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Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#121

Post by black-tea »

prestonh wrote: post #93
cracauer wrote: post #21

It's not just companies driving to more productivity. For example, those open office layout are about putting more people per square foot. No matter what they say otherwise. Nobody "communicates" in an open office layout and they know it. This is an example where per-employee productivity is sacrificed for other goals (getting more people into one building). And it is directly affecting stress and burnout.

Huh? People communicate about work all the time in my office and having the ability to initiate conversations fluidly means more efficient collaboration. Fewer meetings, and easier to keep all parties in the know.

Having that ability is also disastrous to productivity. People realise this and resort to wearing headphones as deterrent to being interrupted. It means that certain people work in constant fear of being dragged out of their flow at any moment. This is why universities have strict office hours. There are types of work that just can't be done with random interruptions.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#122

Post by dancek »

GordonS wrote: post #77
Zenst wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many the commute more than hits your daily stress quota, even before work contributes. So you can end up starting your day stressed, be that public transport sardines and delays or playing car upon roads so gridlocked that the terminology car park seems more apt. This to reach an office at some arbitrary time everybody seems to follow of the 8/9am start. Hence you have this sudden rush into cities around that tim…

> playing car upon roads so gridlocked that the terminology car park seems more apt I spent 5 years making a 1 hour (each way) commute by car, a distance of 8 miles (also each way). It was soul destroying ! Wasting 2 hours of my life every workday just felt so meaningless! Eventually I moved out of the city to a small town 10 miles out of the city, and only then did I realise just how awful it had been. I'm now lucky…

When I read soul destroying I was certain the punchline is that you'd later started cycling, making commutes both enjoyable and beneficial. Alas, I was wrong.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#123

Post by titzer »

What I find absolute f'in sucks is living/working in Europe and interacting with Silicon Valley. The time difference between CET and PST is 9 hours. That means the European workday is essentially over when SV starts waking up and piling on the emails, bugs, requests, meetings, etc. So you either end up staying an extra hour or two to do meetings/chats and handle issues, or go home and check email periodically in the evening. Worst when there's a fire alarm and shit hits the fan at 9pm...

Even if you do manage to disconnect, there's wreckage leftover for you to pick up the next morning. Have that happen about once a month and you'll be a frazelled mess, knowing every evening something could go horribly wrong.

Just say no to timeshift!

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#124

Post by ido »

torqueTorrent wrote: post #99
HillaryBriss wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> making employees lives miserable to reduce the need of planning such a great point. we seem to live in a zero-planning world now. i'm surprised at how often, at least in app programming projects, i go to great lengths to show a manager how the app is progressing and where it's ultimately heading, and get no meaningful course correction or even a "that looks great" then, the other shoe drops: after the app is comple…

> ...a zero-planning world now... JIT is for more than just compilers these days!

It was in fact not about compilers to begin with: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-in-time_manufacturing

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#125

Post by dancek »

Negitivefrags wrote: post #41
esoterica wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd like to get rid of most salaried positions and get people paid by the hour. I think having someone counting the number of hours you have your butt in a seat is a particularly degrading form of micromanagement, and I'm glad I don't have to endure it. Your TC is the only number that matters; there's no financial difference between getting paid 300k and no overtime and getting paid 200k + 100k overtime. It's silly…

We pay all our developers by the hour, and I think it's super important. To correct your first misconception, we don't count peoples hours, people just tell us how many hours they worked each pay cycle. We also pay 1.5X per hour for more than 40 hours per week if we asked you to work extra. The primary advantage is that it aligns everyone incentives. In management I know that there is a very real cost to us if we ask…

This is basically how every company theoretically does it in Finland, because of legislation. But then some people work 9 hours and report 8 because they feel pressured to perform better. Or they constantly work long days and receive balance hours (that could be used as vacation), which are cut once a year.

