[HN Gopher] Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break
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Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's break
Author : dustinmoris
Score : 174 points
Date : 2021-06-22 12:16 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| ape4 wrote:
| 700 employees seems like alot
| motohagiography wrote:
| It does until you mix that with all the employee perks and see
| that it could very well be strategic.
|
| From the article:
|
| > It also boasts a "Mommy Bar" - described as a "private
| lactation space" by Ms Wolfe Herd - as well as fortnightly
| manicures, hair trims and "blowouts" which the founder said
| showed "appreciation for our busy bees".
|
| It seems like an appealing target for private equity or
| managers installed by a pension fund. Not sure what their ARPU
| and ARR look like, but when you have a company with solid
| revenue, perks like this are a huge signal for a bunch of
| "opportunities for efficiencies," I would wonder how long all
| that perceived value would be left on the table. It's not just
| a Bumble thing, I also think story-worthy perks are mostly a
| cheap way to attract new staff into the pipeline, and get
| attention from acquirers. Less than $5k in beanbag chairs used
| to have a 10x ($50k+) return in organic press, recruitment
| pipeline, and marketing buzz. Culture spend like that can have
| non-linear returns. That "Mommy Bar," alone probably has a 30x
| return on what they spent on it.
|
| I'd absolutely close an office for two weeks in August if I ran
| a company that could afford to, or split it across teams.
| There's the question of whether you need an office you can
| afford to close, but from a capital management perspective, if
| one knew how to make a company appear both attractive yet
| helpless when it came to optimizing it, to attract someone who
| liked to solve problems who would intervene and buy in to "fix"
| this obvious inefficiency for you, well, that would be about
| par for the course wouldn't it.
| [deleted]
| deregulateMed wrote:
| I never found vacations to be useful for burnout.
|
| What does work for me is having a 40 hour work week. If I'm doing
| the same job for 50+ hrs/week, I start to dread the work.
|
| That said, this is drastic, seems like something other than
| burnout is going on.
| missedthecue wrote:
| whenever i go on vacation the first day or two are fun and
| relaxing but eventually i spend the rest of the week wishing i
| was back at work
| 55555 wrote:
| I feel this, but for me that means I haven't gotten fully
| into vacation mode. The goal is to not think about work at
| all, and don't do any. Once that feeling goes away, you're on
| vacation. It takes me ~2 eventful fun days. I can tell I've
| gotten into vacation flow when I go back to work and the
| first 2 days back are just as difficult.
| jcadam wrote:
| switching to a new project (or job) is generally the best thing
| for burnout as a dev.
|
| But a vacation is good for other reasons.
| timeandmoney wrote:
| > switching to a new project (or job) is generally the best
| thing for burnout as a dev.
|
| This works for me, but it is a very short term solution,
| about 6-12months in it always seems to creep back.
| kilroy123 wrote:
| Maybe not a short vacation but enough time will do the trick.
|
| Source: just came off a 2 1/2 year break
| philangist wrote:
| I'm at the start of an extended break for now. 3 weeks in and
| I'm not sure how long it'll be but I have enough saved up to
| take 2-3 years off. How'd you spend your time off? And what
| brought you back?
| vishnugupta wrote:
| For me, the best part of Christmas & new year holidays was the
| _entire_ company (HQed in west) shuts down. Without exception
| almost every single office across the world shuts down. It means
| absolute radio silence, no emails, no slack messages, no nothing.
| I realised the usefulness of it only when I recently experienced
| it first hand.
|
| Unlike me taking two week personal leave, there's no anxiety of
| missing out on important decision, nothing to catch up on when I
| return. When everyone's back from Christmas holidays it's like
| the whole company wakes up from two weeks of hibernation. I found
| the break very refreshing. I wish we would do it more often, say
| twice a year or maybe even four times a year but one week each,
| one per quarter.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| My takeaway from this, in addition to it being awesome, is that
| this likely means that many others are feeling what you are
| feeling as well, if you are in fact feeling burnt-out too.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| Two weeks a year is not enough vacation time.
| ok_coo wrote:
| I've been burnt out bad before and a week isn't enough.
|
| IMHO, with burnout, a week off feels like taking just one breath.
| What a week does though is let the workers reconsider their
| situation. Is the burnout worth it? Companies ultimately don't
| care if you die tomorrow. We are all replaceable to them in the
| end.
| allochthon wrote:
| I've been working remotely for about five years, now, and I love
| it. I've always been curious about working at Twitter and Google,
| and I was vaguely hoping that they'd start looking at full-time
| remote hires across their engineering orgs. I value remote work
| more than I do the possibility of working at Twitter or Google,
| so it is a little wistfully that I realize I might never follow
| up on that curiosity.
| bern4444 wrote:
| Twitter allows for full time remote. They were one of the first
| companies to announce it with COVID [0]
|
| [0]
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/01/twitter...
| allochthon wrote:
| I was trying to make sense of these lines from the article. I
| probably misunderstood.
|
| > Twitter has said that it expects a majority of its staff to
| spend some time working remotely and some time in the office.
| That's despite its boss Jack Dorsey initially saying that
| employees could work from home "forever".
|
| > And Google rejigged its timetable for bringing people back
| to the workplace. As of 1 September, employees wishing to
| work from home for more than 14 days a year would have to
| apply to do so.
| Benjammer wrote:
| I know for a fact that at least some teams at Google are hiring
| for full-time remote right now.
| Zaheer wrote:
| Many of the large tech co's are now allowing to apply for
| permanent remote positions: https://www.levels.fyi/remote/
| fruzz wrote:
| I think you're right, but I don't think this organizational
| discomfort with remote work will be true of the next batch of
| hip companies to work at. So you may yet get your chance. :)
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I know this is a little weird, but everyone I know in downtown
| Austin (where bumble has their offices) had a marked increase in
| despair/depressive symptoms with the summer jump in heat.
|
| In my experience that's been true every year (and I normally try
| to leave the city for August) but especially this summer post
| pandemic, post icepocalypse.
|
| I wonder if that's part of it.
| asim wrote:
| Good. We're taking all of July off at my company. Why? Because
| covid was an incredibly hard period for all of us and we as
| humans need a break. Somehow we all just seem to expect things to
| keep going like nothing changed. We all just seem to be expected
| to gloss over the pains of isolation, potential death and stress
| of work and life with no separation or boundaries. We made a
| conscious decision at my place of work to actually acknowledge
| the difficulties we've all been through and we're just going to
| take July off, because what else are we going to do? Ignore it?
| No. We won't do that.
|
| I'd advise everyone to try take as much time off as possible this
| year. If it's available to you, take an extended break. The
| mental, physical and psychological damage of covid is something
| we really can't ignore.
| epage wrote:
| My company has been springkling extra days off throughout the
| year ("day for me") and its been great.
|
| As someone with a family, we've been mostly doing ok through
| the pandemic. The biggest stresser for us is the lack of
| babysitting / kid swaps for being able to get project or
| personal time in (e.g. my half bath remodel has sat untouched
| for 6 months now).
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Yeah I wish more companies would give an extra week of pto this
| year. Like I didn't leave my house for a year and a half and
| worked pretty much that whole time without a break while the
| world felt like it was falling apart.
|
| Can I an extra week to make up for that?
| ezxCKAz4W wrote:
| > Because covid was an incredibly hard period for all of us and
| we as humans need a break.
|
| While true and a good thing, i cannot simply take a step back,
| look at the whole picture and feel this feels a bit awakward.
| The op (guessing) is perhaps a lucky few that got to keep their
| jobs through the pandemic, spend more time with family and were
| baking breads and indulging in gardening etc. This while
| millions lost their jobs and health insurance, relied on govt
| assistance or pick a job like a cashier where you constantly
| met people during a pandemic, while day cares and achools were
| closed. And feels like we expect the rest of the world to move
| on like nothing else happened while feel like I need a month's
| break.
| dandersh wrote:
| God I wished I worked there. Even without Covid this past year
| would have been tremendously hard on me. When I've talked to my
| manager about what I've been going through and explaining how
| it's impacted my performance I get the "Yea it's been a rough
| year for everyone" bit.
|
| Finally we reach a point where both the pandemic and everything
| else has settled down and I'm too burnt out and depressed to
| enjoy it.
| fatjokes wrote:
| Company-wide month off sounds amazing. Would you be willing to
| name it (would be great PR for them). If not, would you give a
| sense of geography, industry and size?
| jedimastert wrote:
| Took a look at their bio, then website, they appear to be
| "The Founder CEO of Micro Services, Inc."
| keehun wrote:
| Based on his profile, seems like he is CEO/Founder of his
| place of work:
|
| > I'm Asim Aslam. The Founder CEO of Micro Services, Inc.,
| creator of the open source cloud platform Micro and a
| technologist by training.
| dnate wrote:
| Size of 9 employees according to linkedin
| Jommi wrote:
| this happens at every company in most nordic countries. You
| take 1-2 months of every summer.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| This is a very subjective statement. The pandemic has been bar
| none the best period of my life. Increased physical and social
| distance from other people, no need to emote in public thanks
| to masks, no need to commute, greater accommodation for non-
| social options like self-checkouts. My physical and mental
| health have skyrocketed, and as a result I feel like I've been
| on vacation for a year and half, despite only taking about 3
| days of vacation the entire time and starting a new and more
| intense job.
|
| Those of you who have found the slightly over a year duration
| of the pandemic difficult have gotten a sample of how miserable
| pre-pandemic life was for those of us who are more introverted
| or misanthropic.
| sunshineforever wrote:
| I agree. 2020 was one of the best years of my life.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| I wouldn't go as far as you, but I agree. Life got stripped
| of its tedious socially required games.
| shmel wrote:
| I keep hearing this over and over. I get it, some people are
| fairly introverted, some really enjoy WFH.
|
| But what stopped you from distancing from people and using
| self-checkouts before the pandemic? If you hate people, fine,
| just go home straight after work, you aren't obligated to
| hang out with anyone. It is not like the government would
| fine you for coming home before 11pm, right?
| silicon2401 wrote:
| If you're a normal person who understands consequences and
| social interactions, you also understand that not playing
| social games comes at a cost. As you said yourself:
|
| > just go home straight after work
|
| In your own hypothetical example, I'm still required to be
| in an office or else be jobless. Finding remote jobs isn't
| trivial.
