[HN Gopher] Vacation isn't the answer to employee burnout
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Vacation isn't the answer to employee burnout
Author : clockworksoul
Score : 89 points
Date : 2021-09-03 20:45 UTC (2 hours ago)
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| awsthro00945 wrote:
| Not only is it not the answer, vacation can actually be a
| contributor to burnout, IME.
|
| In my current role, taking PTO is a legitimate _punishment_. If I
| take a day off, there is nobody else on my team who has capacity
| to pick up my work in my absence. When I return from PTO, not
| only do I now have double the amount of work to catch up on, but
| I also have 15 emails from angry managers upset that I didn 't
| get to their request sooner.
|
| "you should just take some vacation" is often a convenient escape
| hatch for managers that want to seem like they're helping, but
| without actually putting any effort into solving the problems
| that make people want to escape from work in the first place.
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| Weird. If you're the king of the jungle then it doesn't matter
| what your managers or their emails or schedules say, now does
| it? Take your PTO and let the rabble do their rabbling, they
| can't fire you or else they'd be getting rid of by far the best
| man on their team and they wouldn't want that, right?
| stuff4ben wrote:
| If you can't afford to take a day off, then that's on you my
| friend. The people on your team can take up your slack if you
| let them. I work for someone just like you. He hoards all of
| the meetings and knowledge and "power" (for lack of a better
| word). When he goes on PTO, things halt when they shouldn't. Me
| and others on my squad can pick up the slack. But gatekeeping
| and knowledge-hoarding prevent us from helping out. Not a big
| deal for me, but I'm sure my squad-lead will get burned out
| eventually. I have warned him about that in our 1:1's, but
| nothings changed...
| noahtallen wrote:
| Time away from work absolutely is important for recovering from
| burnout. If work is causing burnout, prevention means adjusting
| the parts of work that cause burnout.
| nikolay wrote:
| This is not much different than the fact that oversleeping during
| the weekend does not help with the sleep deprivation during the
| past week... or weeks. One needs to rest. Every. Day.
| decebalus1 wrote:
| Bullshit. Vacation [1] IS the answer for burnout. Long vacations
| are even more ok for burnout. Sabbaticals are the most ok. Guess
| what a doctor would recommend you do if you're having health
| issues from burnout?
|
| If there's chronic burnout in your company/org then indeed, no
| amount of vacation will fix that. But neither would flexible work
| hours or mental health support.
|
| [1] Vacation means complete and total disconnect from work or
| work related activities. That goes beyond not checking work
| emails. I'm talking no leetcode or learning some new JS
| framework.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| I'm 3 months into a sabbatical / gap year [1]. Feels great. The
| water is fine. Come on in!
|
| [1] https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue
| suzzer99 wrote:
| Agreed. We need European-style month-long vacations in the US.
| And sabbaticals every few years. Also we should start looking
| at 36 and 32-hour workweeks.
|
| We're 20x more productive than 40 years ago, yet still work the
| same hours or more for pay increases that barely keep up with
| inflation.
| dopidopHN wrote:
| As a European living in the US since a decade. It starts to
| impact my mental health.
|
| I went from 8 weeks / years to 4 or 5. Currently 3. Ha.
|
| I cannot recharge the same way ( meaning : travel for weeks
| at a time, or chill hard for 2 weeks in a row )
|
| It's flexible all right. But I feel like I'm always working
| somehow. Work is near, lurking.
|
| I'm nursing a nice little depression that I feel a road trip
| would cure easily. Too bad I need to keep my last week of
| vacation for Christmas week.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Mind sharing where exactly in Europe is 8 weeks vacation
| the norm? In Austria it's 5 weeks for everyone but law and
| that's what most tech companies will give you as well.
| chestertn wrote:
| I feel you. European here, 10 years in the USA. This year I
| had one week of vacation and I keep getting emails. At the
| beginning I justified it with work here being more
| meaningful but it's not true. There's BS everywhere.
|
| This, together with the stupid US travel ban, is making me
| reconsider my decision of moving here.
