9 ms·

American Workers Are Burned Out, and Bosses Are Struggling to Respond

66 points by erehweb 5y ago

vanusa 5y ago
It isn't the hours. It's the pettiness, the high-level dishonesty, and unending cognitive dissonance.
- nine_zeros 5y ago
  So much this. The people higher up the ladder are too detached about working conditions and expectations. They are often gatekeeping others growth based on nonsense. Often come up with bullshit policies to squeeze productivity. We can all see the ineptitude of management (the higher in the ladder they are, the worse they are). If we could fire them, we would.
  - trevyn 5y ago
    It’s not ineptitude; it’s deliberate, methodical exploitation.
  - b9a2cab5 5y ago
    Too many people glorify staying at one employer for a substantial length of time. What people are doing now is what they should have done long ago: switch jobs if you're not comfortable with your work environment or pay. This also happens to re-calibrate your position in the job market so if you were being underpaid relative to the market you'll get a fair wage by forcing competition among employers.
    - civilized 5y ago
      Went out for my first round of interviews in the better part of a decade. Got rejected although it was a "difficult decision" (sure whatever). It was good to break the streak though. Already setting up interviews at my next target.
      - nyokodo 5y ago
        > Got rejected Your “get right back on the horse attitude” is good. I’ve been on both sides of interviews so many times. There’s a huge component of random crap and if you’re rusty it might take a bit to get back into it.
        zerocount 5y ago
        Too much random crap. My last interview devolved into: "What do you think of Agile?", "What would be your perfect job?", and "Would you use .Net for a new project?" I was expecting a technical interview.
    - microtherion 5y ago
      > Too many people glorify staying at one employer for a substantial length of time. Maybe. But I wonder whether others don't glorify job changes as the cure-all for work related problems. I've seen a number of friends change jobs with some regularity. In some cases, they got out of really bad situations into something obviously better. But that seems to be the exception. More frequently, the previous underlying problems (their attitude toward work, or toward co-workers, or systemic issues in the industry) re-emerged quickly in the new job. Somewhere in between are the "serial monogamists" of employees: They start a new job, are quite happy with it, after a few years, dissatisfaction starts creeping in, and they look for a new job and start over. For them, changing jobs regularly also might make sense.
      - civilized 5y ago
        I don't think employers deserve to be compared to spouses. My spouse is kind, loyal, and behaves thoughtfully and with perfect integrity towards me. Because she saw my value and it was worth everything to her. My employer is a legal abstraction run by sociopaths who, when the rubber meets the road, time and again show no kindness, loyalty, thoughtfulness, or integrity whatsoever. Far from sharing fairly with me, like my spouse, I am sure they would happily murder me to make an extra buck. Profit maximization is the only principle to which they submit. I stick around for the paycheck. I will leave the moment I get offered a bigger one. Because it's what I want, and it's what they deserve. Maybe some day I will be lucky enough to work for an organization whose values and behavior in the world I respect. I will contemplate loyalty at that time and not before.
- StLCylone 5y ago
  Toward the top or at the top they look at dollars and cents, keeping investors happy. They are too detached from the people actually doing the work to understand when then harshly and coldly grind out a bit more profit for their bonus that actual people, just like them, bear the burden. Toss in all the algorithmic cloud management of the people and they get completely disconnected from their workforce.
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  All of this, and the hours certainly don't help.
- allthecybers 5y ago
  Agree 100%. I’m at the tail end of fours years at a FAANG and have worked with several different teams. I’m always dumfounded by the fact that people even one or two levels above me (Director or Sr. Manager level) don’t even have a basic understanding of the impact that their ‘goals’ have on the people who actually deliver them. Of course they praise us for delivering during challenging times, but then they go and setup a roadmap for the next year that creates the same situation. This coupled with the absurd income disparity between internal employees and new hires is finally starting to burn me out.
  - sackofmugs 5y ago
    That last sentence, do you mean internal employees are paid less than new hires due to rising starting salaries? Or that new hires are paid little compared to long time employees?
    - piva00 5y ago
      Don't work in FAANG but have worked (and work) for semi-global and global tech companies: it's always the case that new hires 2 years later get a higher starting salary than most of the seasoned staff. I don't understand why tech companies keep doing this but it's a constant in my life, you get hired with a pretty decent salary, 2 years down the line and with a lot more subject matter knowledge and your salary is now lower than the new hire on the same level as you. It just creates churn, my previous employer was so guilty of this that employees started an anonymous spreadsheet for people to input: current level, years in the company, current salary. With that we concluded that it was a general practice that new people were being paid more than experienced ones, it got to a point where the company had to give raises across the board to level up salaries, I got a retroactive 15% raise after I had put my notice already. It is a shitshow, it alienates and punishes people like me, that really don't enjoy jumping jobs every 2 years just to get a raise, I like to get expertise until I become comfortable with my work environment and subject matter knowledge, that's when I'm most productive.
