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Ways to improve mental health for software developers

77 points by heymax054 5y ago

alexchantavy 5y ago
I really like this quote > Some of the foundational building blocks of our software world were built by people who knew one another only by mailing list or IRC channel. Software was built, but, perhaps even more importantly, strong connections were made. With this in mind it seems silly many software companies are stubbornly insisting work-from-office.
akersten 5y ago
Yeah yeah EAP and watercooler conversations. Here's some things that would actually make my life and mental health as developer at a large game company better: - Eliminate crunch time due to management's bad planning - If crunch time is "unavoidable," apologize and pay me for it. 1.5x for every hour over 40 would go a long way towards making me not resent the blundering middle managers that got us into the "we have to release yesterday" situation - Know what's important; when everything is "top priority," nothing is, and your developers have no idea what they should work on next - Weekly team meetings are for positive reinforcement, not "things are looking fine but we gotta keep pushing." That kind of "motivation" is extremely heavy on the mind - Remind us that sick days are for both physical and mental health and encourage us to use them if we need them
- hasmolo 5y ago
  bruh, this is the whole “boomer” management style. constantly implying your staff could do more, while cooly restricting praise and autonomy to just poison your org. these sort of “leaders” best quality is that their management style dies with their generation, if we try hard as a group to kill it.
  - fartcannon 5y ago
    Boomers? I'm getting tired of reading this. Youre being manipulated by partisan politics.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    Not a "boomer" myself, but I strongly dislike the hate that gets sent towards them. We should be very thankful for a lot of the stuff they did for us. Also, I'd rather work with the average "boomer" than most people who deride "boomers".
  - wonderwonder 5y ago
    Amazing to me the arbitrary groups people feel they are allowed to discriminate against. Lets just insult a few dozen million people because of when they were born and actively pine for their demise because social media tells me they are what's wrong with everything. Hate is not a good look on you friend.
    - tartoran 5y ago
      I agree with the sentiment aimed at boomers in general is not warranted but the op was talking about boomer management style which is just a subset of that and it is what we have in large part now
      - wonderwonder 5y ago
        "boomer management style" is not a thing. Are you saying that all people of a set generation manage in the exact same way. Are you also saying that all people younger than that generation are much better? Trade the word boomer out for Jewish, black, or your group of choice, see if it works.
        tartoran 5y ago
        Im not saying any of the things you imply and really dislike your not so subtle racism or antisemitism innuendo. All I’m saying is that a certain management style born in a previous era is no longer working. I mentioned that I don’t like the ire at boomers or any particular group except for a subset of it and that is the management style. If the newer generation used the same style it won’t make a difference, what im hoping for is a fresh start. This discussion is regarding mental work related health and this is the frame in which Im making this comment
        wonderwonder 5y ago
        I am not saying you are racist or antisemitic (apologies if it came off that way), I am saying that casually discriminating against an entire group just for when they were born or holding a group responsible for the actions of a few is how we got racism and antisemitism. Its not ok to label a group of people with a casual slur "Boomer" and then assign responsibility for things we disagree with to that group, when each person in that group is an individual and should be treated as such.
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    > whole “boomer” management style Can we please not point the finger at whole categories of people simply based on their age?
  - hyperman1 5y ago
    The last few months I see a lot of these age base remark. Boomer. Gen Z. Millenial. Each with their own long list of bad qualities, so other age groups have a reason to look down on them. I don't actually believe this is natural anymore. This must be orchestrated. Somewhere, some group is cynically pushing this narrative. Are they luring eyeballs by pushing divisive articles? Are they distracting from bigger problems? I don't know, but this feels fabricated.
    - russelldjimmy 5y ago
      Yes, it certainly is orchestrated but not necessarily consciously. Any business looks for results. Media companies will do whatever brings in results. What brings in results? Sowing discord and division because that’s what keeps people coming back. How do we sow division? By making strawmen of anything we don’t understand. When a millennial says “boomer” and when a boomer hears “boomer”, they are talking about completely different things. But the word “boomer” gives us the illusion that we’re all talking about the same thing and that the other person truly is out to “get us”. These are unfortunate tricks of the mind that are being used to serve our short term ego-gratifying needs. If any progress is to be made, we need to rise above these petty squabbles by focusing on what’s important and not what someone else tells us is important.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  I'd be curious if not most of workers issues all across the economy boils down to basically this. People in charge should be in charge, communicate well and strong, if they fail they compensate for it a bit, and acknowledge people's effort when things are harder.