| 11235813213455 wrote:
| For me a vacation, it's every day, every time I take my bike,
| go in the nature, it's something short and intense. I don't
| need to cut off several week from a job, take a plane to an
| exotic island. No, not only for environmental reasons, but I
| don't need it, just working less every day will be more
| efficient for me when I need to regenerate
| thrower123 wrote:
| One week of vacation is just not worth bothering with. It's not
| enough time to even disengage before you turn around and come
| back.
| lazyant wrote:
| Yes, and let's stress _long_ vacations.
|
| We need our brains to disconnect and we need at least 4 days to
| a week to start feeling "on vacation" [citation needed], so
| anythin less than say two weeks or whatever (milage may vary)
| and you just came from work or are worrying about going back to
| work. Last time I went on vacation I forgot for a moment where
| I worked :-)
| jstx1 wrote:
| Burnout isn't always caused by overwhelming jobs - dull, boring,
| undemanding jobs with little to do can be their own hell and
| spiral off into depression. Then I don't need vacation; I need
| meaningful work.
| throw0101a wrote:
| See also _The Onion_ :
|
| > _Man Returns To Work After Vacation With Fresh, Reenergized
| Hatred For Job_
|
| * https://www.theonion.com/man-returns-to-work-after-vacation-...
| runawaybottle wrote:
| Lol. Thanks for making my day better.
|
| Edit: But to add to the comedy (all comedy is tragedy, and all
| tragedy is comedy according to the Greeks), that's pretty much
| the reason why I don't take vacations. It's not going to change
| anything, so I much prefer to take days off so I don't
| completely lose it.
|
| The sadness is hilarious.
| kekebo wrote:
| They may not fundamentally change ones attitude towards a
| job, but when carefully planned and executed vacations may
| have the potential for creating some worthwhile times and
| memories
| agumonkey wrote:
| People at the office joke about the fact that when bad weather
| ruins their vacations, they come back happier to work.
| rubicon33 wrote:
| I think burnout is mostly related to a lack of intrinsic
| motivation / reward. When you're no longer deeply interested in
| what you're doing, it feels like a grind whether its 30 hours a
| week or 80.
| mcast wrote:
| There are many root causes for burnout, but companies not
| properly valuing and appreciating their employees is definitely
| a big one!
| dimeatree wrote:
| My solution to burn out was to go down to part-time; I have been
| incredibly fortunate that my work place supported my decision to
| go down to 4 days a week, with the option to do 3 days for 3-6
| months and keep my full pay - I was not expecting this.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I'm burnt out right now. Layoffs, a spin-out, and huge
| situational challenges related to both.
|
| Vacation is great, but I agree with the author here. Vacation
| _can_ be a tool to combat burnout - but burnout is often a result
| of other things besides hours worked. I've worked times of 80+
| hours. While feeling worn out, I never got burnt out. I've worked
| times where I can barely put the effort into 30 hours/week.
|
| Right now, I'm attributing my burn out solely to the fact that we
| have huge amounts of "keep the lights on work" to complete the
| spin-out while continuing to deliver product. Neither the
| workload nor the type of work is bad. There's just so much of it
| and it's wearing.
|
| ----
|
| For me, a vacation doesn't solve much for me. I'll be back to
| "more of the same". What's really helping is the change in pace
| of my work and the ability to get back to things that engage and
| excite me.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| 100% agree. Burn out for me has everything to do with what the
| work is, whether there are enough hands for it, and whether
| it's being properly recognized/appreciated.
|
| It has nothing to do with the hours; indeed some of my most
| productive and least burnt out times have been when I was
| happily pouring in 60+ hrs/week because I was having fun and so
| energized by the project and my team's excitement and
| collaboration dynamic.
| dbs wrote:
| I would bet that flexible work hours are contributing for higher
| employee burnout.
| awsthro00945 wrote:
| I agree. In my experience, "flexible work hours" is often code
| for "everyone works weird fucking hours so instead of having a
| set routine, you have to be quasi-available at all times to
| respond to the person who decided to wait until 8pm to do the
| work you were waiting on". It's great for the person who needs
| flexibility, and shitty for everyone that depends on that
| person.
|
| Flexible working arrangements are great when the team is able
| to asynchronously work, but I have yet to see a team that
| really does asynchronous work right.
| dopidopHN wrote:
| Excellent point. If the expectations is to not respond right
| away and not be available right away. It can be fine.
|
| I've seen it work. But it require discipline.
|
| In my situation the time difference were too striking to hope
| having synchronized interaction, and the team built on that
| habit.
|
| But then one day we had a major refactor in our orgs and that
| was gone.
| Animats wrote:
| "8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will!" -
| union slogan, 1920s.
|
| "Unions. The people who brought you the weekend".
