17 ms·

Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

247 points by clockworksoul 5y ago

Animats 5y ago
"8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will!" - union slogan, 1920s. "Unions. The people who brought you the weekend".
- Waterluvian 5y ago
  I would be so miserable if it had to deal with a union. Though to be fair I am not overworked or undervalued. I imagine there’s a lot of engineers who large companies just grind through.
  - Afton 5y ago
    Why would you be miserable? Union dues? occasional union communication? I'm just trying to understand what hypothetical issue you feel would be super arduous.
    - thepasswordis 5y ago
      Unions end up punishing good workers and rewarding bad ones. Believe it or not, some people enjoy their job, and enjoy being able to excel at it.
      - Afton 5y ago
        That's a ridiculously broad brush to paint unions with, and your last sentence shows lack of good faith in the discussion. Good day.
      - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
        You're not looking very hard for counter examples. Is the screen actors guild punishing Will Smith and rewarding struggling, untalented commercial actors? Is the NBA player's association punishing LeBron and rewarding D league players? Is there even such a thing a "superstar" plumber? I mean, I'm sure there are awful plumbers and amazing plumbers - but do how much can they scale, realistically?
        Igelau 5y ago
        The G League has its own union that isn't the NBPA. SAG is a weird example. Hard to get in without doing union work. Hard to get union work without being in the union. Can't do non-union work after you're in. The structure reeks of being rigged to temper the rate of newcomers.
        robocat 5y ago
        I'm not sure what your point is, but famous actors and sports-stars have little to do with labour unions. A labour union is all about fighting for the rights of the undifferentiated many, not the situation where there are named celebrities in a winner's zero-sum market. When there is a pool of people waiting to take your job, and a company willing to lower working standards, you have little choice but to comply with company requests — unless you are part of a union that collectively acts in the interests of the workers. For software developers there are forces against unionisation: 1. Global outsourcing. What's the point in unionisation if your job can be done by a motivated pool of workers overseas? A union has little bargaining power at the level of outsourcing complete business units. Or buyouts: I am in New Zealand and whole companies here are purchased by American companies. 2. Many software developers are not easily replaceable. It is difficult to replace a person who has specialist software skills or internal organizational knowledge. 3. There is no pool of easily identifiable talent. 4. Developers have to be dissatisfied with working conditions. 5. Developers have to have reached a ceiling (experienced). In a fast growing industry with technical churn, less experienced developers outnumber older developers? Hard to argue with new blood why unionisation is in their interests? Edit: I did a quick search for "software developer" on https://seek.co.nz https://seek.co.nz job board and about 1% of jobs were for USD140k+ and most of that 1% were not dev jobs. I know zero developers earning >= $200k. AFAIK pay in NZ for developers is significantly below the US. Opportunity there if you want trustworthy highly skilled remote workers that speak English. Main bummer is NZ is 16 hours ahead so 3PM EST is 7AM NZ time, and Friday in the US is Saturday in NZ https://www.worldtimeserver.com/time-zones/nzst-to-est/ https://www.worldtimeserver.com/time-zones/nzst-to-est/
        onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
        > I'm not sure what your point is, but famous actors and sports-stars have little to do with labour unions. There are a TON of actors in SAG (160,000). Sure, that's more than an order of magnitude smaller than the 4.4M SWEs in the US. But the idea that everyone in SAG is a "star" is absurd. Similarly, deep bench players in the NBA - sure they are really good - but they are far from stars. And yet, most of them make substantially more money than overseas "stars". This is because of the players' union. > A labour union is all about fighting for the rights of the undifferentiated many, not the situation where there are named celebrities in a winner's zero-sum market. I think you missed my point entirely. SAG and the players' union are good for both stars and non-stars. GP seemed to think that unions by definition are bad for stars. I was merely pointing out that there are examples of unions that are not bad for stars. It just so happens these unions are also examples of unions that are also not bad for non-stars. > When there is a pool of people waiting to take your job, and a company willing to lower working standards, you have little choice but to comply with company requests — unless you are part of a union that collectively acts in the interests of the workers. Google is not unionized, and there are a million people that would take my job for much lower pay - and a lot of them could probably end up doing my job after a substantially long learning period. Despite that, I have my job. The same is true at Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft (and many other companies). Theoretically, since these are global companies with large presences all over the world - this isn't (at least) entirely because I'm a US citizen. I agree with your point for most other professions, though. And maybe this will be truer in the future for "FAANG". But, it's not really true now. > Edit: I did a quick search for "software developer" on https://seek.co.nz https://seek.co.nz job board and about 1% of jobs were for USD140k+ and most of that 1% were not dev jobs. I know zero developers earning >= $200k. AFAIK pay in NZ for developers is significantly below the US. The majority of people working at "FAANG" in NZ should be >$200k - if for no other reason than because of RSU appreciation. Not trying to be rude - but if you want to make more money - just read Cracking the Coding Interview cover to cover and get referrals at FAANG. You honestly might triple your salary. You can DM me on Reddit if you want more feedback / advice / referrals.
      - ineedasername 5y ago
        Unions do sometimes make it hard to get rid of bad workers... not sure that's the same as "rewarding" them though. I can't think of examples of punishing good ones though. Union contracts frequently have defined procedures for requesting a merit pay increase with a mandatory review process, along with similar procedures for reclassification to a higher level position, also with more pay, when a person's scope of responsibilities shift over time to encompass more than the original job description indicated. I'm not in a union any longer, but that happened to me when I was: I was very good a specific portion of my job and gradually took on more complicated aspects of it. I applied for reclassification. My workplace had a maximum of 21 days to review & reply to the request, which they granted, and I got a higher title & a nice 20% increase in pay.
        wccrawford 5y ago
        Getting to keep your job when you don't deserve it is absolutely a reward. As for punishing good workers... I've heard plenty of stories where someone was really good at their job and they just needed some small thing done that they couldn't get the right department to do, so they did it themselves. The union jumped all over them because it's contractually obligated that the other department perform that function. It was absolutely in the way of the "good worker" and they needed it to be done to improve their morale and get work flowing well. But their only choices were suffer through it, or be sanctioned for fixing it themselves. That's the punishment.
        antifa 5y ago
        Sounds like you'd have the same problem if you were a cowboy coder at a non-startup.
        ineedasername 5y ago
        That's the punishment That depends on the reason for the separation of duties. Think of a unionized construction work where a few people specialize on heavy machinery. You aren't designated as such, but you happen to know how to drive a forklift and you need something moved. I'd be pretty pissed off at you for taking it upon yourself to do it because knowing how to operate a forklift isn't the same as knowing all of the safety protocols and idiosyncracies of operating heavy machinery at that specific site. You could put yourself or others at risk, or screw up the project. Or maybe the construction company pays certain insurance premiums for each designated operator and you just opened them up to bankruptcy if there was an accident. Sometimes these barriers exist for a good reason. And sure, when you run into one it can be frustrating if it seems harmless-- even productive-- to break protocol. But it's not for each individual worker to determine which protocols they will follow and which ones they will break. That's a recipe for disaster that I have seen happen in & out of unions. The right path on that is to work to change protocol. I've done it plenty of times myself so that I could be more productive but also be in the loop on any special considerations I should be aware of, like not querying the production system directly during certain hours when it could be under high load. That doesn't means there aren't any useless barriers, but it my experience a barrier is usually--initially-- put into place for a reasonable purpose, and people get frustrated because they don't know what the purpose was. Going cowboy isn't the solution though. Asking questions and finding out if the reasons still apply, and initiating change if they don't, that's the path forward. Sometimes it doesn't work, for stupid reasons, but stupid reasons aren't the sole domain of union beauracracy. They exist everywhere. I don't know if they're more prevalent in unions, but it doesn't make sense to look at unions as useless or bad when they simply share the same behavioral patterns as any other organization of sufficient size and complexity. I have seen unions that are completely dysfunctional, I have also seen businesses that are the same (and had the misfortune of working for one or two)
    - throw0101a 5y ago
