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Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

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Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#251

Post by nnq »

omegaworks wrote: post #99
phil21 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're generally correct for the folks who have decent salaried careers. If I got asked to justify a regular random day or two I took off as PTO I'd tell HR to pound sand as anyone rightfully should. Get into hourly low wage stuff and you are treated like children, many shops require a doctor's note for any and all absences with 1 or 2 dermits until you're fired. This has reasons from both ends of course. When I was…

>by the low-wage masses abusing it (and abuse it they did). This feeds directly into the popular narrative that the working poor somehow lack moral fortitude. Do you have evidence to justify this claim?

> the working poor somehow lack moral fortitude

NOPE. More like they feel abused by society, so they rightfully abuse it back by taking as much as they can and giving as little as possible. Of course, the result is a vicious cycle they can't get out of: if you play the lazy parasite once, you do get some kind of "abuse" back (even if it's just passive-aggressive attitude from colleagues) even if you mostly get away with it and as we're all wired up to do you then have to "retaliate".

Of course, people who don't have a history of being abused by the system, eg. people who've had good managers, don't feel the need to abuse the system themselves, so no problem here.

And breaking an established cycle requires a great manager (hint: probably the one you're not going to hire, because it makes more business sense to spend more on legal, accounting, or even a developer...), assuming not very stubborn employees and no underlying mental issues.

Most socio econ systems fail because some people feel abused and abuse the system back. Abuse your workers well enough an you get, surprise, communism, when they abuse you back. Circle of life and all that shit...

(And don't get me wrong, I think it's good that a sizable percent of population is pre-programmed to "abuse-back", this prevents us being turned into a mindless remote controlled flock of sheeple... And I kind of think lighter collar "information jobs" people should learn a thing or two from the abuse-back attitude of blue collars because nowadays they tend to be sheepified too, and some "abuse-back feedback" would help the system!)

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#252

Post by vizeroth »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #193
eecc wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So basically you're boiling it down to sex and laying down the guilt at the feet of the healthy young adults whose behavior is all but unexpected. Wouldn't you rather call it the failure of a community - a society - to prepare its new members to the complexities of life? Oh but it's easy to climb up the high horse, brandish the sword of Morals and throw the erring off the tower (incidentally, it's the same ISIS does…

It's nothing to do with morals. Unsafe sex at an early age is just plain a stupid dangerous decision, and there's plenty of people to tell you that. Sure - I feel bad for the people who are now going to be paying for the consequences for the rest of their lives, but it's not some arbitrary religious code. It's not so different from experimenting with drugs in that regard.

Kids make stupid and dangerous decisions because their brains aren't fully developed, they don't have the same sense of perspective that they will (hopefully) have as adults. Once upon a time, this was part of why we had a separate judicial system for them, too.

Religion comes into play because the lobby against making birth control available to teenagers is also the lobby against abortion clinics (and any clinics that offer health services and birth control to teenagers) is also the lobby to teach abstinence in schools (or not teach sex ed. at all), and that lobby gets most of its funding from religious organizations.

So, the slightly awkward week in sixth grade where my teacher gave us anatomy lessons and a birth video is something my daughter didn't get to experience, even though I brought my family back to my hometown. Instead, she gets the even more wonderfully awkward talk from her parents, which my wife likes to paraphrase as "your mouth won't get pregnant" (thanks Bill Clinton).

Teen pregnancy is not currently a common issue (it has been declining since 1990), but that doesn't mean it won't start going back up if we continue making it more difficult for young women (and men) to have access to birth control and education about safe sex.

We even had some discussion in school about how to reduce the risks of experimenting with drugs, though I don't think many people followed those directions.

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#253

Post by madaxe_again »

steven777400 wrote: post #5

Great article. A few years ago (at a previous job) I took a sick day for "sanity", but told them I wasn't feeling well. I felt guilty about doing it. I think part of it is the association of sick leave with externally visible medical issues, and the corresponding "straightforward" medical verification. In other words, if you have a temperature or are vomiting, that's obvious. Many infections or physical injury can be…

I ejected myself from my own business of ten years as my mental health and resultantly my physical health was failing. Stress does really bad things in the long term.

My co-founder was relentless in applying guilt and pressure while I vomited for years for weeks at a time - multiple hospitalisations due to severe dehydration. He denies that mental health is even a thing.

So - it's not just an employee thing - even business owners can be severely impacted by uncaring colleagues.

A year out of work and I haven't puked in eight months.