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I would be so miserable if it had to deal with a union.
|
| Though to be fair I am not overworked or undervalued. I imagine
| there's a lot of engineers who large companies just grind
| through.
| ineedasername wrote:
| No need to be miserable in a union. If you don't like the
| union you just don't deal with it. Ignore their meetings &
| other communication. In the US at least, Per the SC's Janus
| ruling, public unions can no longer require fees at all, and
| the same goes for private unions in right-to-work states.
| jdavis703 wrote:
| I don't think that's quite so cut and dry. Sure the OP can
| easily ignore union politics. But I've seen unions
| defending toxic people with seniority. Good luck if the
| union is going to bat for someone that's been taken to HR
| multiple times.
| Afton wrote:
| Why would you be miserable? Union dues? occasional union
| communication? I'm just trying to understand what
| hypothetical issue you feel would be super arduous.
| nvr219 wrote:
| That person might just not want to deal with the politics
| and the rules. I used to contract for a union and it was
| super political. Also, everyone got a lunch break from
| noon-1pm per union rules. We'd all be in a meeting
| (scheduled from 11-12) and at noon on the dot everyone
| straight up got up and left. Needed five more minutes to
| wrap that up? Schedule a separate meeting.
|
| Note I'm not saying that is good or bad... In fact I liked
| it a lot - work can wait! But the person who said they'd be
| miserable may just not be able to hang with that.
| mylons wrote:
| union dues create a huge conflict of interest for union
| leadership. it turns it into a career path and you become a
| politician.
|
| if union leadership was volunteer, and dues weren't
| required, maybe that sort of union would be less
| susceptible to corruption.
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Unions end up punishing good workers and rewarding bad
| ones. Believe it or not, some people enjoy their job, and
| enjoy being able to excel at it.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Unions do sometimes make it hard to get rid of bad
| workers... not sure that's the same as "rewarding" them
| though.
|
| I can't think of examples of punishing good ones though.
| Union contracts frequently have defined procedures for
| requesting a merit pay increase with a mandatory review
| process, along with similar procedures for
| reclassification to a higher level position, also with
| more pay, when a person's scope of responsibilities shift
| over time to encompass more than the original job
| description indicated.
|
| I'm not in a union any longer, but that happened to me
| when I was: I was very good a specific portion of my job
| and gradually took on more complicated aspects of it. I
| applied for reclassification. My workplace had a maximum
| of 21 days to review & reply to the request, which they
| granted, and I got a higher title & a nice 20% increase
| in pay.
| Afton wrote:
| That's a ridiculously broad brush to paint unions with,
| and your last sentence shows lack of good faith in the
| discussion. Good day.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| You're not looking very hard for counter examples.
|
| Is the screen actors guild punishing Will Smith and
| rewarding struggling, untalented commercial actors?
|
| Is the NBA player's association punishing LeBron and
| rewarding D league players?
|
| Is there even such a thing a "superstar" plumber? I mean,
| I'm sure there are awful plumbers and amazing plumbers -
| but do how much can they scale, realistically?
| Igelau wrote:
| The G League has its own union that isn't the NBPA.
|
| SAG is a weird example. Hard to get in without doing
| union work. Hard to get union work without being in the
| union. Can't do non-union work after you're in. The
| structure reeks of being rigged to temper the rate of
| newcomers.
| throw0101a wrote:
| A lot of unions can be very 'by the book' and there can be
| malicious compliance. There can also be multiple unions
| with very specific roles.
