I retired once for 6 weeks. Was bored to death. Started another business.
Long-term unemployment leads to disengagement and apathy
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Re: Long-term unemployment leads to disengagement and apathy
#72Re: Long-term unemployment leads to disengagement and apathy
#73I was unemployed for about 10 months and this article resonates with my experience.
In my case, I went from a fast upward career trajectory, working on world-class silicon valley projects with famous investors; getting more phone calls from recruiters than I could answer to unemployment and zero opportunities suddenly.
I was literally applying to hundreds of jobs per months without any replies. Not even getting first interviews.
I had already lost a lot of trust in the system even before I became unemployed. I've experienced stuff that would turn anyone into a conspiracy nut. Unemployment sealed my view of the world as 'Clown World'. It made it hard to take anything seriously. Everything feels fake, constructed, inefficient.
Even now that I have a job, I struggle to abandon this mindset, technically, I'm a software engineer but I feel more like an actor who acts the role of a software engineer. Everything feels fake and I'm just playing the role pretending that everything is meaningful and I wonder if people around me are also just acting. I feel like I turned into an office psychopath. Like a split personality disorder.
Kind of like how I have a somewhat separate online persona which is a concentration of all my frustrations. I've developed a separate work persona, the stakes just are too high for me to be genuine; I just act genuine; after being genuine for most of my life, it's not difficult to get into character.
Re: Long-term unemployment leads to disengagement and apathy
#74I know it's important to do science that comes to obvious conclusions, but sometimes the interiority-centric framework of psychology seems comically ill-fit for topics like this In most countries in the world, money is what allows you to have any control over your life. For most people who aren't already rich, their having money relies on being employed, and we tend not to describe people who don't work because they'…
For what it's worth, as someone who doesn't need to work on a daily basis (made enough in my 20s), extended periods of unemployment can quite easily lead me down a similar path to the one that the article describes. If you slip into a pattern of not waking up at a reasonable time, staying indoors and not exercising, not making attempts to socialise, etc, then it can be quite easy to throw your brain chemistry out of…
> For what it's worth, as someone who doesn't need to work on a daily basis (made enough in my 20s), extended periods of unemployment can quite easily lead me down a similar path to the one that the article describes.
When I was younger I missed the boat on a very successful local startup. The people who graduated a few years before me and joined the company at the right time exited with multi-million dollar equity. The CEO’s equity was in the 9-figure range.
I remember being intensely jealous that I had just barely missed the boat on that life changing equity. Just a couple years difference and I would have been wealthy enough in my 20s to never have to work again. I fantasized about all the ways I would live my life.
Over the years, the only people from that lucky group who remained happy were those who continued on with their careers as if nothing had happened. The ones who used that opportunity to exit the workforce have been universally cursed: Divorces, unhappiness, and now seething anger at the world and society. There’s a Slack for former members of the startup that I’ve been in for years and it’s sad to see the swirling anger and unhappiness of those who left the workforce.
I never would have predicted it at the time. The way people fantasize about not having to work is often very different than reality.
I know it’s not literally everyone who has this experience, but after seeing it happen to so many people I know it’s also not a rare outcome.
Re: Long-term unemployment leads to disengagement and apathy
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
For what it's worth, as someone who doesn't need to work on a daily basis (made enough in my 20s), extended periods of unemployment can quite easily lead me down a similar path to the one that the article describes. If you slip into a pattern of not waking up at a reasonable time, staying indoors and not exercising, not making attempts to socialise, etc, then it can be quite easy to throw your brain chemistry out of…
I save 90% of my income, and work freelance. My experience may be unusual but it has been the opposite. When I have a job time blurs togethor. I stop drawing, and exercising and learning math. Pressure builds. Eventually I finsh and that stage ends and a rennaissance begins. I am only a clear deep thinker when unemployed. When I am captured by the salient sense of daily responsibility and income, mental exercise is a…
Same. Self motivation may be related to dopamine receptor rate and sensitivity which are a genetic trait.