      - allthecybers 5y ago
- silisili 5y ago
  1000%. I actually love my work and hours and pay, but am leaving strictly because of how petty and dishonest my boss is. I seriously find out all news and happenings via weird he said she said underground channels. I swear it's rage inducing watching a 60 year old "professional" behave like a 12 year old gossiper. I know most people think that's crazy, just ignore them...but man, it's just not worth my blood pressure spiking and lack of sleep anymore. At this point I don't even know who I hate more, him or my company for being so oblivious to it.
- guilhas 5y ago
  This, my boss got out of the country several time, and worked from home during the mandatory travel quarantine. When we asked to go we had to do the travel quarantine as unpaid days. Even though there is absolutely no issue working from home, and we do when it suits him
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  I saw a hiring sign at giant eagle the other day that actually said "its better than benifits, it's belonging!" in reference to the workforce being a family. I just can't imagine the people who would unironicaaly push this as a ad for a near min wage job with no benifits, as if your giant eagle family will pitch in to pay your medical bills in lieu of insurance. This kind of ignoring reality for happy fantasies marketing is just getting worse and worse and now it's just becoming a outright joke.
hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
https://archive.md/DxKek https://archive.md/DxKek
winddude 5y ago
limited vacation, no maternity/parental leave, no mental health days, always on call/email. Doesn't sound like the land of the free to me.
JimTheMan 5y ago
Does anyone have a way through the paywall? I'm not made of money unfortunately and it looks interesting.
- ok_dad 5y ago
  That’s why most of these have an archive.md link, there’s a top level comment here with one.
Agingcoder 5y ago
As a European, I've never really understood how Americans could actually not be utterly exhausted with two weeks of paid vacations. Or are working hours shorter? Or is it that most companies provide 4 or 5 weeks evenif the law mandates a lot less? I've been told by American friends that it wasn't as bad in practice since 'their companies gave them 3 weeks, and quite quickly 4, and it was actually pretty common' but it wasn't clear to me that it wasn't purely anecdotal/branch specific. If anyone knows, I'm quite interested!
- MrLeap 5y ago
  You get a few extra weeks between jobs when you quit or are fired ;D
- quartesixte 5y ago
  Some companies will offer either an annual increase in the number of paid vacation days based on seniority/time employed, a generous allowance from the start, or just the fabled "unlimited" vacation days. There are also all the national holidays that result in 3-day weekends, the week long vacation that is Thanksgiving for many workers, as well as Christmas shutdowns. It really varies on the industry/job-type, but the bare minimum two weeks of paid vacation can be found in many other places too. Something that gets missed a lot in these conversations is that hourly workers are often on a vacation accrual type system. Time worked = time vacation earned at a certain ratio. The more senior you become, the higher that ratio. This is anecdata, but I've seen guys be able to take a week-long vacation every three months without ever depleting their two week allowance because they have "refilled" their vacation time by that point. For job offers that can be negotiated prior to going in, it's been observed that some people might have completely, almost wildly, different vacation plans than what is standard because of what they negotiated at the offer-stage of their employment. That all being said, I'd rather much have just a simpler, 4-5 week standard across the board vacation law. Would cut the headache out of trying to figure out vacation accrual vs. usage ratios, play guessing games on exactly how unlimited that unlimited plan is, random gossip of that ONE guy at work who's on some different vacation plan because he strongarmed HR during hiring to get it, etc.
  - 5y ago
6510 5y ago
We should offer as many people as possible both mental and physical challenges. If one does to much mental work one burns out and lacks exercise. If one does to much physical labor one gets injuries and intellect declines. Doing the same work for years is boring and makes it harder to switch. You get stuck in a boring job. It would also be eye opening for desk workers to do mindless physical grunt work. A few days of conveyor belt or hurling heavy objects could go a long way towards loving your desk job while also a welcome distraction from it. Likewise, someone hurling heavy objects all week could do some basic data entry, man the phone line or do some other simple desk work. Get a basic feeling for the complexity of the organization. It doesn't have to be more efficient immediately. In the long run more work will get done with less effort.