|
| From a quick search:
|
| > _If your booth is a 10x10 or smaller, you may install and
| dismantle your own exhibit - provided you meet these
| requirements:_
|
| > _1. The Set-up can be accomplished in 1 /2 hour or less._
|
| > _2. No tools are required._
|
| > _3. Individuals performing the work must be full-time
| employees of the exhibiting company and cary identification
| to verify this fact._
|
| > _Exhibitors are allowed to unpack and repack their own
| product (if it is cartons, not crates). They are also
| allowed to do technical work on their machines, such as
| balancing, programming, cleaning of machines, etc.
| Exhibitors may "hand carry" or use nothing larger than a
| two wheel baggage cart (rubber or plastic wheels only) to
| move their items._
|
| * http://www.absoluteiandd.com/union-rules/new-york-trade-
| show...
|
| > _Convention center guidelines dictate that any gear one
| person can 't carry with their hands alone must be handled
| by official union labor. In other words, you have to pay
| for people to lug your TVs and booth props from the loading
| dock to your booth, and it's not exactly cheap._
|
| * https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-02-21-the-
| costs-...
|
| Now if you have similar rules internal to your company, if
| you annoy the wrong people, they can simply act in a
| strictly 'compliant fashion'.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Certainly, there's a lot of old entrenched unions who
| have come to rest on their past laurels and are now mired
| in bureaucracy and self-satisfaction.
|
| One would easily imagine a software engineering union to
| be the complete opposite of that, as such a union would
| be completely new and hungry.
| walshemj wrote:
| Well from experience in the UK M&P (managerial and
| professional union) unions you right.
|
| They are not into old school craft union practices.
| Igelau wrote:
| And it will never _ever_ go astray.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| It would certainly have a lower chance to, in the sense
| that it will have been founded in a time period after
| past generations' unions have gone astray, and so has the
| benefit of historical experience to work with and to
| improve, to _innovate_ upon. Certainly tech is an
| industry that believes better futures are capable of
| being built, rather than expecting everything to always
| be the same level of mediocrity.
| xmprt wrote:
| But a union will eventually slowly devolve into that
| example as more and more rules and restrictions are
| added. Unions have so many benefits but I feel like any
| time a union dictates how the work is supposed to be done
| I hate it. That's why I'm super conflicted. It feel like
| I'd lose a lot of flexibility afforded to me if I joined
| a union and had to start playing by their rules.
|
| At the same time, I think software engineering is in a
| position where a lot of employees have the power to
| switch companies and have more control over how the work
| is done than other types of jobs. I can see people
| leaving jobs in mass or starting a union quickly if
| industry conditions ever get worse.
| ineedasername wrote:
| _a union dictates how the work is supposed to be done_
|
| I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. How do unions
| dictate the way you perform your duties?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| You can say the same about any other human organization,
| though- a corporation, a government, a religious
| hierarchy. A nonprofit foundation. An open source
| project. What makes unions any more susceptibility to
| corruption or the problems of bureaucracy?
|
| > I can see people leaving jobs in mass or starting a
| union quickly if industry conditions ever get worse.
|
| There's some signs of that happening at some companies.
| Certainly it's a high time for video games tech companies
| to push for it, against the bad conditions unique to that
| industry.
| davesque wrote:
| While I agree with the title, the article itself is a fluff
| piece. It takes several paragraphs just to give hand wavy advice
| like, "Just remove barriers." It also feels like it can't
| possibly be true that people prefer flexible hours _more_ than a
| four day work week as is claimed. This just feels like one
| startup guru trying to kid themself into thinking they can get
| away with avoiding substantive change and trying to justify their
| fee by dutifully parroting what they heard at the latest growth
| seminar.
| eatonphil wrote:
| > What do we do? Well, root out the real causes of burnout. If
| it's not those top workplace issues, it may very well be the burn
| of extended, heightened stress. For employees surveyed, flexible
| work hours and mental health support were more popular than even
| a four-day work week or unlimited PTO. The point then is lots of
| professionals like their actual work, they just don't like the
| restrictions and environment. Give direction, let them do the
| work. Remove barriers.
|
| PTO and a healthy work environment are both good.
| beerandt wrote:
| Unlimited PTO is crazy to me. It takes the principles of
| spelled-out employment terms and throws them in the trash.
|
| The "flexible hours" policy was bad enough at my last job.
