[HN Gopher] The Burnout Society
___________________________________________________________________
The Burnout Society
Author : q-base
Score : 257 points
Date : 2021-11-17 06:25 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (apposition.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (apposition.substack.com)
| sleepysysadmin wrote:
| It's remarkable to compare this to buddha's early teachings,
| modern psychology, economics, cancel culture, and the woes of
| social media. Such a huge subject that nobody can seem to see or
| understand in whole.
|
| The deep boredom that wasn't. We must throw people to the lions
| in a colosseum. People are suffering because they desire to solve
| this deep boredom. They will constantly escalate the risk or
| thrill to satisfy this desire but the cure to the boredom is
| impermanent. Pleasure must be fleeting and therefore the cure for
| the deep boredom is to not desire.
|
| This isn't to say you cannot live life. You must give up control,
| give up greed, hatred, and ignorance.
| techsin101 wrote:
| Agile/Scrum <==== Cause of Burnout lol... How would you like to
| be put in a place everyday where you estimate a vague tasks and
| then be held responsible for your rough 30s estimate. Why can't
| we hire people?
| Aunche wrote:
| As someone who considers myself lazy, it baffles me that so many
| people are encouraging others to do the same. It seems like
| someone discovers that work-life balance is a thing, and then
| concludes that everyone else has yet to do the same and that we
| should all relax more. On a personal level, working less may be
| beneficial because society has more than enough hard workers to
| make a difference. However, if everyone loses ambition, the goods
| are services we all take of granted would get more scarce and we
| would all be worse off as a result.
|
| I'll clarify that I do think post-industrial areas of Asia are
| actually "burnout societies." In the US, I don't get that sense
| at all.
| dymk wrote:
| Depends on what social pocket you reside in in the US
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I think burnout in engineering (at least for me) is just the
| endless building of widget after widget to make money for someone
| else while racing against some arbitrary deadline. You just sit
| in your chair every day, endure mindless meetings where half the
| people have no idea whats going on and then you try and cram in
| development while praying that no one will ping you and force you
| to context switch for an hour. Repeat everyday forever, and this
| is made worse because now most of us work from home so its all
| done in isolation. Don't get me wrong I like working from home
| for the freedom it provides but it is isolating and you are now
| essentially always at work. Deadlines seem to always get shorter
| and requirements murkier. Stress is always ramping up and rarely
| resets. This is fine.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I know scrum and sprints get a lot of hate, but I've found them
| to be extremely effective tools for combating this.
| pietrovismara wrote:
| Agree to disagree. Nobody does scrum "correctly". Generally
| only the parts that are supposed to squeeze the most short
| term value from the employees are picked.
| ravenstine wrote:
| It's a scam at every level.
|
| There's no reason why anyone should need to be "certified"
| for a methodology to be applied. There isn't even a reason
| why SCUM methodology should be applied as a sort of
| universally applicable process.
|
| The funniest thing about SCUM is that every diagram someone
| makes of it looks nearly identical to the _straw man_ that
| is "Waterfall."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)#
| /...
|
| I mean, tell me that you couldn't change some of the jargon
| on that diagram and fool just about everyone into thinking
| it describes Waterfall.
|
| The only thing potentially differentiating between SCUM and
| Waterfall is that the former has (in theory) a smaller
| iteration window and has liaisons between development and
| management. But the latter argument is nonsense because
| generally non-agile teams still self-organize into having
| liaisons and middle-managers.
|
| And as you pointed out, the answer to why SCUM fails always
| comes down to not doing it "correctly". If no one can do it
| correctly, that's because it sucks. I've seen agile
| principles applied in different ways successfully, but I've
| never seen SCUM actually work any better than no formal
| methodology at all.
| geodel wrote:
| Thanks for calling it what it actually is. We are having
| developers hired/not-hired on their descriptions of
| Agile/Scrum/TDD etc in interviews. Imagine that!
| greenyoda wrote:
| Could you describe more about how scrum/sprints can help
| combat burnout for you? That hasn't been my own experience.
| bsedlm wrote:
| they set boundaries? i.e. the set explicit limits to
| activities, provide structure, make responsibilities clear
| from the get-go, ...
| greenyoda wrote:
| In my experience, whatever boundaries are set within an
| agile engineering group can be overridden by the
| priorities, roadmaps, etc. that are imposed from above by
| the corporate executives. Responsibilities can change
| overnight as staff are reorganized or laid off by powers
| beyond their control.
| bsedlm wrote:
| well, my answer is theoretical. My own experience is
| similar to yours: "your team is no longer following scrum
| in a mad-rush attempt to deliver the deadline." and then
| everything gets even worse
| salt-thrower wrote:
| Every scrum team I've ever been on fell into that pattern
| eventually. Companies adopted Scrum because it became the
| trendy way to signal that you're a modern company. Not
| because of any actual commitment to its framework.
|
| In reality, Scrum went from "empower engineers" to "allow
| managers to micromanage their employees even more, but we
| call it Agile so you can't push back against it because
| then you're challenging the orthodoxy."
| pkdpic wrote:
| > This is fine.
|
| I try to remind myself every day how much rougher it was before
| I got a dev job. The financial hopelessness. Living in junky
| apartments with roommates as a married couple. Commuting 4
| hours one way 2-3 days a week for part time jobs with no
| security or benefits. Trying to live off $20-30k a year in
| California. And still feeling lucky to have any work at all.
|
| I try to remember this while sitting at zoom meetings and
| feeling exhausted. But the memory is fading...
| flatiron wrote:
| totally agree. my wife's family is all in construction or
| painters, or working as bar tenders or at beauty salons etc.
| no health insurance, no ESPP/RSU/401k/FSA/PTO/blah blahs.
| every time someone politely says "hows work, what are you
| working on?" its pretty hard not to sound like a jackass when
| i complain about stuff like endless meetings, murky
| requirements, etc. my brother in law is always amazed that i
| can do my entire job on a computer as he's cutting wood and
| putting up fences.
|
| i remember one time i was on vacation in costa rica and on a
| zip line tour. guy asks me where im from what i do. he said
| "oh man that's the dream, you just sit in a chair in the air
| conditioning all day? you don't know how lucky you have it!"
| and this dude runs zip line tours in costa rica.
|
| grass is always greener
| np- wrote:
| Yeah, sort of, but I feel like this is because most people
| don't really understand it's not exactly the same thing as
| sitting around surfing the web. Obviously this isn't a
| physically challenging job, but it is a mentally
| challenging job (and the brain is a physical organ too,
| remember simple physics conservation principles--none of
| your thoughts come for free, they all cost energy, and
| complex thoughts take massive energy!). That drains you in
| an entirely different way.
|
| I would almost argue that having a physically tough day
| makes me feel sore and tired, but _accomplished_ at the end
| of the day. Having a mentally tough day doesn't confer any
| sort of sense of accomplishment, it's just a draining
| feeling.
|
| Also consider the "happy" ending to Office Space--the
| protagonist ended up much more satisfied doing a physical
| construction job in the end.
| IAmWorried wrote:
| I think it's worth mentioning the alternate ending from
| Office Space, thought it was hilariously ironic:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK43Ureuiqc
|
| The point is that no matter what you are doing there will
| be bosses you hate and annoying parts of the job.
| nefitty wrote:
| Wow. That was much darker than I expected. That ending
| probably would have made my generation several notches
| more cynical. Throughout my career, the original ending
| has literally sustained my hope in the face of soul
| crushing office work.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| yeah, I did not know that existed and kind of wish I had
| never seen it.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I agree, tech jobs wear down the brain, but at 45 with a
| body that is falling apart, I thank my lucky stars that
| my brain still works. I spent a summer hauling bags of
| shingles up onto a roof in 105F temperatures and that
| brief experience talked me into going to university and
| taking the "office job" track.
| derbOac wrote:
| I don't know. I don't disagree with you, but I think it's
| sometimes more difficult than it seems initially.