| geerlingguy wrote:
| Not speaking to the other points, but I did notice many
| stores completely reconfigured the checkouts in my area;
| before the pandemic there were few very tiny self checkout
| stalls, and there was always a long line of people with
| just a few items.
|
| Now almost all the aisles are self-checkout and are
| friendlier to larger cart-fulls like I buy (having a few
| kids means there's no such thing as a quick trip with a
| hand basket anymore...).
| zerkten wrote:
| > But what stopped you from distancing from people and
| using self-checkouts before the pandemic?
|
| This was not uniformly accepted behaviour. Yes, some people
| could find roles and a situation where this was possible
| before, but most couldn't. Stores didn't really optimize
| for a self-check out experience.
|
| The social pressure in many organizations and communities
| to conform was high and there was no escape. If you you
| wanted to work at a tech company or startup you would have
| to accept open offices, happy hours, and other social
| requires to a great extent. It was not acceptable to skip
| many events and you had no option to switch your working
| environment in the office because the only option was open
| space.
|
| The pandemic has forced a change, most importantly, in a
| relatively uniform manner. I'm not making the argument that
| we should all accept this other extreme. Just as we return
| to normality we should consider the experiences of others,
| and try to make some reasonable adaptations.
| thrower123 wrote:
| It's a third of my life, half of my waking hours, that I'm
| forced to be in a box, dealing with people I wouldn't
| choose to breath the same air as, pretending to be
| interested in their small-talk.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| You voluntarily signed up to do the job.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| By your argument, many people also voluntarily chose to
| stay home. Plenty of people continued flying, going on
| spring break, going to clubs, etc throughout the pandemic
| if there were no legal lockdowns.
| NateEag wrote:
| If you're working this job and you started it in the
| office, you actually chose to breathe the same air as the
| coworkers you seem to so dislike. Saying otherwise is
| deceiving yourself.
|
| No one is forcing you to pretend interest in small talk.
| If you're not interested in it, say so instead of
| pretending.
|
| Are you afraid you'll lose your job over being antisocial
| or rude if you don't pretend to get along with your
| coworkers?
|
| You might be happier if you look for a job you don't
| hate.
|
| (Also if you stop seeing other people as beneath you, but
| that's a taller order)
| aantix wrote:
| Why is having to partake in your misery a good thing?
|
| The large majority connect via smiles, laughs, hugs.
| Kiro wrote:
| It's an unnecessary and superficial conditioning that we
| need to evolve beyond. Do we want to be cavemen or
| cybernetic organisms?
| aantix wrote:
| Or it's a biological dependency.
|
| "While most of the early studies were on children
| residing in orphanages that were deficient in almost
| every dimension, even children who are reared in
| relatively good orphanages but who are subject to social
| and emotional neglect display many of these
| characteristics while living in the institution"
|
| _The effects of early social-emotional and relationship
| experience on the development of young orphanage children
| :: Atypical Behaviors_
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2702123/#:~:
| tex...
| [deleted]
| dta5003 wrote:
| Lucky for you, it's going to be the future soon:
|
| https://open.spotify.com/track/2chEZfdAqJvlw9dM3hAU6p?si=
| c8f...
| [deleted]
| hh3k0 wrote:
| > no need to emote in public thanks to masks
|
| I will miss that. I liked not being told that I look angry or
| that I should smile sometimes.
| bin_bash wrote:
| I'm curious, are you female? I don't think I've ever been
| asked that unless I was unbelievably angry. Like maybe once
| or twice in my entire adult life.
| hh3k0 wrote:
| I'm male but hear such remarks ~1--3 times any given
| workweek.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Speaking from personal experience, this happens to male
| humans as well.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resting_bitch_face: "Using
| a type of facial recognition system, they found that the
| phenomenon is real and the condition is as common in
| males as in females, despite the gendered word bitch that
| is used to name the concept."
| coredog64 wrote:
| Resting Jerk Face is gender neutral.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| As a male, it's happened to me quite often, since my age
| was in single-digits. I just have a naturally serious
| expression, I guess. It also applies to people from other
| cultures like eastern Europe, where it's not the default
| to go around smiling and laughing in public or making
| small talk to strangers. Default expressions vary quite a
| bit and maybe yours is just more cheery or neutral.
| LandR wrote:
| I get asked quite often if I'm angry, grumpy, down,
| "what's wrong?" even when I'm absolutely fine and none of
| those things.
|
| I was even stopped by a random stranger in a supermarket
| once and they asked if I was OK... I said I was fine, and
| then she asked if it had been a long day... erm. Guess
| it's just my face.
|
| I remember in the supermarket I was actually just
| thinking about if a man could beat a giraffe in a fight.
| WJW wrote:
| With technological help like guns, obviously the man
| wins. Without technology but with enough preparation,
| humans probably still win because they could rig up traps
| and whatnot. Straight up the giraffe would wreck a humans
| because they can kick really hard with their long legs.
| gpm wrote:
| Terrain probably matters a lot here. On flat ground the
| giraffe kicks the shit out of humans. On uneven terrain
| with nooks and crannies to hide in and trip up the long
| legged thing, and rocks to throw at it to keep it mad, I
| think a human would have a good chance (not a giraffe
| fighting expert).
|
| Humans probably have more stamina, if you can drag out
| the fight.
| coredog64 wrote:
| > not a giraffe fighting expert
|
| I think it's hilarious that HN needs such a disclaimer.
| gpm wrote:
| I was originally trying to come up with an interesting
| acronym like IANAL (I am not a lawyer), but gave up ;)
| [deleted]
| crowbahr wrote:
| I've been WFH for 4 years now and thoroughly enjoy it.
|
| I enjoy isolation, I love the intensity of coding that I can
| get done. I'm generally more introverted.
|
| That doesn't make the pandemic fun and rainbows. It's still
| been psychologically the most difficult time for me because I
| live in NYC. Walking the dog twice a day on ghost streets
| empty of any pedestrians, devoid of the hum of traffic and
| hearing nothing but the wails of every ambulance in the area
| for the better part of a month was deeply disturbing in a way
| I still haven't come to terms with.
|
| Rubbing down the door knob with bleach. Double masking and
| surgical gloving when going to the bodega on the block for
| fruit. A real and valid fear of death and maiming for
| multiple months isn't something you just bounce back from.
|
| So yes: It's a subjective statement. However it's not like
| just being an introvert made the pandemic a walk in the park.
| Don't mistake your experience as speaking for all introverts.
| DrBazza wrote:
| > Rubbing down the door knob with bleach.
|
| This article [1] implies the chance of catching COVID-19
| from contact surfaces is 1 in 10,000 *at best* under lab
| conditions, and negligible at best. You're more likely to
| be struck by lightning or hit by a car.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/science-
| and-r...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The funny thing is bleach is what you need to stop noro
| and rota viruses, and those are actually very
| transmissible via surfaces, yet the protocol at my kids'
| daycare (national chain) does not involve bleaching door
| knobs on the regular.
|
| The same daycare that 2 weeks ago had an outbreak of noro
| or rotavirus which caused entire classes of toddlers to
| be infected and go home and vomit for a day and was
| spread to siblings and parents at home.
|
| But they are still sanitizing pens. People's risk
| profiles are crazy, and there is an insane amount of
| cover your ass for PR purposes.
| [deleted]
| aweiland wrote:
| Early on in the pandemic not a lot was known, so many of
| us took every precaution we could.
| bin_bash wrote:
| And those odds for being hit by lightning are over a
| lifetime.
| crowbahr wrote:
| I'm doing my absolute best to stay civil according to HN
| guidelines.
|
| Your article was not posted in March of 2020. Or in
| April. Nor in May.
|
| It was posted this year.
|
| It's especially insulting your insinuation that I,
| someone at the center of the worst outbreak in the US,
| would somehow not be aware of the actual risks of
| Covid-19.
|
| You're making an entirely pointless comment, belittling
| my experiences with meaningless trivia that would've been
| helpful to know at the time but does absolutely fuck all
| at a remove of a year.
|
| Yet for some unknowable reason you decided it was a good
| idea to open your mouth nice and wide and prove yourself
| an idiot in front of everyone.
|
| I can only hope you're a 16 year old who doesn't really
| understand the world yet making a fool of himself rather
| than a 35 year old who is so hopelessly clueless as to be
| effortlessly offensive in some misguided attempt to know
| more than everyone else.
| NationalPark wrote:
| Right, but NYC was hit hard relatively early on, and at
| the time there was a great deal of fear and uncertainty,
| especially because of the perception that the
| administration at the time had indicated it's general
| hostility toward people in "blue" cities. People didn't
| have the time or perhaps the perspective to step back and
| read whatever pre prints may have been available.
| crowbahr wrote:
| I appreciate your empathy here.
|
| This advisory wasn't even available in March or April of
| 2020: there was nothing. The URL has only existed since
| April of 2021.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It says updated Apr 2021. I certainly recall reading that
| COVID transmission via surfaces was minimal sometime in
| 2020, earlier rather than later.
| crowbahr wrote:
| During the major outbreak in NYC from March - May we were
| actively told to wipe down surfaces.
| somethingabo wrote:
| I'm not sure if comparing introverted life to a pandemic
| where people's friends and families are dying alone in a
| hospital is a good comparison.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| I'm strictly talking about the day to day circumstances of
| distancing, masks, etc, not illness or death of loved ones
| as that's obviously an unpleasant thing at any time.
| ianai wrote:
| Agree. I've suffered levels of abuse far too many times
| simply because someone misread my facial expressions
| professionally/personally. My school bullies would examine my
| expressions intimately and the "lessons" they instilled on me
| through my basic desire to not give them something to read
| stand to this day. Having a simple block over my face has
| been downright comforting. And frankly I'm not missing the
| everyday exposures to allergens nor anything else in the air.
| nchie wrote:
| I don't think this is how most introverts have felt.
| Introversion doesn't mean you dislike interaction with other
| people. Like others mentioned, what you're describing doesn't
| sound like just being introverted, it sounds like ASD or some
| other personality disorder.