      A lot of unions can be very 'by the book' and there can be malicious compliance. There can also be multiple unions with very specific roles. From a quick search: > If your booth is a 10×10 or smaller, you may install and dismantle your own exhibit – provided you meet these requirements: > 1. The Set-up can be accomplished in 1/2 hour or less. > 2. No tools are required. > 3. Individuals performing the work must be full-time employees of the exhibiting company and cary identification to verify this fact. > Exhibitors are allowed to unpack and repack their own product (if it is cartons, not crates). They are also allowed to do technical work on their machines, such as balancing, programming, cleaning of machines, etc. Exhibitors may “hand carry” or use nothing larger than a two wheel baggage cart (rubber or plastic wheels only) to move their items. * http://www.absoluteiandd.com/union-rules/new-york-trade-show-union-rules/ http://www.absoluteiandd.com/union-rules/new-york-trade-show... > Convention center guidelines dictate that any gear one person can't carry with their hands alone must be handled by official union labor. In other words, you have to pay for people to lug your TVs and booth props from the loading dock to your booth, and it's not exactly cheap. * https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-02-21-the-costs-of-exhibiting-at-a-video-game-convention https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-02-21-the-costs-... Now if you have similar rules internal to your company, if you annoy the wrong people, they can simply act in a strictly 'compliant fashion'.
      - Apocryphon 5y ago
        Certainly, there’s a lot of old entrenched unions who have come to rest on their past laurels and are now mired in bureaucracy and self-satisfaction. One would easily imagine a software engineering union to be the complete opposite of that, as such a union would be completely new and hungry.
        Igelau 5y ago
        And it will never ever go astray.
        Apocryphon 5y ago
        It would certainly have a lower chance to, in the sense that it will have been founded in a time period after past generations' unions have gone astray, and so has the benefit of historical experience to work with and to improve, to innovate upon. Certainly tech is an industry that believes better futures are capable of being built, rather than expecting everything to always be the same level of mediocrity.
    - nvr219 5y ago
      That person might just not want to deal with the politics and the rules. I used to contract for a union and it was super political. Also, everyone got a lunch break from noon-1pm per union rules. We'd all be in a meeting (scheduled from 11-12) and at noon on the dot everyone straight up got up and left. Needed five more minutes to wrap that up? Schedule a separate meeting. Note I'm not saying that is good or bad... In fact I liked it a lot - work can wait! But the person who said they'd be miserable may just not be able to hang with that.
    - mylons 5y ago
      union dues create a huge conflict of interest for union leadership. it turns it into a career path and you become a politician. if union leadership was volunteer, and dues weren’t required, maybe that sort of union would be less susceptible to corruption.
    - pietrovismara 5y ago
      Funnily enough OP could give you no answer. It seems they just spewed without thought some of the anti-union propaganda that is so common in the US. And nowadays in Europe too, sadly.
      - Afton 5y ago
        TBF, there's not really a notification mechanism for comment replies in HN, so if you're like me, and you just occasionally check in on your comments, it's easy to miss responses until ridiculously too late. I know I have done this in the past.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    No need to be miserable in a union. If you don't like the union you just don't deal with it. Ignore their meetings & other communication. In the US at least, Per the SC's Janus ruling, public unions can no longer require fees at all, and the same goes for private unions in right-to-work states.
    - jdavis703 5y ago
      I don’t think that’s quite so cut and dry. Sure the OP can easily ignore union politics. But I’ve seen unions defending toxic people with seniority. Good luck if the union is going to bat for someone that’s been taken to HR multiple times.
      - pydry 5y ago
        >But I’ve seen unions defending toxic people with seniority. Welcome to all human institutions everywhere. Ought we dispense with courts, governments, corporations, nonprofits, clubs, police, hospitals, etc. too because they all sometimes do this?
      - pietrovismara 5y ago
        I’ve seen managers/CEOs defending toxic people with seniority. Good luck if the manager is going to bat for someone that’s been taken to HR multiple times.
    - RhysU 5y ago
      After Janus my wife could stop her union membership but she does not due to concern about repercussions from union members in terms of their ability to reduce her opportunities.
eatonphil 5y ago
> What do we do? Well, root out the real causes of burnout. If it’s not those top workplace issues, it may very well be the burn of extended, heightened stress. For employees surveyed, flexible work hours and mental health support were more popular than even a four-day work week or unlimited PTO. The point then is lots of professionals like their actual work, they just don’t like the restrictions and environment. Give direction, let them do the work. Remove barriers. PTO and a healthy work environment are both good.
- sharken 5y ago
  Restrictions unfortunately play a large part, e.g. changes to Production can only be done by request. Requests then take weeks to be completed even though the actual work involved can be measured in minutes Another core issue for me is the ratio between challenging tasks and more simple tasks. There should always be a few tasks to work on that are challenging, otherwise procrastination sets in which can turn into some form of burnout if nothing is done.
- sneak 5y ago
  The passive-aggressive lie that is "unlimited PTO" is part of the growing toxicity of startup work environments.
  - stadium 5y ago
    Depends on the company! If it's inauthentic though, employees can smell it from far away.
    - CobrastanJorji 5y ago
      I have no doubt it's meant in good faith at many companies, but it's almost sure to be used unfairly. A lot of people, especially folks who don't feel safely part of whatever in-group, are going to be hesitant to push that policy, especially because being on vacation can be an imposition on your coworkers. I suspect you could implement the same policy in practice with less social anxiety by mandating N weeks of vacation and allowing additional time off upon request.
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
Once again we have a CEO pretending to know what works best for the rank and file employee. First we didn't need bonuses, we just needed a pat on the back from managers and co-workers to achieve happiness. Now, we don't need vacations if we're burnt out, instead we just need flexible hours so we can schedule our death marches around our other responsibilities and mental health resources. 10 hours is 10 hours regardless of how you schedule it. Pressure doesn't go away just because your boss describes impending doom using nice words. What's next? Desks aren't the answer for writing surfaces because our walls are already flat?
- eatonphil 5y ago
  I didn't assume that he meant anything like that. Digging into the company a bit: > Though results matter most and Technically Media prides itself on flexibility, as a guide, this role might expect to work roughly 40-45 hours a week. > Technically Media offers 10 paid holidays per year; 15 PTO days accrued per year with additional P TO offered progressively; as well as a month of paid parental leave. >Technically Media additionally closes its offices for the final week of the year to relax and unwind before each new year. This serves as additional paid holiday time. https://technical.ly/job/editorial-director/ https://technical.ly/job/editorial-director/ It's not the most generous but it's par for Philly area tech companies and its not a tech company, it's a journal.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    > this role might expect to work roughly 40-45 hours a week. I “expect” a lot of things that never happen.
    - wccrawford 5y ago
      And for any role that already expects to work more than 40 hours a week, I expect that that's a lie and it'll be more. And never 40.
babarganesh 5y ago
I don't want "mental health support" from work. I only need that if my workplace is causing serious mental health issues in the first place. (Which it is at present.)
- haswell 5y ago
  A personal counterpoint: I do want mental health support from work. Many of the downsides of complex childhood trauma didn’t start to really interfere with my life until my late 20s/early 30s. When I started really struggling at a job I’d already established myself in, I learned of and am incredibly grateful for the mental health benefits offered by my employer and for leaders who are open, understanding and willing to work with me when things aren’t going well. When I first had to broach the subject, easily finding resources about the company’s EAP benefits instead of feeling like it was all some hush hush thing really helped reduce the anxiety of opening up about a difficulty topic.
  - hnaccount141 5y ago
    I think it depends on what mental health support means. If it means helping pay for therapy and managers making accommodations and being genuinely supportive of people when they're having a hard time, that's fantastic. Unfortunately at many companies it just means a presentation from HR every couple of months that boils down to "10 strategies to cope with the burnout we're causing". Meanwhile the people with actual power to change things keep pushing the same "aggressive" deadlines and refusing to provide the support/resources necessary to meet them in a healthy and sustainable way.
  - babarganesh 5y ago
    I think that's valid and I want that possibility for everyone. I don't want it linked to work, though.
noahtallen 5y ago
Time away from work absolutely is important for recovering from burnout. If work is causing burnout, prevention means adjusting the parts of work that cause burnout.
decebalus1 5y ago
Bullshit. Vacation [1] IS the answer for burnout. Long vacations are even more ok for burnout. Sabbaticals are the most ok. Guess what a doctor would recommend you do if you're having health issues from burnout? If there's chronic burnout in your company/org then indeed, no amount of vacation will fix that. But neither would flexible work hours or mental health support. [1] Vacation means complete and total disconnect from work or work related activities. That goes beyond not checking work emails. I'm talking no leetcode or learning some new JS framework.
- suzzer99 5y ago