|
| This stuff has been very salient to me the last couple of
| years. I had a friend who was in a physically abusive
| relationship, and she was often comparing my behavior,
| feelings, and thoughts about my job to what she was going
| through. It's definitely not the same, I don't want to
| trivialize anything, but in some circumstances a workplace
| just becomes sort of [emotionally] abusive, extremely
| dysfunctional, and starts to have tangible harms for
| spouses, family, etc. in terms of lost time, income, career
| opportunities, etc. I wrestled a lot with questions like
| "is it better to not have a job than an abusive
| dysfunctional one, when it's hurting my family at some
| level too?"
|
| This isn't the same as putting up with some awareness that
| what you're doing is existentially empty at some level
| (which has its own set of issues), but balancing costs and
| benefits of jobs sometimes is trickier than it seems
| initially. I think maybe it's the same as the grass-is-
| always greener you mention, although I think that can go
| pretty far.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I hear what you are saying and agree with you to a point.
| I find though that its like this for pretty much all
| development jobs, just pointless never ending trudging.
| Only option appears to be getting out of engineering; and
| taking a 65% pay cut to do so is really not on the table.
| So because of financial responsibilities (kids, house,
| etc.) each day is the same and one bleeds into the next.
| golergka wrote:
| > "oh man that's the dream, you just sit in a chair in the
| air conditioning all day? you don't know how lucky you have
| it!"
|
| When I'm having this conversation, I usually reply with
| something along the lines "yes, but imagine that most of
| your job in that air-conditioned office is doing math
| tests". It's not a perfect analogy, but it's a pretty valid
| one in terms of mental fatigue.
| lowercased wrote:
| and... trying to teach other people how to do math, then
| having to argue with them why their wrong answers can't
| be accepted, or having to go redo stacks of previous math
| problems done wrong by someone who left a year ago.
| petsormeat wrote:
| ...while some sales bro seated next to you "to break down
| silos" is clanging a gong and seeking high-fives, and
| every 90 minutes you're obliged to trudge into a
| conference room to discuss yet other math problems that
| can't reuse the solutions to the previous ones, and the
| math reference you have is missing 1/3 of its material.
| unemphysbro wrote:
| I was probably the happiest in my life when I was living in a
| studio with no furniture/bed working as many random
| jobs/freelance contracts I could find. :)
| murph-almighty wrote:
| I've been more and more of the opinion that hobbies are what
| drive our sense of meaning and no so much work, but
| occasionally it's hard to remember that when you're dealing
| with the shittier aspects of work (for me recently, debugging
| infrastructure issues with limited visibility and just no
| progress at all).
|
| We (mostly) make enough money to do pretty well, might as
| well use it to enable ourselves to enjoy _something_ in life.
| For a while it was improv for me, now it's more powerlifting,
| but literally anything you can enjoy that's not work.
| TheCapn wrote:
| >and you are now essentially always at work
|
| I suppose it's easier said than done, but the healthiest thing
| I did for myself in the transition to WFH during the pandemic
| was to set up and maintain appropriate boundaries between
| myself and work.
|
| I'm _done_ at 3:30. If you contact me after 3:30 I 'm either
| ignoring the message until I'm "at work" the next morning, or
| I'm writing my time up as billable hours.
|
| I've never been questioned on it, and the idea of muting my
| phone or leaving it in another room provides a mental break
| that helps with everything
| salt-thrower wrote:
| > I think burnout in engineering (at least for me) is just the
| endless building of widget after widget to make money for
| someone else while racing against some arbitrary deadline.
|
| I could not have said this better myself. Yes, we are paid
| extremely well, but the soul-crushing grind of building stupid
| web apps for companies that don't even need them really takes a
| toll eventually.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I tell myself that most other jobs are just as meaningless or
| come with their own baggage, but I don't know for a fact. I
| do know that when the stars are aligned, when I'm in a flow
| and have something interesting to work on, I like the job,
| and consequently it seems "meaningful" - I think that's just
| sensory, a feeling. On the other hand sticking with it could
| be embracing mediocrity.
|
| I think of Candide from time to time. Who can say if this is
| the paradisaical garden and alternatives could be much, much
| worse. Either way it's human nature to be restless. Maybe we
| can't all have the better job. This turns my attention to
| side projects, but I think as it pertains to tech, I don't
| have that much interest.
| handrous wrote:
| Lots of service jobs don't feel meaningless most of the
| time (though they may come with other problems).
|
| Plenty of jobs that involve moving around real stuff in
| real life rarely feel meaningless (though, again, they may
| have other problems, especially wear & tear on one's body).
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I feel like if you are in construction, the daily
| physical exhaustion and low pay must be crushing but at
| the end of the job you have built something that is
| physical and permanent, you have made a mark on the
| world. In software you have not really made anything, its
| just a url in a browser. There is nothing tangible you
| can look back on as you get older and point out to your
| kids, its just meaningless pixels. There are exceptions
| of course, people who built the internet changed the
| world in almost every way. Our crisis is existential.
| gambiting wrote:
| I used to have this job where all you did all day was put
| second hand clothes into this huge hydraulic press, you'd
| press a button and out would come a nicely wrapped bale
| of clothes. It was absolutely mind meltingly numb job, it
| required absolutely zero skill and you'd repeat the same
| motion over and over and over again.
|
| But you know what? I still remember the feeling that you
| had at the end of the day, seeing stacks upon stacks of
| these bales, nicely filling the warehouse, how satisfying
| this was.
|
| I don't remember the last time I felt like that when
| programming.
| handrous wrote:
| My favorite job ever was helping run a camp site at a
| state park, a couple summers. Carry wood around, take
| fees at the gate and keep some light records, golf-cart
| around from time to time to bug people for payment, who
| were mostly pretty chill about it. Sunlight, outdoors, a
| fair amount of light physical activity. Busy days with
| huge lines at the gate _flew_ by in what felt like
| minutes. Slow days, not much to do but read. Perfect.
|
| Nothing tech related I've done over ~20 years of being
| paid to do tech shit has been half as good. Buuuut that
| job paid barely over minimum wage and had no benefits.
| So. Here I am.
|
| [EDIT] Oh, and not a single screen all damn day! Old-
| school cash register and paper records.
| geodel wrote:
| Indeed. And it may sound silly I get more satisfaction in
| putting dishes out of dishwasher in right place every
| morning. But later on mind numbing daily standup sets
| tone for another crappy day.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I really do hate the daily standups that start every
| morning. Mindless reporting out that we are behind
| schedule and that eventually to catch up there is going
| to have to be a 12 hour day or 2 this week.
| groby_b wrote:
| Set boundaries.
|
| Turn off that chat thing when you need to focus. Skip meetings
| where you neither will learn nor can contribute a unique
| perspectives. Turn the machine off when the workday is over to
| deal with the WFH blurriness. Push back on murky requirements.
|
| Yes, it's hard, and it's scary. And I fully ack that in some
| companies, this would be career-limiting moves. If that's the
| case, you need to decide how much you want to work for them vs.
| going somewhere that actually lets you work as a dev.
| ravenstine wrote:
| > Push back on murky requirements.
|
| This is a hugely important thing to learn.
|
| Fact is, it's extremely unlikely a business is going to fire
| you for pushing back on something you can demonstrate is
| ridiculous. And engineers should be financially prepared to
| leave or be fired by employers being unreasonable with their
| requirements.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| _Everyone_ should be financially prepared for this, but
| this doesn 't help the swats of people, including devs in
| less-favorable places and juniors who are stuck in an
| unfavorable market.
|
| The biggest problem remains enough people being willing to
| put up with these insane demands that the requirements
| continue to get bigger. I haven't seen much fighting back
| until the "great resignation", and even that I'd consider
| mild.
| [deleted]
| smashem wrote:
| Succinctly nailed it.
| hmrr wrote:
| This is the joy of working for a large company. I was there a
| number of years ago. I just started ignoring people and doing
| what I think is right. No one appeared to notice. I suspect
| this was because everyone was chasing useless metrics or
| doesn't want to challenge the timesheet in case the one
| apparent source of truth is discovered to be universe
| crushingly fallible.
