61–70 of 190 posts
Burnout is as much an employee problem as an employer problem. We all need to put our big boy pants on and take some responsibility for our actions and the consequences of those actions.
Disclaimer: I don't supervise anyone.
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Marcos here, one of the members of the team behind this. Fullstory is to understand this project as a product and to see where it needs to be improved (because users don't understand or try to do things that we didn't considered, etc.). Only personal data (mail) is asked for those interested to stay in the loop in some way. The dataset without those emails will be on Github soon :)
Why not just add a link add the end or in a footer where users can submit suggestions and report bugs? When you are engaging users in mental health related questions, any tracking is suspect and creepy.
These kind of recording services can show, for example, users rage clicking what looks like a button for a couple seconds before finding the real button.
For startups that don't have the resources to line up tons of user testing sessions where you watch the product being used, these can help make a less frustrating experience for users.
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> We make a shitload of money Not exactly true outside certain areas, mostly in the US. In The Netherlands for example > 80k euros is considered pretty good pay. > so much of what we do is boring, and, in the greater scheme of things, pointless This I would say is actually quite a big problem, one that can lead to burnout in the longer run.
> In The Netherlands for example > 80k euros is considered pretty good pay. More than twice the average income? I don't know whether that qualifies as "shitload", but it's not that far away, no?
I'm not really complaining, mind you. It's nice to live in a country where basically nobody sleeps on the street, medical assistance is available (if you really need it) and basically free, the infrastructure is great etc.
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> We make a shitload of money Not exactly true outside certain areas, mostly in the US. In The Netherlands for example > 80k euros is considered pretty good pay. > so much of what we do is boring, and, in the greater scheme of things, pointless This I would say is actually quite a big problem, one that can lead to burnout in the longer run.
€80K in the Netherlands puts you in the top 1.5% of household income[0] That said, it's possible to be in the top few % in a major metropolis anywhere in the world and still feel 'average' simply because the cost of living is so great and you're spending >50% of your income on housing. [0] https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/visualisaties/income-distribution
Note however that the chart shows disposable income, which I'm pretty sure is the one after tax. 80k gross is more like 48k after tax.
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Edit: I'm going to put this here because it clearly rubbed some people the wrong way, HN and YC were historically US focused they have since expanded but this site still has a large US population that view and post on it and with that come a bias for this group, including myself, to think in terms of the US market. My below statement, which to me is entirely benign, is basically saying that's what we do. Is it right?…
This is right from the website: "Join the Global IT Burnout Index" And then there is a form to select my country. So even if HN is a US centric site, which I dispute actually, still the website in this post has nothing to do with the US. And I get that it's different in the US, but I doubt that people don't care if they get fired. I very much doubt that.
And second I certainly didn't say they don't care, what I am implying though is they shouldn't care as much, the consequences right now are minimal and potentially largely beneficial.
People who have time for (or need the distraction of) surveys like these tend to be, of course... the already burnt out.
Be really careful with these surveys. The problems of these, among other things: - mixing up burnout risk with burnout - mixing up burnout with physical or mental fatigue - not serving any purpose (i.e. not providing good directions) Burnout is primarily a negative change in perception, and it's a spectrum, obviously. You get burned out when your perception of the same situation gets progressively worse. This can be…
Perhaps tech workers should unionize and demand better healthcare, 40 hour work weeks, etc.
I've never had an issue with any of those things. Maybe people should move away from the valley into the rest of the country where the jobs are more humane
The problem with GP's statement isn't "unionization". It's "tech workers". What does that even mean? It's such a general term that can be applied to vast swathes of the workforce. Is someone who maintains complex VB scripted excel sheets a tech worker, for instance? Or is that label only reserved for those who work at a FAANG company?
Many who have a so-called "technical" or "digital" role do so in industries whose main primary focus isn't producing digital software or services. Banks, Automotive, Health, Education, Food, Retail, Mining, Construction, Transport, Tourism,... And many of those industries do have long traditions of unionization and defending laborer rights.
Many of those workers are already organized and do have many provisions for a sane workplace culture provided by their employers. Because the latter already went through the pain of worker conflicts.
The trouble with the "Valley" is that it originates in that wild idea of bootstrapping your own company from your garage or kitchen table, taking the same mythical roads pioneers of computing took some 40 years ago.
While many found unprecedented freedom in being able to bootstrap or work for a fledgling company, doing so was - and still is - a very risky proposition. You will work outrageous amounts of time without knowing if you ever will be able to cash out. You have to be okay with that.
Today's FAANG companies originate from that narrative, and VC capital backed start up culture heavily projects that narrative. But Silicon Valley isn't a small community of computing enthousiast anymore. The Wild West doesn't exist anymore. It's a particular industry in it's own right and most sizable companies compare to well-established corporations who are just like any other traditional corporation.
Yet, somehow, everyone still perceives these companies as pioneers and give them a free pass as to the ethical choices they make in how they treat the users of their products, and the workers who make those products.
Breaking off from this tangent about Valley corporatism, it should be clear that the plight of workers in that setting isn't really comparable to all workers in other industries and fields that may provide better working conditions.
Just recently, someone argued to me that working on "boring" technology is what gives you the most job stability (which isn't the same as security!). Like, doing Perl or Cobol for social security institutions, banks, transport, etc. With age, I've come to find that this person is likely right.
I immediately went to do this quiz, but then I couldn't help but wonder if this might be one of those Cambridge Analytica style "quizzes" where they're harvesting psychological data for unknown purposes. I'm not sure if this makes me sound savvy or insane.
No personal information is asked, so the dataset will be pretty useless for monetization (you could just computationally generate a couple of thousand of responses and pretend it was the real deal). uBlock Origin blocked one weird tracker-like third-party I didn't recognize: fullstory.com. The rest were the usual Google analytics crap.
Perhaps tech workers should unionize and demand better healthcare, 40 hour work weeks, etc.
I get the sentiment, but some perspective is in order. We're in the goddamn catbird seat. We make a shitload of money, we actually do have good health insurance, and we punch keyboards in a heated office at a desk. We're not mining coal or working in the fertilizer plant from The Jungle. In this economy, if your work environment sucks, the door is open and there are greener pastures. The biggest problem is really tha…
What's the point of any of that if you're miserable the whole time? Burning through the prime years of your life, no less.
There are valid answers to that question, but I think a lot of people haven't even asked it. In the words of a particularly edgy Radiohead song: "A pig, in a cage, on antibiotics."