4 ms·

It is perfectly fine to be idle and bored; lay on grass and watch clouds or just do fishing... Not everyone comes from puritan american culture.

whitebread 7y ago
Not every American feels like it isn’t okay to be idle and bored. I guess you haven’t been following the real noise about moving to a four day workweek in America. Can we leave the sweeping, judgmental comments on the drawing room floor?
- tonyedgecombe 7y ago
  Yet the reality is Americans do work long hours. https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/12/americas-white-collar-workers-cant-escape-office/602989/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/12/americas-white-collar-w... You might not realise it but this stuff gets exported to the rest of the world. I frequently see American lobbyists on British TV pushing a low regulation agenda with the intention to weaken workers rights.
  - ThalesX 7y ago
    I was working for a project with a small company in Scandinavia. For those unaware, Scandinavia as a region in Europe is very much pro socialist policies and pro work-life balance. We got two consultants from the US of A and that was a hell of a month, constantly pushing us to overwork our employees, saying that we need to show them the carrot on the stick. Their idea was that people will work for 80 hours per week out of their own initiative because life is all about money made and time saved. Whenever we would argue anything, they would start almost chanting Wolf of Wall Street style: "Time & money!". I've never felt more relieved to have someone leave as when they got back to the US. It took us almost half a year to get back on track after that whole shebang and the CEO still has nightmares of how much was payed for them to come there and bro up the place. I was intending to write a short message but it turned into a little rant. What I mean to say is that yes, I believe you are correct and this American way of doing business is pushed around the world in what I think is a real bad direction for work-life balance.
    - ssivark 7y ago
      If you/your CEO/folks from your company could write an article/blog post about the experience, it would be a great resource to share and point people to — to seed discussion. Please consider :-)
crispyambulance 7y ago
> puritan american culture [ => busy busy busy ] There's definitely something to that. Calvinistic thinking that labor is pious seems to have been a part of American workplaces forever, especially tech. It's even a part even of the stackoverflow ethos-- god help you if you ask a question without showing that you've "done the work" up front. But it's all over the place. Look at the China tech sector with their popular 9-9-6 workweek. Is that an import from Western Calvinist thinking? I'm not sure, maybe? Whatever the case, "busyness" certainly has been exploited to serve "the man" and not "god".
- Juliate 7y ago
  I think China has a well enough set of different traditions to gather from (that perhaps have common antique roots), rather than having been influenced by US' or European's puritanism currents. :)
- mtberatwork 7y ago
  I think it's the "rugged individualism" ethos at play (although maybe that is a tangent of Calvinist thinking?) - the fear that if you ask questions you will come across as inferior to your colleagues and risk losing a promotion at best or a job at worst. It's quite terrible thinking and leads to isolation which compounds anxiety at work.
  - gerbilly 7y ago
    > rugged individualism Rugged individualism was probably never a thing. The first thing that settlers did when they moved west was to create towns and communities. Anyone believing otherwise should try to live in the equivalent of the 19th century west without the support of a town and the services it provides. (I.e.: no blacksmith, no doctor, no general store, no post office, no telegraph...)
- the_af 7y ago
  > god help you if you ask a question without showing that you've "done the work" up front I think that's different. It's not about puritan work ethic or whatnot, it's about showing the minimum respect for the people you're asking to make an effort for you. Questions which don't show any effort [1] are shunned in tech circles, and this isn't something particular to StackOverflow. And there's a good reason for it: many are asked by "help vampires" [2], people who will burn honest answerers with pointless, ill-researched questions with no follow-up, no useful feedback or even a thank you. Extreme help vampires will even ask the same question repeatedly, apparently too lazy to even see it has been answered already. Some of them just want people to do their homework for them, free. Once or twice may not seem much, but if you don't cut them short, they'll overrun your community. The mere act of thinking how to phrase a question well, showing you've made all the research you could before finding yourself at a dead end, is often enough to actually find the answer for yourself! So the StackOverflow community may be a bit trigger-happy, but I completely understand why they'd be upset at people lazy enough to not even bother to formulate their questions clearly. [1] "How to ask questions the smart way": http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html [2] "What is a help vampire": http://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/ http://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/
matwood 7y ago
I don't like being busy, but I also like to be doing something active. I can only watch a couple episodes of a show before I have to create something or work with my hands or exercise. I don't think this has anything to do with a puritan culture. BTW, no fishing I've ever done has been idle or boring. Fishing is generally a lot of work.