|
| I banked the experience and learnings and moved to a company
| which wasn't in the fatal decline stage of development.
| calferreira wrote:
| To me what usually burns me is working on places where there's no
| organization, people ignore feedback. You just spend days working
| in a stupid, disorganized and unproductive way. Makes you feel
| like you're working to earn money and do whatever someone ask you
| to do. It feels pointless.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| This is a big part of what Marx means by the alienation of
| labour.
| MeinBlutIstBlau wrote:
| That is literally every job ever. You're not paid to make the
| world a better place. You're paid to fix/produce whatever
| foobar of the day.
| sirodoht wrote:
| The Burnout Society is probably one of the most amazing books
| I've ever read. I tried to crystalise its essence as well [1], in
| a chapter-structure way.
|
| The book talks about many things that were on the edge of my
| eyes. I knew them, yet I hadn't realised they were there; that
| they were a thing. I hadn't realised it was us who introduced
| them. This is the definition of Castoriadis' imaginary [2][3].
| I'd recommend The Burnout Society to everyone yet I hesitate
| because it challenges very foundational ideas, in an unpopular
| way as well.
|
| Maybe the book's two things that struck out to me the most are:
|
| * We strive for achievement so much that we tire ourselves to
| depression
|
| * Burnout and depression are intrinsically connected
|
| And the question that I ask myself after having read the book is:
| How can we achieve things with no burnout or ego-driven mindset?
|
| [1] https://nutcroft.com/blog/book-the-burnout-society-by-
| byung-...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_(sociology)
|
| [3] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/imaginary-institution-society
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > How can we achieve things with no burnout or ego-driven
| mindset?
|
| First, let go of this need that you have to achieve things. You
| try and keep up with others, to be better than others, but it's
| OK to be mediocre.
|
| Counterpoint though, in today's economy, people are forced to
| achieve and push for higher wages, just to keep a roof over
| their head. That's another source of stress and worry, and
| that's down to government and international economic policy to
| solve.
| junga wrote:
| > [...] but it's OK to be mediocre.
|
| Being worse is pretty ok also!
| wombatpm wrote:
| The Underachiever's Manifesto: The Guide to Accomplishing
| Little and Feeling Great by Ray Bennett
| dnautics wrote:
| > How can we achieve things with no burnout or ego-driven
| mindset
|
| At the risk of sounding pithy, "make it about the journey" set
| a vague goal of being successful, identify key strategies you
| think will get you there ("excellence"), and take pleasure in
| figuring it out, find reward in the incremental stages and
| don't sweat it when you stumble.
| mylons wrote:
| chop wood, carry water.
|
| this is inherently hard in a world of performance reviews,
| and corporate ladders to climb. especially when it's heavily
| implied that you need to advance or move on.
| hunter-gatherer wrote:
| At my last job I gave myself a 3/5 ("acceptable") rating
| across the board on all self eval performance objectives.
| In the comments I thought I had made it clear that I did
| exactly what was required and nothing more or less. I also
| motioned that I had no interest in advancing my career from
| where I was at.
|
| I ended up on some sort of remedial training and career
| progression plan that onlt added hours to my work. Haha
| wonderwonder wrote:
| That's unfortunate. Everyone is expected to be a cog but
| no one is allowed to admit to being comfortable as a cog
| you always have to be seen as giving 110% and striving
| for that promotion that logically will never come for
| most. System is designed to attempt to extract as much as
| possible from you and if you are not seen as playing
| along then you can be replaced.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Everything's a nail to management, they'll hammer to see
| 5/5 on their stat sheets even if they don't matter.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| No matter what management says, they never want to hear
| the truth.
| alexpetralia wrote:
| Surprisingly, I find answers to many of these questions in
| _Fight Club_.
|
| "Stop trying to control everything, and just let go."
| tck42 wrote:
| I'd note that this was advice given by the antagonist to the
| protagonist, so that the protagonist would _willingly_ give
| up his existence to the antagonist.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Hum... At some point he did, and let go of the antagonist
| too.
|
| As far as the movie makes some sense, it's very strongly
| into finding balance.
| bakuninsbart wrote:
| > * We strive for achievement so much that we tire ourselves to
| depression
|
| That resonates with me quite a lot, as I fell into this trap
| too many times, and am currently in the process of getting out
| once again. Being stressed out and anxious makes me depressed,
| which makes me unproductive, which then reinforces the stress
| and anxiety. While you are in it, it is also difficult to take
| a step back and reflect on how this isn't a very smart way of
| doing things.
| winternett wrote:
| Cities are like a wall that block people off from viewing the
| true reality of life... They put huge buildings up that create
| "bosses" and "corporate culture" and "stores" which all feed
| being over worked and the ideals of constant desire for more
| (consumerism). You can only work in a city if you adopt the
| mindset, which truly is "grind till you die" to your detriment.
|
| People need to burnout in order to fuel a world like ours, it's
| no different than in the past. Some would say there are simply
| "too many people on this earth" to escape the constant drive
| for workplace-related abuse, social inequality, criminal
| behavior, and injustice when people are tightly packed into
| cities unfortunately. You realize a different way of living
| when you escape the city and live in a less populated
| environment that fosters more of what really matters - Family,
| Health, Creativity, Communication, Mental Well Being, Nature,
| and Less of a Competitive/Combative Enviornment.
|
| Once you visit other (more rural and natural) places where
| people live in communities, where the pace is much more slow,
| like farms, mountains, beaches etc, most thoughtful people
| pause and realize that none of the "concrete jungle"
| accomplishments really matter in terms of life merits.
| Unfortunately, the poor and working classes rarely if ever have
| a chance to escape on a vacation, so they are burdened most by
| burnout... That burnout feeds bad things like suicide, drug
| abuse, poverty, depression, crime, etc, while the rest of
| society simply remains ignorant to the root causes of those
| things. Not to say that those rural and natural places are
| perfect to live in, but they allow for less distraction from
| meaningful life goals in many ways over city environments.
|
| Many (wealthier middle class) people occasionally get to take
| that nature vacation at points in their life, and then later
| return to the city grind, hoping to recapture the vibe in
| retirement, but they forget the true motivation as they get
| behind the city walls again often.
|
| The super-wealthy buy homes in relaxed environments at their
| whim... And many even work in the city without leaving their
| super comfortable beach and mountain "vacation" houses. Some
| would say that's one of the major reasons they often think far
| beyond the constraints of their (less paid) employees who live
| in the city and work in the city office... Not because they are
| "smarter" it's possibly because they are far more often less
| "mentally distracted" and weighted down by finances, work
| commutes, and burnout culture of city living.
| agent008t wrote:
| Is substance abuse not more common in the more rural
| communities though? Is it not just a 'grass is greener'
| effect?
| winternett wrote:
| I'm not a data scientist nor working in health care, but my
| personal opinion leans towards drug abuse being more
| related/linked to a person's personal experiences,
| upbringing, and social and economic conditions rather than
| primarily being linked to where they live. Both rich and
| poor statistically are represented in terms of drug abuse,
| the consequences for drug abuse are often more severe for
| abuse if one is on the less affluent side though
| (enforcement-wise and health-wise in a historical sense).
| officeplant wrote:
| If growing up (and currently living) in the rural American
| south has taught me anything, everyone is high on
| something. From my mother taking xanax to balance out the
| overwhelming amount of volunteer work stress she has from
| church, friends smoking/drinking away the boredom after a
| long day of oilfield work, or my weed habit for settling
| down my mind after a long day at the computer.
| handrous wrote:
| I think it's like that most everywhere (at the very
| least, in the US) not just the rural South. I can't
| remember who sent it, but there was a great tweet I read
| once that went something like:
|
| "The two biggest surprises of my transition from
| childhood to adult life were learning that:
|
| 1. _Everyone_ is on cocaine. 2. Cheese is fucking
| expensive. "
|
| And sure enough, as I approach 40, practically every
| adult I know regularly uses at least one--and usually
| several--mood-, mind-, or perception-altering drugs,
| legal or otherwise. I'm sure it was true when I was a
| kid, too, but a combination of my own obliviousness and
| DARE programs had me thinking otherwise.