  - black_13 5y ago
    Its pay pay pay thats it those who employ us are trying wringing out the last little bit as the did in all other parts of the economy. We are experiencing what was going on in the steel automotive sectors in 70s. No wonder ppl are crazy miserable and burnt out.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > - If crunch time is "unavoidable," apologize and pay me for it. 1.5x for every hour over 40 would go a long way towards making me not resent the blundering middle managers that got us into the "we have to release yesterday" situation This doesn’t really work in practice. You’d think that forcing the company to pay more to hit a deadline would be a disincentive, but instead it makes crunch time forgivable because the company is paying extra for it. “What are you complaining about? You’re getting time and a half to work those extra 20 hours!” It also does nothing to address the core problem of overwork leading to burnout. If anything, it lures people deeper into burnout because for many people it’s hard to turn down extra money. Finally, I haven’t seen good results from offering crunch time pay incentives for many reasons, but the most unexpected is that the incentives are very lopsided across the team. An experienced developer who has young kids at home may not be able to stay late, but an inexperienced junior straight of college with nearly zero external obligations may be able to put in 80 hours of poking around the codebase while racking up huge paychecks for contributing very little. Worst case, the seniors end up with even more work because they have to go back and rework a project that was done by juniors working crunch time while their usual senior/mentor peers were unavailable. The incentives of extra hourly crunch time payouts get weird very quickly.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  How about this? Treat software engineers like they actually know something. If an engineer thinks something is a bad idea, actually listen to them instead of pretending to listen. It amazes me how many companies see software engineers as extremely low tier, but I think a lot of that stems from most engineers lacking direct involvement with decision makers and other personnel. This is why I am pessimistic about the concept of having project managers act as an interface between engineering and the rest of the company. On one hand, it relieves engineers of a certain amount of responsibility but the tradeoff is that now one or two individuals have an incentive to do things to please both parties at once. The result is that no one really knows what that engineer guy Al actually does around here. Perhaps a lot of problems around engineering morale would go away if we eliminated the middle men and only engineers themselves to interface with the rest of the company and advocate what they think makes sense rather than what makes sense to a project manager who will only do what results in the least amount of hassle for them. It would be up to the engineers themselves to make sure they aren't culturally segregated and made low tier. If you're an engineer and your company gives the sales people their own desks while you have to share a desk, consider how much that company actually values you.
  - wreath 5y ago
    The alternative is to have engineering managers be the interface between engineers and business, product managers partner up with the engineering managers and team leads do the project management part along with EM. Product tells the team what business problems are worth solving and then gets out of the way completely. EM and Team lead are who decide on timeline and deadlines after consulting with the rest.
    - ravenstine 5y ago
      That's essentially what I'm arguing against, although what you are suggesting is somewhat common and is slightly better in that at least someone whom is supposedly an engineer is involved. My problem with your solution is that, practically speaking, engineering managers often end up being glorified vice project managers because of the number of meetings they end up in. As a result, they can be significantly disconnected from the actual technology being used and the perils they are fraught with that can cause complications when implementing even simple features. At least an EM knows something about engineering. And an EM is a role that indeed should exist in some capacity, whether or not that's the exact title they are given. What I believe would be better is for engineering teams to be involved in the early to middle stages of planning and pre-development, and for either an EM or team lead to have the authority to prevent product owners and other departments from applying undue pressure on individual engineers. That should be the primary role of a lead, and they should otherwise step out of the way and let engineers speak for themselves since they are the ones working directly with the software and APIs being used. Otherwise, we end up with a similar problem to the one I witness, which is that the EM in your approach would end up being incentivized towards diplomacy more so than serving the needs of either side. A leader-as-an-interface shields both parties from each other but also facilitates alienation. An EM that works in tandem with the engineering team can make sense, but standing between engineering and other company operations to me is an anti-pattern. Middle men are better off not existing at all even if it means having no EM or PM. All they do is remove power from both sides rather than become involved on an as-needed basis.