  Agreed. We need European-style month-long vacations in the US. And sabbaticals every few years. Also we should start looking at 36 and 32-hour workweeks. We're 20x more productive than 40 years ago, yet still work the same hours or more for pay increases that barely keep up with inflation.
  - dopidopHN 5y ago
    As a European living in the US since a decade. It starts to impact my mental health. I went from 8 weeks / years to 4 or 5. Currently 3. Ha. I cannot recharge the same way ( meaning : travel for weeks at a time, or chill hard for 2 weeks in a row ) It’s flexible all right. But I feel like I’m always working somehow. Work is near, lurking. I’m nursing a nice little depression that I feel a road trip would cure easily. Too bad I need to keep my last week of vacation for Christmas week.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      Mind sharing where exactly in Europe is 8 weeks vacation the norm? In Austria it's 5 weeks for everyone but law and that's what most tech companies will give you as well.
      - shell0x 5y ago
        I don't think there are 8 weeks, but 6 weeks? Spain has 30 days vacation if I'm not mistaken.
jstx1 5y ago
Burnout isn't always caused by overwhelming jobs - dull, boring, undemanding jobs with little to do can be their own hell and spiral off into depression. Then I don't need vacation; I need meaningful work.
throw0101a 5y ago
See also The Onion: > Man Returns To Work After Vacation With Fresh, Reenergized Hatred For Job * https://www.theonion.com/man-returns-to-work-after-vacation-with-fresh-reenergi-1819574342 https://www.theonion.com/man-returns-to-work-after-vacation-...
- runawaybottle 5y ago
  Lol. Thanks for making my day better. Edit: But to add to the comedy (all comedy is tragedy, and all tragedy is comedy according to the Greeks), that’s pretty much the reason why I don’t take vacations. It’s not going to change anything, so I much prefer to take days off so I don’t completely lose it. The sadness is hilarious.
  - kekebo 5y ago
    They may not fundamentally change ones attitude towards a job, but when carefully planned and executed vacations may have the potential for creating some worthwhile times and memories
    - runawaybottle 5y ago
      It depends on how your personal incentive structure is modeled. Behaviorally, everything for me is goal oriented. I reward myself when I accomplish something (hard), this is how my parents raised me. Psychologically, I didn’t earn a vacation yet. I only take days off to rest, physically and psychologically.
  - co2benzoate 5y ago
    Why not both? There are many companies and countries where you can do just that. Work a 30 hour week with a month+ vacation a year.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  People at the office joke about the fact that when bad weather ruins their vacations, they come back happier to work.
SkyPuncher 5y ago
I'm burnt out right now. Layoffs, a spin-out, and huge situational challenges related to both. Vacation is great, but I agree with the author here. Vacation _can_ be a tool to combat burnout - but burnout is often a result of other things besides hours worked. I've worked times of 80+ hours. While feeling worn out, I never got burnt out. I've worked times where I can barely put the effort into 30 hours/week. Right now, I'm attributing my burn out solely to the fact that we have huge amounts of "keep the lights on work" to complete the spin-out while continuing to deliver product. Neither the workload nor the type of work is bad. There's just so much of it and it's wearing. ---- For me, a vacation doesn't solve much for me. I'll be back to "more of the same". What's really helping is the change in pace of my work and the ability to get back to things that engage and excite me.
- mikepurvis 5y ago
  100% agree. Burn out for me has everything to do with what the work is, whether there are enough hands for it, and whether it’s being properly recognized/appreciated. It has nothing to do with the hours; indeed some of my most productive and least burnt out times have been when I was happily pouring in 60+ hrs/week because I was having fun and so energized by the project and my team’s excitement and collaboration dynamic.
dbs 5y ago
I would bet that flexible work hours are contributing for higher employee burnout.
- awsthro00945 5y ago
  I agree. In my experience, "flexible work hours" is often code for "everyone works weird fucking hours so instead of having a set routine, you have to be quasi-available at all times to respond to the person who decided to wait until 8pm to do the work you were waiting on". It's great for the person who needs flexibility, and shitty for everyone that depends on that person. Flexible working arrangements are great when the team is able to asynchronously work, but I have yet to see a team that really does asynchronous work right.
  - dopidopHN 5y ago
    Excellent point. If the expectations is to not respond right away and not be available right away. It can be fine. I’ve seen it work. But it require discipline. In my situation the time difference were too striking to hope having synchronized interaction, and the team built on that habit. But then one day we had a major refactor in our orgs and that was gone.
  - mhitza 5y ago
    > I have yet to see a team that really does asynchronous work right. I think the Linux kernel developers can be considered the biggest software team that does asynchronous work, and it works just fine. Honestly just some basic mailinglist software installation goes a long way. And an organization can still have a process in place on how to get synched when its needed (scheduled calls, impromptu emergency response situations, etc).
- nickjj 5y ago
  I think this is a contributor, especially with working remote where folks are spanning many time zones. A position I'm thinking about joining requires being available 9 hours between 9am-6pm EST (I live in EST) to ensure there's reasonable overlap between the west coast US and most European countries. They were really strict on these hours and at first I was against it because I thought what's the difference if I work 2 hours early one day and clock out early or decide to be unavailable for 3 hours in the afternoon (1h lunch break + the 2 hours). But the more I think about it, the more I think it's a better system for everyone in the end when everyone has strict hours. I wouldn't want to be expected to review a PR at 7pm EST because someone else decided to start a bit later one day. They have no problem for exceptions like leaving early for a doctor's appointment or picking someone up. The only rule here is you need to give a few days notice which is also reasonable because it lets your team members know you won't be around when you usually are. They don't need to know the details, only that you won't be around. They're also ok if you need to bail without notice because it's something important. Basically don't abuse the system and it's all good.
paulpauper 5y ago
The issue is also people bringing their work to vacation. This lowers the effectiveness of vacations.
jonnycomputer 5y ago
It is not the answer, but definitely part of the answer. When I have to work twice as hard before and after vacation, to make up for it, well, that's pretty damn exhausting.
foolinaround 5y ago
unless the entire team/company takes vacation at the same time, it is not too helpful. the person comes back to a ton of work waiting for him. also, when others take vacation, the work pace often does not stop, and the person, who himself is going through a burnout phase, takes on even more load
awsthro00945 5y ago
Not only is it not the answer, vacation can actually be a contributor to burnout, IME. In my current role, taking PTO is a legitimate punishment. If I take a day off, there is nobody else on my team who has capacity to pick up my work in my absence. When I return from PTO, not only do I now have double the amount of work to catch up on, but I also have 15 emails from angry managers upset that I didn't get to their request sooner. "you should just take some vacation" is often a convenient escape hatch for managers that want to seem like they're helping, but without actually putting any effort into solving the problems that make people want to escape from work in the first place.
- dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago
  Weird. If you're the king of the jungle then it doesn't matter what your managers or their emails or schedules say, now does it? Take your PTO and let the rabble do their rabbling, they can't fire you or else they'd be getting rid of by far the best man on their team and they wouldn't want that, right?
- stuff4ben 5y ago
  If you can't afford to take a day off, then that's on you my friend. The people on your team can take up your slack if you let them. I work for someone just like you. He hoards all of the meetings and knowledge and "power" (for lack of a better word). When he goes on PTO, things halt when they shouldn't. Me and others on my squad can pick up the slack. But gatekeeping and knowledge-hoarding prevent us from helping out. Not a big deal for me, but I'm sure my squad-lead will get burned out eventually. I have warned him about that in our 1:1's, but nothings changed...
  - awsthro00945 5y ago
    >If you can't afford to take a day off, then that's on you my friend. The people on your team can take up your slack if you let them. I work for someone just like you. He hoards all of the meetings and knowledge and "power" (for lack of a better word). Lmao. Nobody else on my team can take up slack because they have literally no space on their calendar. My team is currently at half of our target headcount. Every person is currently working 60 hour weeks and is still behind. "If I let them"? "hoarding meetings"? Please, keep your assumptions about my workstyle to yourself. I literally beg my teammates and managers to join my meetings and share the load, but nobody has the time.
rubicon33 5y ago
I think burnout is mostly related to a lack of intrinsic motivation / reward. When you're no longer deeply interested in what you're doing, it feels like a grind whether its 30 hours a week or 80.
- mcast 5y ago
  There are many root causes for burnout, but companies not properly valuing and appreciating their employees is definitely a big one!
dimeatree 5y ago
My solution to burn out was to go down to part-time; I have been incredibly fortunate that my work place supported my decision to go down to 4 days a week, with the option to do 3 days for 3-6 months and keep my full pay - I was not expecting this.
davesque 5y ago
While I agree with the title, the article itself is a fluff piece. It takes several paragraphs just to give hand wavy advice like, "Just remove barriers." It also feels like it can't possibly be true that people prefer flexible hours more than a four day work week as is claimed. This just feels like one startup guru trying to kid themself into thinking they can get away with avoiding substantive change and trying to justify their fee by dutifully parroting what they heard at the latest growth seminar.