|
| Definitely subjective though. I'd say I'm an introvert, and
| I've made it through ok, but it still very much feels like I
| lost a year of my life. It's really not been too different
| from being in prison in the country where I live.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| That's quite callous towards people with autism. Many
| people with autism very much want to socialize and
| integrate into society, but have difficulties doing so. I
| don't have difficulties socializing, I just don't like
| people (misanthropy) and get drained by socialization
| (introversion), which is why the pandemic has been a great
| time for me. Of course by that I mean the circumstances as
| they have impacted my life, not the health status of
| people.
| cashewchoo wrote:
| I think it's very fair and valid for you to feel however you
| want with regards to shelter-in-place/wfh/lockdown, but to me
| it seems somewhat unconscionable to be smug like enjoying
| your time alone is a huge win against extroverts.
|
| I feel like it's a pretty ridiculous over-statement to say
| that introverts feel like they're in a pandemic normally. I'm
| an introvert and don't feel like that. I suspect the only
| people who could reasonably feel like that are people with
| anxiety disorders or phobias.
|
| I don't know, I'm not saying you can't express your opinion
| or feel how you feel. But I want to express I'm a bit grossed
| out reading your post, as you seem just a bit too gleeful and
| smug at this whole situation.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Please tell me where I expressed any glee at other people's
| misfortunes. What I said was the following which is a
| statement, not an expression of emotion:
|
| > Those of you who have found the slightly over a year
| duration of the pandemic difficult have gotten a sample of
| how miserable pre-pandemic life was for those of us who are
| more introverted or misanthropic.
|
| It doesn't impact me what other people feel, but I do hope
| that people who have not enjoyed lockdown can gain some
| empathy for the people who have enjoyed lockdown. It seems
| more like you're defensive at somebody having different
| preferences than you, which is just how life works.
|
| Additionally, I don't have anxiety. Not before nor during
| the pandemic. So my point was not anxiety, my point was
| that the same way life during the pandemic has caused many
| people inconvenience and frustration, pre-pandemic life is
| inconvenient and frustrating to me because of the
| obligation to play social games and always be around
| people. It's quite tiresome and irritating.
|
| > I'm an introvert and don't feel like that.
|
| I also didn't say all introverts feel like I do, I said
| pre-pandemic life is miserable for those of us who are
| _more_ introverted or misanthropic.
| ianai wrote:
| I think you're being overly reactive to the OP. Glee would
| be a lot more blatant and celebratory of the misfortune of
| others. I don't think that's their point. Not mine anyway.
|
| I'm pushing back on the sentiment you pose because it's far
| too often used and oppressively effective.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| It seems OP is quite gratified at the rest of us having
| gotten "... a sample of how miserable pre-pandemic life
| was for those of us who are more introverted or
| misanthropic." when even as mostly an introvert this
| pandemic has been more than the typical anxiety of having
| to interact with others when I didn't want to.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| I'll copy another comment I made for convenience.
|
| Please tell me where I expressed any glee at other
| people's misfortunes. What I said was the following which
| is a statement, not an expression of emotion:
|
| > Those of you who have found the slightly over a year
| duration of the pandemic difficult have gotten a sample
| of how miserable pre-pandemic life was for those of us
| who are more introverted or misanthropic.
|
| How other people feel doesn't impact me, but I do hope
| that people who have not enjoyed lockdown can gain some
| empathy for the people who have enjoyed lockdown. Pre-
| pandemic life was as uncaring and dismissive of people
| who thrive during the pandemic as pandemic life is
| towards people who thrived before the pandemic.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| I've never been so envious of happily married people in my
| life. Being single throughout this ordeal has broken me
| mentally, particularly at an age (31) where I'm staring down
| the last couple years of being able to meet someone my age.
| And the prospects coming out of it are grim. For people with
| a happy home life, this may have been a good time. But for
| the isolated, work from home, single people with no long term
| social circle outside of work, it has been an utter
| nightmare.
| bgroat wrote:
| I'm one of those happily married people and my heart has
| been going out to people like you the whole time.
|
| It's an incredible blessing to have been locked-in and had
| 24/7 support from someone I love and I wish you had it too.
|
| Sorry you had to face this alone.
| slumdev wrote:
| If it's really stressing you out, consider dating people
| younger than you are.
|
| A five year gap is nothing by the time you're in your
| thirties.
| mzkply wrote:
| As a newly single guy in Jan 2020, I went on Bumble for the
| first time... She moves in July 1st. Try it out, I had
| sworn I'd never do it.
| moonshinefe wrote:
| I'm a little older but not by a lot, and was in a similar
| situation where I was in my early 30s where I felt my
| window for getting things done in life was closing and I
| didn't have a relationship and felt socially isolated in
| general (for different reasons since it wasn't covid 19 at
| the time, but still). Things were looking incredibly bleak
| for me.
|
| But things can change awfully fast even if it seems
| hopeless, don't give up. The potentially partners you'll
| meet at this age tend to be more mature on average
| (generalizing of course!), and I think have a much more
| healthy perspective on life than the people I often met
| dating in my 20s. Keep in mind that dating is a numbers
| game, and like any numbers game, you increase your chances
| of success the more you play. You need to meet as many
| people as possible and have fewer expectations--the worse
| that happens is it doesn't work out and you move on. The
| hardest part is getting over the fear of rejection, but it
| can be done, even for the shy.
|
| If it's more the isolation in general that's getting to you
| rather than no partner, I think if you look around you'll
| find clubs or groups you can hang around potentially--again
| you need to get yourself out of your comfort zone and just
| go join those things. If you're into gaming, feel free to
| message me (or chat about IT stuff or whatnot--
| Moonshine#3246 is my Discord).
|
| Covid has been really hard on a lot of people for various
| reasons, but you're definitely not alone and I'm sure there
| are plenty of people also looking for more social
| interaction right now. Just need to find 'em.
| prh8 wrote:
| Nothing to add, but want to validate all your thoughts. I'm
| in the exact same position.
| claytongulick wrote:
| I met my wife at age 42, been happily married two years
| now.
|
| I've come to learn that relationships and my ability to
| navigate them have only improved with age.
|
| I look back at myself and how I treated people in my 20s
| and cringe.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| How did exactly did you treat people in your 20's?
| claytongulick wrote:
| I could probably best describe it as non-malicious
| unintentional callous disregard, coupled with a belief
| that I'd mostly figured everything out - and a deep-
| seated need to always be "right" and "win".
|
| I had not yet learned that at the point where there is an
| argument, both people have already lost.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| >>I could probably best describe it as non-malicious
| unintentional callous disregard, coupled with a belief
| that I'd mostly figured everything out - and a deep-
| seated need to always be "right" and "win".
|
| Sounds like well-earned confidence with a bit self-
| possessiveness . But on the whole that's not unusual or
| something that should be frowned upon.
|
| >>I had not yet learned that at the point where there is
| an argument, both people have already lost.
|
| I used to think like that and all that resulted was
| having my concerns paid lip service to if not outright
| dismissed, being blamed when something didn't go
| someone's way despite not being given clear instruction,
| being guilted into keeping the peace at the expense of my
| sense of self, etc. Being useful meant becoming easy to
| take for granted. Anything less was regarded as "not
| doing my best", "defiance", "rebellion", and "causing
| trouble". Polite logical debate and asking the hard
| questions (when I eventually got to that stage) were met
| with evasion and scorn in addition to rampant hypocrisy
| and double standards. At the end of it all, arguing was
| the only way to truly know where I stand in the world and
| on what terms or, at the very least, led me to learn how
| to salvage myself and cut my losses (too late in my
| opinion, but better late than never). If I had been more
| willing to be upfront with my disregard for certain
| ideas, more willing to leverage "No" or "I don't care"
| without fear of reprisal (real or perceived), then I
| probably would have been in a better position to know in
| advance which arguments are worth it and which ones would
| be pointless time wasters. But I know first-hand that if
| you don't make yourself or your desired way of life a
| priority to be defended by whatever means you can muster,
| no one will. And you will suffer for it.
| [deleted]
| fantod wrote:
| I was feeling pretty awful by the time April came around,
| being in the same position as you. But I took advantage of
| the fact that I work remote now and moved to a very large
| and densely populated city you've heard of. Meeting people
| and socializing regularly has completely changed my point
| of view. Obviously, not everyone can do this, but perhaps
| the moral is that a change of perspective would be
| beneficial and some sort of life change could catalyze
| that. A huge advantage of being single is that you have a
| lot more freedom to just up and go where you like.
| ppf wrote:
| It really sucks for people like you at the moment, and I
| really feel for you. Saying that, being happily married but
| with two small kids (both under 2, for most of lockdown)
| was no joke either.
| [deleted]
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| Huh? What?
|
| I'm about to turn 32 and I'm a bit confused about the whole
| "last couple of years of being able to meet someone".
|
| I know people who met and got married in their 40s...
|
| Edit: go easy on yourself pal. We've all got enough to deal
| with in the world without beating ourselves up over
| imaginary deadlines.
|
| Edit2: also, a lot of marriages are _not_ happy. Imagine
| having to live in one of them during a pandemic. Usually
| made me feel better about being single!
| 6t6t6t6 wrote:
| Good luck if you plan on having kids after 40 though...