|
| [EDIT] actually, I bet it's like that everywhere, period,
| with few exceptions. There was a travel photo-blogger I
| used to read a lot, and a common feature of trips to
| relatively remote and non-touristy/low-development areas
| was "here's the stall where they sell the one or two
| obscure-to-westerners drugs that _every single adult_
| here takes _every single day_ " For developed areas I
| expect that only didn't happen because, outside of
| tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, maybe weed (quite a list
| already!), plus, you know, _drug stores_ full of
| prescription drugs, the drugs aren 't sold openly like
| that.
| perardi wrote:
| I, too, am approaching 40, and I am still shocked by how
| many people, how very many high-functioning/high-
| status/high-contribution-to-society people are fueled by
| drugs.
|
| Doctors, nurses, lawyers, managers, psychologists,
| developers...bring on the modafinil, Adderall, cocaine,
| MDMA, mushrooms, and weed.
|
| _(Not that I would ever do such things, no sir, this
| current design I'm about to ship doesn't taste like
| Provigil at all.)_
| handrous wrote:
| Yeah, even though I've _joined_ that group, I still
| struggle to process it. "You mean... an extremely high
| percentage of successful people are 'druggies'?" It's so
| entirely contrary to the propaganda we received as kids.
|
| Re-contextualizes a lot of cop and justice system stuff.
| "The defendant had coke in his car". Yeah, so? Decent
| chance the judge has some in his chambers, too. Doesn't
| mean shit. "The suspect smelled of weed" yeah, and so did
| some of the best teachers and professors I ever had, who
| were, I'm pretty sure, high more often than not.
|
| Another weird thing: my view on alcohol has gotten a lot
| dimmer over time. As much as I love some of the flavors
| you can get out of fermentation and distillation, it
| really is one of the worst of the lot, as far as health
| damage and how it makes you feel, often stretching into
| the next day as general lethargy and feeling "off", even
| if you don't have every much.
| officeplant wrote:
| I get a lot of weird responses still when I turn down
| alcohol with "sorry I quit, I only smoke weed now"
|
| Missed out on a lot of tasty craft brews.
| piyh wrote:
| >where the pace is much more slow, like farms
|
| You're thinking of a very idealized farm.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > Family, Health, Creativity, Communication, Mental Well
| Being, Nature, and Less of a Competitive/Combative
| Enviornment
|
| Except for Nature, many of us find these things more easily
| in a city than a rural environment.
| winternett wrote:
| A whole lot of other factors come into play in that
| statement.
|
| Your current age.
|
| Your current socio/economic/financial position in life.
|
| Whether you are single or married.
|
| If you have children or not.
|
| Where exactly you live.
|
| How much you really rely on things related in a city.
|
| My statement was geared towards one's life over it's entire
| span, rather than being geared towards the current point
| we're each at in life... When I was younger, I greatly
| enjoyed living in the city despite all the expense and
| other issues like crime and close proximity to neighbors.
| As I grew older, a more quiet (suburban, but close enough
| to the city) life began to seduce me... Not saying it as
| concrete fact, but if you really talk to a wide range of
| people in older age, it's a recurring trend.
| politician wrote:
| The API of the City is a real phenomenon. The API provides
| services that residents cannot get elsewhere and demands
| certain rituals and ceremonies. For example, the API of the
| City implicitly prohibits eating food off of the ground for
| safety and sanitary reasons yet humanity ate food from the
| ground for 100,000 years. There are many examples like this.
| slothtrop wrote:
| If that were true, rates of depression and suicide wouldn't
| be more represented in rural areas.
| opx9 wrote:
| Speak for yourself. Dont use the word 'we'.
|
| "We" dont strive for achievement. There is a small group with
| certain specific biological and psychological traits that does.
|
| Their energy and drive gets the whole chimp troupe stampeding
| in one direction or another.
|
| These biological, personality traits aren't going to be
| stripped out of the human population any time soon.
|
| So you just have to recognize who you are and who you choose to
| deal with so you dont get stuck in traps.
|
| Learning takes Time.
| tuyguntn wrote:
| I think parent OP used "we" very much correctly, don't try to
| isolate some people's impact on society.
|
| We all enjoyed when Jeff Bezos delivered our products faster
| to our homes. We enjoyed when our food is delivered from any
| restaurant we asked, we enjoyed traveling to other places and
| generating CO2 along the way.
|
| And do you know why we enjoyed them? Because those people who
| strive for achievements worked really hard to create these
| conveniences for us, for some of them there was no personal
| life, working nights, no family, just career! And they
| achieved what they wanted. Now they demand from everyone such
| dedication. Hence some companies (employees to be exact) are
| creating hidden rules not to promote people with kids,
| because at some point they might not be as productive as 21
| years who just graduated, with lots of energy to burn and
| cheap to employ. People don't want to have kids because they
| might distract from their career.
|
| Now our society has problems, pollution, low wages,
| homelessness, burned out people, because not everyone can
| perform on their peers level without kids, without personal
| life and so on
|
| And "we" who don't strive for achievement didn't stop them.
| an9n wrote:
| And some companies promote people with kids above people
| without them. It cuts both ways.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| > We enjoyed when our food is delivered from any restaurant
| we asked, we enjoyed traveling to other places and
| generating CO2 along the way.
|
| Huh? Delivery drivers are generating CO2. And while I
| certainly enjoyed the service, I do _not_ enjoy the
| ridiculous price premium thats being charged along with it
| [deleted]
| saiya-jin wrote:
| You are twisting words quite a bit. I very much belong to
| 'the other' tribe of not giving a nanofraction of a fuck
| about some of these 'achievements' pushed on us, done by
| people who don't get the concept and urgency of work-life
| balance. No amazon prime deliveries? In fact, no Amazon
| deliveries in Switzerland that make any sense? We get by
| just fine. We don't order food from restaurants, it negates
| the very reason why to go to restaurant in the first place,
| the social experience is just not there. I can cook
| +-comparably well and actually enjoy the process. And so
| on.
|
| I have myself mapped extremely well thanks to long term
| involvement with some extreme sports, backpacking around
| the globe and few times use of psilocybin in the right
| setting. I know exactly what makes me tick and what is
| superficial shallow BS, and what you describe is right
| there.
|
| Again, achievements you describe as some holy grail of
| mankind mean next to nothing. My wife is a doctor, exactly
| same story - she can tell you all evening about true
| respectable achievements, and none of it is about some
| engineer figuring slightly more effective way for business
| to deliver.
|
| And don't drag the topic into 'you didn't stop this from
| happening!' - we are adults, and responsible for our own
| development and life paths. Don't expect me or anybody else
| to babysit you and set your life straight to get happy and
| fulfilled life. If you won't, no guidebook nor internet
| course, nor aging itself will. Get your own shit together
| and do it yourself to be more precise.
| freshpots wrote:
| The lack of self-awareness in this screed is remarkable.
| Stay woke and better than the 'other' oh enlightened one.
| beardedwizard wrote:
| So you did extreme sports and drugs and figured out life
| better than everyone else? To the point where you would
| tell everyone else to "get your own shit together"?
|
| I thought mushrooms dissolved ego, but what you are
| saying strikes me as filled with ego.
| bodge5000 wrote:
| > I thought mushrooms dissolved ego, but what you are
| saying strikes me as filled with ego
|
| This is the case with everyone I've ever talked to about
| this. If anything it seems to be an ego boost more than
| an ego death, though I doubt thats as much the mushrooms
| as much as it is the person
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| Those people usually have a sympathetic wealthy dad too.
|
| It's not real easy to be a maverick when you are barely
| getting by, and have 0 safety net.
|
| Those two meathead sons of the president come to mind.
|
| And every financially successful kid in my high school, and
| college, had a ton of unspoken family help.
|
| I clench up when I hear these Type A traits are biological.
| sirodoht wrote:
| Hey opx9,
|
| I do apologise if my use of the word "we" caused anger. At
| the same time I'm happy you took the time to respond--it
| seems you're passionate about this point so I want to know
| more.
