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Mental health impacts of a big tech job

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Re: Mental health impacts of a big tech job

#51

Post by dcolkitt »

mathgladiator wrote: post #2

So, recently I achieved happiness because I just don't care about the job anymore. I didn't even do my performance self review, and I wrote a poem instead. I got a Meets-Most, and I've never been happier. I'm writing my final proposal as one final swing at the bat and the title is "XYZ or Bust" where either I get buy-in or I'm leaving. I've never felt better in my entire career. This is made possible because I'm old…

“Notice you’ve been missing a lot of work recently, Peter?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob.”

Re: Mental health impacts of a big tech job

#52

Post by granshaw »

41209 wrote: post #37

At this point I want to figure out a way to work 6 months out of the year at 75$ an hour or so. Then max out my 401k and take 6 months off( see my other thread , I'd do this in a cheaper country) My theory is I'd end up paying very little taxes compared to working myself mad trying to hit 200k a year.

Aim higher. With the market as it is now you can make 110+ per hour as a subcontractor, doing work not much different than a regular employee. Can make much more if you can find your own clients.

You can even try to set non “fulltime” hours eg 20-30hrs/week but not all clients will go for that.

Also file your taxes as an s-Corp and start a solo 401k. You can contribute much more than a regular salaried employee could

Re: Mental health impacts of a big tech job

#53

Post by Sunspark »

ridaj wrote: post #45
murgindrag wrote: post #15

Quotes like this bug me: > If you find yourself in this type of situation, please do what’s best for you and get help if you are feeling stuck or overwhelmed. Get help the !@#$% where? There isn't a magic American "help" fairy who bails people out of trouble. These issues are complex, and therapists/counselors/psychologists suck up time and don't really address root causes.

+1 just get another job if the job makes you unhappy

Walk it off. /s

Re: Mental health impacts of a big tech job

#54

Post by acituan »

jefftk wrote: post #42

Big Tech is hundreds of thousands of employees across thousands of teams with a wide variety of work environments. The author's experience sounds really rough, but it also doesn't make sense to generalize from there to this whole piece of the industry. To give another data point, I've worked at a different Big Tech company since 2012, on two different teams, and haven't experienced anything like this. There's no pres…

> what I'm trying to say is that Big Tech is a big place, and if you find yourself somewhere with bad culture don't take that to mean there aren't other places you would like.

Tell that to an H1B holder.

You're not wrong to point out that we can't generalize from a single data point, but you're wrong to bring your positive experience as if there is an equivalence between the two. They don't have the same weighing; we are not trying to have a 50:50 split between bad and good experiences. Even a single workplace-driven mental health incident is too many. And unlike other workplace related injuries, mental health injuries are elusive to tracking.

One hard metric would be the percentage of FAANG employees that are lost to suicide each year. It would be morbid but telling if some companies have an overrepresentation (I have my doubts but won't voice it here).

Re: Mental health impacts of a big tech job

#55

Post by exBarrelSpoiler »

acituan wrote: post #54
jefftk wrote: post #42

Big Tech is hundreds of thousands of employees across thousands of teams with a wide variety of work environments. The author's experience sounds really rough, but it also doesn't make sense to generalize from there to this whole piece of the industry. To give another data point, I've worked at a different Big Tech company since 2012, on two different teams, and haven't experienced anything like this. There's no pres…

> what I'm trying to say is that Big Tech is a big place, and if you find yourself somewhere with bad culture don't take that to mean there aren't other places you would like. Tell that to an H1B holder. You're not wrong to point out that we can't generalize from a single data point, but you're wrong to bring your positive experience as if there is an equivalence between the two. They don't have the same weighing; we…

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-death-idUSKCN0XP383

Re: Mental health impacts of a big tech job

#56

Post by mberning »

I don’t work in big tech but I do work in big industry. In my experience you need to have the ability to go hard and put the team on your back when it is actually necessary. You equally need the ability to turn it off and put work back in its proper place. They don’t pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to throw in the towel or coast when shit hits the fan.

Re: Mental health impacts of a big tech job

#58

Post by systemvoltage »

acituan wrote: post #54
jefftk wrote: post #42

Big Tech is hundreds of thousands of employees across thousands of teams with a wide variety of work environments. The author's experience sounds really rough, but it also doesn't make sense to generalize from there to this whole piece of the industry. To give another data point, I've worked at a different Big Tech company since 2012, on two different teams, and haven't experienced anything like this. There's no pres…

> what I'm trying to say is that Big Tech is a big place, and if you find yourself somewhere with bad culture don't take that to mean there aren't other places you would like. Tell that to an H1B holder. You're not wrong to point out that we can't generalize from a single data point, but you're wrong to bring your positive experience as if there is an equivalence between the two. They don't have the same weighing; we…

> You're not wrong to point out that we can't generalize from a single data point, but you're wrong to bring your positive experience as if there is an equivalence between the two.

I don't think this is how statistics work. Both are one piece of data. In order to make meaningful conclusions, we need more data. It seems to me that all of a sudden we have a mental health epidemic and I am peppered by mental health stories left and right in the media including HN. I'd love to know more if what changed, some hard data, happiness surveys even if they have flaws, it is better than arguing like this.

I'll throw one more anedote - I've worked in large tech company and my experience was it was just super chill. No issues with a team of 24 engineers. Everyone left at 4pm everyday and at 2pm on Friday. In fact, people were frustratingly lazy.

Re: Mental health impacts of a big tech job

#59

Post by random314 »

This seems specific to apple. I had an offer from apple that I didn't accept because all the sell calls happened outside 9-6 pm on weekdays and on sundays. They were too busy between 9-6 on weekdays to make space for 30 minutes to call me. They scheduled at the weirdest hours. I thought it was just one such call, nope every call with the eng team was the same.

Re: Mental health impacts of a big tech job

#60

Post by random314 »

deadmutex wrote: post #21
khazhoux wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, recently I achieved happiness because I just don't care about the job anymore. I didn't even do my performance self review, and I wrote a poem instead. I got a Meets-Most, and I've never been happier. You can't do that! Hey, come back here! You're not allowed to do that! Can you hear me? Get back over here, don't walk away. Don't keep walking away. Stop!

Perhaps... but I think companies like FB also get (total guess) thousands of resumes per day. So, for every engineer that walks away, many more are knocking at the door. So, I think in management's eyes, very very very few people are irreplaceable.

Absolutely not true. Big Tech is struggling to hire - which is why the offer packages are so fat now.
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