| Wildly varying interpretations between different managers and
| department heads under the same roof.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| It's really great - when it works. I have worked at two
| companies with this policy - only in one of them I took
| (rather could take) 4-5weeks off every year.
| zz865 wrote:
| Why not both? 4-5 weeks is pretty standard for a
| professional job in NY.
| labster wrote:
| My last job implemented an unlimited PTO policy. In 2020, I
| took about 7 days off, and worked at least 20 days on
| weekends. With the increased responsibilities, there just
| wasn't any time that was good to leave... until I left for
| good. It was definitely a factor in my current burnout.
|
| The funny thing was before the VCs bought the company, I had
| two weeks but in practice could ask the CTO for as much time
| as I wanted. But unlimited PTO functionally meant negative
| days off, because performance would decrease when you left.
| Setting a minimum PTO might help.
| f69281c wrote:
| Unlimited PTO means there's nothing to cash out at the end of
| the year if you took 0 days of PTO.
|
| It also reminds me of the old negotiating tactic - never be
| the first one to offer up a number.
| bb88 wrote:
| There's a lot of companies in the world where "vacation" is
| offered, but the managers will many times terminate those who
| take it. All it takes is for one or two employees to be
| terminated after just getting back from a vacation to send a
| message to the rest of the employees.
|
| The right to use benefits has to be enforced by the CEO. If
| people aren't using their vacations (and effectively losing
| them), then that sets the culture off on the wrong foot from
| the start.
| ZainRiz wrote:
| Some companies I've been at swung in the opposite direction
| and I was really greatful for it.
|
| E.g. At Microsoft you have a max amount of vacation days
| that you can accrue before they start expiring, and
| managers get dinged whenever their directs have expiring
| vacation days. The result: Managers would encourage taking
| vacation
| sharken wrote:
| Restrictions unfortunately play a large part, e.g. changes to
| Production can only be done by request.
|
| Requests then take weeks to be completed even though the actual
| work involved can be measured in minutes
|
| Another core issue for me is the ratio between challenging
| tasks and more simple tasks.
|
| There should always be a few tasks to work on that are
| challenging, otherwise procrastination sets in which can turn
| into some form of burnout if nothing is done.
| sneak wrote:
| The passive-aggressive lie that is "unlimited PTO" is part of
| the growing toxicity of startup work environments.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| In reality, the only person who has unlimited PTO is usually
| the CEO, because he's the only one who can afford to get away
| repeatedly.
| noirbot wrote:
| To me, the most important part of unlimited PTO isn't the
| "unlimitedness" but the fact that it's not something I'm
| having to log in a system. It's that usually I can just take
| off a Friday or a Monday here and there without any issue as
| long as I give a bit of notice.
|
| My company just got rid of unlimited PTO for all the reasons
| people say they hate it - they didn't think people were
| taking enough PTO for their health, it was used unfairly,
| etc... Functionally now though, I have to file paperwork with
| 3 different groups to have someone approve even a single day
| off so they can make sure I'm not going over the number of
| days off that I have in accordance with my level and
| seniority. Thankfully my manager has essentially told us they
| don't care and we're still on unlimited because they don't
| want to do the paperwork either.
|
| It's not to say that "unlimited" can't be toxic, but it's
| easy to forget how onerous other systems can be, which can
| lead to you taking less time off in the same way. One of my
| friends is the junior on their team on a fixed PTO system and
| is being forced to take nearly random days off now in order
| to have any at all because they didn't get their holiday
| plans in as early as their more senior team members, so now
| they're stuck with the dregs. Toxic cultures are gonna be
| toxic. The framing just changes the mechanism.
| sjs7007 wrote:
| > It's that usually I can just take off a Friday or a
| Monday here and there without any issue as long as I give a
| bit of notice.
|
| I have fixed number of days but still can essentially do
| this.
|
| > Functionally now though, I have to file paperwork with 3
| different groups to have someone approve even a single day
| off so they can make sure I'm not going over the number of
| days off that I have in accordance with my level and
| seniority.
|
| This sounds odd. Why can't you just have a system that
| tracks number of days and as long as you have the number of
| days 1-2 days shouldn't be an issue at all. I don't see how
| switching from unlimited to limited made this approval
| business necessary at all.