karaterobot 5y ago
When I've been burned out or hated my job, I didn't take vacations, because the crushing realization that I'd have to return to work was almost worse than losing myself in the uninterrupted, repetitive, dead-eyed grind. While on vacation, I'd start thinking about the countdown to the end of the vacation. > Well, root out the real causes of burnout. I'll offer the definition that's made most sense to me. I didn't come up with it, in fact some wise person here on HN stated it: Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off. You can work like a dog to release a feature, and if the feature does what it was meant to do, and you get recognized for your contribution, how hard you worked doesn't matter as much. You are energized, excited to be part of a great team, ready to move on to the next stunning victory. On the other hand, if you work like a dog on a feature and it gets cut at the last minute, or its success is undermined by some VP's dumb idea, it sucks. If that happens over and over, without a win, you're burned out. The solution is to get a win. Work on something that you can succeed on, and succeed at it, and get rewarded for it. Could be a big thing, but even a small thing is good enough. Sounds easy, but not always even possible in a badly-run organization.
- rahimnathwani 5y ago
  "Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off." Exactly. Yet most people mistakenly attribute the feeling to other causes. OP quote what people think are the causes of their own burnout, and took those at face value. When you're burnt out, you're probably not in a good state to determine the cause.
  - tinyhouse 5y ago
    Speak for yourself. Sorry for being blunt, but you clearly know very little about burnout (good for you). If people say that they are burned out because of a bad manager, believe them instead of saying they don't know what they are talking about. There are many reasons for burnout. Working on things that don't pay off is just one of them.
    - rahimnathwani 5y ago
S_A_P 5y ago
I had a bad case of burnout 2 years ago. I think for me it wasn’t that I was overwhelmed or otherwise overworked. I was working a lot of hours, but that didn’t bother me either. What got under my skin was that I understood the systemic reasons for all the fires we were having to put out were never going to change. So the burnout was the feeling that I was unable to do anything but tread water.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  very much this, powerlessness and also inability to discuss the problem honestly, or even be heard can be the real reason behind the pain
- throw394024 5y ago
  100% agree. It's about agency. Most companies I've worked at haven't strictly followed agile, and definitely haven't allowed devs much say in prioritizing bugs. My current thought is product companies might have more of a vested interest in quality, but I'm not positive. Does anyone have any suggestions here? The only thing I've seen is most people move into management, which I'm thinking is likely the only way out from the long hours and homework/almost constant self-study.
  - distances 5y ago
    Who prioritises your bugs then? For my teams we've almost always done bugfixes outside the sprint effort with developers' own initiative. We follow crash reports and prioritise ourselves with never even telling the PO we fixed something. Product owner is left with feature ownership and doesn't have to know about the day-to-day operations except for the metrics that have business impact.
adverbly 5y ago
Vacation is when I want to complete ambitious projects that are not work related. My vacations are exhausting but worthwhile. They are like parenting. They do nothing to help burnout unless I spend them on doing nothing. How does one avoid burnout? 4 day work week. Have a day off with no kids and no travel and no work. Forced recovery time. Like sleep.
ineedasername 5y ago
I think vacations help mostly in the sense of "I just need to get through the next two months". That may help as a coping mechanism for burnout, but doesn't stop it. And of course if you have a job that perpetuates cyclical or chronic burnout, going on vacation just means that you come back to work even more buried in things that went undone. Or you sacrifice having a true vacation and still commit to working part of the time you're away.
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trynewideas 5y ago
An extended leave did nothing but make burnout worse by coming back to the careful planning left behind to mitigate my absence being thrown out days in by a meddling manager from another team who saw the vacuum as an opportunity to take over the responsibilities permanently. Looking to exit.
nikolay 5y ago
This is not much different than the fact that oversleeping during the weekend does not help with the sleep deprivation during the past week... or weeks. One needs to rest. Every. Day.
philmcp 5y ago
I run https://4dayweek.io https://4dayweek.io and during the time I spent researching companies, it blew my mind how awful the vacation policy is in some companies (especially the US) i.e. 10 days vacation shouldn't be celebrated as a benefit. Vacation isn't everything though; there have been some studies which show the positive effect of a vacation quickly disappears when work resumes. What we really need (imo) is a shorter, more focused work week (with less fluff + meetings) i.e. a 4 day work week
- verve_rat 5y ago
  Coming from a country where 4 weeks plus 11 (soon to be 12) public holidays is the legal minimum I really don't understand the US system.
  - nickjj 5y ago
    When you say 4 weeks, do you mean 20 days off because there's typically 5 work days in a week or do you mean 30 days?
    - verve_rat 5y ago
      The legislation says 4 weeks. In practice that means if you work 5 days a week you get 20 days. If you work 3 days a week you get 12 days. I have never heard of an employer that makes its employees only take whole weeks rather than a day here or there even though technically you are only entitled to "weeks" off.
      - aix1 5y ago
        > I have never heard of an employer that makes its employees only take whole weeks rather than a day here or there This could be country-specific, but in investment banking it is common to require employees to periodically take an uninterrupted block of vacation (in my country, a two-week block once per year seems typical). The rationale is to make it more difficult to perpetuate certain types of fraud, since the bad actor would need to collude with another employee to cover up in their absence. A bit of a corner case, but thought I'd mention.
blendo 5y ago
At my last job I took a 20% cut in pay to get a 4 day workweek. Every Thursday evening became “Yay! Three day weekend!”
- emdubbelyou 5y ago
  I was thinking of various 80% flexible working models and there are some great set ups. 4 on, 3 off is usual But if you break it up to two week cycles you get: 4 on, 2 off, 4 on, 4 off 4 on, 1 off, 4 on, 5 off And even wilder if you do three week cycles: 6 on, 2 off, 6 on, 7 off Imagine a full week off every third week! Of course, this likely is not very realistic because it would not line up with collaborators well.
quickthrower2 5y ago
I’ve been suffering from chronic fatigue which is different but I wonder if there are similarities. To adjust I have dropped many responsibilities at work, halved my hours to 19 and practice pacing I.e scheduled rest, consistent level of activity day to day. This has helped a lot. While not everyone can go part time I wonder if scheduled breaks of even 5 minutes each hour (with no exercise, screen time or chat) would be beneficial to most people. The other side I feel is companies keep inventing initiatives, kpis, okrs, goals and pushing that down the chain. Dumping more and more onto people and companies evolve from “cool” to “overly bureaucratic” over time. The most stress is when you need to do X to get the job done but !X to meet some other master, maybe a beloved process. (Looking at you, scrum!) It’s more stressful if when you try to negotiate out of this you are met with dogma. I tend to leave such work but I’ve seen it enough that it’s a pattern common between companies. Apparently many companies think they have mastered creative process and people management and everyone else is wrong ;-).
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dnndev 5y ago
I think it depends how long the vacation? A month long vacation for me always helps when I find myself becoming overly negative. Edit* Should add, a lot has to do with your attitude. Some things won’t change and fighting then just makes you look like a jerk in the office. Either come to peace with it or find another job. Of course after you have reasonably done what you think you can to make a difference. Many jobs are brainless 9to5 collect a paycheck do bare minimum and this is ok for a lot of people, they find creativity and joy elsewhere.
bitwize 5y ago
Get rid of your Scrum/SAFe sausage grinder, and quit thinking that adding more metrics and KPIs to an already panopticon-ish corporate environment is going to solve your productivity problems. Only then will you be able to address burnout and disgruntlement among your rank and file. The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems etc.
nwmcsween 5y ago
Burnout for me was too much responsibility. I would cope with the workload stress better over time due to efficency but the responsibility stress is still there and the more efficient you are the more responsibility you take on due to productivity.
bluedino 5y ago
I hate vacation. Stressful travel, no real downtime, spending money like there's no tomorrow.
- rnoorda 5y ago
  I've come to separate travel and vacation in my plans. They are rarely the same for me- I travel when I want to see new things, visit people, explore, etc. Vacation is largely reading, working on relaxing hobbies, or spending unstructured time with friends/family. I enjoy both, but can understand hating the stress of traveling and spending money.
throw0821374 5y ago
Does preventing burn out come down to being paid (in cash/RSU's/etc) for the productive output of others ? If you are the one generating productive surplus for others, doesn't it become hard to justify the longer it goes on. I do not understand how people can write in their resume that they helped their company generate $100 million revenue per year, while being paid < 1 million per year and not feel like they were taken for a ride.