|
| Why do you say it's a small group? It seems to me it's a
| pretty large group across the West.
|
| Then, you claim it's biological traits. Does that mean
| everybody has them?
|
| Finally, what's the alternative? How could one get unstuck?
| Or maybe a better question would be: what are the traits of
| those that are not part of the group that has these traits?
| jseban wrote:
| The way I see it, is that it's good to have diversity and
| not push too hard on a norm that doesn't suit everyone, and
| it's not a solution to attack the norm and swing the
| pendulum in the other direction, because that will probably
| do equally much damage, just to a different group of
| people. Striving for achievement is not bad, but striving
| for conformity and validation from peer pressure and norms,
| is bad.
| temp8964 wrote:
| > Then, you claim it's biological traits. Does that mean
| everybody has them?
|
| I don't understand your logic. If I say someone has the
| biological trait being very tall, apparently it means NOT
| everybody has it.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I don't understand your logic. OP was asking a question,
| which you answered. Questions are merely requests for
| logical explanations, and therefore, not always logical
| themselves.
| sirodoht wrote:
| Ah interesting point. I meant it more like: height is a
| trait, some are tall, others short.
|
| I see what you mean though. I guess that might also be
| how opx9 meant it.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| I suspect the reviewer, and your comment, and probably the
| author, are wrong to broadly characterize burnout as something
| that we encounter as "achievement-subjects" but not as
| "obedience-subjects", or as you put it, because we "strive for
| achievement." While some may burn out working too hard with the
| idea they will achieve by doing so, surely many others are
| burned out by being over-worked at a tough job, with an
| unsympathetic boss, a "death march" culture promising career
| advancement that never comes, and what-have-you.
| emteycz wrote:
| Burnout also isn't limited to work, I got it from school.
| Damogran6 wrote:
| Just because you pay for the privilege, doesn't mean it's
| not a job.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| I've seen people burn out on volunteer work. Lots of
| institutions are carefully calibrated to extract as much
| effort from their constituents as the costs allow.
| seoulbran wrote:
| Ding
| the_af wrote:
| You can get burned out at free public schools. Here in
| Argentina the best university is free and open to
| everyone -- and believe me, you can get _very_ stressed
| because it 's also very demanding.
| dkarl wrote:
| There are a lot of unfortunate combinations. Trying to
| achieve in an obedience-oriented system causes depression,
| I'm convinced, whereas simple obedience can lead to a fairly
| stress-free life. In a company I'm familiar with that
| transitioned quickly from a nimble startup that rewarded high
| achievers to a bureaucratic beast that saw ICs as chess
| pieces to be moved around by managers, the early ICs who
| stayed and kept trying to achieve were afflicted with
| depression, anxiety, feelings of being gaslighted, and
| simultaneous contempt for and jealousy of "lazy" newer ICs
| who understood the new nature of the company and enjoyed
| comfortable and predictable employment.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| That's an excellent point. I can feel burnout creeping in not
| because I'm pushing to achieve but just because of the stress
| required to tread water.
| abledon wrote:
| you could reframe the situation and say you are 'treading
| water' in a position that requires constant 'achievements'
| whereas if you found an easier job, treading-water wouldn't
| be hard
| jseban wrote:
| And if you remove the strive for achievement, people still get
| depressed because of lack of purpose and meaning.
| bsedlm wrote:
| > How can we achieve things with no burnout or ego-driven
| mindset?
|
| I ask myself something quite similar but coming from a
| different place (so to say).
|
| How can I practice detachment (buddhism inspired letting go)
| while simultaneously accomplishing goals?
|
| I ask myself this because I see a relation between holding on
| (firmly grasping a goal; the opposite of detachment) and the
| perseverance of success at doing difficult things.
|
| In my own experience it remains a fact that if I hold on on to
| something tightly, this is why I suffer (painful); there's a
| truth behind "no pain no gain". However this is quite close to
| "them who don't try don't fail"... so they don't suffer BUT do
| not really accomplish anything either.
|
| Finally, I don't consider the ego to be inherently bad, it's a
| tool. IMO a problem with it is that one's self is not the only
| one capable of using one's ego (e.g. we all have been
| manipulated by someone else).
| handrous wrote:
| > How can I practice detachment (buddhism inspired letting
| go) while simultaneously accomplishing goals?
|
| I'd say that:
|
| 1) There's a reason for all the insistence on monasticism in
| Buddhism and many other traditions. Practicing otherwise is
| doing it on ultra-hard mode. You're unlikely to become A
| Buddha while having a family and 9-5 job, and that's just how
| things are. You can't have everything.
|
| 2) However--actions are _inextricable_ from successful
| practice, I think, even in lay-practice. You can 't think
| your way to enlightenment, you have to _live_ it, and not
| just when you 're meditating. And that's the hard part! Not
| all the reading, the listening, the meditating, the thinking.
| The _doing_. As Marcus Aurelius put it (quoting from memory,
| but quite close): "One can live one's life in a calm flow of
| happiness, if one learns to think the right way _and act the
| right way_ " (emphasis mine). The thinking is the _easy_
| part. _Acting_ in support of and in harmony with this
| blissful state, in the world, _despite_ the necessary state
| of detachment is and always has been the hard part. That 's
| why you can't just Do Buddhism (or anything remotely similar)
| from books and some part-time meditating.
|
| I think the tension & contradictions between detachment and
| action is why it's so difficult--impossible, even--to record
| on paper _what a state of complete enlightenment is_ in any
| way that fully covers it all on its own. You can 't write the
| differential equation describing it. At best, you can just
| vaguely gesture in the correct direction.
|
| (note: I am _quite_ bad at the "and act the right way" part
| myself, so could be entirely wrong about all of this)
| np- wrote:
| > How can I practice detachment (buddhism inspired letting
| go) while simultaneously accomplishing goals?
|
| I think this is somewhat addressed in Hinduism -- the thing
| you need to realize is that there is your Self, and there is
| your Role, and those are two entirely separate things. Your
| Role might be "spouse" or "child" or "software engineer" or
| "soldier in an army." (not trying to assign any particular
| morality to a role). Your true Self is entirely independent
| of that. It is incumbent on you to perform your role to the
| standards expected, but it's also just a subsystem that
| exists within your greater Self, it is _not_ equivalent to
| your self. To find a role, you need to think about unmet
| needs in the universe. The role you perform is not about you
| and your self, but it is about something much greater.
|
| Buuuut that doesn't necessarily address motivation - what if
| we're fine just wanting nothing and sitting around all day
| just wanting that nothing. The way that is typically
| addressed in Eastern religion is to actually make that into a
| virtue - sure, if you want to sit around and self-actualize
| all day then go ahead and do it, you will be one of the
| greatest saints ever to live. But that's the catch--it's
| _way_ harder than it sounds. Generally most of us will get
| bored at some point, and that boredom will drive us to look
| at the fuller picture of the universe.
| l33tbro wrote:
| > And the question that I ask myself after having read the book
| is: How can we achieve things with no burnout or ego-driven
| mindset?
|
| I always read him as saying that the valuing of achievement
| itself comes from the depression/burnout society he observes in
| his native South Korea. Ie, we only obsess over achievement in
| the first place because society is so stratified and the stakes
| are so high if you fail.
|
| I think he overall has a distaste for what he calls the
| 'achievement subject', and is more aligned with people like
| Baudrilliard in favouring individuation through developing a
| contemplative and very singular personal identity.
| wanderingmind wrote:
| I strongly suspect one of the important reasons for burnout is
| because of doing work without a strong purpose. And the problem
| is, software is rarely created for a greater good.
