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The boss, not the workload, causes workplace depression

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

#41

Post by flukus »

mgkimsal wrote: post #25
T-hawk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll me-too your me-too. I had that exact same situation on a job and left because of it. The only question I ever heard from my boss was "Are you billable?" She didn't care anything about technical quality, career development, tooling, architecture, morale; the only thing that mattered was billable billable billable. It wasn't entirely her fault, it came transitively through her from upper management, the entire div…

One of my early software jobs was at a shop and we built conference registration 'pages' (a big form with a bunch of perl stuff behind it). Each project was... a lot of hand-customization, and usually took 8-12 hours, and we did a few dozen per year (IIRC) and that number was growing. But each one was... a pain. I spent some time putting a lot of configurable stuff in a a config file, and some runtime checking of the…

> Had only been there a month or so, and I think had I been able to explain to the owner (a tech guy, and decent business guy) what I'd done, he might have understood. My cube was only 30 feet from the guy. In my eyes at the time, though, I thought this wrath was coming from him through someone else. Looking back now, I doubt he was even aware of it.

He probably didn't know about that situation, but he should have been aware of the billable hours culture and the problems that was causing.

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

#43

Post by fallingfrog »

0xmohit wrote: 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.

This is why we need workplace democracy and worker ownership of businesses.. It's no big surprise that the places where there is the least amount of personal agency and the most hierarchical control of employees are the places that are highest in alienation, suicide, and burnout. Whereas the first few founders of a new company work harder and work better than the ones who come later. Because they are free to make decisions and they own what they are creating.

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

#44

Post by fallingfrog »

0xmohit wrote: 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.

This is why we need workplace democracy and worker ownership of businesses.. It's no big surprise that the places where there is the least amount of personal agency and the most hierarchical control of employees are the places that are highest in alienation, suicide, and burnout. Whereas the first few founders of a new company work harder and work better than the ones who come later. Because they are free to make decisions and they own what they are creating.

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

#45

Post by mgkimsal »

flukus wrote: post #41
mgkimsal wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my early software jobs was at a shop and we built conference registration 'pages' (a big form with a bunch of perl stuff behind it). Each project was... a lot of hand-customization, and usually took 8-12 hours, and we did a few dozen per year (IIRC) and that number was growing. But each one was... a pain. I spent some time putting a lot of configurable stuff in a a config file, and some runtime checking of the…

> Had only been there a month or so, and I think had I been able to explain to the owner (a tech guy, and decent business guy) what I'd done, he might have understood. My cube was only 30 feet from the guy. In my eyes at the time, though, I thought this wrath was coming from him through someone else. Looking back now, I doubt he was even aware of it. He probably didn't know about that situation, but he should have be…

agreed, although... in his defense, it was a crazy time and crazy growth - they were hiring and putting a lot of policies and structures in place at that time, and I know some things got lost in the shuffle. This was definitely one of those "hindsight" insights from me years later though...

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

#46

Post by doug1001 »

rdtsc wrote: post #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

JB: if you observe a serious problem w/in Amazon, you are welcome to bring it to my attention and i will take immediate action

well it looks like mr Bezos was at least telling the truth when he made this offer.

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

#47

Post by VikingCoder »

T-hawk wrote: post #23
Noseshine wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a "me too" comment. In my first job post university, after about two years, the moment I realized "I don't belong here" was when a coworker in the 80% underground open plan office stood up and asked in a loud voice to be heard by everybody "Does anybody need a few project hours for billing? I've got some hours left in my project that you can have." My boss responded "Yes! I'll take whatever hours you can spa…

I'll me-too your me-too. I had that exact same situation on a job and left because of it. The only question I ever heard from my boss was "Are you billable?" She didn't care anything about technical quality, career development, tooling, architecture, morale; the only thing that mattered was billable billable billable. It wasn't entirely her fault, it came transitively through her from upper management, the entire div…

> because they wanted to keep being able to charge customers dozens of billable hours for each installation.

Wow...

I'll just stick my toe in the water... At what point are we as an industry going to call that fraud?

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

#48

Post by jon-wood »

jon-wood wrote: post #14
VikingCoder wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Time for a follow up on this long dead thread. Between making that post and now some changes in my original job made coming into the office less frequently viable, and I'm going back.
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