0x0 wrote: post #2

Random thoughts: It's nice to hear about a situation closer to most startup outcomes. When Matthew notes that someone sent him the acquisition terms and the founders made out well while line level / low level managers basically got nice severances, it's something everyone here should keep in mind. It's great if founders make out well as long as everyone else does too; it's when those outcomes diverge that it rankles.…

Re non-compete/IP ownership: I wonder whether I should say where I worked or how illegal was their employment contract... Can't do both, it's protected by their confidentiality clause ;)

in USA it depends on your State Location..if in CA see a lawyer as you may not be aware of certain rights you have

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#16

Post by MichaelGG » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 7:27 PM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #2

Random thoughts: It's nice to hear about a situation closer to most startup outcomes. When Matthew notes that someone sent him the acquisition terms and the founders made out well while line level / low level managers basically got nice severances, it's something everyone here should keep in mind. It's great if founders make out well as long as everyone else does too; it's when those outcomes diverge that it rankles.…

I received a buyout offer with the terms of being prohibited to do anything that "directly or indirectly competes with ". Indirectly? So if I take a contract from a competitor and work on improving a DB engine, well that's indirect. It transitively closes over essentially everything. Especially difficult as I contribute to some OSS projects that a lot of businesses in that industry use.

I just kept refusing that part and eventually they gave in; it's not like they intended to prohibit everything, they just needed tighter language that wouldn't harm me.

My favourite part is when people say part of a contract is "just there" but it'd never be used. OK well in that case, let's just remove it and I'll just agree to be nice.

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#17

Post by MichaelGG » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 7:29 PM UTC

joslin01 wrote: post #12

I worked extremely hard at my last start-up to the point of being completely burnt out. I'm happy because it made me stronger, but I'll never forget being over and for about 4-5 months after, never looking at a computer. I didn't want anything to do with them for awhile, and pursued a vicious "I'm gonna go pro in golf" campaign (can't take the idealism/ambition out of a true entrepreneur). I'm really happy now, but I…

I've been delving into burnout for the past years. If I can get into flow, I'm fantastic and do very well. But getting there is increasingly more difficult. I've given up many contracts and work, only keeping a few clients. But just having anything, even if it's 1 day a week, it seems to keep you "involved" mentally and you're not really free, even if most of the time you're not doing anything. The sick part is that to really pull out, I need to work a lot more, to set things up to take a year off. So it creates this spiral that seems rather hard to break out of.

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#18

Post by ska » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 7:40 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #10

spydum wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full agree on the non-compete. However, the search of personal devices after you've conducted business seems legitimate to me. If they need to investigate the evidence to understand the exposure/whatever in the event a situation arises where you used your personal device, they obviously need access. They are simply trying to neutralize the excuse that "its your personal device and you have no authority to search it",…

If they want access to my personal equipment, they can get a subpoena. No way does any company get to examine my personal stuff without due process.

It really is as simple as that iff you never use your personal device for any business purpose.

[update] This was unclear: I'm saying this relationship is simple if and only if you have not used your devices for business purposes. If you have, you need only hope that none of the clauses in your agreements (you did have a lawyer review these?) cover it.

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#19

Post by SomeCallMeTim » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 7:44 PM UTC

Permit wrote: post #3

>The vendor abandoned their technology, and our generous free services attracted people who proved hard to convert to paying customers. This line rings very true. At my company our first product was offered for free. We had thousands of users, but after months and months of work we realized only a small fraction of our user base was going to be converted into paying customers. (Like OP, I began to feel burnt out at t…

>The vendor abandoned their technology

Don't forget the other half of this statement: I've always been concerned with basing a product on a locked-in technology from an unproven vendor.

And vendors do shut down. I've seen it happen many times. Sometimes they get eaten up by a "bigger fish" that wants to use their technology internally, and they then shut down the external service you were so fond of.

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#20

Post by protomyth » Wed, Sep 02, 2015, 7:47 PM UTC

spydum wrote: post #7

x0x0 wrote: post #2

Random thoughts: It's nice to hear about a situation closer to most startup outcomes. When Matthew notes that someone sent him the acquisition terms and the founders made out well while line level / low level managers basically got nice severances, it's something everyone here should keep in mind. It's great if founders make out well as long as everyone else does too; it's when those outcomes diverge that it rankles.…

Full agree on the non-compete. However, the search of personal devices after you've conducted business seems legitimate to me. If they need to investigate the evidence to understand the exposure/whatever in the event a situation arises where you used your personal device, they obviously need access. They are simply trying to neutralize the excuse that "its your personal device and you have no authority to search it",…

"However, the search of personal devices after you've conducted business seems legitimate to me"

So, the founder calls your personal cellphone on the weekend and asks a couple of business questions. You come in on Monday and they lawyer points to the clause in your contract. I'm pretty sure reasonable goes out the window.

Intent and the words you signed need to match or you can get seriously hosed.