|
| You can see people who work in charity for chump change can go on
| for hours of work day after day for years without burning out
| because they gain energy from the work due to their strong
| alignment with the purpose, on other hand people who work without
| a strong alignment of purpose do work as transactional that
| drains energy and burns people out.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I've never read Han (hadn't even heard of him), but what this
| immediately reminded me of, in particular the notion of the
| achievement subject being reduced to basically some sort of
| stimulation machine, made me recall something from Baudrillard's
| _America_
|
| _" This 'into' is the key to everything. The point is not to be
| nor even to have a body, but to be into your own body. Into your
| sexuality, into your own desire. Into your own functions, as if
| they were energy differentials or video screens. The hedonism of
| the 'into': the body is a scenario and the curious hygienist
| threnody devoted to it runs through the innumerable fitness
| centres, bodybuilding gyms, stimulation and simulation studios
| that stretch from Venice to Tupanga Canyon, bearing witness to a
| collective asexual obsession. This is echoed by the other
| obsession: that of being 'into', hooked in to your own brain.
| What people are contemplating on their word-processor screens is
| the operation of their own brains. It is not entrails that we try
| to interpret these days, nor even hearts or facial expressions;
| it is, quite simply, the brain. We want to expose to view its
| billions of connections and watch itoperating like a video-game.
| All this cerebral, electronic snobbery is hugely affected - far
| from being the sign of a superior knowledge of humanity, it is
| merely the mark of a simplified theory, since the human being is
| here reduced to the terminal excrescence of his or her spinal
| chord."_
|
| There's also a great Nick Land piece called _Meltdown_ from his
| saner CCRU days that captures the 'Burnout' notion very well:
| http://www.ccru.net/swarm1/1_melt.htm
| known wrote:
| Maslow solved it in
| http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/maslow/
| jboynyc wrote:
| Shameless plug of a thing I wrote about the same essay. Might be
| useful for added context.
|
| https://axyl.us/post/3048516084/waking-up-to-fatigue-society
|
| I wrote it before an English translation was published, so I
| called it "fatigue society", which I still think is a more
| appropriate term than burnout society.
|
| (Knowing that the essay is more than a decade old should help
| explain the strong assertion right off the bat that we aren't
| living in a "viral" age.)
| atoav wrote:
| The German title of his book is "Ermudungsgesellschaft" which
| literally translates to "fatigue society". Han lives and works
| in Berlin, as a professor of philosophy I am not sure if he
| writes in German or English tho.
| lcam84 wrote:
| In Portugal is "Sociedade do Cansaco" which translates to
| "fatigue society"
| bloak wrote:
| Amazon's description of "The Burnout Society" says: "His work
| is presented here in English for the first time."
| Interestingly, Amazon doesn't say anything about the book
| being a translation, but goodreads.com names the translator.
| mudita wrote:
| "Ermudungsgesellschaft" is indeed the original title, it was
| written in German and published in 2010. The translated
| English version came out in 2015.
| waschl wrote:
| The book is called ,,Mudigkeitsgesellschaft"
| NoGravitas wrote:
| I don't buy the distinction between the discipline-subject and
| the achievement-subject. Our society runs very heavily on the
| threat of discipline, it's just naturalized and made invisible by
| a bunch of intervening social structures. And it's more invisible
| to some people than to others; if you're working a low-wage
| service job, you know that you're always at risk of being made
| homeless, lacking reliable access to food, shelter, and medical
| care, and subject to being brutalized by security forces. Even
| people who _think_ they 're driven by achievement may well just
| have internalized the threats to where they can't see them as
| external anymore.
|
| I know nobody actually reads Foucault, but doesn't anyone at
| least read the Cliff's Notes?
| bsedlm wrote:
| > Nor are we free of conflict. The traumas of the achievement-
| subject are not those of the Freudian age, where we repressed
| our desires out of a sense of social duty, compulsively washed
| our hands, and dreamt about our mothers. No, the manias of our
| age are depression, exhaustion, and burnout.
|
| and then near the end of the article:
|
| > I'm not really sure external coercion has gone away, so much
| as it has been made indirect.
| thewarrior wrote:
| The way I synthesize it myself is that at the lower levels of
| society the burn out is because of harsh discipline and
| poverty.
|
| However people at the upper echelons of society who you would
| expect to be all happy and cheerful are also burning out
| because of what's described in the book.
| human wrote:
| This is one of my favorite read in a while. I love how it frames
| the question of burnout and addresses the ills of modern life. As
| far as my personal experience goes, I am unhappy when I do the
| same thing for too long. I believe that we aren't creatures
| designed to repeat the same tasks over and over. People talking
| about the grass always being greener on the other side are right
| in the sense that we enjoy a change of scenery. I have to admit
| that I am a fan of capitalism and I believe it's the best socio-
| economic model we have. However, my main critique is that it's a
| theft of joy for the artisans in us. The introduction of the
| assembly line and the fact that workers do not feel the same
| pride in the final product is a sad conclusion. I get so much
| pride and joy out of making things. I wouldn't be able to be the
| one inserting a bearing into the wheel of the car because I
| wouldn't get the same pride.
| teachrdan wrote:
| > I get so much pride and joy out of making things. I wouldn't
| be able to be the one inserting a bearing into the wheel of the
| car because I wouldn't get the same pride.
|
| What you're describing sounds a bit like alienation, where
| workers are alienated from the products of their labor.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation
| atoav wrote:
| Having read a few of Han's books I always liked the way he
| analyzed things (in a very observant way) in the first sections
| of his books only to be let down (or downright annoyed) by the
| conclusions he draws out of this analysis in the later sections.
|
| And I say that as someone who studied Philosophy and Media
| science, so I am definitly not just allergic to hard theoretical
| jargon.
| roenxi wrote:
| This article looks a bit rambling and unfocused to me. I'm not
| really sure where it wants to go.
|
| But there is a pretty easy explanation for why people are burned
| out. All the really manual jobs are being slowly automated away
| or are low-status, so everyone is chasing creative, thoughtful or
| social jobs. And those jobs are getting more full on.
|
| People are being pushed to do things that evolution really hasn't
| equipped them to do - sustained periods of low physical activity,
| high mental activity guided by willpower rather than instinct.
| That is pretty tiring.
|
| Software is a great example. All engineering fields. Anything
| involving computers. Anything involving investment. Most creative
| work. Any customer service work (not mentally stimulating, but
| very demanding of continuous social engagement & othen in tense
| situations). Mechanical work.
|
| It used to be everyone was a farm labourer. We don't have much
| work like that any more. Most of us have to plan out how we'll
| get physically tired out because it doesn't happen by accident
| any more.
| LightG wrote:
| Personally couldn't disagree more.
|
| "High mental activity guided by will power" sounds like a
| fantastic foundation for any role and my ideal.
|
| There is a place for manual labour (been there, done that), and
| both can work.
|
| People are burned out due to understaffing and/or misallocation
| of resources.
|
| This is intensely acute for some right now due to the chips
| falling back down to earth while people adjust to pre-post-
| pandemic.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I'm a bit "on the spectrum."
|
| That means that, while writing code, I can go into what I
| term a "fugue state." Hours can pass, and I barely notice.
|
| This has one fairly visible artifact: My GH Activity Graph is
| almost solid green.
|
| When I come out of this state, I am _done_. Totally
| exhausted. Not sore, like I was working out, but definitely
| physically tired.
|
| I sleep well, those nights.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| What's GH?
| blitz_skull wrote:
| I'm guessing "GitHub" given the context of the green
| activity graph.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Bingo.
|
| I apologize for the acronym. I thought it was common
| terminology.
| RoyBean wrote:
| Guessing the quality of (some of) the threads here
| attract non-software workers and flaneurs, probably in
| surprising numbers. I thought GH meant Ghislaine
| Hackswell :-)
| LightG wrote:
| I do sometimes like to be called a flaneur. Thanks.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Is that like a lurkeur?
| FranzFerdiNaN wrote:
| > But there is a pretty easy explanation for
|
| If you ever find youself typing a sentence that starts with
| this, please stop and hit the backspace button until it's gone.
| You are most likely going to to say something that is
| completely wrong or misses 90% of the actual reasons something
| happens.
| Zababa wrote:
| > But there is a pretty easy explanation for why people are
| burned out. All the really manual jobs are being slowly
| automated away or are low-status, so everyone is chasing
| creative, thoughtful or social jobs. And those jobs are getting
| more full on.