247 points by clockworksoul 5y ago

"8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will!" - union slogan, 1920s. "Unions. The people who brought you the weekend".

Waterluvian 5y ago
I would be so miserable if it had to deal with a union. Though to be fair I am not overworked or undervalued. I imagine there’s a lot of engineers who large companies just grind through.
- Afton 5y ago
  Why would you be miserable? Union dues? occasional union communication? I'm just trying to understand what hypothetical issue you feel would be super arduous.
  - thepasswordis 5y ago
    Unions end up punishing good workers and rewarding bad ones. Believe it or not, some people enjoy their job, and enjoy being able to excel at it.
    - Afton 5y ago
      That's a ridiculously broad brush to paint unions with, and your last sentence shows lack of good faith in the discussion. Good day.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
      You're not looking very hard for counter examples. Is the screen actors guild punishing Will Smith and rewarding struggling, untalented commercial actors? Is the NBA player's association punishing LeBron and rewarding D league players? Is there even such a thing a "superstar" plumber? I mean, I'm sure there are awful plumbers and amazing plumbers - but do how much can they scale, realistically?
      - Igelau 5y ago
        The G League has its own union that isn't the NBPA. SAG is a weird example. Hard to get in without doing union work. Hard to get union work without being in the union. Can't do non-union work after you're in. The structure reeks of being rigged to temper the rate of newcomers.
      - robocat 5y ago
        I'm not sure what your point is, but famous actors and sports-stars have little to do with labour unions. A labour union is all about fighting for the rights of the undifferentiated many, not the situation where there are named celebrities in a winner's zero-sum market. When there is a pool of people waiting to take your job, and a company willing to lower working standards, you have little choice but to comply with company requests — unless you are part of a union that collectively acts in the interests of the workers. For software developers there are forces against unionisation: 1. Global outsourcing. What's the point in unionisation if your job can be done by a motivated pool of workers overseas? A union has little bargaining power at the level of outsourcing complete business units. Or buyouts: I am in New Zealand and whole companies here are purchased by American companies. 2. Many software developers are not easily replaceable. It is difficult to replace a person who has specialist software skills or internal organizational knowledge. 3. There is no pool of easily identifiable talent. 4. Developers have to be dissatisfied with working conditions. 5. Developers have to have reached a ceiling (experienced). In a fast growing industry with technical churn, less experienced developers outnumber older developers? Hard to argue with new blood why unionisation is in their interests? Edit: I did a quick search for "software developer" on https://seek.co.nz https://seek.co.nz job board and about 1% of jobs were for USD140k+ and most of that 1% were not dev jobs. I know zero developers earning >= $200k. AFAIK pay in NZ for developers is significantly below the US. Opportunity there if you want trustworthy highly skilled remote workers that speak English. Main bummer is NZ is 16 hours ahead so 3PM EST is 7AM NZ time, and Friday in the US is Saturday in NZ https://www.worldtimeserver.com/time-zones/nzst-to-est/ https://www.worldtimeserver.com/time-zones/nzst-to-est/
        onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
        > I'm not sure what your point is, but famous actors and sports-stars have little to do with labour unions. There are a TON of actors in SAG (160,000). Sure, that's more than an order of magnitude smaller than the 4.4M SWEs in the US. But the idea that everyone in SAG is a "star" is absurd. Similarly, deep bench players in the NBA - sure they are really good - but they are far from stars. And yet, most of them make substantially more money than overseas "stars". This is because of the players' union. > A labour union is all about fighting for the rights of the undifferentiated many, not the situation where there are named celebrities in a winner's zero-sum market. I think you missed my point entirely. SAG and the players' union are good for both stars and non-stars. GP seemed to think that unions by definition are bad for stars. I was merely pointing out that there are examples of unions that are not bad for stars. It just so happens these unions are also examples of unions that are also not bad for non-stars. > When there is a pool of people waiting to take your job, and a company willing to lower working standards, you have little choice but to comply with company requests — unless you are part of a union that collectively acts in the interests of the workers. Google is not unionized, and there are a million people that would take my job for much lower pay - and a lot of them could probably end up doing my job after a substantially long learning period. Despite that, I have my job. The same is true at Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft (and many other companies). Theoretically, since these are global companies with large presences all over the world - this isn't (at least) entirely because I'm a US citizen. I agree with your point for most other professions, though. And maybe this will be truer in the future for "FAANG". But, it's not really true now. > Edit: I did a quick search for "software developer" on https://seek.co.nz https://seek.co.nz job board and about 1% of jobs were for USD140k+ and most of that 1% were not dev jobs. I know zero developers earning >= $200k. AFAIK pay in NZ for developers is significantly below the US. The majority of people working at "FAANG" in NZ should be >$200k - if for no other reason than because of RSU appreciation. Not trying to be rude - but if you want to make more money - just read Cracking the Coding Interview cover to cover and get referrals at FAANG. You honestly might triple your salary. You can DM me on Reddit if you want more feedback / advice / referrals.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      Unions do sometimes make it hard to get rid of bad workers... not sure that's the same as "rewarding" them though. I can't think of examples of punishing good ones though. Union contracts frequently have defined procedures for requesting a merit pay increase with a mandatory review process, along with similar procedures for reclassification to a higher level position, also with more pay, when a person's scope of responsibilities shift over time to encompass more than the original job description indicated. I'm not in a union any longer, but that happened to me when I was: I was very good a specific portion of my job and gradually took on more complicated aspects of it. I applied for reclassification. My workplace had a maximum of 21 days to review & reply to the request, which they granted, and I got a higher title & a nice 20% increase in pay.
      - wccrawford 5y ago
        Getting to keep your job when you don't deserve it is absolutely a reward. As for punishing good workers... I've heard plenty of stories where someone was really good at their job and they just needed some small thing done that they couldn't get the right department to do, so they did it themselves. The union jumped all over them because it's contractually obligated that the other department perform that function. It was absolutely in the way of the "good worker" and they needed it to be done to improve their morale and get work flowing well. But their only choices were suffer through it, or be sanctioned for fixing it themselves. That's the punishment.
        antifa 5y ago
        Sounds like you'd have the same problem if you were a cowboy coder at a non-startup.
        ineedasername 5y ago
        That's the punishment That depends on the reason for the separation of duties. Think of a unionized construction work where a few people specialize on heavy machinery. You aren't designated as such, but you happen to know how to drive a forklift and you need something moved. I'd be pretty pissed off at you for taking it upon yourself to do it because knowing how to operate a forklift isn't the same as knowing all of the safety protocols and idiosyncracies of operating heavy machinery at that specific site. You could put yourself or others at risk, or screw up the project. Or maybe the construction company pays certain insurance premiums for each designated operator and you just opened them up to bankruptcy if there was an accident. Sometimes these barriers exist for a good reason. And sure, when you run into one it can be frustrating if it seems harmless-- even productive-- to break protocol. But it's not for each individual worker to determine which protocols they will follow and which ones they will break. That's a recipe for disaster that I have seen happen in & out of unions. The right path on that is to work to change protocol. I've done it plenty of times myself so that I could be more productive but also be in the loop on any special considerations I should be aware of, like not querying the production system directly during certain hours when it could be under high load. That doesn't means there aren't any useless barriers, but it my experience a barrier is usually--initially-- put into place for a reasonable purpose, and people get frustrated because they don't know what the purpose was. Going cowboy isn't the solution though. Asking questions and finding out if the reasons still apply, and initiating change if they don't, that's the path forward. Sometimes it doesn't work, for stupid reasons, but stupid reasons aren't the sole domain of union beauracracy. They exist everywhere. I don't know if they're more prevalent in unions, but it doesn't make sense to look at unions as useless or bad when they simply share the same behavioral patterns as any other organization of sufficient size and complexity. I have seen unions that are completely dysfunctional, I have also seen businesses that are the same (and had the misfortune of working for one or two)
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    A lot of unions can be very 'by the book' and there can be malicious compliance. There can also be multiple unions with very specific roles. From a quick search: > If your booth is a 10×10 or smaller, you may install and dismantle your own exhibit – provided you meet these requirements: > 1. The Set-up can be accomplished in 1/2 hour or less. > 2. No tools are required. > 3. Individuals performing the work must be full-time employees of the exhibiting company and cary identification to verify this fact. > Exhibitors are allowed to unpack and repack their own product (if it is cartons, not crates). They are also allowed to do technical work on their machines, such as balancing, programming, cleaning of machines, etc. Exhibitors may “hand carry” or use nothing larger than a two wheel baggage cart (rubber or plastic wheels only) to move their items. * http://www.absoluteiandd.com/union-rules/new-york-trade-show-union-rules/ http://www.absoluteiandd.com/union-rules/new-york-trade-show... > Convention center guidelines dictate that any gear one person can't carry with their hands alone must be handled by official union labor. In other words, you have to pay for people to lug your TVs and booth props from the loading dock to your booth, and it's not exactly cheap. * https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-02-21-the-costs-of-exhibiting-at-a-video-game-convention https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-02-21-the-costs-... Now if you have similar rules internal to your company, if you annoy the wrong people, they can simply act in a strictly 'compliant fashion'.
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      Certainly, there’s a lot of old entrenched unions who have come to rest on their past laurels and are now mired in bureaucracy and self-satisfaction. One would easily imagine a software engineering union to be the complete opposite of that, as such a union would be completely new and hungry.
      - Igelau 5y ago
        And it will never ever go astray.
        Apocryphon 5y ago
        It would certainly have a lower chance to, in the sense that it will have been founded in a time period after past generations' unions have gone astray, and so has the benefit of historical experience to work with and to improve, to innovate upon. Certainly tech is an industry that believes better futures are capable of being built, rather than expecting everything to always be the same level of mediocrity.
  - nvr219 5y ago
    That person might just not want to deal with the politics and the rules. I used to contract for a union and it was super political. Also, everyone got a lunch break from noon-1pm per union rules. We'd all be in a meeting (scheduled from 11-12) and at noon on the dot everyone straight up got up and left. Needed five more minutes to wrap that up? Schedule a separate meeting. Note I'm not saying that is good or bad... In fact I liked it a lot - work can wait! But the person who said they'd be miserable may just not be able to hang with that.
  - mylons 5y ago
    union dues create a huge conflict of interest for union leadership. it turns it into a career path and you become a politician. if union leadership was volunteer, and dues weren’t required, maybe that sort of union would be less susceptible to corruption.
  - pietrovismara 5y ago
    Funnily enough OP could give you no answer. It seems they just spewed without thought some of the anti-union propaganda that is so common in the US. And nowadays in Europe too, sadly.
    - Afton 5y ago
      TBF, there's not really a notification mechanism for comment replies in HN, so if you're like me, and you just occasionally check in on your comments, it's easy to miss responses until ridiculously too late. I know I have done this in the past.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  No need to be miserable in a union. If you don't like the union you just don't deal with it. Ignore their meetings & other communication. In the US at least, Per the SC's Janus ruling, public unions can no longer require fees at all, and the same goes for private unions in right-to-work states.
  - jdavis703 5y ago
    I don’t think that’s quite so cut and dry. Sure the OP can easily ignore union politics. But I’ve seen unions defending toxic people with seniority. Good luck if the union is going to bat for someone that’s been taken to HR multiple times.
    - pydry 5y ago
      >But I’ve seen unions defending toxic people with seniority. Welcome to all human institutions everywhere. Ought we dispense with courts, governments, corporations, nonprofits, clubs, police, hospitals, etc. too because they all sometimes do this?
    - pietrovismara 5y ago
      I’ve seen managers/CEOs defending toxic people with seniority. Good luck if the manager is going to bat for someone that’s been taken to HR multiple times.
  - RhysU 5y ago
    After Janus my wife could stop her union membership but she does not due to concern about repercussions from union members in terms of their ability to reduce her opportunities.