whitebread 7y ago

Not every American feels like it isn’t okay to be idle and bored. I guess you haven’t been following the real noise about moving to a four day workweek in America. Can we leave the sweeping, judgmental comments on the drawing room floor?

tonyedgecombe 7y ago
Yet the reality is Americans do work long hours. https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/12/americas-white-collar-workers-cant-escape-office/602989/ https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/12/americas-white-collar-w... You might not realise it but this stuff gets exported to the rest of the world. I frequently see American lobbyists on British TV pushing a low regulation agenda with the intention to weaken workers rights.
- ThalesX 7y ago
  I was working for a project with a small company in Scandinavia. For those unaware, Scandinavia as a region in Europe is very much pro socialist policies and pro work-life balance. We got two consultants from the US of A and that was a hell of a month, constantly pushing us to overwork our employees, saying that we need to show them the carrot on the stick. Their idea was that people will work for 80 hours per week out of their own initiative because life is all about money made and time saved. Whenever we would argue anything, they would start almost chanting Wolf of Wall Street style: "Time & money!". I've never felt more relieved to have someone leave as when they got back to the US. It took us almost half a year to get back on track after that whole shebang and the CEO still has nightmares of how much was payed for them to come there and bro up the place. I was intending to write a short message but it turned into a little rant. What I mean to say is that yes, I believe you are correct and this American way of doing business is pushed around the world in what I think is a real bad direction for work-life balance.
  - ssivark 7y ago
    If you/your CEO/folks from your company could write an article/blog post about the experience, it would be a great resource to share and point people to — to seed discussion. Please consider :-)

crispyambulance 7y ago

> puritan american culture [ => busy busy busy ] There's definitely something to that. Calvinistic thinking that labor is pious seems to have been a part of American workplaces forever, especially tech. It's even a part even of the stackoverflow ethos-- god help you if you ask a question without showing that you've "done the work" up front. But it's all over the place. Look at the China tech sector with their popular 9-9-6 workweek. Is that an import from Western Calvinist thinking? I'm not sure, maybe? Whatever the case, "busyness" certainly has been exploited to serve "the man" and not "god".

Juliate 7y ago
I think China has a well enough set of different traditions to gather from (that perhaps have common antique roots), rather than having been influenced by US' or European's puritanism currents. :)
mtberatwork 7y ago
I think it's the "rugged individualism" ethos at play (although maybe that is a tangent of Calvinist thinking?) - the fear that if you ask questions you will come across as inferior to your colleagues and risk losing a promotion at best or a job at worst. It's quite terrible thinking and leads to isolation which compounds anxiety at work.
- gerbilly 7y ago
  > rugged individualism Rugged individualism was probably never a thing. The first thing that settlers did when they moved west was to create towns and communities. Anyone believing otherwise should try to live in the equivalent of the 19th century west without the support of a town and the services it provides. (I.e.: no blacksmith, no doctor, no general store, no post office, no telegraph...)
the_af 7y ago
> god help you if you ask a question without showing that you've "done the work" up front I think that's different. It's not about puritan work ethic or whatnot, it's about showing the minimum respect for the people you're asking to make an effort for you. Questions which don't show any effort [1] are shunned in tech circles, and this isn't something particular to StackOverflow. And there's a good reason for it: many are asked by "help vampires" [2], people who will burn honest answerers with pointless, ill-researched questions with no follow-up, no useful feedback or even a thank you. Extreme help vampires will even ask the same question repeatedly, apparently too lazy to even see it has been answered already. Some of them just want people to do their homework for them, free. Once or twice may not seem much, but if you don't cut them short, they'll overrun your community. The mere act of thinking how to phrase a question well, showing you've made all the research you could before finding yourself at a dead end, is often enough to actually find the answer for yourself! So the StackOverflow community may be a bit trigger-happy, but I completely understand why they'd be upset at people lazy enough to not even bother to formulate their questions clearly. [1] "How to ask questions the smart way": http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html [2] "What is a help vampire": http://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/ http://slash7.com/2006/12/22/vampires/

matwood 7y ago

I don't like being busy, but I also like to be doing something active. I can only watch a couple episodes of a show before I have to create something or work with my hands or exercise. I don't think this has anything to do with a puritan culture. BTW, no fishing I've ever done has been idle or boring. Fishing is generally a lot of work.