| noirbot wrote:
| I'm sure it's possible to have a system where this is
| easy, but giving HR more things to track to prove their
| value to the company does tend to make no incentive for
| them to make it trivial. I'm sure systems exist for that
| that we could buy, but we didn't, so we don't, so
| someone's got some ad-hoc something in some Oracle DB
| somewhere, and now taking vacation is an added hassle for
| my already overworked manager.
| sjs7007 wrote:
| Then really it's a failure of management at your company,
| not the limited vacation system.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| Why don't they call it something else then? Maybe "Flexible
| PTO"? I really don't like the "unlimited" part of the name.
| It feels confusing / misleading to me.
| noirbot wrote:
| Probably because "unlimited" is the relevant part to the
| part of the company that cares - HR. If it was limited,
| it would need to be tracked. I get the objection to the
| fact that you can't literally take 200 days off or
| whatever, but that just feels like pedantry when at this
| point the colloquial meaning of "unlimited pto" is fairly
| clear.
| stadium wrote:
| Depends on the company!
|
| If it's inauthentic though, employees can smell it from far
| away.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| I have no doubt it's meant in good faith at many companies,
| but it's almost sure to be used unfairly. A lot of people,
| especially folks who don't feel safely part of whatever in-
| group, are going to be hesitant to push that policy,
| especially because being on vacation can be an imposition
| on your coworkers.
|
| I suspect you could implement the same policy in practice
| with less social anxiety by mandating N weeks of vacation
| and allowing additional time off upon request.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| Truth is it could be hard to take vacation in a toxic
| company irrespective of whether it's clearly laid out or
| not. A lot of startups are toxic - intentionally or
| unintentionally.
|
| Mandating vacation is a good idea when they really mean
| it. Use it or lose might work. Fixed days with payout if
| you quit or an option to cash out works too - companies
| carry it in their balance sheet and encourage days off as
| a result.
| xmprt wrote:
| In my experience limited PTO leads to burnout more often
| because employees could get paid more by taking fewer
| days off since their PTO is paid out when they leave. So
| some employees choose to continue working because they
| feel bad taking time off that technically decreases their
| potential pay.
| karaterobot wrote:
| When I've been burned out or hated my job, I didn't take
| vacations, because the crushing realization that I'd have to
| return to work was almost worse than losing myself in the
| uninterrupted, repetitive, dead-eyed grind. While on vacation,
| I'd start thinking about the countdown to the end of the
| vacation.
|
| > Well, root out the real causes of burnout.
|
| I'll offer the definition that's made most sense to me. I didn't
| come up with it, in fact some wise person here on HN stated it:
|
| Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time
| and not having it pay off.
|
| You can work like a dog to release a feature, and if the feature
| does what it was meant to do, and you get recognized for your
| contribution, how hard you worked doesn't matter as much. You are
| energized, excited to be part of a great team, ready to move on
| to the next stunning victory.
|
| On the other hand, if you work like a dog on a feature and it
| gets cut at the last minute, or its success is undermined by some
| VP's dumb idea, it sucks. If that happens over and over, without
| a win, you're burned out.
|
| The solution is to get a win. Work on something that you can
| succeed on, and succeed at it, and get rewarded for it. Could be
| a big thing, but even a small thing is good enough. Sounds easy,
| but not always even possible in a badly-run organization.
| [deleted]
| ketzo wrote:
| This really, really resonates with me. I've been trying to
| address my own feelings of burnout, and I think this is a big
| part of it.
|
| Frankly, it's been a while since I had a win. I think I'm gonna
| try to set myself up for a small success, and see how that
| goes. Thanks for this.
| josh2600 wrote:
| Great post. An addendum: people still burnout even when the org
| is succeeding (shipping products, hitting liquidity, etc.).
| f69281c wrote:
| >You can work like a dog to release a feature, and if the
| feature does what it was meant to do, and you get recognized
| for your contribution, how hard you worked doesn't matter as
| much. You are energized, excited to be part of a great team,
| ready to move on to the next stunning victory.