Re: Long-term unemployment leads to disengagement and apathy
#76I know it's important to do science that comes to obvious conclusions, but sometimes the interiority-centric framework of psychology seems comically ill-fit for topics like this In most countries in the world, money is what allows you to have any control over your life. For most people who aren't already rich, their having money relies on being employed, and we tend not to describe people who don't work because they'…
For what it's worth, as someone who doesn't need to work on a daily basis (made enough in my 20s), extended periods of unemployment can quite easily lead me down a similar path to the one that the article describes. If you slip into a pattern of not waking up at a reasonable time, staying indoors and not exercising, not making attempts to socialise, etc, then it can be quite easy to throw your brain chemistry out of…
> if you're poor and unable to find work, then you have all of that _on top of_ the financial stresses
Add alcohol to the mix and you're cooked. An alcoholic in this state can take years to come back to some sense of functional. Or any other addictive drug. Not a nice spot to be. with or without the drugs.
Re: Long-term unemployment leads to disengagement and apathy
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's equally plausible that employers treat people with particular trait cluster poorly, and that eventually they give up on getting abused.
Employees abuse their employers, too.
Not in ways that generally matter. If someone is embezzling large amounts of cash to the point that it's causing the business to fail, sure. But that sort of thing is fairly rare; most "abuse" toward employers is low-stakes stuff like stealing office supplies or only pretending to work. Sure, the company is harmed, but not materially.
When an employer abuses an employee, we're usually talking about life-altering things like overwork, withholding pay, denying promised benefits, canceling promised time off, up to the truly awful stuff like firing for biased and discriminatory reasons.
I don't think you can really compare these two directions of abuse at all. The power imbalance is staggering.
Re: Long-term unemployment leads to disengagement and apathy
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. So the chronic effects that the study found are not linked to the lack of a job, but the lack of income that a job brings. Because people without a job but with money don't suffer those effects.
> not linked to the lack of a job, but the lack of income that a job brings Or to the constant failure / hopelessness / whatever from a constant job search getting no results; if it was just money then the correlation would very obviously be with peoples monetary situation rather then their employment status.
good point, but hard to differentiate. How do we tell if the cause is the shitty grind of constant rejection from jobs, or the shitty grind of life with very little money?
We do know (anecdotally) that people with money (regardless of employment status) don't suffer the same symptoms.
Re: Long-term unemployment leads to disengagement and apathy
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not systematically. The power dynamic isn't there.
[flagged]
I spent a little bit of time responding to each of your questions with why I think they're much less harmful to an employer than pretty much anything an employer can do to their employees. But I realized none of that point-by-point stuff really matters, and deleted it all.
An employer can systematically destroy an employee's life and finances if they pull the right levers. In places like the US, employees are often terrified of getting fired or laid off because they'll lose their (and often their entire family's) health insurance. Companies use this (and other leverage) to give crap raises, make employees jump through ridiculous hoops to get promoted (and then deny those promotions anyway), "encourage" employees to take the bare minimum (or no) time off, etc.
And employees have to eat it all, or risk losing their livelihoods. Let's think about that phrase, "losing your livelihood". The fact that it's a common saying really tells us all we need to know. Employers hold the power. If they're caught doing bad things, usually there little to no penalty. Employees sometimes do sneaky things (all those things that you mention) and eventually get fired and/or sent to prison.
Re: Long-term unemployment leads to disengagement and apathy
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Employees abuse their employers, too.
Not in ways that generally matter. If someone is embezzling large amounts of cash to the point that it's causing the business to fail, sure. But that sort of thing is fairly rare; most "abuse" toward employers is low-stakes stuff like stealing office supplies or only pretending to work. Sure, the company is harmed, but not materially. When an employer abuses an employee, we're usually talking about life-altering thin…
It's pretty even. Workers at all levels quit all the time. I've been both employee and employer.
> but not materially
One employee of mine stole $70,000 (about $200,000 today). It very nearly wiped the company out. (If you can't make payroll, you are forced to close.)