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >I know people who met and got married in their 40s...
|
| It all depends on what you're looking for I guess.
| Certainly you can get married in your 40s. But at that
| point having a single child, let alone a few, becomes a
| monumental task. It's not an imaginary deadline.
| Fertility falls off a cliff at 35 [0].
|
| [0] https://www.kinderzeit.org/en/fertility-by-age/
| NationalPark wrote:
| > becomes a monumental task
|
| Even ignoring the fact that fertility treatments exist...
|
| _1 in 4 healthy women in their 20s and 30s will get
| pregnant in any single menstrual cycle. (The American
| College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists, 2018)_
|
| _1 in 10 healthy women in their 40s will get pregnant in
| any single menstrual cycle. (The American College of
| Obstetrics and Gynecologists, 2018)_
|
| hardly monumental
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| Nobody is saying it's impossible, on average - but people
| aren't aggregate statistics. Some women are already going
| to be unable to get pregnant by 35, more by forty. Many
| more will struggle, but might be able to get pregnant. I
| believe the study you cited is biased by excluding some
| of these as 'unhealthy' - essentially it is limiting the
| population to just women who still can get pregnant at
| these ages.
|
| Once more, the number of chromosomal abnormalities
| skyrockets after 30 and by 40 around three quarters of
| eggs (or more, for an individual) will have serious
| abnormalities.
|
| Even if only a small fraction of women would struggle at
| 35, but could have gotten pregnant at 25 - for her it's a
| tragedy. And she is not helped by these messages that 'no
| worries it's easy to get pregnant at 40'
| NationalPark wrote:
| Well that is a much softer point than the one I was
| responding to which called the age related fertility
| decline "monumental" in support of the implied conclusion
| that it is somehow imperative for otherwise healthy women
| to have children by their 30s.
|
| Regarding your anecdote I do not see its relevance to a
| discussion of population statistics. People can be
| infertile because they were paralyzed in a car accident
| but that doesn't mean the original claim wasn't
| overstated and now walked back.
|
| Regardless, I think narrowing in this specifically on
| reproductive biology of women in the context of who you
| date and how you think about relationships is a recipe
| for failure. Not only does it have somewhat creepy bio-
| essentialist connotations, but socioeconomic factors and
| healthcare access also have huge impacts on the health
| and success of any given pregnancy and childhood/life.
|
| In short, "I have to date right now because I'm 30 and my
| hypothetical childbearing vessels are becoming less
| optimal" is an unhealthy and probably incorrect attitude.
| throwawaygal7 wrote:
| I'd agree that it's a poor sole reason to date, but its
| definitely something to think about if you really want
| children. Two of my girlfriends in their mid 30s are
| 'technically' able to get pregnant but functifinally
| unable due to PCOS - its biologically possible for them
| to get pregnant (handful of viable eggs left, occasional
| good cycles). Not a lot of women get advice as teens like
| 'you have PCOS, you're going to really struggle to have
| children and its only going to get worse if you wait'.
| kbelder wrote:
| Not just conceiving; _having_ a baby becomes much harder
| as you age. Birthing is a pretty physically stressful
| process for lots of women, and the following few years is
| a lot of very hard work. The most demanding of your life,
| probably.
|
| Edit: Wanted to add, though, that _dating_ in your 30s
| and 40s just gets better and better. Don't worry about
| that. Maturity is a bonus, not a drawback.
| kickopotomus wrote:
| 1) Fertility treatments are expensive and don't work for
| everyone
|
| 2) "1 in 10 healthy women in their 40s will get pregnant
| in any single menstrual cycle". I.e. there is a 90%
| chance that a woman over 40 will have at least some
| difficulty getting pregnant. Likely more than that if
| their partner is similar in age because male fertility
| declines with age as well.
|
| 3) Getting pregnant is only the first step. Miscarriage
| rates also increase with age.
| rkk3 wrote:
| > 2) "1 in 10 healthy women in their 40s will get
| pregnant in any single menstrual cycle". I.e. there is a
| 90% chance that a woman over 40 will have at least some
| difficulty getting pregnant.
|
| That is not what it means. It is unlikely at any age to
| get pregnant in one menstrual cycle.
|
| "Each month, the average 30-year-old woman has about a
| 20% chance of getting pregnant. A 40-year-old only has a
| 5% chance of getting pregnant each month."
|
| https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-are-the-chances-of-
| getti...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Getting pregnant is not the only risk factor that rises.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| I only know through friends, but dating in your 30s seems
| like an absolute nightmare - they all hate it and find it
| completely joyless and deeply cynical. Trying to fit
| someone new into an already fully-formed life at that
| point seems very hard.
|
| Also 35 is the point where medicine considers a pregnancy
| to be 'geriatric'. And some people are going through
| menopause by 40! You don't have an infinite amount of
| time in life no matter how positive your outlook!
| rkk3 wrote:
| > Also 35 is the point where medicine considers a
| pregnancy to be 'geriatric'.
|
| Which is a dated term that isn't used frequently. Yes the
| risks for certain things increase after 35 but pregnancy
| after 35 or 40+ is healthy and common.
|
| > some people are going through menopause by 40!
|
| The average age of Menopause is 51, before 40 is
| considered "premature menopause".
|
| https://www.webmd.com/menopause/guide/premature-
| menopause-sy...
| tablespoonsruby wrote:
| Not to mention that plenty of people (men and women) just
| don't want kids.
| claytongulick wrote:
| Well, a different perspective (as someone who was
| unwillingly tossed back into the dating pool at age 38).
|
| While online dating was indeed a bit of a nightmare,
| dating older women in general was a net positive for me.
|
| I liked people who have lived life a bit, made mistakes,
| hopefully learned from them, are past the point of
| obsession about body type, and are more focused on
| character and how to treat/be treated properly.
|
| People do learn and grow as they age, and most of us
| become better people.
| chias wrote:
| Hey man, if you ever need someone to shoot the shit with or
| whatever, shoot me a DM via keybase
| (https://keybase.io/ojensen) or any of the networks linked
| there. I'm also pretty okay at several online multiplayer
| games if that kind of thing floats your boat.
|
| Being alone sucks and an internet friend won't fix that,
| but maybe it can help :)
| david422 wrote:
| > particularly at an age (31) where I'm staring down the
| last couple years of being able to meet someone
|
| You still have plenty of time - even to meet someone and
| have kids. Just focus on getting yourself into a good state
| - gym, hygiene, activities/hobbies where you can meet
| people. The rest will come.
| [deleted]
| golergka wrote:
| > particularly at an age (31) where I'm staring down the
| last couple years of being able to meet someone
|
| What?
|
| I'm 33, only a few months into my current relationship, and
| I have to say that dating is so much better at this age
| than it ever was.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >I'm 33, only a few months into my current relationship,
| and I have to say that dating is so much better at this
| age than it ever was.
|
| You can get lucky. There are certainly unicorns out
| there. Or you can date younger, if you're ok with that.
| But by and large, women and men work on different
| timelines. And you don't realize this as a man until it
| hits. The vast majority of women are out of the dating
| pool by 30. And by this age, you've both ossified into
| separate individuals with rigid expectations and
| assumptions about life, which makes the flexibility
| needed to build a real lasting connection infinitely
| harder.
| dstick wrote:
| I'm afraid that's quite a bit of self referential bias.
| So let me raise your hopes with some of mine: I met my
| wife when she was 30 and already had 2 kids. We've been
| together for 16 years now, got 2 daughters (so 4 children
| in total), and are nothing like the individuals we were
| 16 years ago. We've grown together, we've grown
| separately - we've changed yearly. Since you're aware of
| it now: don't become an individual with rigid
| expectations and assumptions. Life is constantly
| evolving.
|
| Aim to hit 80 and still shake your head at the person you
| were when you was 70 ;-)
|
| Here's one of my favorite quotes that feels relevant:
|
| "We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a
| pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and
| the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it
| is, maybe heaven after you're dead. But we missed the
| point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you
| were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was
| being played"
|
| You can find love at any age.
| cfcf14 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this lovely anecdote, and for the
| positive sentiment. Unfortunately I do agree with the
| person you're replying to - these days, it is vanishingly
| unlikely to find a partner past your early 30s.
|
| Only a tiny proportion of the adult population in most
| western countries is single, and asymmetries in the
| dating pool induced by modern modes of meeting people
| (ie: apps) have radically upended traditional ideals
| about coupling and compatibility. Respectfully, if you
| met your partner 16 years ago (congrats by the way!),
| that might as well be a completely different world than
| the one we live in now. I sympathise with the GP's
| expression of urgency.
| Jommi wrote:
| I am really really challenging your sentiment - we live
| in a time where more and more people than ever stay
| single even in their early 30s. Especially the gender
| balance there has changed immensly. What evidence do you
| have to the contrary?
| Dragonai wrote:
| I love that quote. :) Thanks for sharing.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I'm married to someone about my age, but I don't see many
| downsides to dating younger once you're in your 30s.
| Mid-20s is old enough for most women to be out of the
| immature phase of their life, and you'll have a wife
| that's going to look younger longer and be more fertile.
|
| There was no way to type that out without sounding gross.
|
| The proposition for women in their 30s is worse, even if
| it is easier to find a date. That biological clock is
| ticking and most men don't want to date someone older
| than them.
| not_jd_salinger wrote:
| > you've both ossified into separate individuals with
| rigid expectations and assumptions about life
|
| This is the real issue, not the dating pool.
|
| The obvious evidence against the dating pool is that a
| fairly large number of divorced people I know getting
| into serious relationships and married again fairly
| quickly regardless of their age when the divorce happens.
|
| All of the unhappy single people I know (and there are
| some happy ones that don't mind) share the same
| paradoxical thinking: I'm unhappy with how my life is,
| and I want to be in a close relationship with someone,
| but am absolutely unwilling to change anything major
| (sometimes even minor) about who I am, what I believe or
| how I live.
|
| It seems obvious, but if you are unwilling to change
| anything about your life, then the only changes you
| experience are going to be those that are thrust upon
| you, such as the pandemic.
| philangist wrote:
| Why wouldn't you date someone younger? At 31 assuming you
| have your life reasonably together and aren't living in
| some rural area (or san francisco lol) you can definitely
| meet attractive and interesting women 25+ that would be
| interested in settling down on your timeframe. Dating is
| all about self fulfilling prophecies so if you're telling
| yourself there are no women available that's what you're
| going to manifest.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >and aren't living in some rural area (or san francisco
| lol)
|
| That was a good laugh. I think in retrospect spending my
| 20s in San Francisco had a lot to do with now being
| single in my 30s.
| dragosmocrii wrote:
| Why is that? What's wrong with SF for dating? (just
| curious)
| volkk wrote:
| probably because its very heavily skewed towards tech
| dudes
| ramesh31 wrote:
| >"Why is that? What's wrong with SF for dating? (just
| curious)"
|
| Where to begin?
|
| The tech industry is massively skewed towards male, so
| right off the bat your odds of meeting someone in your
| work life is near nil. Then, with the complete lack of
| affordable housing, there's no such thing as just being a
| single 20-something living independently and supporting
| yourself on a non-tech salary. Bare minimum subsistence
| income is about $80k. So that filters out the vast
| majority of women who are in non-tech careers and simply
| cannot afford to move there.
|
| At that point you're basically left with the lucky few
| locals who have parents that bought houses in the 80s/90s
| and live with them rent free, or the unicorn types who
| make enough to live in SF independently.
|
| From that vanishingly small pool of women, you're now
| competing with the guys who made startup money or have
| the $300k+ FAANG gigs and can afford luxury vacations,
| nice condos, BMWs, etc.
