
There’s no glory in overworking, it’s just imminent burnout - a9austin
https://medium.com/@mianya/theres-no-glory-in-overworking-9df03d54088c#.ykqb37793
======
im_down_w_otp
In the menagerie of death marches I've been a party to throughout my ~20yr
career. Every single one of them was predicated on a team that was, in
aggregate, a low-performing team, so we were all having to work so much to
make up for the lack of ability and/or preparedness of others, and those
others were having to work so much to compensate for not being particularly​
good at their jobs, and taking on way more responsibility than they should
have. Earlier in my career I'd sometimes be one of those "other" people too.

On high-functioning teams with half-way decent product management I've never
once experienced a need for consistent, unrelenting "overworking".

My advice to anyone who finds themselves in a situation of constant
overworking is to step back, realize that this is only happening because one
or more people are in way over their head (could be anyone from ICs up to
Execs), and try to figure out who it is. If it's you (even if you're CEO or
CTO), then you'd do literally everybody (including yourself) a huge favor by
finding a way to extricate yourself from the situation and figure out a more
suitable set of responsibilities that you can execute on in a timely and
predictable manner.

It's not easy to be that introspective and honest with oneself and one's peers
about the team dynamic, but if that kind of meta-analysis can be adopted and
exercised, then you'll end up enjoying your work a whole lot more.

~~~
trustfundbaby
Not always so simple though, a lot of places have a pattern of overwork that
goes a bit more like this.

Someone somewhere up the chain overpromises on something without consulting
the people that will do the work. Then the team is forced to burn the midnight
oil to do that, because they are a talented group, who like the work and don't
want the company to look bad, they manage to actually hit the date or miss it
just by a little bit, by working themselves nearly to death.

Management, who thought the date would never be hit, based on the engineer
complaints at the outset, is effusive in their praise for the team, buys them
lunch or some other banal expression of thanks/recognition for their
sacrifice, and now feeling justified in their estimation "skills" because they
were bailed out by the engineers, proceed to do it again, and again ... after
behaving for a little bit, or letting the engineers set dates for less
important projects.

~~~
humanrebar
Yep. I've seen this happen a lot. A company that is serious about fixing it
can do it simply: just provide compensation and/or time off to people who have
to work overtime to meet company goals.

The usual response is "Well, we couldn't afford to do that!". Which means "our
business model depends on our employees shouldering some of our costs" if you
think about it.

------
cbanek
I agree, overwork is bad. But this part struck me:

"Clarity struck me at a management meeting when a colleague asked my opinion
on a project. I shrugged lightly and said it didn’t matter to me, my team
would be able to support whatever decision that was made. It was a somber,
sobering realization: I didn’t care."

Now maybe this was one of those internal realizations, which is totally legit.
But not having an opinion is okay too. I almost feel like part of the friction
in tech is that everyone must always have a strong opinion all the time, even
when it is unrelated to their work. Overall, I wish I had more times where
people said "either of those sound fine, they both get the job done." Usually
people who are "passionate" are actually prescribing details they have little
insight into, vs the person who's doing the actual work / designing.

~~~
humanrebar
I've had more problems in the other direction, actually: people who weren't
that opinionated executing on really bad plans. They could be really terrible
plans, even. Like cutting corners here or there, but they just didn't want to
make an issue out of it.

~~~
cbanek
Well if someone is executing a bad plan, they either know it's a bad plan, or
they don't know it's a bad plan. If they think it's a great plan, it's usually
hard to convince them it's not if they aren't willing to listen. But if they
have less of an emotional investment, usually I find it easier to convince
them of whatever I think needs to be changed.

------
shams93
Some death marches are out of desperation and some are for show to investors
or boards. Desperation marches usually come from undemocratic process from the
start. When engineers are treated as vassals it hides the true costs of the
project. When you're trying to get to an MVP it takes compromise and listening
to engineers. Do the design before you hire engineers don't interate on code
and design at the same time. Get your design process complete, find out about
current best practices so you can evaluate framework choices. Separate out the
design process from engineering, the tools are available to get your ideas
down solid before you spend a lot on engineering.

------
tonetheman
Yeah fuck any place that wants you to work 90 hours a week. Stay only until
you can find a better job.

~~~
hawkice
Even that might be too long in some cases. Living out of a car and eating only
dog biscuits while you work on portfolio pieces and find a better job is a
preferable option for some fraction of people without families. No joke at
all.

~~~
bdcravens
There's a ton of work at high income - it may not always be in the perfect
location, or be "sexy", but for every developer who is still at the office at
11pm, someone else, using the same language, getting paid the same amount, is
going to bed after being home for 4 hours.

------
KarinneLima
Wow! Takes courage to act and even more to tell the world about it. I believe
many of us can relate to the internal self-guessing voice that makes us think
we're not qualified or good enough and that keeps pushing us over the edge.
Sometimes, even the most experienced of us can fall in that trap and end up
burned out.

------
AlexCoventry
Judging from the Glassdoor reviews, it sounds like the main problem here was
mediocre management.

[https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/LEVEL-Studios-
Reviews-E235...](https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/LEVEL-Studios-
Reviews-E235464.htm)

------
sauronlord
Overworking is a problem only if you are underpaid.

80 hour weeks for a year if I get paid 1 million dollars? Hell yeah. "Monk
Mode" all the way.

~~~
user5994461
Then get another job where you are paid 1M a year and don't have to overwork.

~~~
humanrebar
Do you know about some of these? I'm available on those terms.

------
nunez
I don't think overworking is a bad thing from time to time.