- novok 5y ago
  Just get out of the game development industry and move to another software development type. It's much better on the other side. It was obviously bad in 2004 with public exposes, and it is still the same today: https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html Game development will improve its working conditions when nobody wants to work for a game company, until then they will be underpaid and overworked compared other software development types. There is a crazy hot hiring market elsewhere in the industry, do your part by walking away.
kubb 5y ago
Stand up from your desk and take a walk in nature, not kidding.
- dukeofdoom 5y ago
  Best advice! I would add kayaking to that. You get to see nature from another perspective, and use your arms for a complete workout. Sunsets on a lake are amazing.
- krisrm 5y ago
  Strong agree on this. Whenever I find my shoulders getting tight with stress, a walk outside might not fix everything, but it sure makes a difference.
  - asdfuiopasdf 5y ago
    If your shoulders get tight from typing, consider using two keyboards or a (more expensive) split style.
- amelius 5y ago
  How about massages, yoga and meditation sessions?
atmartins 5y ago
Many of the things listed in the article burn me out, though. Any additional expectations about team building or water cooler talk only extend the amount of time I'm ignoring my family and shackled to the screen. My employer or coworkers are not who I look to for improvements with mental health as I feel it is a very personal topic. I wish there was more respecting boundaries. A tech manager is not equipped to deal with the mental struggles people may have and so this just comes across as a cheap way to increase productivity (or to prevent a decrease). Some of the passive suggestions are better, such as making time off or other resources available. Trying to force anything or intervene even with games or other interruptions is wrong imo. Even an invite "that the whole team is doing" feels like pressure. At a minimum it's an interruption and another context switch. I'd personally rather take that hour to walk and get some fresh air, so I'm not focusing on my screen for an unrelated thing. I know everyone's different but this is how I feel when I hear or read about this kind of thing. It reminds me of something I heard a long time ago "you may have the right message but be the wrong person to deliver it". Let work be work and let people recharge with family and friends if they prefer.
- irrational 5y ago
  Yes. Nothing stresses me out more than talking to other people. Going on an hour long walk by myself (hopefully in a nature setting) is what I need. But when I work in an office there is a stigma against just getting up and walking away for awhile. Butts in seats. This is one of the reasons I love working from home. My mental health has improved infinity fold since starting to work from home.
  - yodsanklai 5y ago
    > Nothing stresses me out more than talking to other people I'm in the same boat. That, and also the bright artificial lights in our huge open space. There's almost no natural light in the whole building which I find extremely disturbing. Luckily we can work from home almost full time now. Hope we won't go back to normal.
- ecf 5y ago
  > Let work be work and let people recharge with family and friends if they prefer. Instead of that, you’ll get HR peddling their Modern Health subscription that they’re paying unknown amounts for.
pdimitar 5y ago
Critical mistake in this article: assuming that more activities at work will reduce or even stop work-induced burnout. No. Send me a compensation for working hard to launch your project and order me to rest for a week. I'll figure out what to do to unwind, don't you bother yourself with this -- it's on me and I'll handle it.
- zz865 5y ago
  True that many people are different. Lots of working parents can only spare 40 hrs/week which suits them best. Lots of singles or parents with SAH partners who want to do the full on jobs and make money.
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    Everyone eventually figures it out that more work does not equal more enjoyment. Absolutely everyone, no exceptions. I've seen hyperactive super-ambitious and rich people who lived and breathed work for 99% of their lives and who would probably suffer a nervous breakdown if they had to take a long weekend by the sea with their partner. And I saw them again when they were 70 years old. They were crying and saying how much they regret not spending more time with their kids and grand-kids. Quite a sad sight but also very educational... The difference [among people] that you speak of is very closely correlated to age and life/work experience. I've known people who realized that work is duping them to have almost no personal life and to cheer for other people's success... at 24 years old (quite impressive IMO). I myself finally started catching up with that fact, as dumb and slow as I am, at 36. And yeah, others learn it at 70. It's OK to be ambitious and build a lucrative career (or an empire). The key factor here is knowing when to stop and/or how much % of your waking time you should be dedicating to work. Life is not all about work, never was, never will be. There's a good reason humans were hunter-gatherers for likely tens, if not hundreds, of millennia.
BIackSwan 5y ago