|
| An average dude doesn't stand a chance.
| bradlys wrote:
| Don't feel too bad about the highly paid tech dudes. Tech
| dudes don't stand a chance either because women don't
| want to date another tech dude.
|
| I'm turning 31 in a couple months and am coming out of a
| 5 year relationship. It's looking grim AF. My only real
| hope is that I get back with my ex eventually.
|
| I did the fancy vacations. I have the high income
| (~400k). I have a reasonably high net worth for my age
| (~2M). Even have the BMW! Didn't stop her from walking
| away because she didn't wanna date just a miserable
| workaholic techie anymore!!
|
| Honestly, the best candidates that I think many women are
| aiming for aren't the tech guys. It's the guys with rich
| families. They're the ones I see not really having any
| issues because they don't really need to have any kind of
| shit job. They got parental money after all.
| bongoman37 wrote:
| There is no money like old money.
| [deleted]
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Would you say that the gender ratio also counts against
| you as a factor? Do you think you would be probably
| better off dating transnationally or internationally? Oh,
| and what kind of Bimmer?
| bradlys wrote:
| 135is convertible. Sporty, outrageously loud, and full of
| fun. I'd get a 1M but no drop top kills it for me. Also,
| I don't have to feel as bad for driving it because a 1M
| is a collectible now.
|
| Gender ratio is definitely horrible. Likely the worst
| factor against straight men. It's obvious everywhere.
| Dating in other cities is likely a lot better (especially
| not on the west coast AFAICT). It's no surprise that most
| long term couples I've met in SF have met outside the Bay
| Area.
|
| I've heard access to the best dating in SF is by getting
| a cab down to SFO and flying anywhere else.
| beansontoast wrote:
| There are 0 unicorns and 3.9 billion women out there.
| Many of those are dateable. I can see why somebody would
| think like you if they've been single for a long time,
| but my experience has been that arranging dates in my
| mid-late twenties and early thirties is easier than ever.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I'm an extreme introvert as well, my wife is all the social
| interaction I require, and I'm a giant homebody, but I'm
| still super tired. Work wise I've been under pressure for a
| fair bit this year and there were no experiences to balance
| it out with. I miss a lot of small indulgences - quiet
| brunches on a Wednesday morning or going to get coffee. I may
| even miss the movie theater occasionally.
|
| I certainly don't miss working from the office, but I miss
| the variety of downtime. A camel doesn't often need water,
| but they still need it.
| gsibble wrote:
| This is basically how I feel. I'm an introvert and I'm
| exhausted and need a break. Being an introvert does not
| necessarily mean I like sitting in my small apartment all
| day with a roommate for months on end.
|
| I need a vacation.
| [deleted]
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Perhaps you're not as extreme as you think, or perhaps I'm
| more extreme than most. I didn't miss movie theaters,
| eating out, driving, museums, malls, nothing. I have been
| able to stay in great shape with weights at home and
| biking, get more than enough socialization with my partner,
| and have plenty of hobbies that don't require interaction
| with or proximity to other people. There's a reason that my
| life goal is to escape into hermitude: I have zero interest
| in being around or seeing other humans unless they're loved
| ones.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yeah, I don't care to see the people, my wife is enough
| for me, but I want a change and new experiences. Not even
| to travel, but to take some time and recover. Eat some
| food I don't usually eat, experience some things I
| haven't felt good about for the last year and a bit.
| DrBazza wrote:
| > Increased physical and social distance from other people
|
| I believe for many people, this is more because "everyone
| else does it" and the general "miserable office atmosphere"
| in our industry. I'm not accusing the OP of anything by the
| way.
|
| I would have said that I _was_ in the group of "you've said
| hello, that's enough social contact for one day", yet after
| 15 months, at least according to friends and family, I'm more
| friendly, more sociable, and more outgoing.
|
| I think really for a lot of people that are enjoying WFH for
| the last 15 months, what they're really enjoying, myself
| included is not sitting 2 feet from someone who is not
| family, that talks, fidgets, coughs, sniffs, slurps, and eats
| food at their desk 3 times a day, and being in an open plan
| office with 10-100 other people.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| As a (currently, sort of) introvert, I agree with both you
| and the parent. I also had a great time during the
| pandemic. But I was behaving exactly as I was before, when
| I was depressed. The difference is that now everyone else -
| even celebrities and Instagram party girls - were suddenly
| living my lifestyle, and that gave me a sense of comfort.
| It meant that I no longer felt like I was letting the world
| pass me by, because the world stopped.
|
| But now it's back on again, frankly, that feeling is coming
| back. It was nice while it lasted, but that's clearly not
| sustainable for anyone.
| raydev wrote:
| Good for you! You can continue working while other people
| take much needed time off.
| jcadam wrote:
| Yep, As my company slowly starts going back to the office, I
| decided to move to a remote/rural area because I wasn't
| willing to go back into an office everyday. I expected to
| have to find a new job, but my current employer offered to
| let me continue remotely, so I suppose it has worked out.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I am jelaous. My company has a stated goal of going back to
| its old ways. I requested basically hybrid mode ( one day
| in office a week ) to show I am a team player, but it is
| clear remote is reserved for favorites..
| jcadam wrote:
| Perhaps I'm a favorite... for now - my company is getting
| acquired, so I may be on the job hunt soon anyway.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, I kind of cringe when I read the all-hands e-mails from
| my company that say things like "We know this has been
| incredibly difficult for _all_ of you... " and " _Everyone_
| wants to get back into the office... " Wow, speak for
| yourself--it's been the best year of my life, and no, I'd
| rather just stay remote permanently, thankyouverymuch!
|
| On the other hand, it gives me a chance to step back and
| develop some real empathy for everyone else. I recognize that
| I am blessed, and most people aren't wired like me, and the
| isolation has been really tough for them. When I interact
| with people over videoconference, I have to remind myself
| that this person might very well be suffering to the point of
| a mental breakdown from all this, and I need to communicate
| with care and thoughtfulness.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| > On the other hand, it gives me a chance to step back and
| develop some real empathy for everyone else. I recognize
| that I am blessed, and most people aren't wired like me,
| and the isolation has been really tough for them. When I
| interact with people over videoconference, I have to remind
| myself that this person might very well be suffering to the
| point of a mental breakdown from all this, and I need to
| communicate with care and thoughtfulness.
|
| This is what I hope everybody else can come out of the
| pandemic with: empathy, particularly for people like you
| and me who have thrived during the pandemic. Unfortunately,
| I fear you are an exception and people will push to make
| things just how they were before, as evinced by your email.
| On the bright side, I think it will at least get a little
| easier to find remote jobs, etc moving forward.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| Being an introvert does NOT mean having unreadable or
| negative "resting face" expressions, nor does it mean
| dreading routine interaction with other humans, and it
| ESPECIALLY is not anything like "misanthropic".
|
| What some of you people are describing sound more like autism
| or some kinds of personality disorders. That's very different
| from introversion--- which roughly half of the population
| could be categorized as.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| How do you define misanthropy? A quick google search says
| the following: "Misanthropy is the general hatred, dislike,
| distrust or contempt of the human species, human behavior
| or human nature." That applies to me, which is why I
| dislike being around people that aren't loved ones, and why
| I've enjoyed the lockdown world where extra systems have
| emerged to keep people away from me. People with autism may
| or may not feel similarly, I can't say. I don't have
| problems socializing, I just dislike people.
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| > Because covid was an incredibly hard period for all of us and
| we as humans need a break.
|
| Ok. Then let's give one to the essential workers who didn't get
| a break and had to risk their health going in to work every
| day, delivering food to the WFH crowd, dealing with anti-
| maskers, delivering packages to the WFH crowd, etc.
| dominotw wrote:
| > Because covid was an incredibly hard period for all of us
|
| Not really. Most of my family and friends did fine. Whole bunch
| of them changed to better jobs due to tech job boom, worked
| from home, started gardening projects, learnt tennis ect. It
| was more than awesome for whole bunch of ppl.
| baud147258 wrote:
| Maybe it's because I already got a lot of PTO (7 weeks a years,
| which is standard on this side of the Atlantic), but mandating
| time off for all the company seems a bit much over letting
| employee choose when they want to take some PTO
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| That is not standard in Europe. Speaking for Ireland and the
| UK, I believe that the standard is 4 weeks (20 days) plus
| public holidays.
|
| I would absolutely love it if this became standard, though ;)
| balfirevic wrote:
| > 7 weeks a years, which is standard on this side of the
| Atlantic
|
| It's not, although it might be in your particular country.
| rektide wrote:
| 1 point by rektide 32 minutes ago | parent | edit | delete [-] |
| on: Bumble closes to give 'burnt-out' staff a week's b...
|
| Shout out to Laura Hogan's late-April "We Need To Talk About Your
| Q3 Roadmap"[1], which talks about taking care of workers just
| starting to make it out of a crazy pandemic year.
|
| [1] https://larahogan.me/blog/we-need-to-talk-about-
| your-q3-road...
| FunnyLookinHat wrote:
| This is excellent.
|
| My workplace (Moz) has been giving us the third Friday of every
| month off since April of 2020 due to COVID. The CEO called them
| "Breather Days" - a day to catch our breath, catch up on chores
| or home life, help get our kids school straightened out, etc.
| More importantly than simply getting the days off, the empathy
| that it demonstrated reassured everyone that we would find the
| work/life balance we needed even in extraordinary times.
| allannienhuis wrote:
| Ours did the same thing, although we generally vote on which
| friday it will be for the upcoming month - people often choose
| to line it up with another stat holiday to make 4 day weekends.
| I agree that the empathy part of this really means a lot to
| people.
|
| I'm really curious how long we'll keep that in place,
| especially after re-opening the physical offices.
| FunnyLookinHat wrote:
| Ironically, our last one was this past Friday.
|
| That was announced a few months ago along with the opening up
| of most US States and the soon-to-be-widely-available
| vaccines.
|
| I can't speak for everyone where I work, but this felt like
| an appropriate time to shift back to normalcy in that regard.
| In any case, we have a very generous PTO policy that should
| make it easy for anyone to continue to transition through the
| rest of the year as they see fit.
| boringg wrote:
| Does one week really resolve it or does it just restart with
| added pressure? Feels like they might need to pull 2 - 3 weeks to
| really take pressure off.