If you're changing to a more lucrative career or trying to make a dent at a
company, you'll probably need to do more than what's expected of you. (How
else can you demonstrate that you're capable of doing your job AND the job of
the role above you?) If you're working somewhere where long hours are
practically institutionalized (investment banking, legal, etc), then you've
gotta put in the time.

But balance is key. Take days/weeks off every so often. Make sure that the
work is 100% aligned with your goals. Make sure that you HAVE goals and are
keeping track so you can look back and see progress."

------
techjuice
Have any of you come across recent research papers on this from STEM engineers
and medical professionals inside and outside of academia?

~~~
frozenport
Yes. In the case of MDs there is contradictory evidence. On one hand, a
popular form of hazing is to make junior members work insane sleepless hours
(like 24 hours straight!). On the other hand, the transfer of care from one
doctor to another is a common source of errors.

PhD is a whole different story because cut-throat competition, the 996 work
habits, and oppressive Confucius culture are hallmarks of the student's native
lands.

tldr;

Doctors are like frat boys while PhD students bring the cultural norms from
their home countries.

~~~
robryan
Surely the answer would be to improve the transfer of care process. Transfer
is probably even worse after someone has worked 24 hours.

~~~
mjevans
Maybe a Remote First (document /everything/ proactively as if someone else
might have to pick things up the very next moment) work style would improve
that situation.

There were discussions about that in the past, but I don't recall any of them
having made the connection that it being brought back up in this context
provided me...

------
axhue
I think I have been feeling the same way the author felt during employment at
the company. The scary part is leaving only to find it succeeds after I have
left. But the main thing is that in startups we just want a place to belong, a
chance to be a part of a bigger thing. With this obsession comes the tendency
to do anything to achieve that goal.

~~~
Terr_
> The scary part is leaving only to find it succeeds after I have left.

It could be that an exodus of employees is what triggers actual reform.

------
donovanm
All work and no play will eventually burn most people out as it's very
unbalanced. At 90 hrs a week there couldn't have been time for much else.

~~~
mirimir
Ah, but what if your work _is_ play for you?

And what if family stuff occurs like _work_?

I worked 90 hour weeks sometimes in grad school. But otherwise, only when I've
billed by the hour.

~~~
donovanm
I have yet to see a job that would be entirely play. There is always some
amount of boring/tedious stuff that comes with it. I think the people trying
to tell me a job is play are trying to sell me something. Family stuff could
be work to someone, it's just work you're not paid for.

~~~
mirimir
True. But say you bill at $200 per hour. You can subcontract the boring stuff.
You can pay for cleaning and yard work and stuff. But boring family stuff you
can't subcontract, like hanging out with boring relatives, or going to the
opera. And when that prevents you from having fun at $200 per hour, it's
doubly frustrating.

~~~
milesvp
If you're billing your full rate after 32+ billable hours, you are ripping off
your customers. I don't often accept pull requests from coworkers after that.
They tend to be full of subtle bugs that are hard to spot.

~~~
mirimir
True. But if a client is pushing me with rush work caused by their own poor
planning, it's not my problem. Indeed, it's not unheard-of to bill _extra_ for
rush work.

------
hosh
I see that the author of this post is a woman. I wanted to write something
about overworking and burnout as a result of our normative (but toxic)
masculine archetypes (disclosure: I am a man; I have a wife and a step-
daughter; I have burnt out twice in the past two years, the first time was
really bad).

Last year, around this time of the year, I read "Tantra Illuminated", which
changed how I view work (and overwork), and play. Tantra is not really that
accessible to most people though, and it takes a long time to explain.

This year, personal crisis led me to the book, "The Trickster, Magician, and
Grieving Man". Unlike "Tantra Illuminated", the book is very accessible,
though it might evoke significant emotional resistance in men who attempt to
read it. The book is a critique on the normative archetype of masculinity, and
has a powerful way of explaining why overworking and burnout is appealing.

The book starts with the first chapter on the shadow archetype of
unacknowledged pain. The rest of the first half of the book explains the
consequences of the unacknowledged pain, with the latter half of the book
explaining three additional masculine archetypes. Although the book covers a
lot of ground, I'll narrow it down to just overworking and burnout.

Pain is the experience of something in the world imposing on your sense of
self. The normative masculine archetypes is such that, we try to chose our
pain (by being a hero). The reality is that we cannot control and master all
that we see. Each of us is connected in a complex intertwining of
relationships, both physically and emotionally. In order to achieve the
perceived ideal of being untouched, and untransformed, the classical male
archetypes tends towards deadening ourselves towards pain and cut ourselves
off from the connections that pain is signaling to us. That pain doesn't
really go away, and instead, accumulates as a rejected shadow-side of our
psyche.

One of the things that happens after that is to the taking on of the burden of
the world as a proxy. The strain of upholding something is substituted for
becoming present to the pain we carry. It brings with it thrill, the
exhilaration. We tell ourselves narratives such as, "I am doing this for you",
but it is just another way of avoiding the pain.

Taking this to its extreme leads to violence and war, drawing in others into
the maelstrom of rage in a fit to avoid that pain.

Burnout happens when you can no longer avoid the pain. It looks like external
stress, but what it really is, is the accumulation of unacknowledged pain of
living. It's not something you can move past (which was what led to that
accumulation in the first time). Being present to that pain, and just letting
it be, letting it speak, letting it unfold in its own time is the only way to
recovery.

This whole thing goes deeper than that if you want to avoid the cycles of
overworking and burnout.

