4 ms·

I don't think a pay bump is the right prescription for burnout. In fact, it may contribute to it, because the recipient may feel that they need to work harder t

I don't think a pay bump is the right prescription for burnout. In fact, it may contribute to it, because the recipient may feel that they need to work harder to justify the additional income. Increased spending may further strain finances despite the raise, also causing a jump in stress. The best way for a company to keep an employee trapped is to grossly overpay them. People quickly scale their obligations up to meet their income, and that usually means that employees will not have the option to go somewhere else if they are paid well above market. As the employee seeks a new position on the open market and becomes aware of their predicament, the stress they experience goes up, not down. "More money, more problems", as they say. This is not to justify wage slavery or underpaid workforces, but only to indicate the solution to every problem is not "throw money at it". We should recognize that the industrialized working habits are unnatural and not necessarily something that maintains its own homeostasis with humanity. There's no guarantee that we'll be able sustain this lifestyle, on either a personal or social scale.

harrumph 10y ago
>This is not to justify wage slavery or underpaid workforces [...] I grant this is not your intent, but it is nonetheless exactly the effect of the line of thought. For me, the core of the burnout problem is non-cooperative ownership of the means of production, aka capitalism. The working persons who create all the value in an enterprise are not the persons who make the governance decisions nor the persons who realize full profit from that work. These conflicts of interest are what lie at the root of burnout at least to my eyes.
- noonespecial 10y ago
  I'd argue that the working people make the ultimate governance decision. Whether or not to come in tomorrow. They are the means of production. Witness the comedy of the failing business where 10 middle managers have endless meetings about what the last remaining builder should build.
  - dasil003 10y ago
    Only a union can actually coalesce all that agency into an actual decision that affects production though. Otherwise the individuals who opt out are just statistical noise on the spreadsheet.
  - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
    When you've got a family to feed, limited savings, and are unable to form a union due to union-busting policies & at-will employment, workers can't gain the leverage needed to do this. And in a global economy where jobs can be shipped anywhere, businesses can't allow this kind of behavior. A board of directors exists to maximize profits, not build a stable society. What should happen is that the government should step in to force companies to both create profits and create an equal society, but the problem in the US is that our government has been bought out.
    - noonespecial 10y ago
      And this is where I turn right around and advocate a UBI. The problem is that labor is not a free enough market. A giant clot of tiny worker friendly regs is one answer. I think a UBI and something reasonable for health care is better. Losing all your best workers because you create a place no one wants to work at is the best possible outcome for corporate doucheyness.
      - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
        I'd also argue that protectionism would work as well. In the 50s and 60s before jobs were shipped overseas, unions were powerful enough to make a large, powerful middle class that led to a very strong economy. These unions were able to persist because the demand for labor was high enough. With globalization(and illegal immigration, but it's mostly globalization), the demand for labor has tanked, giving the worker very little leverage. I agree that socialism would be the better way to do this, but I'm not sure if our political system would ever allow it to happen.
        10y ago