66 points by erehweb 5y ago

vanusa 5y ago

It isn't the hours. It's the pettiness, the high-level dishonesty, and unending cognitive dissonance.

nine_zeros 5y ago
So much this. The people higher up the ladder are too detached about working conditions and expectations. They are often gatekeeping others growth based on nonsense. Often come up with bullshit policies to squeeze productivity. We can all see the ineptitude of management (the higher in the ladder they are, the worse they are). If we could fire them, we would.
- trevyn 5y ago
  It’s not ineptitude; it’s deliberate, methodical exploitation.
- b9a2cab5 5y ago
  Too many people glorify staying at one employer for a substantial length of time. What people are doing now is what they should have done long ago: switch jobs if you're not comfortable with your work environment or pay. This also happens to re-calibrate your position in the job market so if you were being underpaid relative to the market you'll get a fair wage by forcing competition among employers.
  - civilized 5y ago
    Went out for my first round of interviews in the better part of a decade. Got rejected although it was a "difficult decision" (sure whatever). It was good to break the streak though. Already setting up interviews at my next target.
    - nyokodo 5y ago
      > Got rejected Your “get right back on the horse attitude” is good. I’ve been on both sides of interviews so many times. There’s a huge component of random crap and if you’re rusty it might take a bit to get back into it.
      - zerocount 5y ago
        Too much random crap. My last interview devolved into: "What do you think of Agile?", "What would be your perfect job?", and "Would you use .Net for a new project?" I was expecting a technical interview.
  - microtherion 5y ago
    > Too many people glorify staying at one employer for a substantial length of time. Maybe. But I wonder whether others don't glorify job changes as the cure-all for work related problems. I've seen a number of friends change jobs with some regularity. In some cases, they got out of really bad situations into something obviously better. But that seems to be the exception. More frequently, the previous underlying problems (their attitude toward work, or toward co-workers, or systemic issues in the industry) re-emerged quickly in the new job. Somewhere in between are the "serial monogamists" of employees: They start a new job, are quite happy with it, after a few years, dissatisfaction starts creeping in, and they look for a new job and start over. For them, changing jobs regularly also might make sense.
    - civilized 5y ago
      I don't think employers deserve to be compared to spouses. My spouse is kind, loyal, and behaves thoughtfully and with perfect integrity towards me. Because she saw my value and it was worth everything to her. My employer is a legal abstraction run by sociopaths who, when the rubber meets the road, time and again show no kindness, loyalty, thoughtfulness, or integrity whatsoever. Far from sharing fairly with me, like my spouse, I am sure they would happily murder me to make an extra buck. Profit maximization is the only principle to which they submit. I stick around for the paycheck. I will leave the moment I get offered a bigger one. Because it's what I want, and it's what they deserve. Maybe some day I will be lucky enough to work for an organization whose values and behavior in the world I respect. I will contemplate loyalty at that time and not before.
StLCylone 5y ago
Toward the top or at the top they look at dollars and cents, keeping investors happy. They are too detached from the people actually doing the work to understand when then harshly and coldly grind out a bit more profit for their bonus that actual people, just like them, bear the burden. Toss in all the algorithmic cloud management of the people and they get completely disconnected from their workforce.
bluefirebrand 5y ago
All of this, and the hours certainly don't help.
allthecybers 5y ago
Agree 100%. I’m at the tail end of fours years at a FAANG and have worked with several different teams. I’m always dumfounded by the fact that people even one or two levels above me (Director or Sr. Manager level) don’t even have a basic understanding of the impact that their ‘goals’ have on the people who actually deliver them. Of course they praise us for delivering during challenging times, but then they go and setup a roadmap for the next year that creates the same situation. This coupled with the absurd income disparity between internal employees and new hires is finally starting to burn me out.
- sackofmugs 5y ago
  That last sentence, do you mean internal employees are paid less than new hires due to rising starting salaries? Or that new hires are paid little compared to long time employees?
  - piva00 5y ago
    Don't work in FAANG but have worked (and work) for semi-global and global tech companies: it's always the case that new hires 2 years later get a higher starting salary than most of the seasoned staff. I don't understand why tech companies keep doing this but it's a constant in my life, you get hired with a pretty decent salary, 2 years down the line and with a lot more subject matter knowledge and your salary is now lower than the new hire on the same level as you. It just creates churn, my previous employer was so guilty of this that employees started an anonymous spreadsheet for people to input: current level, years in the company, current salary. With that we concluded that it was a general practice that new people were being paid more than experienced ones, it got to a point where the company had to give raises across the board to level up salaries, I got a retroactive 15% raise after I had put my notice already. It is a shitshow, it alienates and punishes people like me, that really don't enjoy jumping jobs every 2 years just to get a raise, I like to get expertise until I become comfortable with my work environment and subject matter knowledge, that's when I'm most productive.
    - allthecybers 5y ago
silisili 5y ago
1000%. I actually love my work and hours and pay, but am leaving strictly because of how petty and dishonest my boss is. I seriously find out all news and happenings via weird he said she said underground channels. I swear it's rage inducing watching a 60 year old "professional" behave like a 12 year old gossiper. I know most people think that's crazy, just ignore them...but man, it's just not worth my blood pressure spiking and lack of sleep anymore. At this point I don't even know who I hate more, him or my company for being so oblivious to it.
guilhas 5y ago
This, my boss got out of the country several time, and worked from home during the mandatory travel quarantine. When we asked to go we had to do the travel quarantine as unpaid days. Even though there is absolutely no issue working from home, and we do when it suits him
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
thatguy0900 5y ago
I saw a hiring sign at giant eagle the other day that actually said "its better than benifits, it's belonging!" in reference to the workforce being a family. I just can't imagine the people who would unironicaaly push this as a ad for a near min wage job with no benifits, as if your giant eagle family will pitch in to pay your medical bills in lieu of insurance. This kind of ignoring reality for happy fantasies marketing is just getting worse and worse and now it's just becoming a outright joke.