| curiousgal wrote:
| Maybe I am too naive but what the heck are they overworking on?
| It's an app with some basic functionality. Is software dev in
| such a sad state that you can't deliver a self-standing product
| that doesn't require teams working overtime to keep it running? I
| doubt that all of their staff is doing DevOps or maintaining
| servers which are the only two things that jump to mind as being
| labor-intensive for a an app with millions of users
| dkarl wrote:
| If you look at their job openings, they're looking for
| experience re-engineering monolithic codebases to
| microservices, and they mention PHP experience or willingness
| to learn PHP to read their legacy codebase as a plus, so it
| sounds like their back-end engineers have a lot on their plate.
| Add in two mobile apps, plus all the technical, legal, and
| business challenges of operating on lots of different
| countries, plus recommendation algorithms, abuse detection,
| tons of marketing stuff I'm sure, constant running to stay in
| place in a crowded market, hell, that's just what I can think
| off of the top of my head never having worked in that space.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Concur with someone else on the thread*. Bumble's security team
| is largely overseas (UK). For a US based, culture-forward
| company, to me this probably implies a lot of offshoring of eng
| talent at some point, in order to grow. Which in turn probably
| means growing pains moving from contract devs to a real, in-
| house product<>eng program.
| gizmo385 wrote:
| This comment feels like it shares a lot of the attitude found
| in the "I could build this in a weekend"-style comments. Even
| things that seem relatively simple become quite complicated
| when scaled out internationally to millions of users.
| gsibble wrote:
| I have seen massive teams churn out tiny features and move at a
| snail's pace.
| blowski wrote:
| Complexity expands to fit the available budget.
| fatjokes wrote:
| They had an IPO and their user count spiked. The former
| requires a ton of work on the finance/management team (great
| writeup here on HN recently. The link evades me). The latter
| probably necessitated some rearchitecturing.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Perhaps it's user moderation?
|
| But they have a _lot_ of open positions, so there 's apparently
| a lot more to this app than I realize:
| https://team.bumble.com/open-roles
| afavour wrote:
| FTA: "Bumble has had a busier year than most firms, with a
| stock market debut, and rapid growth in user numbers."
|
| I don't think they're implying that everyone is working
| overtime. Scaling up to accommodate a lot of new users isn't
| always simple, we all know this. And a looming IPO means the
| pressure to get that scaling right first time is high (and has
| plenty of non-tech requirements to stress out employees too)
|
| A busy year like that combined with the effects of COVID means
| that a lot of people feel burnt out. A synchronised break also
| has benefits: with no-one working there's much less chance
| you'll be tempted to "just check emails quickly" and get sucked
| back in.
|
| I didn't have a particularly intense workplace in the last year
| and _I_ still feel pretty burnt out so I can sympathise.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I don't know about your organization, but at mine utilization
| jumped like crazy when we all started working from home. People
| threw themselves into their work and stopped taking vacations.
| Not a lot of people have taken time to breathe in the last
| year. Was that focus and effort required? Probably not, but
| with nothing else to do and in a time of such economic
| uncertainty people did what they needed to make themselves feel
| better. I understand why the company would be burnt out.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| Plus, with nobody doing anything social or interacting with
| other humans, I've noticed far fewer people getting sick, or
| taking the occasional Friday off to get out of town at the
| last minute.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Yeah - I haven't been sick since this whole thing started.
| I was honestly hoping that my recent second Pfizer shot
| would make me feel ill enough that I could feel good about
| taking a day, but no luck.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| I would bet customer support is the most labor-intensive part
| of the whole company, with devops a distant second.
| standardUser wrote:
| They had their IPO a few months ago and I imagine all of their
| staff, not just engineers, were under a lot of pressure. And no
| one said they were working overtime, just that they were burnt
| out. Plus, when your company is in the news and your user base
| grows 30% in a matter if months, that's the time to strike
| while the iron is hot, which no doubt required a lot of work
| from all teams.
| joegahona wrote:
| It references "burnout," not "overwork." I think there's a
| difference.
| colesantiago wrote:
| > It's an app with some basic functionality.
|
| > I doubt that all of their staff is doing DevOps or
| maintaining servers
|
| Please don't assume this.
|
| Just because you don't use the app and have no interest in the
| app or company does not mean you need to have a reductionist
| outlook on other people's work.
|
| Bumble has a great and in depth engineering blog [0] here that
| doesn't make it 'an app with some basic functionality.'
|
| [0] https://medium.com/bumble-tech
| elliekelly wrote:
| > Just because you don't use the app and have no interest in
| the app or company does not mean you need to have a
| reductionist outlook on other people's work.
|
| Please don't assume this. Parent comment's question seems
| genuine.
| colesantiago wrote:
| > Parent comment's question seems genuine.
|
| Why are you assuming genuineness when the parent mentioned
| this:
|
| 'an app with some _basic functionality_ '
|
| 'I _doubt_ that all of their staff is doing DevOps or
| maintaining servers '
|
| 'Is software dev in such a _sad state_ that you _can 't
| deliver_'
|
| 'what the _heck_ are they overworking on? '
|
| This is enough to know that the parent is dismissing the
| effort and work of others to the point that they are
| expressing a reductionist viewpoint of the entire app and
| company, which is not ok.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > Why are you assuming genuineness
|
| I'm just assuming the question was asked in good faith :)
| I've seen this topic discussed on HN about many companies
| and sometimes there are interesting and unexpected
| reasons for the high headcount.
| fatjokes wrote:
| A bit O/T, but a few things from that blog jumped out at me:
|
| 1. I clicked the we're hiring link. Most roles are in EU
| (particularly UK and Spain). Is that for cost reasons? I know
| hiring engineers is cheaper in those two locations in
| particular. Or is it for EU/Badoo reasons?
|
| 2. Despite frequently playing up its female-led workplace,
| all but one of the blog posts are authored by men (based on
| photos and names). Is this reflective of their staff? The
| Badoo staff? The pool of people who like to write blog posts?
| savant_penguin wrote:
| I'm surprised by how much work at some companies should have
| been done automatically but instead it's some labor intensive
| excel+email workflow.
|
| Maybe there's some of that happening in there
| hvidgaard wrote:
| There is this misconception that software development can be
| ultra lean and only really need a team of few handful of people
| if they're just sufficiently capable.
|
| It's knowledge work that is almost always in the complex
| domain, and as such it's far from simple. In fact it's the
| domain of unknown unknowns. So to have a product with millions
| of users with an online attack vector, that takes security and
| uptime serious, you need the following lead roles as a minimum:
| * Architect * Security * Test * Agile *
| Developer * Operation * Owner * UX
|
| Security, Test, Agile, Operation, Owner are at the very least
| full time posistions in their own right for a single service,
| then you need to add developers. Add requirements for new
| documentation and maintenance of old. You probably need some
| support roles too.
|
| An app with millions of users are likely to have multiple teams
| that have a subset of the full application. For every feature
| you want to develop or any significant refactorings, you need
| to involve at least architect, security, test and operations.
| My experience is that teams around 8-10 people can be really
| productive and run a service. If you really want to accelerate
| and be best in class you assign teams to specific parts of the
| service that makes sense. Could be signup, search, chat, ect.
|
| Then you probably want teams for analytics, ads and marketing,
| legal and before you know it, you have 50+ people working
| directly on a "self-standing product".
|
| All that said, if the code base is crap, and the organization
| of the employees are similar it's highly likely that alone is
| responsible for creating the additional workload compared to a
| better codebase and organizational structure.
| baud147258 wrote:
| For Agile role (assuming you mean a role like SCRUM master),
| it works way better if it's a productive team member (either
| developer, QA, doc writer...) that works part-time as the
| SCRUM master for the team, rather than a agile person who
| does only that, which usually feel disconnected from the
| actual concerns of the team.
| base698 wrote:
| This reads like someone who has never worked on anything.
| Here's something I totally made up but have experienced half a
| dozen times and caused it the other half dozen:
|
| Come in to an exciting new opportunity. The first week you
| recoil in horror the technical debt. It appears the previous
| maintainer/builder didn't know one or more of: basic system
| admin, testing, documentation, packages, coding design,
| database design, or security.
|
| The incidents start. The code is so interdependent it's
| terrifying to make even a small change. Fixing a bug in their
| custom json generator breaks a service you don't know exists
| and takes out billing. Yes they wrote their own. You lose the
| confidence of the team already there. Now you are too afraid to
| make changes.
|
| All you can do is toil or try to think about selling a rewrite.
| When one or both of those hit burn out you fire up LinkedIn and
| beg for mercy.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > I doubt that all of their staff is doing DevOps or
| maintaining servers
|
| I should imagine there's a fair few customer support people
| along with at least a handful of content moderators -
| considerably more labour intensive than software
| dev/devops/sysadmin, I think.
|
| Obviously there's also comms teams, marketing, HR, finance,
| etc. I'd say these are probably also more labour intensive than
| dev/devops/sysadmin because they tend to involve a lot more
| human contact, etc.
| michaelt wrote:
| Presumably they have a moderation queue, moderated by a bunch
| of low-paid workers who are highly stressed from looking at
| awful images full time?
| joegahona wrote:
| I would love to know how they are measuring the success of this
| measure -- and I'm not being cynical. How would one even begin to
| weigh the tradeoffs of closing business for everyone for an
| entire week against the increased productivity upon return and
| something woolly like "improved morale." What if giving everyone
| a week of twice a year was actually beneficial to the company? Or
| even quarterly? Many companies already have an unspoken/informal
| week off between Christmas and New Year's.
|
| Also, this is incredible Marketing for Bumble, as many people are
| going to share this in Slack channels in an effort to get their
| companies to do the same.
| asoneth wrote:
| If the effects are minor I think it will be difficult to
| measure the impact on any one company given the number of
| confounding variables. In that case the only way to determine
| the correlation between these kinds of things and business
| success might be to gather enough statistical evidence across
| industries.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| This was my reaction, not to mention, while everybody takes
| the week off, the work will pile up with nobody working.
|
| Nothing like coming back to the office after a week off and
| you're already back up to your eyeballs in work, the moment
| you step back into the office.
| bin_bash wrote:
| I hate it when people demand that every decision needs to come
| with some metric. For one, they fall victim to Goodhart's Law:
|
| > When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good
| measure.