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  Burnout is about how the time is spent, not about how it's rewarded. You can get paid whatever you want, but if you're miserable for 50%+ of your waking time, you're going to burn out. Rewards can only sweeten the deal. They can't turn a bad working situation non-toxic (at least not until they cross the threshold of allowing one to escape from the bad situation entirely). People can only put up with that frustration for so long. When they can't put up with it anymore, that's burnout. It's not about who's getting the profit (though the discouragement from feeling that you're not being treated fairly can definitely be a significant contributor to the stress). Indeed, burnout is very high among business owners. I'm strongly pro-capitalist, but I agree that we need to adjust structures to ensure that companies are obliged to share a fair portion of their profit with employees. However, I believe this only tangentially relates to the problem of burnout, which is fundamentally about the psychic impact of daily exposure to the same significant stressors.
  - harrumph 10y ago
    >You can get paid whatever you want, but if you're miserable for 50%+ of your waking time, you're going to burn out. I can see what you're saying - the money may be secondary. But I think it's a big mistake to even momentarily indulge the idea (even as a hypothetical) that one can get paid "whatever one wants" when that decision is structurally not theirs to make. >burnout, which is fundamentally about the psychic impact of daily exposure to the same significant stressors. Do you have any sympathy for the notion that these stressors are reduced or eliminated when workers and managers cooperatively decide what to make and how?
    - cookiecaper 10y ago
      >But I think it's a big mistake to even momentarily indulge the idea (even as a hypothetical) that one can get paid "whatever one wants" when that decision is structurally not theirs to make. I think the key difference here is that you're approaching this as something that needs to be structured, that there should be a structure in place that allows people to select from a list what they're going to make. The capitalist perspective is that people can make whatever they want, as long as they are able to persuade someone to give it to them (within the confines of the law). So it's not an absurd hypothetical. There are, of course, no guarantees. But I don't want this thread to veer too far off-topic, if that ship hasn't already sailed. >Do you have any sympathy for the notion that these stressors are reduced or eliminated when workers and managers cooperatively decide what to make and how? Sure I do. The concerns you're listing are among everyone's core psychological needs. People need to feel that they are being treated fairly, that their input is taken seriously, and that they have a reasonable degree of autonomy over their time. When we don't feel these things are happening for us, the appropriate and natural reaction is angst, or psychic pain, and it's intended to drive us to find a way to correct/balance these stress profiles. After we've been exposed to these and other psychological stresses without resolution for too long, our body gives up and we enter a state of burnout. You're suggesting that the cure for burnout is an upheaval in the structure of property ownership. I believe that if it helped at all, this would be an indirect effect at best. In any case, such drastic suggestions are out of scope for the immediate question of addressing burnout in the real world. There are ways to improve current companies (without fundamentally restructuring their core ownership or authority systems) so that they meet these needs better. There are ways to get these needs filled at home, which, while it won't entirely reduce antipathy toward work, may help mitigate the damage.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  I do think that's a large part of it, but burnout of small business owners is also very common.
nissimk 10y ago
That's true only up to a point. Look at baseball players, they frequently outperform in the last year of their first (lower value) contract, but then underperform after getting the longer high value second contract. People are motivated by money only up to some point. The point varies by person and some people are far more motivated by other factors.
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  While I recognize that you're referring only to my comment about working harder to justify a raise, I agree and I think this is actually a good summary of the sentiment of my comment. I mentioned a feeling of guilt and/or additional responsibility only as one possible reaction to increased pay resulting in additional stress, not as one that is universally felt. There are many other valid reactions, but in most cases, they also end up increasing stress. IMO, in most cases, "give them more money" is not going to appreciably improve the problem of burnout.

