Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread • Hacker News Board

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#141

Post by mgkimsal » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 11:49 AM UTC

madcaptenor wrote: post #85

scottlocklin wrote: post #63

I remember sitting in rapture listening to a retired Chevron executive describing the way white collar work used to be. You basically got hired at a megacorp for life. If things didn't work out after the first couple of years, you were gently taken aside, given nothing new to do, and given a salary and an office for an entire year to find a new position. I was flabbergasted. Only professors with tenure or certain gov…

What’s an “office”?

imagine a small open-area bullpen workspace, but just big enough for one person. now imagine there's a door between that area and others like it.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#142

Post by gerbilly » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 11:58 AM UTC

If you don't like job burnout, then:

1) Take on as little debt as you can. This means you'll have more control over what job situations you will be forced to tolerate. Don't fall into the trap of 'rewarding' yourself for your hard work with expensive vacations, cars toys, whatever. Debt is slavery.

2) Leave your work phone in a drawer at work on Friday night, or turn it off. If they bug you about it, tell everyone you went on a camping trip, or went on a multi-pitch rockclimbing expedition or whatever. Keep your work stuff off your personal phone too.

If you have the kind of job where you are truly expected to be available all the time, start looking for another one. It's not worth your life.

And if you're wondering why the boss doesn't seem to burnout even though he's always there and works weekends, it's be cause he has control over his work hours. If you don't, then look for a way to either change that or get out.

These kind of work conditions can seem innocent enough, but if you keep that up for six months or a year and you are likely to burnout.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#143

Post by mgkimsal » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 12:02 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #66

alkonaut wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider myself “paid by the hour” even if I’m not formally paid by the hour. I log my time and have a bank of hours that can’t go outside +/-20 hours. If I did 41 hours last week I’ll do 39 next week. I’ll never take a position where I do more than 40h on average. There is no amount of money that will be compensation enough for regular 45h weeks.

Hopefully you didn't learn this from doing overtime, paid or voluntary? I had to learn the hard way, in part because my dad is naturally a hard worker, so I think I took after him. Eventually I figured out that working more hours virtually never pays off, and it's stupid anyway because even if you're getting paid you're still trading even more of your life away.

> and it's stupid anyway because even if you're getting paid you're still trading even more of your life away.

when you 'trade' you get something of value in return. if you're getting paid and you think it's a fair pay, it's not automatically 'stupid'. saving more now to pay for future expenses, nest egg, rainy day fund, whatever? how can that be 'stupid'? You have an opportunity to provide the means for a more secure future for your family, today, when that ability may be in doubt - take the pay now for more work.

your dad being a 'hard worker' may have been able to provide things to you that you never knew about at the time (or may never know about).

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#144

Post by serpi » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 12:33 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #97

kartan wrote: post #7

> Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread We are making employees lives miserable to reduce the need of planning for companies. Quite often management lacks the emotional maturity needed in their positions that hides normal mistakes that are part of the job, push for unrealistic schedules and sometimes even get into bulling as a way of getting what they want. 8 hours plus commute time, that has increased as ci…

> 8 hours I just refused to join a conference call on Saturday (opting instead to watch my son’s soccer game), and I know I’ll have to answer for it on Monday.

Answer them with a referral for (them) a visit to a therapist. Working weekends is pathological.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#145

Post by scottlocklin » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

Gibbon1 wrote: post #76

scottlocklin wrote: post #63

I remember sitting in rapture listening to a retired Chevron executive describing the way white collar work used to be. You basically got hired at a megacorp for life. If things didn't work out after the first couple of years, you were gently taken aside, given nothing new to do, and given a salary and an office for an entire year to find a new position. I was flabbergasted. Only professors with tenure or certain gov…

I talked to a Chevron Exec while stuck on a ski lift 30 years ago. Back then if they canceled or finished a project they just redeployed the workers to other projects. Vastly different than the current system where they just lay everyone off at the end. If things weren't working out bosses would just transfer employees to a role better suited to them. You'll get arguments this is more efficient cause free markets bla…

MBA thinking aka "looting everything that isn't bolted down" and "gaming some metric to make yourself look good" is arguably worse than not having a free market. It's funny, one of my historical bugaboos was the looting of Russia (aka US "economists" like Summers and Shleifer and allied oligarchs looting their economy), but if you look at what was going on in the US during the same period ... same thing. The US didn't do things like privatize LBNL and turn it into a disco, but I'm pretty sure there were people who would have argued for it.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#146

Post by jammygit » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 4:03 PM UTC

mb_72 wrote: post #101

aynsof wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your friend sounds like an outlier in these circumstances; the certification is more likely to be of benefit to those fresh to the field, and in the field of child-care (and aged care also), I think some bare minimum requirement of capability is warranted. Professional training organisations may not have direct experience with the subject matter, but given a good curriculum prepared by someone who DOES have experienc…

Certification is just a moat to protect jobs and stave off regulation.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#147

Post by gerbilly » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 4:36 PM UTC

stuaxo wrote: post #55

Should we stop calling it burnout and just say depression ?

> Should we stop calling it burnout and just say depression ?

No, burnout is a completely different thing from depression.

While the two can often overlap, they are not the same.

See: https://www.mind-body-health.net/index.shtml

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#148

Post by ramblerman » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 4:38 PM UTC

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?

Not op, but metrics are the kingdom of middle-management.

Things like "jira tickets closed per day" and other equally meaningless numbers that try create an illusion of productivity.

The cult of metrics is then to optimize around the metric itself. Make smaller tickets so you can close more of them.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#149

Post by graeme » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 4:51 PM UTC

Tempest1981 wrote: post #112

graeme wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have two anecdotes on that point: 1. Last April, I took two weeks to go to Cuba and work on some non-internet connected work. Cuba has little internet, so this was easy to do. It was incredibly relaxing, and I made a fair bit of progress in reducing stress. Also generated a lot of helpful insights. Obviously, you have to go back at some point, and when I did, much of the stress returned. But the time away was helpf…

These are great ideas, making me wish there was a convenient product that helped to set all of this up, and tweak the configuration.

I mentioned Circle by Disney in the post. I’ve found it pretty simple. Unsure of the security or privacy implications, but it’s had a bog enough impact that I’m fine with it.

The email newsletters and podcasts you have to do manually.

Re: Burnout caused by chronic stress is widespread

#150

Post by blablabla123 » Sun, Mar 31, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

CalRobert wrote: post #72

blablabla123 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think employees also need to start taking care of themselves by not following up on every single spontaneous request and also to find something else in time when things turn too toxic. At least for me I can say that I don't follow up on every single request I get, especially when it's many little ones after "the heavy lifting" is done. Management must also learn that this is not bearable. Of course one needs to be…

This is doable when you have rock-solid confidence that you will never be let go (or you have fuck you money). Otherwise, there's always gonna be another chump in their 20's who thinks they're just putting in their dues before being able to dial it back a bit, and you're competing with them.

At least for me it's not about being protected from getting fired or having a giant pile of money. It's more the knowledge that I can find something, worst case within a week because even today everybody is searching devs like crazy. Of course one needs also enough money above credit limit for going at least a month without income.