|
| Gross. All that overtime is systematically stamping all the
| things that are good for the soul out of life. I'm not going to
| cheer it on because a feature works.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| "Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time
| and not having it pay off."
|
| Exactly.
|
| Yet most people mistakenly attribute the feeling to other
| causes. OP quote what people _think_ are the causes of their
| own burnout, and took those at face value.
|
| When you're burnt out, you're probably not in a good state to
| determine the cause.
| tinyhouse wrote:
| Speak for yourself. Sorry for being blunt, but you clearly
| know very little about burnout (good for you). If people say
| that they are burned out because of a bad manager, believe
| them instead of saying they don't know what they are talking
| about.
|
| There are many reasons for burnout. Working on things that
| don't pay off is just one of them.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| "you clearly know very little about burnout"
|
| You may disagree with my statement about the cause of
| burnout, and you may be correct about that.
|
| But it's unlikely you know enough about me to judge how
| much I know (or don't know) about burnout.
| le-mark wrote:
| Can confirm, recently went from a great manager who always
| had our backs and celebrated our successes to one who
| offers zero support, plenty of blame and zero recognition.
| I've been surprised how devastating it's been.
| agumonkey wrote:
| > Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long
| time and not having it pay off.
|
| There's a lot to say about that.
|
| Sometime contexts creates obligations that render reward
| impossible, you only get a stream of wrong imperatives and lack
| of benefits.
|
| Sometimes people simply forget how to go for stuff they want. I
| lived a lot of my life conforming to others orders.. until
| nothing made sense emotionally. You forget what 'pay off' means
| for you. Very subtle, very hard. A lot of things in life are
| negotiating obligations and knowing how to recognize bad deals
| is key. Freedom is a rare asset :)
|
| Kids have this well set, all they care about is their internal
| sense of reward.. they'll move relentlessly from rewards to
| rewards until they're chokeful of them. Social structures blur
| this into innane amounts of duties that often are invented by
| morons higher up.
| S_A_P wrote:
| I had a bad case of burnout 2 years ago. I think for me it wasn't
| that I was overwhelmed or otherwise overworked. I was working a
| lot of hours, but that didn't bother me either. What got under my
| skin was that I understood the systemic reasons for all the fires
| we were having to put out were never going to change. So the
| burnout was the feeling that I was unable to do anything but
| tread water.
| agumonkey wrote:
| very much this, powerlessness and also inability to discuss the
| problem honestly, or even be heard can be the real reason
| behind the pain
| philmcp wrote:
| I run https://4dayweek.io and during the time I spent researching
| companies, it blew my mind how awful the vacation policy is in
| some companies (especially the US)
|
| i.e. 10 days vacation shouldn't be celebrated as a benefit.
|
| Vacation isn't everything though; there have been some studies
| which show the positive effect of a vacation quickly disappears
| when work resumes.
|
| What we really need (imo) is a shorter, more focused work week
| (with less fluff + meetings) i.e. a 4 day work week
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Once again we have a CEO pretending to know what works best for
| the rank and file employee.
|
| First we didn't need bonuses, we just needed a pat on the back
| from managers and co-workers to achieve happiness.
|
| Now, we don't need vacations if we're burnt out, instead we just
| need flexible hours so we can schedule our death marches around
| our other responsibilities and mental health resources. 10 hours
| is 10 hours regardless of how you schedule it. Pressure doesn't
| go away just because your boss describes impending doom using
| nice words.
|
| What's next? Desks aren't the answer for writing surfaces because
| our walls are already flat?
| eatonphil wrote:
| I didn't assume that he meant anything like that. Digging into
| the company a bit:
|
| > Though results matter most and Technically Media prides
| itself on flexibility, as a guide, this role might expect to
| work roughly 40-45 hours a week.
|
| > Technically Media offers 10 paid holidays per year; 15 PTO
| days accrued per year with additional P TO offered
| progressively; as well as a month of paid parental leave.
|
| >Technically Media additionally closes its offices for the
| final week of the year to relax and unwind before each new
| year. This serves as additional paid holiday time.
|
| https://technical.ly/job/editorial-director/
|
| It's not the most generous but it's par for Philly area tech
| companies and its not a tech company, it's a journal.