I have been writing a book about how software developers should approach taking care of their mental health - self.debug. You can download it for free here - https://leanpub.com/selfdebug https://leanpub.com/selfdebug Its rough and incomplete. Would be great to get some feedback on this.
- AlexCoventry 5y ago
  If you were able to add an excerpt from the book, it might help with sales.
  - mgkimsal 5y ago
    it's free to download. just set the price to $0. I've not finished it yet, but I can say I was a bit... wary because it hadn't been touched in ... 18 months I think? No shade on the author there - putting your work out there is great. I'm only about 15% through it so far, but it's not bad.
    - AlexCoventry 5y ago
      Thanks.
    - BIackSwan 5y ago
      Thanks. I havent had the mindspace to continue working on it since the startup I cofounded has taken off due to covid. Context - We provide medical diagnostic tests B2C in India.
      - mgkimsal 5y ago
        Thank you for the followup. And thank you for the writing (and the free option). I like what I've read so far, and plan to digest more in the next few days. You may have moved on, but I'd encourage you to try to wrap it up, and give it a "it's done" stamp, in whatever form it is.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
> Google famously uses an approach of giving 20% of a worker’s time to be used for anything they found interesting. I have been told that Google is no longer doing this. Is my information incorrect?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- BurningFrog 5y ago
  When i was there in 2006-2009, it only existed in theory. Sure, you could do a 20% project, but you would still be judged only on what you accomplished in you regular role.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Are you saying that anything positive that came from a 20% time project would not be added to the judgment of what you accomplished? That seems terribly short-sighted (and unwise on Google’s part).
    - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
      I seem to remember a couple of fairly major initiatives (was Go one?) that Google proudly said came from "20% time." It seems insane that they would not recognize it.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        I’d read that GMail also originated from it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_project_time#Google_implementation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_project_time#Google_imp... > Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page advised that workers “spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google”. I can’t imagine the founders would encourage that line of thinking and then not reward people who created benefit for Google from it. I can believe that if you worked your regular role at 80% and did a 20% project that yielded no benefit that you would be judged only on your regular role (which also seems “whelp, that’s fair enough; no sense penalizing someone for trying. We’ll just judge them on what they did accomplish.”)
stbenjam 5y ago
Oh god, EAP are the worst most useless benefits. Good luck trying to use them. The free therapy sessions offered were unbookable. Only a handful of providers, who had no availability. When I found one after months of trying, they ghosted me for our virtual visit. I was suffering horrible from anxiety and panic attacks and that honestly made things worse. I felt relieved to be able to talk about it and then got the rug pulled right out from under me.
- BigRedDog1669 5y ago
  Totally agree, the health care plan my very large company offered had months long wait times for therapists. The company would send email "We care about mental health" with a list of resources and EAP stuff. When I emailed them about the unavailability of therapy through their insurance they had no response. I tried using the internal EAP and it had so many limits and hurdles that it added more stress.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- BadCookie 5y ago
  I had a similar experience. After my dad died, I thought it might help to talk to someone. My EAP benefit turned out to be useless. There’s a shortage of mental health professionals that didn’t exist before—or at least was made much worse by—the pandemic.
  - novok 5y ago
    EAPs that are like this are like this because they want to control costs via rate limiting. Therapists have a hard time joining them too because they will only hire a set amount. The shortage is more in mental health professionals who take insurance. If your willing to pay full fee and then submit a super bill to your provider to get part of the cost back, you'll find therapists fairly quickly.
rbanffy 5y ago
Workday started what they called "Thank You Fridays". One Friday off, every two weeks. Some teams would take them all at once, while others would split so that the function wasn't left uncovered. Not sure if it's still happening.
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  This sounds like a great incentive. I feel like a 4 day work week is really the best motivation.
cyberpunk 5y ago
I mean what a non article. It essentially boils down to “more autonomy, education and work life balance”. Yes. We know. I can’t speak for anyone else but what improved my mental health was recognising my distraction techniques for what they were, and addressing the root cause of those (e.g drinking in evenings to numb how utterly pointless this existence sometimes can feel; and solving it by learning to do stuff with my hands — in this case carpentry) I doubt you’ll gleam much wisdom from such an article. Maybe do some meditation, cut down on the booze and find something unrelated to work that makes you happy and just accept that work occasionally sucks for everyone.. Anyway, ymmv