|
| That resonates with me. As a developer, I feel an intense
| desire to either contribute to open source, or go into a more
| "creative" field. And it's not the "good" kind of desire that
| gives me energy or pushes me to do things, but it's the kind of
| "bad" desire that feels like it's eating me alive sometimes. I
| have a master's degree, and a nice job with very good people.
| But somehow it doesn't feel enough for me.
|
| I know this is a mental health problem, and I know that this
| may be a "real" calling instead of just a kind of FOMO. But a
| few people around me suffer from the same thing, so I wonder if
| there's not some kind of mechanism at play here. While I don't
| spend much time with "regular" people on social media, I spend
| time looking at open source developers, and creative people.
| When I was younger I felt kind of immune to the social media
| trap (showing your perfect life and all of that). Now, I
| realise that I may have fallen from it, just with different
| values.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| What you say resonates with me as well. I think this is a
| two-fold thing. A desire for self-actualisation and a desire
| for recognition.
|
| I have a very creative job and it provides me a lot out
| creative outlet but that doesn't stop me daydreaming about
| making something of my own and that desire is something I
| struggle with a lot. Interestingly it's become more acute as
| I've got older, had kids and have more time that is taken up
| by home-life. Before I could throw myself into other hobbies
| that have largely fallen by the wayside. It doesn't help that
| my health took a large oopsie this year and I'm still getting
| back on my feet from that. I've very slowly started
| scratching that itch and every time that I do I definitely
| feel more relaxed.
|
| My other issue is that I've spent so long being creative in a
| commercial setting I find it very hard not to look at
| everything through a product lens.
| Zababa wrote:
| > I think this is a two-fold thing. A desire for self-
| actualisation and a desire for recognition.
|
| It feels like that. I never really understood that I had a
| desire for recognition before and so I mostly ignored it,
| but these days it's getting harder.
|
| > My other issue is that I've spent so long being creative
| in a commercial setting I find it very hard not to look at
| everything through a product lens.
|
| That doesn't help too. Switching before "work mode" and
| "home mode" when coding takes a bit of time for me, which
| makes it harder to do things as I don't have that much time
| after work.
| RoyBean wrote:
| Unseeing through the product lens is like tape on finger.
| It just sticks.
| lcam84 wrote:
| I agree although I would add that many of the creative jobs
| although technically challenging have useless or even
| destructive goals. Just look at the attention economy and the
| surveillance industry. We try not to contemplate this fact by
| occupying our lives to the limit and by focusing on the "how"
| instead of the "why". We engineers are probably the ones who do
| this the most.
|
| Funny by coincidence I bought this book just a few hours ago :)
| bserge wrote:
| I would love to spend the rest of my life assembling some
| machinery.
|
| But not the modern way, doing one operation all day, every day
| on an unlimited assembly line, being pushed to do more, more,
| more.
| pydry wrote:
| >People are being pushed to do things that evolution really
| hasn't equipped them to do - sustained periods of low physical
| activity, high mental activity guided by willpower rather than
| instinct. That is pretty tiring.
|
| I don't think it's a mental vs. physical thing at all.
|
| I've had jobs where I had certainty about what I was doing
| every day, I witnessed the fruits of my labor and I had
| certainty about where I stood in the organization. I never
| suffered burnout from them.
|
| I've also had jobs where I was always uncertain about what I
| ought to be doing, where the fruits of my labor often didn't
| seem to amount to much (e.g. perpetual project
| cancellations/always changing requirements/sudden architectural
| direction changes) and I was really uncertain about where I
| stood the whole time.
|
| I tried dealing with it with sustained periods of heavy
| physical activity (e.g. jogging between tasks), meditation,
| etc. It only helped a little.
|
| This perpetual miasma of uncertainty and consequent stress
| built up over time and when it became too much - that's when I
| burned out.
|
| I don't doubt that working on a farm doing heavy physical labor
| under similar conditions would burn me out too. My parents used
| to sometimes give me vague gardening tasks when I was a
| teenager and I absolutely _hated_ that.
| jseban wrote:
| I think this is a really good point, and I think those
| physical jobs would have given the same burnout if they were
| equally meaningless/disorganised. Imagine being assigned
| physical tasks that change in the middle of execution, or are
| constantly being reverted etc, would probably drive people
| crazy just as much. But in physical work people just don't
| get jerked around as much, because anyone can see the
| dysfunction and poor organisation, while with knowledge work
| it's hidden.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > I think this is a really good point, and I think those
| physical jobs would have given the same burnout if they
| were equally meaningless/disorganised.
|
| Dramatization of this in action:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uuberh8Xks
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Marx's observation of the alienation of labor holds true.
|
| Have to wonder too if there's such a thing as the ambiguity
| of labor. Not knowing where one stands in an organization is
| a continuous passive stress, a background drone of worries.
| It's an emotional labor that even comes with jobs that aren't
| primarily social.
| pydry wrote:
| Perhaps. I never really "got" alienation. I had imagined it
| was something Tony at "Tony's artisanal, signature burgers"
| wouldn't feel but Tommy the McDonalds fry chef would.
|
| I think I've always found there to be some individuality
| and creativity in software work, so in this respect even
| when I'm burning out I feel more like Tony than Tommy.
| pietrovismara wrote:
| That's not what alienation means, if you go by Marx. The
| actual definition, from Wikipedia:
|
| >The theoretical basis of alienation within the
| capitalist mode of production is that the worker
| invariably loses the ability to determine life and
| destiny when deprived of the right to think (conceive) of
| themselves as the director of their own actions; to
| determine the character of said actions; to define
| relationships with other people; and to own those items
| of value from goods and services, produced by their own
| labour. Although the worker is an autonomous, self-
| realized human being, as an economic entity this worker
| is directed to goals and diverted to activities that are
| dictated by the bourgeoisie--who own the means of
| production--in order to extract from the worker the
| maximum amount of surplus value in the course of business
| competition among industrialists.
|
| It makes a lot more sense for it to apply to software
| developers too with this definition.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The description of where "the fruits of my labor often
| didn't seem to amount to much" seems to be summarize
| labor alienation.
| pydry wrote:
| Maybe. I think it's just wasted labor, though.
| hef19898 wrote:
| There is something really satisfying about manual labor that
| knowledge doesn't come close to IMHO. And I am not talking
| about physical exhaustion, but rather about the fact you can
| _see_ and _touch_ the results of your work, it is tangible.
| Whereas a lot of the office jobs I held basically just produced
| a lot of digital paper. And those operational ones, well, they
| moved numbers from one column in an ERP or warehouse management
| system to another. The physical labor part of that would fall
| under the unfulfilling, boring and exhausting category so.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Working here as a software engineer, remote. I usually spend
| 2-3 hours a day doing something with my hands now, outside in
| the sun, working out, gardening, farming. I've decided that
| if I couldn't do it anymore, I'd quit my job.
|
| I just bought an old house and I spend hours on it, working
| on shelves, building new floors etc, it's absolutely
| paradise.
| bluejellybean wrote:
| It's funny you mention buying an old house to fix up, I was
| literally searching online this morning before reading this
| comment to do the very same thing. Overall I would say that
| your post, and the parent, resonates quite well with me. I
| work as a software developer (and love doing so!), but I
| need physical work to really feel satisfied. I've been a
| farm hand in the past, spending the evening hours feeding
| chickens/goats or putting up fence posts, it's a great way
| to burn excess energy after being inside in the mental
| quagmire that is modern work.
|
| More recently it's been woodworking for me, having spent
| this last Sunday building a small coaster set that someone
| commissioned from me. Completing the order was the absolute
| highlight of my month, the physicality of the thing allows
| for knowing every intimate detail about it that feels
| somewhat similar to the early programs many of us wrote.