|
| Metrics should drive intuition, not the other way around. We
| don't use the scientific method here.
| afarrell wrote:
| You may also want to cite the McNamara Fallacy:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
| theptip wrote:
| Just to note, you can regularly ask your employees how they
| feel, and with enough employees get a significant measurement.
| So maybe they can measure the "woolly" morale impact of this.
| Tools like Lattice make it easy to do a "pulse" survey for this
| purpose.
|
| Also the great thing about doing this twice a year is you get
| two experiments so you can start to be confident it's not just
| "Christmas makes employees 10% happier" if you also measured a
| similar bump in the summer break. (Obviously numbers made up
| for the sake of example.)
| afarrell wrote:
| That assumes that your employees:
|
| 1. Know how they feel
|
| 2. Can translate that into numbers accurately.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| You have to consider the alternative, which us not knowing
| much at all. This is not a precise science
| theptip wrote:
| It's a good question, which has been extensively studied
| over the last few decades in the medical context. The
| industry phrase would be "Patient Reported Outcomes" if
| you'd like to explore further.
|
| After many papers and lots of clinical trials, it's widely
| accepted in the scientific community that the answers to
| both of your questions are "yes". E.g. see this FDA
| paper[1].
|
| Of course, it's possible to design your questionnaire badly
| and there's an art to this, so it's right to be
| skeptical/cautious about putting this into practice. But
| you seem to be getting at a more fundamental epistemic
| question about whether the approach is possible even in
| principle, which has been thoroughly investigated.
|
| [1]: https://www.fda.gov/media/77832/download
| whatshisface wrote:
| 3. Are willing to express how they feel instead of how they
| think they should bubble themselves in on a web app you
| pointed them to.
| armoredkitten wrote:
| Psychological science uses this technique a lot. It's not
| perfect, of course there's lots of noise because of both of
| the issues you raise (in addition to other issues like how
| to develop questions to measure nebulous things like "self-
| esteem" or "extraversion").
|
| But as long as the results aren't _pure noise_ , i.e.,
| there's _some_ signal there, then with an adequate sample
| size you can do something with it. Lots of fields deal with
| noisy, imprecise data. It 's just conditional on it not
| being _only_ noise.
| gpm wrote:
| Nothing is perfect, this is better than nothing though. [1]
|
| The way my company does this is they ask a lot of questions
| and then mostly look at aggregates. E.g. they might ask 6
| questions about "how do you feel about the size of your
| workload", "do you feel you have time to do the important
| things in your life", "are you satisfied with the amount of
| vacation you take", "do you feel stressed", ... and then
| roll those into a single "work life balance" metric
| (questions and specific metric entirely made up).
|
| And actually we outsource to a survey company that does
| that for us, which apart from outsourcing the non-core
| competency, means that there is a reasonably neutral party
| deciding how to aggregate things (I think, I'm not involved
| in the survey design).
|
| [1] Therefore this is better than perfect?
| gpm wrote:
| Some things can't really be measured numerically, I think this
| is one.
|
| I think you do things like talking to people afterwards and see
| if they think it was a good idea, looking at attrition rates
| and try and guess if it moved them, looking at whatever
| productivity metrics you have, and at the end you probably have
| a gut feeling on whether or not it was a good idea... That's
| probably the best that you get.
| handmodel wrote:
| I think the argument would be that this actually could be
| measured short term (probably all the staff will say they
| feel better in two weeks) but if in Q3 the CEO realizes they
| need to roll out some features before a Q4 quarterly call
| then what could have been a 12 week project will turn into a
| cramped 10 week project.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Yea, this is what always gets me about taking personal
| vacation time. You take a week off, but that week isn't
| yours for free. Your expected work keeps accumulating
| during that week. You're just taking a week of time-debt
| which you will need to pay off in the form of much higher
| workload over the following few weeks. I wouldn't be
| surprised if these employees all get back to work and find
| their workload doubles for a time just to catch back up!
| npteljes wrote:
| I think good management can turn it into a real vacation.
| Our teams works in scrum and we just commit to fewer or
| smaller tasks, accounting for the missing person-days.
| handmodel wrote:
| And one major distinction is that it didn't seem like
| they got to pick the time?
|
| Maybe I really like working during the summer but have
| lots of family stuff in the fall. Seems a bit inefficient
| for this to be so long but I'm all for experimentation.
| crsv wrote:
| At a (perhaps generous) average of $120K per employee, a week
| off would cost $1.5MM - given how broadly this will get picked
| up and circulated in the media, it'll get more eyeballs than
| 1.5MM spent on mobile or search ads most likely.
| [deleted]
| an_opabinia wrote:
| You're getting it backwards. What if you go to work 7 days a
| week, and the numbers are still going down? Bumble is taking a
| week off because they're doing poorly. I have no opinions on
| whether the factors are in their control or not.
| dominotw wrote:
| > Also, this is incredible Marketing for Bumble, as many people
| are going to share this in Slack channels in an effort to get
| their companies to do the same.
|
| Agreed and ppl sharing stuff of slack channels are their target
| customers too.
| alangibson wrote:
| The real story here is that this is news. It's common for most
| European businesses for 2 weeks every year in the summer. It's a
| non-optional, lights out, GTFO shutdown.
| xrstf wrote:
| Can you give some examples? I live in Europe and have never
| experienced that in my country suddenly everything stops for 2
| weeks in the middle of the summer.
| alangibson wrote:
| I should have specified countries I guess. Austria, Germany
| and Netherlands for sure. Others I'm told but have not
| directly experienced it.
| xrstf wrote:
| Citation needed. Germans do not quit working for 2 weeks in
| the summer. Where did you get that from? What German
| companies shut down for 2 weeks in the summer of 2019?
| alangibson wrote:
| There's even a word for it. Google Betriebsurlaub.
|
| I get that from working with and for German, Austrian and
| Dutch companies in Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.
| It's nigh on impossible to get anything done in August
| around here.
|
| This doesn't apply to things like resorts and
| restaurants, for obvious reasons, though if that's what
| you're thinking of.
| xrstf wrote:
| Yeah, your first comment made it sound to me like the
| country shuts down (grocery stores, home improvement
| stores, furnite stores, banks, offices, government
| agencies, taxis, ...) ;-)
|
| I found one Austrian source ( https://www.vol.at/wo-die-
| produktion-urlaub-macht/3314076 ) mentioning the issue
| and I can see how it would make sense for some industries
| to need some maintenance time each year.
| notyourday wrote:
| Are they taking the app down? Because no matter what people think
| even that "serverless", "cloud", "automated", "containers",
| "super-redundant" thing does not run without engineering and ops.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| The article said there will be some support staff remaining who
| will then take their week off at a later time.
| christkv wrote:
| Minus the poor schmucks stuck in ops I bet.
| Symbiote wrote:
| > A spokeswoman for Bumble said a few customer support staff
| will be working in case any of the app's users experience
| issues. These employees will then be given time off to make
| sure they take a whole week of leave.
| thrower123 wrote:
| Dollars to donuts, those aren't "employees", they're
| contracted folks in a battery cage in Bangalore.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| That's still not ops, but I assume they just forget to
| mention them.
| bidirectional wrote:
| I'd say in spokeperson-speak, ops falls under customer
| support.
| melomal wrote:
| Sounds like a bit of sleazy PR to me. Considering the roots of
| this entire platform...
| nefasti wrote:
| 1 week! Love the benevolent leaders of our industry /s
| gpm wrote:
| That's > 2% of this years work weeks now as an extra paid
| holiday, that's a pretty big random bonus in my mind.
| alimbada wrote:
| One week in addition to normal holiday allowance.
| Liquidor wrote:
| Which is how much...?
| woobar wrote:
| I don't work or use Bumble, but a quick search says they
| have 3 weeks of vacation and 12 holidays. Which is at or
| above average for US.
|
| My company gives 3 weeks to new hires plus another week
| around Christmas. They gave us an extra Covid week and
| everyone sure appreciates it.
| Loughla wrote:
| And in addition to that, what is the company
| culture/attitude around using time off. Unlimited time off
| is great, in theory, unless you're made to feel like a
| monster for using any.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The legal minimum is 20 days for the London office, 22 in
| Spain, at least that in Moscow. (This is in addition to
| public holidays.) Bumble probably offer a bit more.
|
| In the UK and Spain, that's also the number you _must_ use,
| I don 't know about Russia. (In other words, if you've not
| used any days by December, you'll be taking all of December
| off. Or whenever your year wraps round.)
| bidirectional wrote:
| I don't think it is a requirement to take all holiday in
| the UK? I've definitely not used all of mine in the past.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The Northern Ireland link was easier to find:
|
| > You must take at least four weeks' holiday a year, so
| only holiday on top of this can be carried over and then
| only if your employer gives you permission or if this is
| permitted by your contract of employment.
|
| I once had a colleague who was given a letter along the
| lines of "you still haven't used enough holiday; unless
| you advise us of your preferred days, you will be on
| holiday from date X to Y".
|
| https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/taking-your-holidays
| IneffablePigeon wrote:
| It's a requirement to take the legal minimum (20 days),
| but most companies offer 25 or so so in practice you can
| usually carry over 5.
|
| I believe it's in order to nullify the ability for a
| company to apply alternative pressures to stop people
| taking their entitled holiday.
| corytheboyd wrote:
| Hopefully they can get to a place where people are empowered to
| regularly take time off when needed!
| dharmab wrote:
| Adobe does two of these every year, one in winter around the
| holidays and one in July. From my perspective as an individual
| contributor, there are a few advantages:
|
| - With no feature/project work that week, there is zero pressure
| to check email or slack.
|
| - Teams are forced to build systems that are automated, resilient
| and documented enough that most of the staff won't need to be
| contacted during the shutdown week.
|
| - The business has to prove it can run with just the necessary
| amount of staff for operations and customer support. (These staff
| generally work with their managers to take an equal amount of
| time off.)
|
| Personally I use that week in summer to disconnect from work and
| do something theraputic for myself- go for a 7+ day motorcycle
| ride, preferably through places where internet connections are
| poor.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Does it draw your vacation time? Mandatory vacations
| (especially around Christmas) were started in the early 2000s
| among Bay Area tech companies in order to reduce collective
| accrued PTO, reducing liability on the balance sheet--had
| nothing to do with worker health. Although that regime is
| certainly preferable to so-called "unlimited" PTO.