77 points by heymax054 5y ago

I really like this quote > Some of the foundational building blocks of our software world were built by people who knew one another only by mailing list or IRC channel. Software was built, but, perhaps even more importantly, strong connections were made. With this in mind it seems silly many software companies are stubbornly insisting work-from-office.

akersten 5y ago

Yeah yeah EAP and watercooler conversations. Here's some things that would actually make my life and mental health as developer at a large game company better: - Eliminate crunch time due to management's bad planning - If crunch time is "unavoidable," apologize and pay me for it. 1.5x for every hour over 40 would go a long way towards making me not resent the blundering middle managers that got us into the "we have to release yesterday" situation - Know what's important; when everything is "top priority," nothing is, and your developers have no idea what they should work on next - Weekly team meetings are for positive reinforcement, not "things are looking fine but we gotta keep pushing." That kind of "motivation" is extremely heavy on the mind - Remind us that sick days are for both physical and mental health and encourage us to use them if we need them

hasmolo 5y ago
bruh, this is the whole “boomer” management style. constantly implying your staff could do more, while cooly restricting praise and autonomy to just poison your org. these sort of “leaders” best quality is that their management style dies with their generation, if we try hard as a group to kill it.
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Boomers? I'm getting tired of reading this. Youre being manipulated by partisan politics.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  Not a "boomer" myself, but I strongly dislike the hate that gets sent towards them. We should be very thankful for a lot of the stuff they did for us. Also, I'd rather work with the average "boomer" than most people who deride "boomers".
- wonderwonder 5y ago
  Amazing to me the arbitrary groups people feel they are allowed to discriminate against. Lets just insult a few dozen million people because of when they were born and actively pine for their demise because social media tells me they are what's wrong with everything. Hate is not a good look on you friend.
  - tartoran 5y ago
    I agree with the sentiment aimed at boomers in general is not warranted but the op was talking about boomer management style which is just a subset of that and it is what we have in large part now
    - wonderwonder 5y ago
      "boomer management style" is not a thing. Are you saying that all people of a set generation manage in the exact same way. Are you also saying that all people younger than that generation are much better? Trade the word boomer out for Jewish, black, or your group of choice, see if it works.
      - tartoran 5y ago
        Im not saying any of the things you imply and really dislike your not so subtle racism or antisemitism innuendo. All I’m saying is that a certain management style born in a previous era is no longer working. I mentioned that I don’t like the ire at boomers or any particular group except for a subset of it and that is the management style. If the newer generation used the same style it won’t make a difference, what im hoping for is a fresh start. This discussion is regarding mental work related health and this is the frame in which Im making this comment
        wonderwonder 5y ago
        I am not saying you are racist or antisemitic (apologies if it came off that way), I am saying that casually discriminating against an entire group just for when they were born or holding a group responsible for the actions of a few is how we got racism and antisemitism. Its not ok to label a group of people with a casual slur "Boomer" and then assign responsibility for things we disagree with to that group, when each person in that group is an individual and should be treated as such.
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > whole “boomer” management style Can we please not point the finger at whole categories of people simply based on their age?
- hyperman1 5y ago
  The last few months I see a lot of these age base remark. Boomer. Gen Z. Millenial. Each with their own long list of bad qualities, so other age groups have a reason to look down on them. I don't actually believe this is natural anymore. This must be orchestrated. Somewhere, some group is cynically pushing this narrative. Are they luring eyeballs by pushing divisive articles? Are they distracting from bigger problems? I don't know, but this feels fabricated.
  - russelldjimmy 5y ago
    Yes, it certainly is orchestrated but not necessarily consciously. Any business looks for results. Media companies will do whatever brings in results. What brings in results? Sowing discord and division because that’s what keeps people coming back. How do we sow division? By making strawmen of anything we don’t understand. When a millennial says “boomer” and when a boomer hears “boomer”, they are talking about completely different things. But the word “boomer” gives us the illusion that we’re all talking about the same thing and that the other person truly is out to “get us”. These are unfortunate tricks of the mind that are being used to serve our short term ego-gratifying needs. If any progress is to be made, we need to rise above these petty squabbles by focusing on what’s important and not what someone else tells us is important.
agumonkey 5y ago
I'd be curious if not most of workers issues all across the economy boils down to basically this. People in charge should be in charge, communicate well and strong, if they fail they compensate for it a bit, and acknowledge people's effort when things are harder.
- black_13 5y ago