| hinkley wrote:
| > this role might expect to work roughly 40-45 hours a week.
|
| I "expect" a lot of things that never happen.
| adverbly wrote:
| Vacation is when I want to complete ambitious projects that are
| not work related. My vacations are exhausting but worthwhile.
| They are like parenting. They do nothing to help burnout unless I
| spend them on doing nothing. How does one avoid burnout? 4 day
| work week. Have a day off with no kids and no travel and no work.
| Forced recovery time. Like sleep.
| ineedasername wrote:
| I think vacations help mostly in the sense of "I just need to get
| through the next two months". That may help as a _coping_
| mechanism for burnout, but doesn 't stop it.
|
| And of course if you have a job that perpetuates cyclical or
| chronic burnout, going on vacation just means that you come back
| to work even more buried in things that went undone.
|
| Or you sacrifice having a true vacation and still commit to
| working part of the time you're away.
| babarganesh wrote:
| I don't want "mental health support" from work. I only need that
| if my workplace is causing serious mental health issues in the
| first place. (Which it is at present.)
| haswell wrote:
| A personal counterpoint: I do want mental health support from
| work. Many of the downsides of complex childhood trauma didn't
| start to really interfere with my life until my late 20s/early
| 30s.
|
| When I started really struggling at a job I'd already
| established myself in, I learned of and am incredibly grateful
| for the mental health benefits offered by my employer and for
| leaders who are open, understanding and willing to work with me
| when things aren't going well.
|
| When I first had to broach the subject, easily finding
| resources about the company's EAP benefits instead of feeling
| like it was all some hush hush thing really helped reduce the
| anxiety of opening up about a difficulty topic.
| babarganesh wrote:
| I think that's valid and I want that possibility for
| everyone. I don't want it linked to work, though.
| hnaccount141 wrote:
| I think it depends on what mental health support means. If it
| means helping pay for therapy and managers making
| accommodations and being genuinely supportive of people when
| they're having a hard time, that's fantastic.
|
| Unfortunately at many companies it just means a presentation
| from HR every couple of months that boils down to "10
| strategies to cope with the burnout we're causing". Meanwhile
| the people with actual power to change things keep pushing
| the same "aggressive" deadlines and refusing to provide the
| support/resources necessary to meet them in a healthy and
| sustainable way.
| paulpauper wrote:
| The issue is also people bringing their work to vacation. This
| lowers the effectiveness of vacations.
| subsubzero wrote:
| Having suffered through extreme burnout recently, for me it was a
| few things:
|
| - Extremely toxic work environment where myself and others were
| working like crazy, hitting our goals and getting no recognition,
| any minor mistake was brought up in front of the whole team,
| praise was withheld though.
|
| - Due to work issues, I had been doing work related tasks for 3
| weeks straight, I asked for a Friday off and was told maybe, it
| might not happen. This after having worked morning to late night
| for most of that week dealing with a major disruption that was
| affecting most of the company.
|
| - When putting in vacation time was told that maybe I should cut
| the vacation back as the team had some projects that needed
| looking after.
|
| After all these things I was about ready to throw in the towel
| and just quit, luckily I did take some time off and moved to a
| new group which really saved my situation. Time off helps alot,
| also if you are in a bad situation, I cannot stress enough get
| out of it, either leave the team/group and if that is not an
| option leave the company, engineering positions are red hot right
| now and most can easily find a new position in a few weeks or so.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| It is not the answer, but definitely part of the answer. When I
| have to work twice as hard before and after vacation, to make up
| for it, well, that's pretty damn exhausting.
| trynewideas wrote:
| An extended leave did nothing but make burnout worse by coming
| back to the careful planning left behind to mitigate my absence
| being thrown out days in by a meddling manager from another team
| who saw the vacuum as an opportunity to take over the
| responsibilities permanently. Looking to exit.
| foolinaround wrote:
| unless the entire team/company takes vacation at the same time,
| it is not too helpful.
|
| the person comes back to a ton of work waiting for him.
|
| also, when others take vacation, the work pace often does not
| stop, and the person, who himself is going through a burnout
| phase, takes on even more load
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