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The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

sciencenordic.com

11–20 of 48 posts

Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

#11

This is content which the typical bullied and vulnerable employee loves to read: 'Yes of course. It's my boss who drove me into depression.' Don't want to sound too cynical but a job is a job at the end of the day and life is more complex. Just blaming the boss for all the misery is a bit too easy. I expect to get downvoted because more people reading here have a boss than the other way round (I guess).

I suggest taking another guess at why you were downvoted.

Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

#12
It is funny to see this on the same day as the Amazon story, especially with the comment about how Bezos, in the wake of the negative press, encouraged people to come forward and report issues they see. People did, and he fired those who complained.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12260891

Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

#13
post #2

To elaborate, the things that often lead to unhappy workers also include: - Unknown expectations from the job - Little or no control over decisions that affect your job - Missing feeling of involvement The fair treatment bit is mentioned in the article. The reality is that people tend to be more irrational than they probably ought to be which usually has significant (negative) side-effects.

These factors indeed would stress people out. Put poor compensation and poor quality-of-living on this list as well, since we now live in a race-to-the-bottom global labor marketplace, and companies are aiming for absolute low payroll costs rather than location-adjusted costs. People will take a job at a unsustainable salary in the hopes of proving themselves and eventually receiving a compensation upgrade; there is a non-zero number of companies out there who have the exact opposite plan as a rule.

We can also say that not-every-boss is the irritant in a bad workplace situation, but that's a nitpick. Yes, I've had the bad-boss-in-a-good-organization and I've had the great-boss-in-a-rotten-job scenarios. In the latter type of situation, at least one human in a management or executive role made decisions that adversely affected my personal growth, workplace conditions, or feedback relationship with the company. It was often many humans up-the-chain making these kinds of decisions, in a loosely (sadistically) coordinated fashion, fully aware that their handling of resources was resulting in human suffering. If you have a great boss, both your job and his/her job can still be very, very stressful and limiting. Since we know that it's possible to run companies that don't have chronic worker stress issues, it's very much immoral to put people through this in the service of any business or organizational goals. (This applies to not-for-profit orgs, too)

Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

#14
post #4

Employees quit their bosses not the company.

Maybe sometimes, not always. I quit to go to a new company, but I would have gladly kept my boss. Actually that's happened to me a couple times.

+1 on that - the last job I quit it wasn't really my boss but my commute that I was quitting. If I could have worked remotely more I'd have leapt at the chance to stay.

Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

#15
post #4

Employees quit their bosses not the company.

Maybe sometimes, not always. I quit to go to a new company, but I would have gladly kept my boss. Actually that's happened to me a couple times.

Often your direct boss is a good guy but if the larger organization is dysfunctional there is nothing he can do. Unless he is way up in the hierarchy.

Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

#16
post #4

Employees quit their bosses not the company.

Employees quit because they have a better place to go than their current job. (Or, at least, they think so.)

If boss (really boss^n, for any n) makes them miserable, if just make more places relatively attractive. But there are always people quitting from good work places.

Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

#17
post #2

To elaborate, the things that often lead to unhappy workers also include: - Unknown expectations from the job - Little or no control over decisions that affect your job - Missing feeling of involvement The fair treatment bit is mentioned in the article. The reality is that people tend to be more irrational than they probably ought to be which usually has significant (negative) side-effects.

These factors indeed would stress people out. Put poor compensation and poor quality-of-living on this list as well, since we now live in a race-to-the-bottom global labor marketplace, and companies are aiming for absolute low payroll costs rather than location-adjusted costs. People will take a job at a unsustainable salary in the hopes of proving themselves and eventually receiving a compensation upgrade; there is…

The following image sums up the stress/burnout part rather well:

http://imgur.com/a/k6MPj

Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

#18

There's also this very real phenomenon: "Retaliation: A Guide for Vindictive Bosses" - http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffschmitt/2012/12/10/retaliati...

True and frightening.

There isn't a particularly good reason why a modern middle manager has that much power over their direct reports.

Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

#19
> concludes an extensive new Danish study.

> A study of 4,500 public employees... at Danish schools, hospitals, nurseries, offices, etc.

Public employees in Denmark work 35 hours a week, with 8 weeks holiday for teachers and 5 weeks holiday for others.

I really do not think this study applies to people who work 12 hours a day with no holidays.

Also it was published in 2013

Re: The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

#20
post #4

Employees quit their bosses not the company.

Employees quit because they have a better place to go than their current job. (Or, at least, they think so.) If boss (really boss^n, for any n) makes them miserable, if just make more places relatively attractive. But there are always people quitting from good work places.

Yes and no. Most people, if they're pretty satisfied at their current job, won't seek out other opportunities, even if ones exist out there which would plausibly be incrementally better than their current job. And they'll tend to be more pessimistic about the qualities of other jobs.

Sometimes, an undeniably amazing opportunity falls into the lap of someone who is overall quite happy at their present job, and they quit that job. But that's a fairly rare case.

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