| taurath wrote:
| Unlimited PTO means they don't have to pay out anything. It's
| effectively 0 on the balance sheet.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Doesn't the "P" mean paid?
| dharmab wrote:
| PTO can also mean Personal Time Off. e.g. contractors
| usually aren't paid during their time off.
|
| I've also worked at places that didn't pay out accrued
| time when you left.
| kritiko wrote:
| if you leave your job, the company has to pay for your
| unused vacation days as part of your severance if you
| have a set number of vacation days.
| erwinkle wrote:
| Unlimited PTO is a money-saving tactic for businesses.
| Traditional unused PTO is paid out upon resignation, but
| flex unlimited PTO has no such requirement.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Unlimited PTO would be great - if combined with worker
| protections so that you couldn't get fired for actually
| taking time off.
|
| By which I mean real time. Like a month or more.
| dharmab wrote:
| I'm working a total of 7 nonconsecutive days in the next
| 30. Does that count?
|
| EDIT: Might be less. I forgot to count some other holidays.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Where do you work and do they allow telecommuting? (I
| assume you're being paid regularly over those 30 days)
| dharmab wrote:
| Like I said earlier in the thread, Adobe. Currently we're
| fully remote, with a plan to go 50/50 hybrid when offices
| reopen. There is a process to apply for fully remote but
| you need to live within a reasonable distance of an
| office and "digital nomad" lifesytles won't be available.
| I have do a few coworkers who were fully remote pre-
| pandemic but that was generally the exception.
| NearAP wrote:
| A friend works at Oracle and they have unlimited PTO and
| in December, their CEO announced you could do full time
| remote or hybrid.
| anoncake wrote:
| But unlimited PTO + you can't get fired for taking it means
| you aren't obligated to show up for work ever.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| If unlimited PTO wasn't just an accounting (and
| psychological) trick to screw workers out of accumulated
| vacation time, this might concern me. If they want
| limited PTO, that's fine. It should just be spelled out.
| dharmab wrote:
| At Adobe, we have unlimited flexible PTO. In my personal
| experience I have never heard of PTO being turned down by a
| manager.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| nickjj wrote:
| I'd be curious how much different it would be if you got the
| same 1 week off twice a year but it was for a company trip, as
| in the company would pay for everything to take all employees
| (and a +1) skiing or some other activity. This would be
| independent of personal time off and these 2 weeks off would
| still be paid.
|
| I've never been on such a thing but I wonder if it ends up
| being a real vacation or if everyone is still mainly talking
| about work except not in front of a computer.
|
| Does anyone want to share a few stories on how their company
| trips went?
| akiselev wrote:
| That wouldn't be a real vacation, full stop.
| [deleted]
| mfkdksksi wrote:
| By definition I go on vacation to get a break from my
| coworkers and spend time with friends and family.
|
| I also generally get to decide the activities on vacation.
| Many things the company might fund that are fun for some
| people, like skiing, aren't activities that I'm interested in
| but would be obligated to participate in.
|
| What you described is a work retreat, not a vacation. I have
| been on such a trip. It was good for work relationships. It
| definitely wasn't a vacation.
| nickjj wrote:
| > What you described is a work retreat, not a vacation. I
| have been on such a trip. It was good for work
| relationships. It definitely wasn't a vacation.
|
| Would you mind sharing the details of what you did during
| the trip?
| 6t6t6t6 wrote:
| You guys check work email and work Slack when on holidays?
| dharmab wrote:
| Some people do. My team within Adobe discourages it.
|
| There are some really great hobby slack channels that I
| personally check on vacation. Can be hard to ignore the
| random work questions while doing that.
|
| Once another team investigating an outage tried to contact me
| on vacation... I sent them a photo of my bike in an empty
| field in the mountains of Oregon and said "Sorry, bad
| internet out here!"
| tolbish wrote:
| I wonder if it would be substantially more effective to prevent
| burnout by having shorter work days or work weeks.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I think it would be but I also would like forced time off as
| well. As well as forced socializing with team mates. And a
| sabbatical every 5 years or so.
|
| But if I can find a job with full health benefits that lets
| me work three days a week, I'm going for it. Heck, that is
| the best argument in favor of universal healthcare. It would
| help unemployment, because way more people would be working
| part time.
| StevePerkins wrote:
| > _As well as forced socializing with team mates._
|
| One of these things is not like the other...
|
| I can tolerate the occasional "mandatory fun" corporate
| event, but only within reason (e.g. I have kids, so don't
| give me grief for leaving early).
|
| And I think the entire "work hard play hard" office
| culture, where you're expected to do happy hour everyday
| and build your social life around co-workers in order to
| prove you're a teammate, is ageist and absolutely toxic.
|
| To be blunt, if you have to FORCE people to socialize with
| you, then maybe you need some self-reflection on why that's
| necessary.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I was thinking along the lines of a fun day during
| working hours, where everyone who lives near by should
| come in. Holiday party, Icecream Social, Even just a day
| of meetings with breakfast and lunch included. Basically
| give people a few work days a year where they are
| expected to be there, but not really get anything done.
| ducharmdev wrote:
| Just the mention of "mandatory fun" sends shivers through
| my socially anxious spine
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| You are part of a very small, very skilled minority that
| voluntariliy wants to work part time and lack of health
| care is all that's stopping you. In Canada where we have
| universal health care, the vast majority of people working
| part time are in low skill jobs because that's all they can
| schedule with another primary focus, or that's all they can
| get but really want FT.
| dharmab wrote:
| Adobe also does a sabbatical every 5 years!
| underseacables wrote:
| Burnt out ..at a dating app? I would love to know what's going on
| behind the scenes that brought this about.
| slumdev wrote:
| WTF are they doing to burn out the employees?
|
| How hard could a dating app company possibly have to work to make
| money?
|
| They're not exactly selling ice cream to Eskimos.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > collective burnout
|
| > fortnightly manicures, hair trims and "blowouts" which the
| founder said showed "appreciation for our busy bees"
|
| > Working hours? Not nine to five apparently. Employees can
| choose the hours they want, just as long as the work gets done
|
| It's all just a bunch of BS. Give your employees reasonable time
| off policies and encourage them to actually take time off instead
| of letting them get burned out and then closing the office for a
| week.
| michaelgrafl wrote:
| Yes. It's a bad sign that it had come to this in the first
| place.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Judging by their recruitment page, they have a large office in
| London.
|
| I don't know about Bumble, but some of my friends in the UK
| have found the past year very tough. The UK has had strict
| restrictions on socialising, travel away from home, even being
| outdoors.
|
| For months at a time, my siblings have been unable to visit my
| parents!
|
| I can see the benefit of a company saying "let's all take this
| week off". It allows holidays of people in the same team to
| clash, when that might normally not be allowed.
|
| (It's not been great in Denmark either, especially the dark
| winter with most social life closed. But we were still able to
| see friends and family and stay in holiday cottages, and no-one
| was shouted at by police for taking a walk too far from home.)
| baud147258 wrote:
| > no-one was shouted at by police for taking a walk too far
| from home
|
| I remember my brother and sister-in-law getting shouted at
| for holding hands in Paris last year... Yeah, covid had been
| hard on everyone
| jkhdigital wrote:
| Yeah, my personal experience over the past 18 months has led to
| some changes in how I view the structure of work.
|
| I don't get burned out from working too much; I get burned out
| from having to make constant decisions about what I'm going to
| work on and how I'm going to do it. For me _lack of structure_
| is the primary source of burnout, not workload. The flexibility
| of working from home is nice, but not enough to make up for the
| increased stress of having to manage the environment all on my
| own.
|
| Obviously not everyone is like me, but I think it's common
| enough that we should be questioning the wisdom of the work-
| from-home free-for-all.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| Are you someone who likes firm boundaries between work and
| life?
| jkhdigital wrote:
| I wouldn't say I _like_ boundaries; it 's just that without
| them my mental health suffers greatly. And I'm terrible at
| constructing and enforcing those boundaries on my own.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| It's called paid vacation in Europe and all citizens have the
| right to at least 4 weeks per year. I hope this boon arrives to
| the whole of USA one day, together with paternal holidays, free
| education and other modern achievements that are standard here. I
| don't mean to be inflammatory here, it really boggles my mind how
| a week off is even a thing we're discussing here.
| allannienhuis wrote:
| pretty sure that they're talking about giving an EXTRA week of
| time off on top of whatever normal PTO/vaction time they have.
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| Of course, but for all we know this extra week could be the
| only paid vacation they have since for some reason in the USA
| there is no concept of mandatory paid vacation.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| > for all we know
|
| If you had any idea on how US orgs work, you wouldn't say
| that. First, just because the government doesn't impose
| something, it doesn't mean companies can't do it. In fact,
| companies so much more for their employees than the
| government dictates. It's the same for minimum wage: the
| federal government might be stuck at 7.25, but in practice
| low pay jobs are more than that: Walmart was 11 last time I
| checked, Amazon 15 etc.
|
| Most US tech workers have around 20 days of PTO. Paid
| medical leave is a bit trickier: some companies don't give
| it to you so it comes out of PTO. Some companies require a
| doctor's note. Some don't require anything. Some require a
| note after 10 days....it varies a lot. And this is where
| the US could step up a bit and acknowledge humans do get
| sick every now and then, and cover for that.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| This is different than paid vacation and has some pros and
| cons. Obviously it doesn't have the flexibility of 1 week you
| can use whenever you want. But closing the company for a week
| forces people to take the time off (some people just accumulate
| as much vacation as they can, either because they don't like
| taking it or because in some states you'll get cash for unused
| vacation). Making EVERYONE take the same week also helps avoid
| the existential dread of taking vacation because you feel burnt
| out, then coming back to a pile of 500 unread emails
| dogman144 wrote:
| My small-ish SaaS company in the US gave us all a European
| Christmas, Dec 24-Jan 2 totally off last year, short of on-call
| for P0 events. It Really made a difference. It was sub 100
| headcount, but the SaaS supported a few major chains.
|
| The upside is hard to measure which might be a blocker for
| larger, metrics-driven HR teams. However I feel like we all, as
| humans, know that policies like that make a difference.
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