  Its pay pay pay thats it those who employ us are trying wringing out the last little bit as the did in all other parts of the economy. We are experiencing what was going on in the steel automotive sectors in 70s. No wonder ppl are crazy miserable and burnt out.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> - If crunch time is "unavoidable," apologize and pay me for it. 1.5x for every hour over 40 would go a long way towards making me not resent the blundering middle managers that got us into the "we have to release yesterday" situation This doesn’t really work in practice. You’d think that forcing the company to pay more to hit a deadline would be a disincentive, but instead it makes crunch time forgivable because the company is paying extra for it. “What are you complaining about? You’re getting time and a half to work those extra 20 hours!” It also does nothing to address the core problem of overwork leading to burnout. If anything, it lures people deeper into burnout because for many people it’s hard to turn down extra money. Finally, I haven’t seen good results from offering crunch time pay incentives for many reasons, but the most unexpected is that the incentives are very lopsided across the team. An experienced developer who has young kids at home may not be able to stay late, but an inexperienced junior straight of college with nearly zero external obligations may be able to put in 80 hours of poking around the codebase while racking up huge paychecks for contributing very little. Worst case, the seniors end up with even more work because they have to go back and rework a project that was done by juniors working crunch time while their usual senior/mentor peers were unavailable. The incentives of extra hourly crunch time payouts get weird very quickly.
ravenstine 5y ago
How about this? Treat software engineers like they actually know something. If an engineer thinks something is a bad idea, actually listen to them instead of pretending to listen. It amazes me how many companies see software engineers as extremely low tier, but I think a lot of that stems from most engineers lacking direct involvement with decision makers and other personnel. This is why I am pessimistic about the concept of having project managers act as an interface between engineering and the rest of the company. On one hand, it relieves engineers of a certain amount of responsibility but the tradeoff is that now one or two individuals have an incentive to do things to please both parties at once. The result is that no one really knows what that engineer guy Al actually does around here. Perhaps a lot of problems around engineering morale would go away if we eliminated the middle men and only engineers themselves to interface with the rest of the company and advocate what they think makes sense rather than what makes sense to a project manager who will only do what results in the least amount of hassle for them. It would be up to the engineers themselves to make sure they aren't culturally segregated and made low tier. If you're an engineer and your company gives the sales people their own desks while you have to share a desk, consider how much that company actually values you.
- wreath 5y ago
  The alternative is to have engineering managers be the interface between engineers and business, product managers partner up with the engineering managers and team leads do the project management part along with EM. Product tells the team what business problems are worth solving and then gets out of the way completely. EM and Team lead are who decide on timeline and deadlines after consulting with the rest.
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    That's essentially what I'm arguing against, although what you are suggesting is somewhat common and is slightly better in that at least someone whom is supposedly an engineer is involved. My problem with your solution is that, practically speaking, engineering managers often end up being glorified vice project managers because of the number of meetings they end up in. As a result, they can be significantly disconnected from the actual technology being used and the perils they are fraught with that can cause complications when implementing even simple features. At least an EM knows something about engineering. And an EM is a role that indeed should exist in some capacity, whether or not that's the exact title they are given. What I believe would be better is for engineering teams to be involved in the early to middle stages of planning and pre-development, and for either an EM or team lead to have the authority to prevent product owners and other departments from applying undue pressure on individual engineers. That should be the primary role of a lead, and they should otherwise step out of the way and let engineers speak for themselves since they are the ones working directly with the software and APIs being used. Otherwise, we end up with a similar problem to the one I witness, which is that the EM in your approach would end up being incentivized towards diplomacy more so than serving the needs of either side. A leader-as-an-interface shields both parties from each other but also facilitates alienation. An EM that works in tandem with the engineering team can make sense, but standing between engineering and other company operations to me is an anti-pattern. Middle men are better off not existing at all even if it means having no EM or PM. All they do is remove power from both sides rather than become involved on an as-needed basis.
novok 5y ago
Just get out of the game development industry and move to another software development type. It's much better on the other side. It was obviously bad in 2004 with public exposes, and it is still the same today: https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html Game development will improve its working conditions when nobody wants to work for a game company, until then they will be underpaid and overworked compared other software development types. There is a crazy hot hiring market elsewhere in the industry, do your part by walking away.