hoppyhoppy2 5y ago

https://archive.md/DxKek https://archive.md/DxKek

winddude 5y ago

limited vacation, no maternity/parental leave, no mental health days, always on call/email. Doesn't sound like the land of the free to me.

JimTheMan 5y ago

Does anyone have a way through the paywall? I'm not made of money unfortunately and it looks interesting.

ok_dad 5y ago
That’s why most of these have an archive.md link, there’s a top level comment here with one.

Agingcoder 5y ago

As a European, I've never really understood how Americans could actually not be utterly exhausted with two weeks of paid vacations. Or are working hours shorter? Or is it that most companies provide 4 or 5 weeks evenif the law mandates a lot less? I've been told by American friends that it wasn't as bad in practice since 'their companies gave them 3 weeks, and quite quickly 4, and it was actually pretty common' but it wasn't clear to me that it wasn't purely anecdotal/branch specific. If anyone knows, I'm quite interested!

MrLeap 5y ago
You get a few extra weeks between jobs when you quit or are fired ;D
quartesixte 5y ago
Some companies will offer either an annual increase in the number of paid vacation days based on seniority/time employed, a generous allowance from the start, or just the fabled "unlimited" vacation days. There are also all the national holidays that result in 3-day weekends, the week long vacation that is Thanksgiving for many workers, as well as Christmas shutdowns. It really varies on the industry/job-type, but the bare minimum two weeks of paid vacation can be found in many other places too. Something that gets missed a lot in these conversations is that hourly workers are often on a vacation accrual type system. Time worked = time vacation earned at a certain ratio. The more senior you become, the higher that ratio. This is anecdata, but I've seen guys be able to take a week-long vacation every three months without ever depleting their two week allowance because they have "refilled" their vacation time by that point. For job offers that can be negotiated prior to going in, it's been observed that some people might have completely, almost wildly, different vacation plans than what is standard because of what they negotiated at the offer-stage of their employment. That all being said, I'd rather much have just a simpler, 4-5 week standard across the board vacation law. Would cut the headache out of trying to figure out vacation accrual vs. usage ratios, play guessing games on exactly how unlimited that unlimited plan is, random gossip of that ONE guy at work who's on some different vacation plan because he strongarmed HR during hiring to get it, etc.
- 5y ago

6510 5y ago

We should offer as many people as possible both mental and physical challenges. If one does to much mental work one burns out and lacks exercise. If one does to much physical labor one gets injuries and intellect declines. Doing the same work for years is boring and makes it harder to switch. You get stuck in a boring job. It would also be eye opening for desk workers to do mindless physical grunt work. A few days of conveyor belt or hurling heavy objects could go a long way towards loving your desk job while also a welcome distraction from it. Likewise, someone hurling heavy objects all week could do some basic data entry, man the phone line or do some other simple desk work. Get a basic feeling for the complexity of the organization. It doesn't have to be more efficient immediately. In the long run more work will get done with less effort.