eatonphil 5y ago

> What do we do? Well, root out the real causes of burnout. If it’s not those top workplace issues, it may very well be the burn of extended, heightened stress. For employees surveyed, flexible work hours and mental health support were more popular than even a four-day work week or unlimited PTO. The point then is lots of professionals like their actual work, they just don’t like the restrictions and environment. Give direction, let them do the work. Remove barriers. PTO and a healthy work environment are both good.

sharken 5y ago
Restrictions unfortunately play a large part, e.g. changes to Production can only be done by request. Requests then take weeks to be completed even though the actual work involved can be measured in minutes Another core issue for me is the ratio between challenging tasks and more simple tasks. There should always be a few tasks to work on that are challenging, otherwise procrastination sets in which can turn into some form of burnout if nothing is done.
sneak 5y ago
The passive-aggressive lie that is "unlimited PTO" is part of the growing toxicity of startup work environments.
- stadium 5y ago
  Depends on the company! If it's inauthentic though, employees can smell it from far away.
  - CobrastanJorji 5y ago
    I have no doubt it's meant in good faith at many companies, but it's almost sure to be used unfairly. A lot of people, especially folks who don't feel safely part of whatever in-group, are going to be hesitant to push that policy, especially because being on vacation can be an imposition on your coworkers. I suspect you could implement the same policy in practice with less social anxiety by mandating N weeks of vacation and allowing additional time off upon request.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago

Once again we have a CEO pretending to know what works best for the rank and file employee. First we didn't need bonuses, we just needed a pat on the back from managers and co-workers to achieve happiness. Now, we don't need vacations if we're burnt out, instead we just need flexible hours so we can schedule our death marches around our other responsibilities and mental health resources. 10 hours is 10 hours regardless of how you schedule it. Pressure doesn't go away just because your boss describes impending doom using nice words. What's next? Desks aren't the answer for writing surfaces because our walls are already flat?

eatonphil 5y ago
I didn't assume that he meant anything like that. Digging into the company a bit: > Though results matter most and Technically Media prides itself on flexibility, as a guide, this role might expect to work roughly 40-45 hours a week. > Technically Media offers 10 paid holidays per year; 15 PTO days accrued per year with additional P TO offered progressively; as well as a month of paid parental leave. >Technically Media additionally closes its offices for the final week of the year to relax and unwind before each new year. This serves as additional paid holiday time. https://technical.ly/job/editorial-director/ https://technical.ly/job/editorial-director/ It's not the most generous but it's par for Philly area tech companies and its not a tech company, it's a journal.
- hinkley 5y ago
  > this role might expect to work roughly 40-45 hours a week. I “expect” a lot of things that never happen.
  - wccrawford 5y ago
    And for any role that already expects to work more than 40 hours a week, I expect that that's a lie and it'll be more. And never 40.

babarganesh 5y ago

I don't want "mental health support" from work. I only need that if my workplace is causing serious mental health issues in the first place. (Which it is at present.)

haswell 5y ago
A personal counterpoint: I do want mental health support from work. Many of the downsides of complex childhood trauma didn’t start to really interfere with my life until my late 20s/early 30s. When I started really struggling at a job I’d already established myself in, I learned of and am incredibly grateful for the mental health benefits offered by my employer and for leaders who are open, understanding and willing to work with me when things aren’t going well. When I first had to broach the subject, easily finding resources about the company’s EAP benefits instead of feeling like it was all some hush hush thing really helped reduce the anxiety of opening up about a difficulty topic.
- hnaccount141 5y ago
  I think it depends on what mental health support means. If it means helping pay for therapy and managers making accommodations and being genuinely supportive of people when they're having a hard time, that's fantastic. Unfortunately at many companies it just means a presentation from HR every couple of months that boils down to "10 strategies to cope with the burnout we're causing". Meanwhile the people with actual power to change things keep pushing the same "aggressive" deadlines and refusing to provide the support/resources necessary to meet them in a healthy and sustainable way.
- babarganesh 5y ago
  I think that's valid and I want that possibility for everyone. I don't want it linked to work, though.

noahtallen 5y ago

Time away from work absolutely is important for recovering from burnout. If work is causing burnout, prevention means adjusting the parts of work that cause burnout.

decebalus1 5y ago

Bullshit. Vacation [1] IS the answer for burnout. Long vacations are even more ok for burnout. Sabbaticals are the most ok. Guess what a doctor would recommend you do if you're having health issues from burnout? If there's chronic burnout in your company/org then indeed, no amount of vacation will fix that. But neither would flexible work hours or mental health support. [1] Vacation means complete and total disconnect from work or work related activities. That goes beyond not checking work emails. I'm talking no leetcode or learning some new JS framework.