kubb 5y ago

Stand up from your desk and take a walk in nature, not kidding.

dukeofdoom 5y ago
Best advice! I would add kayaking to that. You get to see nature from another perspective, and use your arms for a complete workout. Sunsets on a lake are amazing.
krisrm 5y ago
Strong agree on this. Whenever I find my shoulders getting tight with stress, a walk outside might not fix everything, but it sure makes a difference.
- asdfuiopasdf 5y ago
  If your shoulders get tight from typing, consider using two keyboards or a (more expensive) split style.
amelius 5y ago
How about massages, yoga and meditation sessions?

atmartins 5y ago

Many of the things listed in the article burn me out, though. Any additional expectations about team building or water cooler talk only extend the amount of time I'm ignoring my family and shackled to the screen. My employer or coworkers are not who I look to for improvements with mental health as I feel it is a very personal topic. I wish there was more respecting boundaries. A tech manager is not equipped to deal with the mental struggles people may have and so this just comes across as a cheap way to increase productivity (or to prevent a decrease). Some of the passive suggestions are better, such as making time off or other resources available. Trying to force anything or intervene even with games or other interruptions is wrong imo. Even an invite "that the whole team is doing" feels like pressure. At a minimum it's an interruption and another context switch. I'd personally rather take that hour to walk and get some fresh air, so I'm not focusing on my screen for an unrelated thing. I know everyone's different but this is how I feel when I hear or read about this kind of thing. It reminds me of something I heard a long time ago "you may have the right message but be the wrong person to deliver it". Let work be work and let people recharge with family and friends if they prefer.

irrational 5y ago
Yes. Nothing stresses me out more than talking to other people. Going on an hour long walk by myself (hopefully in a nature setting) is what I need. But when I work in an office there is a stigma against just getting up and walking away for awhile. Butts in seats. This is one of the reasons I love working from home. My mental health has improved infinity fold since starting to work from home.
- yodsanklai 5y ago
  > Nothing stresses me out more than talking to other people I'm in the same boat. That, and also the bright artificial lights in our huge open space. There's almost no natural light in the whole building which I find extremely disturbing. Luckily we can work from home almost full time now. Hope we won't go back to normal.
ecf 5y ago
> Let work be work and let people recharge with family and friends if they prefer. Instead of that, you’ll get HR peddling their Modern Health subscription that they’re paying unknown amounts for.

pdimitar 5y ago

Critical mistake in this article: assuming that more activities at work will reduce or even stop work-induced burnout. No. Send me a compensation for working hard to launch your project and order me to rest for a week. I'll figure out what to do to unwind, don't you bother yourself with this -- it's on me and I'll handle it.

zz865 5y ago
True that many people are different. Lots of working parents can only spare 40 hrs/week which suits them best. Lots of singles or parents with SAH partners who want to do the full on jobs and make money.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  Everyone eventually figures it out that more work does not equal more enjoyment. Absolutely everyone, no exceptions. I've seen hyperactive super-ambitious and rich people who lived and breathed work for 99% of their lives and who would probably suffer a nervous breakdown if they had to take a long weekend by the sea with their partner. And I saw them again when they were 70 years old. They were crying and saying how much they regret not spending more time with their kids and grand-kids. Quite a sad sight but also very educational... The difference [among people] that you speak of is very closely correlated to age and life/work experience. I've known people who realized that work is duping them to have almost no personal life and to cheer for other people's success... at 24 years old (quite impressive IMO). I myself finally started catching up with that fact, as dumb and slow as I am, at 36. And yeah, others learn it at 70. It's OK to be ambitious and build a lucrative career (or an empire). The key factor here is knowing when to stop and/or how much % of your waking time you should be dedicating to work. Life is not all about work, never was, never will be. There's a good reason humans were hunter-gatherers for likely tens, if not hundreds, of millennia.

BIackSwan 5y ago

I have been writing a book about how software developers should approach taking care of their mental health - self.debug. You can download it for free here - https://leanpub.com/selfdebug https://leanpub.com/selfdebug Its rough and incomplete. Would be great to get some feedback on this.