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#254

Post by pgeorgi »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #209
lovich wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the exception of a Nintendo DS, 1 game, and some beer, all of my money from 4 years of jobs went to rent,food, and the tiny little bit left over went to tuition. Anyone going to college in the past 20 years was not paying for it all with a job you could hold while going to classes

graduated with a B.S. 5 years ago debt-free with no help from parents . It's possible.

Step 1: Study somewhere that is not the US ;-)

Some US based acquaintances recently discussed the college options and choices of their kids. A year at the cheapest college they discussed cost more than twice (tuition, without a room) as much as my German B.Sc. and M.Sc. combined: that is, 5 years of study (or longer - I decided to study part-time and earn real money in parallel. It costs little extra).

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#255

Post by kalleboo »

Nition wrote: post #181
malnourish wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are sick days still a thing? At my job we get PTO and holidays (floating depending on the year), but no specific sick days. Apologies for any naivete.

The USA is one of the few countries that doesn't enforce some amount of paid sick leave allowance[1]. [1] http://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/newshour/wp-content/upl...

Although some states do https://squareup.com/townsquare/californias-new-paid-sick-le...

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#256

Post by adrianN »

mahyarm wrote: post #244
exclusiv wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has access to birth control though. It's common knowledge how reproduction works. You have condoms, birth control pills and copper rings among other options. If you miss that you got plan b. Let's set aside your personal vendetta against the pro lifer Christians. How can you claim that the vast majority of pregnant teenagers don't choose to get pregnant?

Americans don't have universal healthcare, can't just go walk in some clinic / pharmacy and get a doctor / pharmacist to Rx you some birth control. You also have minimal->zero private money and come from a poor background so it's too expensive. Your parents are religious and it's difficult to privately have & use birth control. Copper IUDs create pretty bad periods and are more painful to insert if you never given bi…

I'm pretty sure that you can buy condoms in America. They're not that expensive and work reasonably well.

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#257

Post by Aeolun »

andrewfong wrote: post #73
steven777400 wrote: post #5

Great article. A few years ago (at a previous job) I took a sick day for "sanity", but told them I wasn't feeling well. I felt guilty about doing it. I think part of it is the association of sick leave with externally visible medical issues, and the corresponding "straightforward" medical verification. In other words, if you have a temperature or are vomiting, that's obvious. Many infections or physical injury can be…

Another way of thinking about this, rather than "mental vs physical" or "healthy vs sick" is "how much discretion does your employer give you to balance work with your own well-being". There are plenty employers who are willing to accommodate you if you have an actual DSM-diagnosed mental disorder but are skeptical of a "sanity day". Likewise, there are plenty of employers who will let you take time off if you're act…

I dunno man, any of those things and I'm just not feeling well, so I'm staying home.

There's absolutely something preventing me from doing my job on those days, by the simple expedient that I don't feel like doing it that day. If that doesn't happen more often than I have sick days, I don't see the issue.

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#258

Post by Aeolun »

madaxe_again wrote: post #253
steven777400 wrote: post #5

Great article. A few years ago (at a previous job) I took a sick day for "sanity", but told them I wasn't feeling well. I felt guilty about doing it. I think part of it is the association of sick leave with externally visible medical issues, and the corresponding "straightforward" medical verification. In other words, if you have a temperature or are vomiting, that's obvious. Many infections or physical injury can be…

I ejected myself from my own business of ten years as my mental health and resultantly my physical health was failing. Stress does really bad things in the long term. My co-founder was relentless in applying guilt and pressure while I vomited for years for weeks at a time - multiple hospitalisations due to severe dehydration. He denies that mental health is even a thing. So - it's not just an employee thing - even bu…

Yeah, that sounds like stress...

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#260

Post by sobani »

sbaoufbasfub wrote: post #133
malnourish wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are sick days still a thing? At my job we get PTO and holidays (floating depending on the year), but no specific sick days. Apologies for any naivete.

I think sick days are generally a good idea as they encourage people that are sick not to come in, thus helping stem epidemics. If they're regular time off, people come in sick to save them up. You might try to make a distinction between contagious and non-contagious diseases, but it'd probably be unwise as often people don't know if they are contagious or not, and anyway encouraging healing isn't a terrible idea eve…

As someone from Holland I read the comment from malnourish in the opposite way.

Why limit the amount of days your allowed to be sick? What happens if you are sick for more days than what your contract allows?

I would think that a finite amount of sick days will have the opposite effect of what you are describing. People will come to work even when they're sick, just in case they get even more sick later in the year. Except for the end of December of course, can let those unused sick days go to waste!

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