suzzer99 5y ago
Agreed. We need European-style month-long vacations in the US. And sabbaticals every few years. Also we should start looking at 36 and 32-hour workweeks. We're 20x more productive than 40 years ago, yet still work the same hours or more for pay increases that barely keep up with inflation.
- dopidopHN 5y ago
  As a European living in the US since a decade. It starts to impact my mental health. I went from 8 weeks / years to 4 or 5. Currently 3. Ha. I cannot recharge the same way ( meaning : travel for weeks at a time, or chill hard for 2 weeks in a row ) It’s flexible all right. But I feel like I’m always working somehow. Work is near, lurking. I’m nursing a nice little depression that I feel a road trip would cure easily. Too bad I need to keep my last week of vacation for Christmas week.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    Mind sharing where exactly in Europe is 8 weeks vacation the norm? In Austria it's 5 weeks for everyone but law and that's what most tech companies will give you as well.
    - shell0x 5y ago
      I don't think there are 8 weeks, but 6 weeks? Spain has 30 days vacation if I'm not mistaken.

jstx1 5y ago

Burnout isn't always caused by overwhelming jobs - dull, boring, undemanding jobs with little to do can be their own hell and spiral off into depression. Then I don't need vacation; I need meaningful work.

throw0101a 5y ago

See also The Onion: > Man Returns To Work After Vacation With Fresh, Reenergized Hatred For Job * https://www.theonion.com/man-returns-to-work-after-vacation-with-fresh-reenergi-1819574342 https://www.theonion.com/man-returns-to-work-after-vacation-...

runawaybottle 5y ago
Lol. Thanks for making my day better. Edit: But to add to the comedy (all comedy is tragedy, and all tragedy is comedy according to the Greeks), that’s pretty much the reason why I don’t take vacations. It’s not going to change anything, so I much prefer to take days off so I don’t completely lose it. The sadness is hilarious.
- kekebo 5y ago
  They may not fundamentally change ones attitude towards a job, but when carefully planned and executed vacations may have the potential for creating some worthwhile times and memories
  - runawaybottle 5y ago
    It depends on how your personal incentive structure is modeled. Behaviorally, everything for me is goal oriented. I reward myself when I accomplish something (hard), this is how my parents raised me. Psychologically, I didn’t earn a vacation yet. I only take days off to rest, physically and psychologically.
- co2benzoate 5y ago
  Why not both? There are many companies and countries where you can do just that. Work a 30 hour week with a month+ vacation a year.
agumonkey 5y ago
People at the office joke about the fact that when bad weather ruins their vacations, they come back happier to work.

SkyPuncher 5y ago

I'm burnt out right now. Layoffs, a spin-out, and huge situational challenges related to both. Vacation is great, but I agree with the author here. Vacation _can_ be a tool to combat burnout - but burnout is often a result of other things besides hours worked. I've worked times of 80+ hours. While feeling worn out, I never got burnt out. I've worked times where I can barely put the effort into 30 hours/week. Right now, I'm attributing my burn out solely to the fact that we have huge amounts of "keep the lights on work" to complete the spin-out while continuing to deliver product. Neither the workload nor the type of work is bad. There's just so much of it and it's wearing. ---- For me, a vacation doesn't solve much for me. I'll be back to "more of the same". What's really helping is the change in pace of my work and the ability to get back to things that engage and excite me.

mikepurvis 5y ago
100% agree. Burn out for me has everything to do with what the work is, whether there are enough hands for it, and whether it’s being properly recognized/appreciated. It has nothing to do with the hours; indeed some of my most productive and least burnt out times have been when I was happily pouring in 60+ hrs/week because I was having fun and so energized by the project and my team’s excitement and collaboration dynamic.

dbs 5y ago

I would bet that flexible work hours are contributing for higher employee burnout.

awsthro00945 5y ago
I agree. In my experience, "flexible work hours" is often code for "everyone works weird fucking hours so instead of having a set routine, you have to be quasi-available at all times to respond to the person who decided to wait until 8pm to do the work you were waiting on". It's great for the person who needs flexibility, and shitty for everyone that depends on that person. Flexible working arrangements are great when the team is able to asynchronously work, but I have yet to see a team that really does asynchronous work right.
- dopidopHN 5y ago
  Excellent point. If the expectations is to not respond right away and not be available right away. It can be fine. I’ve seen it work. But it require discipline. In my situation the time difference were too striking to hope having synchronized interaction, and the team built on that habit. But then one day we had a major refactor in our orgs and that was gone.
- mhitza 5y ago
  > I have yet to see a team that really does asynchronous work right. I think the Linux kernel developers can be considered the biggest software team that does asynchronous work, and it works just fine. Honestly just some basic mailinglist software installation goes a long way. And an organization can still have a process in place on how to get synched when its needed (scheduled calls, impromptu emergency response situations, etc).
nickjj 5y ago
I think this is a contributor, especially with working remote where folks are spanning many time zones. A position I'm thinking about joining requires being available 9 hours between 9am-6pm EST (I live in EST) to ensure there's reasonable overlap between the west coast US and most European countries. They were really strict on these hours and at first I was against it because I thought what's the difference if I work 2 hours early one day and clock out early or decide to be unavailable for 3 hours in the afternoon (1h lunch break + the 2 hours). But the more I think about it, the more I think it's a better system for everyone in the end when everyone has strict hours. I wouldn't want to be expected to review a PR at 7pm EST because someone else decided to start a bit later one day. They have no problem for exceptions like leaving early for a doctor's appointment or picking someone up. The only rule here is you need to give a few days notice which is also reasonable because it lets your team members know you won't be around when you usually are. They don't need to know the details, only that you won't be around. They're also ok if you need to bail without notice because it's something important. Basically don't abuse the system and it's all good.

paulpauper 5y ago

The issue is also people bringing their work to vacation. This lowers the effectiveness of vacations.

jonnycomputer 5y ago

It is not the answer, but definitely part of the answer. When I have to work twice as hard before and after vacation, to make up for it, well, that's pretty damn exhausting.

foolinaround 5y ago

unless the entire team/company takes vacation at the same time, it is not too helpful. the person comes back to a ton of work waiting for him. also, when others take vacation, the work pace often does not stop, and the person, who himself is going through a burnout phase, takes on even more load

awsthro00945 5y ago

Not only is it not the answer, vacation can actually be a contributor to burnout, IME. In my current role, taking PTO is a legitimate punishment. If I take a day off, there is nobody else on my team who has capacity to pick up my work in my absence. When I return from PTO, not only do I now have double the amount of work to catch up on, but I also have 15 emails from angry managers upset that I didn't get to their request sooner. "you should just take some vacation" is often a convenient escape hatch for managers that want to seem like they're helping, but without actually putting any effort into solving the problems that make people want to escape from work in the first place.

dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago
Weird. If you're the king of the jungle then it doesn't matter what your managers or their emails or schedules say, now does it? Take your PTO and let the rabble do their rabbling, they can't fire you or else they'd be getting rid of by far the best man on their team and they wouldn't want that, right?
stuff4ben 5y ago
If you can't afford to take a day off, then that's on you my friend. The people on your team can take up your slack if you let them. I work for someone just like you. He hoards all of the meetings and knowledge and "power" (for lack of a better word). When he goes on PTO, things halt when they shouldn't. Me and others on my squad can pick up the slack. But gatekeeping and knowledge-hoarding prevent us from helping out. Not a big deal for me, but I'm sure my squad-lead will get burned out eventually. I have warned him about that in our 1:1's, but nothings changed...
- awsthro00945 5y ago
  >If you can't afford to take a day off, then that's on you my friend. The people on your team can take up your slack if you let them. I work for someone just like you. He hoards all of the meetings and knowledge and "power" (for lack of a better word). Lmao. Nobody else on my team can take up slack because they have literally no space on their calendar. My team is currently at half of our target headcount. Every person is currently working 60 hour weeks and is still behind. "If I let them"? "hoarding meetings"? Please, keep your assumptions about my workstyle to yourself. I literally beg my teammates and managers to join my meetings and share the load, but nobody has the time.

rubicon33 5y ago

I think burnout is mostly related to a lack of intrinsic motivation / reward. When you're no longer deeply interested in what you're doing, it feels like a grind whether its 30 hours a week or 80.

mcast 5y ago
There are many root causes for burnout, but companies not properly valuing and appreciating their employees is definitely a big one!

dimeatree 5y ago

My solution to burn out was to go down to part-time; I have been incredibly fortunate that my work place supported my decision to go down to 4 days a week, with the option to do 3 days for 3-6 months and keep my full pay - I was not expecting this.

davesque 5y ago

While I agree with the title, the article itself is a fluff piece. It takes several paragraphs just to give hand wavy advice like, "Just remove barriers." It also feels like it can't possibly be true that people prefer flexible hours more than a four day work week as is claimed. This just feels like one startup guru trying to kid themself into thinking they can get away with avoiding substantive change and trying to justify their fee by dutifully parroting what they heard at the latest growth seminar.