| With early and simple programs, the ones written purely by
| a single person without management or team input, the
| programmer is able to fully encapsulate their ideas of the
| thing at the time of creation. This includes the good
| parts, the corners cut, the ideas they had when crafting
| it, and even the memory of where they were in the world
| when they created it. The problem with a program is that
| this can get lost over time, a change here, an update
| there, a PR from someone random, a critique from a new team
| member, and after a couple years it's different, the
| feeling of the thing is somehow lost. Having spoken to many
| building construction laborers, who if you survey them will
| typically say they have a high level of job satisfaction
| from seeing their work stand before them, I think the
| constant churn in the work we see today contributes to the
| sense of burnout many of us have felt.
|
| With a physical good though, the essence of the
| craftsmanship in an item remains as long as the item is
| intact. I can still look at an old shelf a made a decade
| ago and have it put me directly back into the scene I was
| in during the time. The slightly odd pattern on one corner
| an indication of losing some footing while using an orbital
| sander, a scuff mark from transporting it from it's
| original home to a new apartment, the physicality creates a
| true mental time capsule. I'd encourage anyone who is in
| this field, especially if they've never done so before, to
| try building real things or to work with their hands in
| some way. Even if you don't make money from the activity in
| a direct sense, the stress reduction and life satisfaction
| it creates can go a long way in avoiding burnout and
| misery.
| papito wrote:
| I call it "active meditation". In Layer Cake, a character
| disassembles and assembles a weapon, as a way to distract the
| brain from racing and focus on that one task.
| tdrdt wrote:
| _" But there is a pretty easy explanation for why people are
| burned out."_
|
| You name one reason. And it's a true reason but there are many
| others. Your explanation doesn't cover them all.
|
| There are only two reason people get burned out: long periods
| of mental or physical stress. A dancer can burnout when asking
| too much of the body. A fit person can burnout when the lie of
| an affair is going on for too long. And of course your
| explanation is also a very valid one.
|
| A burnout is 100% physical (the body is exhausted), but the
| cause can be mental or physical (or both).
|
| Unfortunately I have experience with being burned-out. So I can
| give my best advice to others who are struggling with a
| burnout: _the key to recovery is acceptance_. A burnout is
| potentially life threatening so you really need to step on the
| brakes and accept that you can 't go on like you do. Also
| accept that it might take at least a year to fully recover. And
| accept that you will experience very strange thoughts and
| feelings because everything in your body is messed up. If you
| don't accept that you are burned-out you will really struggle
| to get better. Get help!
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| > All the really manual jobs are being slowly automated away or
| are low-status, so everyone is chasing creative, thoughtful or
| social jobs. And those jobs are getting more full on.
|
| Exactly. The problem is that more and more of the "easy tasks"
| that high-skilled jobs are automated/moved to computers. 30-50
| years ago, an Engineer still would find to make some copies,
| sharpen a pencil or get fresh paper from storage, check his
| mailbox etc. So even high-skilled jobs had a lot of repetetive,
| simple work parts that gave the brain room to relax. Nowadays
| the easy tasks are removed, and we mostly deal with hard
| problemes 8h+ a day.
| bamboozled wrote:
| Honestly, we've solved them, but we've solved them with
| unsustainable methods.
|
| For example, modern large scale farming is pretty harmful and
| is destroying top soil and striping soil of important
| nutrients. But we all like to run around saying, "automated",
| and it mostly is, but it comes at a cost.
| adrianN wrote:
| I think that's orthogonal. We could have about the same
| level of automation with more sustainable farming methods.
| Planting monocrop fields from horizon to horizon is just a
| little cheaper.
| [deleted]
| martindbp wrote:
| I'm not sure it's so much about dealing with hard problems 8h
| a day, I don't think most people do. But like you say,
| there's no slack left in the workplace, which makes it ever
| harder to go into "diffuse" mode thinking. Scrum, standups,
| email, Slack, open office floor plans and other interruptions
| of all kind prevents the brain from ever relaxing.
| Unfortunately, besides just being unhealthy it's also quite
| unproductive because we need to switch between focused and
| diffuse modes of thinking many times during a day to
| effectively solve problems and see the bigger picture.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Oh, I would love to work on hard problems 8h a day. Or with
| people that do that. Reality is, and basically was since I
| started my career 15+ years ago, that we have north of 6 h
| per day in pointless meetings and politics. With some admin
| work for documentation thrown in for good measure.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| With "hard" problems I didn't mean challenging, fun
| problems to solve. I meant "hard" in a way that there is no
| simple automation solution to it and it feels "hard".
| hef19898 wrote:
| I understood hard in that way as well.
| neutronicus wrote:
| Not Child, Elder, or Medical care, though
|
| Those things are mostly "easy" in that they're monotonous and
| no individual task has much risk of failure, but in aggregate
| it's demanding enough that it's super-hard
| Burnafter186 wrote:
| I think it escapes the domain of work. It's widely propagated
| in a variety of different mediums. I don't operate under the
| pretense that me and my direct friends and kin are a good
| representation of the world at large, but to give an example:
|
| You've got to go shopping, and there are occasions where you're
| confronted with a mass of people. I actually like people, and
| social interactions generally, as I suspect _most_ do, but
| there 's this weird undercurrent- which to be fair may exist
| regardless of social/economic organization- I don't want to
| rethink my path through the store, I don't want to maneuver
| through the crowd, I don't want to talk with people, I fume at
| the idea of people chatting in the middle of the aisle. I'm in
| this considerable, and evidently consequential hurry, to rush
| through life on autopilot. Rushing to get back to doing
| _literally fucking nothing_. But this phenomena seems to be a
| shared experience among my friends and relatives.
|
| I've read pretty widely, I generally don't traipse into the
| territory of pseudo-religious woo-woo, but Eckhart Tolle fairly
| elegantly explains that the world as we know it is largely
| structured around what he defines as the ego. The ego is
| exhausting, it's all consuming. But it's continuously demanded
| as we move evermore towards the speed-of-light society.
| Decision after decision, projections of the future made from a
| patchwork-geist stitched out of the past. Closely attending to
| arbitrarily defined time. Balancing accounts. Superficial chats
| with disassociated people trying to think their way out of the
| bag. Meanwhile there's the internet, and its widespread
| integration into nigh-every facet of life, I don't need to make
| the list for you, and I'm sure you can point out a litany of
| negative consequences and their cascading effects on you
| personally and society at large. I for one am running in an
| ego-depleted state almost constantly, so yeah, I agree with
| you.
|
| All this to forward some unknown and undirected agenda,
| blindly. You specialize in some repetitive task, go in to the
| same building day after day to do what you did every other day,
| and with negligible respite. The undirected part, I think is
| one of the things that really gets people. We're social
| animals, we want a function in a community, perhaps even need
| it to be made whole, but that's been extracted by the
| abstraction of bureaucracy and organization, you toil for some
| faceless, dispassionate, and disconnected c-suite exec you'll
| never be in the same room with. You don't do it for your boss,
| you probably don't do it for yourself. One could aggrandize the
| economic impact you have on your community servicing your
| amorally defined debt to a bank that you've never walked into,
| and purchasing goods from a chain supermarket which contributes
| pennies to a few dozen workers. Companies that are
| headquartered in a state a thousand miles away, selling goods
| from all over the world- countries and their cultures you know
| next to nothing about, people who you'll never know.
|
| It's not just work though, it's everything, everywhere I think.
| I could write pages about it, suffice it to say I don't like
| where we are.
| gen220 wrote:
| You've hit the nail on the head, I think. We evolved in
| close-knit family units and groups over hundreds of
| generations.
|
| There are downsides to that form of existence. It is not
| optimal for extracting maximum contributions to society from
| every individual.
|
| Our current social configuration seems to optimize for
| maximum "extraction" of social contribution from individuals.
|
| But it follows some dark patterns: unless you're fabulously
| wealthy, your contributions are generally opt-out instead of
| opt-in, and it coerces people into settling for local maxima
| (flipping burgers instead of writing code, writing code
| instead of research, research instead of etc.)
|
| I also agree that the impersonal nature of this configuration
| is disturbingly dissociative, and it's sad that the only
| antidotes are (1) work harder, so you have less time to think
| (2) opt-out.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-11-17 23:02 UTC)