AlexCoventry 5y ago
If you were able to add an excerpt from the book, it might help with sales.
- mgkimsal 5y ago
  it's free to download. just set the price to $0. I've not finished it yet, but I can say I was a bit... wary because it hadn't been touched in ... 18 months I think? No shade on the author there - putting your work out there is great. I'm only about 15% through it so far, but it's not bad.
  - AlexCoventry 5y ago
    Thanks.
  - BIackSwan 5y ago
    Thanks. I havent had the mindspace to continue working on it since the startup I cofounded has taken off due to covid. Context - We provide medical diagnostic tests B2C in India.
    - mgkimsal 5y ago
      Thank you for the followup. And thank you for the writing (and the free option). I like what I've read so far, and plan to digest more in the next few days. You may have moved on, but I'd encourage you to try to wrap it up, and give it a "it's done" stamp, in whatever form it is.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

> Google famously uses an approach of giving 20% of a worker’s time to be used for anything they found interesting. I have been told that Google is no longer doing this. Is my information incorrect?

deleted 5y ago
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BurningFrog 5y ago
When i was there in 2006-2009, it only existed in theory. Sure, you could do a 20% project, but you would still be judged only on what you accomplished in you regular role.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  Are you saying that anything positive that came from a 20% time project would not be added to the judgment of what you accomplished? That seems terribly short-sighted (and unwise on Google’s part).
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    I seem to remember a couple of fairly major initiatives (was Go one?) that Google proudly said came from "20% time." It seems insane that they would not recognize it.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      I’d read that GMail also originated from it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_project_time#Google_implementation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Side_project_time#Google_imp... > Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page advised that workers “spend 20% of their time working on what they think will most benefit Google”. I can’t imagine the founders would encourage that line of thinking and then not reward people who created benefit for Google from it. I can believe that if you worked your regular role at 80% and did a 20% project that yielded no benefit that you would be judged only on your regular role (which also seems “whelp, that’s fair enough; no sense penalizing someone for trying. We’ll just judge them on what they did accomplish.”)

stbenjam 5y ago

Oh god, EAP are the worst most useless benefits. Good luck trying to use them. The free therapy sessions offered were unbookable. Only a handful of providers, who had no availability. When I found one after months of trying, they ghosted me for our virtual visit. I was suffering horrible from anxiety and panic attacks and that honestly made things worse. I felt relieved to be able to talk about it and then got the rug pulled right out from under me.

BigRedDog1669 5y ago
Totally agree, the health care plan my very large company offered had months long wait times for therapists. The company would send email "We care about mental health" with a list of resources and EAP stuff. When I emailed them about the unavailability of therapy through their insurance they had no response. I tried using the internal EAP and it had so many limits and hurdles that it added more stress.
- deleted 5y ago
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BadCookie 5y ago
I had a similar experience. After my dad died, I thought it might help to talk to someone. My EAP benefit turned out to be useless. There’s a shortage of mental health professionals that didn’t exist before—or at least was made much worse by—the pandemic.
- novok 5y ago
  EAPs that are like this are like this because they want to control costs via rate limiting. Therapists have a hard time joining them too because they will only hire a set amount. The shortage is more in mental health professionals who take insurance. If your willing to pay full fee and then submit a super bill to your provider to get part of the cost back, you'll find therapists fairly quickly.

rbanffy 5y ago

Workday started what they called "Thank You Fridays". One Friday off, every two weeks. Some teams would take them all at once, while others would split so that the function wasn't left uncovered. Not sure if it's still happening.

wonderwonder 5y ago
This sounds like a great incentive. I feel like a 4 day work week is really the best motivation.

cyberpunk 5y ago

I mean what a non article. It essentially boils down to “more autonomy, education and work life balance”. Yes. We know. I can’t speak for anyone else but what improved my mental health was recognising my distraction techniques for what they were, and addressing the root cause of those (e.g drinking in evenings to numb how utterly pointless this existence sometimes can feel; and solving it by learning to do stuff with my hands — in this case carpentry) I doubt you’ll gleam much wisdom from such an article. Maybe do some meditation, cut down on the booze and find something unrelated to work that makes you happy and just accept that work occasionally sucks for everyone.. Anyway, ymmv