karaterobot 5y ago

When I've been burned out or hated my job, I didn't take vacations, because the crushing realization that I'd have to return to work was almost worse than losing myself in the uninterrupted, repetitive, dead-eyed grind. While on vacation, I'd start thinking about the countdown to the end of the vacation. > Well, root out the real causes of burnout. I'll offer the definition that's made most sense to me. I didn't come up with it, in fact some wise person here on HN stated it: Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off. You can work like a dog to release a feature, and if the feature does what it was meant to do, and you get recognized for your contribution, how hard you worked doesn't matter as much. You are energized, excited to be part of a great team, ready to move on to the next stunning victory. On the other hand, if you work like a dog on a feature and it gets cut at the last minute, or its success is undermined by some VP's dumb idea, it sucks. If that happens over and over, without a win, you're burned out. The solution is to get a win. Work on something that you can succeed on, and succeed at it, and get rewarded for it. Could be a big thing, but even a small thing is good enough. Sounds easy, but not always even possible in a badly-run organization.

rahimnathwani 5y ago
"Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off." Exactly. Yet most people mistakenly attribute the feeling to other causes. OP quote what people think are the causes of their own burnout, and took those at face value. When you're burnt out, you're probably not in a good state to determine the cause.
- tinyhouse 5y ago
  Speak for yourself. Sorry for being blunt, but you clearly know very little about burnout (good for you). If people say that they are burned out because of a bad manager, believe them instead of saying they don't know what they are talking about. There are many reasons for burnout. Working on things that don't pay off is just one of them.
  - rahimnathwani 5y ago

S_A_P 5y ago

I had a bad case of burnout 2 years ago. I think for me it wasn’t that I was overwhelmed or otherwise overworked. I was working a lot of hours, but that didn’t bother me either. What got under my skin was that I understood the systemic reasons for all the fires we were having to put out were never going to change. So the burnout was the feeling that I was unable to do anything but tread water.

agumonkey 5y ago
very much this, powerlessness and also inability to discuss the problem honestly, or even be heard can be the real reason behind the pain
throw394024 5y ago
100% agree. It's about agency. Most companies I've worked at haven't strictly followed agile, and definitely haven't allowed devs much say in prioritizing bugs. My current thought is product companies might have more of a vested interest in quality, but I'm not positive. Does anyone have any suggestions here? The only thing I've seen is most people move into management, which I'm thinking is likely the only way out from the long hours and homework/almost constant self-study.
- distances 5y ago
  Who prioritises your bugs then? For my teams we've almost always done bugfixes outside the sprint effort with developers' own initiative. We follow crash reports and prioritise ourselves with never even telling the PO we fixed something. Product owner is left with feature ownership and doesn't have to know about the day-to-day operations except for the metrics that have business impact.

adverbly 5y ago

Vacation is when I want to complete ambitious projects that are not work related. My vacations are exhausting but worthwhile. They are like parenting. They do nothing to help burnout unless I spend them on doing nothing. How does one avoid burnout? 4 day work week. Have a day off with no kids and no travel and no work. Forced recovery time. Like sleep.

ineedasername 5y ago

I think vacations help mostly in the sense of "I just need to get through the next two months". That may help as a coping mechanism for burnout, but doesn't stop it. And of course if you have a job that perpetuates cyclical or chronic burnout, going on vacation just means that you come back to work even more buried in things that went undone. Or you sacrifice having a true vacation and still commit to working part of the time you're away.

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trynewideas 5y ago

An extended leave did nothing but make burnout worse by coming back to the careful planning left behind to mitigate my absence being thrown out days in by a meddling manager from another team who saw the vacuum as an opportunity to take over the responsibilities permanently. Looking to exit.

nikolay 5y ago

This is not much different than the fact that oversleeping during the weekend does not help with the sleep deprivation during the past week... or weeks. One needs to rest. Every. Day.

philmcp 5y ago

I run https://4dayweek.io https://4dayweek.io and during the time I spent researching companies, it blew my mind how awful the vacation policy is in some companies (especially the US) i.e. 10 days vacation shouldn't be celebrated as a benefit. Vacation isn't everything though; there have been some studies which show the positive effect of a vacation quickly disappears when work resumes. What we really need (imo) is a shorter, more focused work week (with less fluff + meetings) i.e. a 4 day work week

verve_rat 5y ago
Coming from a country where 4 weeks plus 11 (soon to be 12) public holidays is the legal minimum I really don't understand the US system.
- nickjj 5y ago
  When you say 4 weeks, do you mean 20 days off because there's typically 5 work days in a week or do you mean 30 days?
  - verve_rat 5y ago
    The legislation says 4 weeks. In practice that means if you work 5 days a week you get 20 days. If you work 3 days a week you get 12 days. I have never heard of an employer that makes its employees only take whole weeks rather than a day here or there even though technically you are only entitled to "weeks" off.
    - aix1 5y ago
      > I have never heard of an employer that makes its employees only take whole weeks rather than a day here or there This could be country-specific, but in investment banking it is common to require employees to periodically take an uninterrupted block of vacation (in my country, a two-week block once per year seems typical). The rationale is to make it more difficult to perpetuate certain types of fraud, since the bad actor would need to collude with another employee to cover up in their absence. A bit of a corner case, but thought I'd mention.

blendo 5y ago

At my last job I took a 20% cut in pay to get a 4 day workweek. Every Thursday evening became “Yay! Three day weekend!”

emdubbelyou 5y ago
I was thinking of various 80% flexible working models and there are some great set ups. 4 on, 3 off is usual But if you break it up to two week cycles you get: 4 on, 2 off, 4 on, 4 off 4 on, 1 off, 4 on, 5 off And even wilder if you do three week cycles: 6 on, 2 off, 6 on, 7 off Imagine a full week off every third week! Of course, this likely is not very realistic because it would not line up with collaborators well.

quickthrower2 5y ago

I’ve been suffering from chronic fatigue which is different but I wonder if there are similarities. To adjust I have dropped many responsibilities at work, halved my hours to 19 and practice pacing I.e scheduled rest, consistent level of activity day to day. This has helped a lot. While not everyone can go part time I wonder if scheduled breaks of even 5 minutes each hour (with no exercise, screen time or chat) would be beneficial to most people. The other side I feel is companies keep inventing initiatives, kpis, okrs, goals and pushing that down the chain. Dumping more and more onto people and companies evolve from “cool” to “overly bureaucratic” over time. The most stress is when you need to do X to get the job done but !X to meet some other master, maybe a beloved process. (Looking at you, scrum!) It’s more stressful if when you try to negotiate out of this you are met with dogma. I tend to leave such work but I’ve seen it enough that it’s a pattern common between companies. Apparently many companies think they have mastered creative process and people management and everyone else is wrong ;-).

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dnndev 5y ago

I think it depends how long the vacation? A month long vacation for me always helps when I find myself becoming overly negative. Edit* Should add, a lot has to do with your attitude. Some things won’t change and fighting then just makes you look like a jerk in the office. Either come to peace with it or find another job. Of course after you have reasonably done what you think you can to make a difference. Many jobs are brainless 9to5 collect a paycheck do bare minimum and this is ok for a lot of people, they find creativity and joy elsewhere.

bitwize 5y ago

Get rid of your Scrum/SAFe sausage grinder, and quit thinking that adding more metrics and KPIs to an already panopticon-ish corporate environment is going to solve your productivity problems. Only then will you be able to address burnout and disgruntlement among your rank and file. The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems etc.

nwmcsween 5y ago

Burnout for me was too much responsibility. I would cope with the workload stress better over time due to efficency but the responsibility stress is still there and the more efficient you are the more responsibility you take on due to productivity.

bluedino 5y ago

I hate vacation. Stressful travel, no real downtime, spending money like there's no tomorrow.

rnoorda 5y ago
I've come to separate travel and vacation in my plans. They are rarely the same for me- I travel when I want to see new things, visit people, explore, etc. Vacation is largely reading, working on relaxing hobbies, or spending unstructured time with friends/family. I enjoy both, but can understand hating the stress of traveling and spending money.

throw0821374 5y ago

Does preventing burn out come down to being paid (in cash/RSU's/etc) for the productive output of others ? If you are the one generating productive surplus for others, doesn't it become hard to justify the longer it goes on. I do not understand how people can write in their resume that they helped their company generate $100 million revenue per year, while being paid < 1 million per year and not feel like they were taken for a ride.