I do like the system, but there are times when you still have to stand up for yourself if your company isn't one of the fairest.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#126

Post by sgt101 »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #110
Zenst wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For many the commute more than hits your daily stress quota, even before work contributes. So you can end up starting your day stressed, be that public transport sardines and delays or playing car upon roads so gridlocked that the terminology car park seems more apt. This to reach an office at some arbitrary time everybody seems to follow of the 8/9am start. Hence you have this sudden rush into cities around that tim…

Why aren't more "knowledge workers" able to work from home 2 or 3 days a week? I know some people have noisy kids/distractions at home, but seems like it would work for many engineers. Yet every company I've been at, I suggest it, and people give me a sarcastic look like, "yeah, right, we can't do that!" Possibly a fear that not being seen at work will hamper advancement?

More commonly it is felt that not being seen at work and plugged in to every decision will make you a target for dismissal.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#127

Post by mkl »

bigbigs wrote: post #82
manmal wrote: post #34

Chronic stress sets you up for so many diseases, where burnout is just an early warning sign in comparison. Cancer, heart disease, stroke - you name it, chances are way higher that you get it if you are under chronic stress. Being a freelancer with 2 little kids, I‘ve had my fair share of stress (and burnout), but I‘m doing quite well nowadays. So, here‘s my personal anti-stress toolbox, from most effective to least…

stoic philosophy is no good for the mind. actually feeling your emotions is healthy. it's stuffing them down that makes people crazy or likewise numbed out. this is a difficult truth to understand. vaping is a poison - clearly. addictions just keep you on the cycle. real acceptance is powerful but it comes from a place of being connected to yourself which means your emotions. trying to suppress them isn't living sinc…

It seems like you don't know much about stoic philosophy, and are guessing that the modern meaning of "stoic" describes it. It does not, and in fact it is more in line with your second to last sentence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoicism#Ethics_and_virtues

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#128

Post by johnchristopher »

aynsof wrote: post #50
escapecharacter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazy idea: what if management was a licensed, regulated career, like traditional engineering, or being a nurse. Like if you have more than 5 "direct reports", you need to get a certification?

I don't think there's any link between certification and competency. Here in Australia we're going mad for certifications. I had a friend who looked after kids in an after school program. A minimum wage job, but one that she loved. She'd been doing it for nearly 20 years. The government mandated that she needed a $2500 certificate in order to continue to do the job she'd been doing for two decades. I don't believe th…

Something like that happened to my mother. She is a teacher in HS. She also happens to teach some courses for teachers in training that are going to teach the same courses she teaches herself. But now, since new decree/law, she can't teach in HS anymore. She still teaches to teachers though. So she's seeing younger teachers she teaches taking her job.

Teaches everywhere.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#129

Post by sgt101 »

pm90 wrote: post #109
Spooky23 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agree with you. The modern organization is so short term focused and so dedicated to purging that they do not develop leadership and cannot handle failure. The cult of metrics breeds dumb. A big company is more like a Soviet enterprise than a functional business.

I am very interested to know what you mean by the cult of metrics?

"What gets measured gets managed" - corrosively applied by establishing metrics that don't directly reflect business performance and are not under the control of the accountable people (NPS for example) and then directly and blindly using them to determine people's tenure or advancement.

BUT! the development and use of metrics like this is helpful in many ways; the problem is that when really dumb people are asked to do this they use them in really dumb ways and this bit (the lack of capability and brains) is the big issue.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#130

Post by sgt101 »

grecy wrote: post #81
patient_zero wrote: post #2

What I find sad about this (and other articles like this) is when the time comes within the article to lay out how to avoid burnout and stress, the list nevver includes ways to spend less time working. It's almost like an unspoken rule. I know that to recommend that is to take a chance with your livelihood but I really hope that we can at least stop blaming ourselves for the ridiculous work/life ratio we currently mu…

> the list never includes ways to spend less time working. It's almost like an unspoken rule. Having just spent years outside the developed world and "working", I realize now that it is very much a spoken rule that "Thou shalt contribute to the economy". > I know that to recommend that is to take a chance with your livelihood That's a strange statement to make - it's like you are agreeing with the unspoken rule! Work…

I think that there is a chance with job security - if you step down you leave the "core group". On the other hand I've seen a lot of people panic about being let go and then realise that actually they have the savings and set up to let them come - abet at a lower "standard" of living than before (no new BMW's, no new 75" TV's, etc). There are limits on this though - especially for folks with kids or dependent relatives. Some people are flogging themselves and living in fear to make other people's end's meet, so to speak.
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