harrumph 10y ago

>This is not to justify wage slavery or underpaid workforces [...] I grant this is not your intent, but it is nonetheless exactly the effect of the line of thought. For me, the core of the burnout problem is non-cooperative ownership of the means of production, aka capitalism. The working persons who create all the value in an enterprise are not the persons who make the governance decisions nor the persons who realize full profit from that work. These conflicts of interest are what lie at the root of burnout at least to my eyes.

noonespecial 10y ago
I'd argue that the working people make the ultimate governance decision. Whether or not to come in tomorrow. They are the means of production. Witness the comedy of the failing business where 10 middle managers have endless meetings about what the last remaining builder should build.
- dasil003 10y ago
  Only a union can actually coalesce all that agency into an actual decision that affects production though. Otherwise the individuals who opt out are just statistical noise on the spreadsheet.
- TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
  When you've got a family to feed, limited savings, and are unable to form a union due to union-busting policies & at-will employment, workers can't gain the leverage needed to do this. And in a global economy where jobs can be shipped anywhere, businesses can't allow this kind of behavior. A board of directors exists to maximize profits, not build a stable society. What should happen is that the government should step in to force companies to both create profits and create an equal society, but the problem in the US is that our government has been bought out.
  - noonespecial 10y ago
    And this is where I turn right around and advocate a UBI. The problem is that labor is not a free enough market. A giant clot of tiny worker friendly regs is one answer. I think a UBI and something reasonable for health care is better. Losing all your best workers because you create a place no one wants to work at is the best possible outcome for corporate doucheyness.
    - TheAdamAndChe 10y ago
      I'd also argue that protectionism would work as well. In the 50s and 60s before jobs were shipped overseas, unions were powerful enough to make a large, powerful middle class that led to a very strong economy. These unions were able to persist because the demand for labor was high enough. With globalization(and illegal immigration, but it's mostly globalization), the demand for labor has tanked, giving the worker very little leverage. I agree that socialism would be the better way to do this, but I'm not sure if our political system would ever allow it to happen.
      - 10y ago
cookiecaper 10y ago
Burnout is about how the time is spent, not about how it's rewarded. You can get paid whatever you want, but if you're miserable for 50%+ of your waking time, you're going to burn out. Rewards can only sweeten the deal. They can't turn a bad working situation non-toxic (at least not until they cross the threshold of allowing one to escape from the bad situation entirely). People can only put up with that frustration for so long. When they can't put up with it anymore, that's burnout. It's not about who's getting the profit (though the discouragement from feeling that you're not being treated fairly can definitely be a significant contributor to the stress). Indeed, burnout is very high among business owners. I'm strongly pro-capitalist, but I agree that we need to adjust structures to ensure that companies are obliged to share a fair portion of their profit with employees. However, I believe this only tangentially relates to the problem of burnout, which is fundamentally about the psychic impact of daily exposure to the same significant stressors.
- harrumph 10y ago
  >You can get paid whatever you want, but if you're miserable for 50%+ of your waking time, you're going to burn out. I can see what you're saying - the money may be secondary. But I think it's a big mistake to even momentarily indulge the idea (even as a hypothetical) that one can get paid "whatever one wants" when that decision is structurally not theirs to make. >burnout, which is fundamentally about the psychic impact of daily exposure to the same significant stressors. Do you have any sympathy for the notion that these stressors are reduced or eliminated when workers and managers cooperatively decide what to make and how?
  - cookiecaper 10y ago
    >But I think it's a big mistake to even momentarily indulge the idea (even as a hypothetical) that one can get paid "whatever one wants" when that decision is structurally not theirs to make. I think the key difference here is that you're approaching this as something that needs to be structured, that there should be a structure in place that allows people to select from a list what they're going to make. The capitalist perspective is that people can make whatever they want, as long as they are able to persuade someone to give it to them (within the confines of the law). So it's not an absurd hypothetical. There are, of course, no guarantees. But I don't want this thread to veer too far off-topic, if that ship hasn't already sailed. >Do you have any sympathy for the notion that these stressors are reduced or eliminated when workers and managers cooperatively decide what to make and how? Sure I do. The concerns you're listing are among everyone's core psychological needs. People need to feel that they are being treated fairly, that their input is taken seriously, and that they have a reasonable degree of autonomy over their time. When we don't feel these things are happening for us, the appropriate and natural reaction is angst, or psychic pain, and it's intended to drive us to find a way to correct/balance these stress profiles. After we've been exposed to these and other psychological stresses without resolution for too long, our body gives up and we enter a state of burnout. You're suggesting that the cure for burnout is an upheaval in the structure of property ownership. I believe that if it helped at all, this would be an indirect effect at best. In any case, such drastic suggestions are out of scope for the immediate question of addressing burnout in the real world. There are ways to improve current companies (without fundamentally restructuring their core ownership or authority systems) so that they meet these needs better. There are ways to get these needs filled at home, which, while it won't entirely reduce antipathy toward work, may help mitigate the damage.
marcosdumay 10y ago
I do think that's a large part of it, but burnout of small business owners is also very common.

nissimk 10y ago

That's true only up to a point. Look at baseball players, they frequently outperform in the last year of their first (lower value) contract, but then underperform after getting the longer high value second contract. People are motivated by money only up to some point. The point varies by person and some people are far more motivated by other factors.

cookiecaper 10y ago
While I recognize that you're referring only to my comment about working harder to justify a raise, I agree and I think this is actually a good summary of the sentiment of my comment. I mentioned a feeling of guilt and/or additional responsibility only as one possible reaction to increased pay resulting in additional stress, not as one that is universally felt. There are many other valid reactions, but in most cases, they also end up increasing stress. IMO, in most cases, "give them more money" is not going to appreciably improve the problem of burnout.