
Burnout [audio] - noobhacker
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/12/07/504734219/episode-740-burnout
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nsgoetz
I understand that customer service reps do a hard, yet important job. However,
calling them "heroes" is a little too much kool-aid for me. It reminds me of
every startup claiming that "this changes everything".

~~~
netghost
At my company, we don't call them heroes, but they are.

It's easy to underestimate their impact, but a good person in support can
really make someone's day.

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lgieron
A hero is someone who puts himself in harm's way for the benefit of others. A
guy in a desk job is not a hero.

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amelius
> A guy in a desk job is not a hero.

In the modern world, all large battles are fought out behind desks.

A researcher who gives up a $200k job at a large IT company (e.g. Google or
Facebook) for a measly paid job at a university to work on a project with
eventual high societal impact IS a hero.

~~~
lgieron
These are not battles. These are just people/companies having careers and
making money. Even the researcher is usually forgoing the well paid job to do
the research because the research is interesting to him - he's just trading
off one for of payoff (money) for another (job satisfaction). Meanwhile,
there's no payoff in volunteering to go to a war with a high chance of getting
killed or maimed.

Re: battles. There are still real battles in the world (Ukraine, Syria) where
there's plenty of heroes.

To sum up, I'd say that it's a blessing that a lot of the world is so peaceful
now that the meaning of the word 'hero' is getting washed down to literally
'people doing their (maybe slighly unpleasant) jobs'.

~~~
dnautics
My father put 30 years into the US Navy. He recently passed away. At his
funeral, a Marine Corps Colonel got up and thanked him for his service, and
called him a hero. However, it was not for his service to the Navy. It was for
his whistleblowing activity at the Veterans Administration, where he worked as
a full time civilian. He was never put in physical harm, but his
whistleblowing put his career at risk. There were unfair retaliatory actions
taken against him and the stress of what he was doing took a toll on his life.

I think you're right that most people that work in a contractual fashion with
a money payoff should not be considered heroes, but it's also not true that
only people who go to war should be considered heroes. Rosa Parks (and the
less famous women who did the same thing and preceded her), for example, are
certainly heroes.

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Fnoord
> Rosa Parks (and the less famous women who did the same thing and preceded
> her), for example, are certainly heroes.

Not every activist or revolutionist is violent. Sticking to known examples:
Gandhi is another excellent non violent example. Sticking to politics, Nelson
Mandela. Mark Felt, also a whistleblower. More recent examples are William
Binney, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange. These are my examples, of people I
consider heroes. History will decide who the public's heroes were.

These people go against authority, often get ignored or bullied in return,
including loved ones and relatives. Like the poster from Fargo, "What If
You're Right And They're Wrong". It indeed takes great courage and often
sacrifice to go against the tide.

That support employee who's ignoring his protocol and is risking a sneer (or
worse) from his boss, the one telling you truth while he's now allowed? He's
performing one _heroic deed_. If its a pattern, we can speak of a hero.

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vivekd
What's interesting to me about this podcast was the suggestion that the
solution to burnout is not less work or taking a break, but getting
appreciation for the work you put in. Burnout seems to not be really about the
work involved but the appreciation you get for doing that job and whether you
feel your job is making a difference.

~~~
lisivka
Very bad suggestion which may lead to death. see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kar%C5%8Dshi)

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sambe
What is the connection between the parent and your reply? Is there something
in that link regarding the appreciation given for work done that I'm missing?
Do you deny that excessive quantities of work could be (partly) a response to
the lack of acknowledgement?

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lisivka
If someone is working hard and burned out, then continue of that will lead to
death, so advice to continue work is very bad advice.

For example, if someone is damaged a knee, he need to relax until knee will
restore it health. What will happen if someone will continue to run and jump
with damaged knee instead?

If your brain is damaged, I will suggest to relax at least until brain will
restore it condition. If you will continue to damage your brain, as suggested,
you may die, because, unlike a knee, our body cannot live without a brain.

~~~
sambe
The whole point is that there might be more effective alternatives. It's not
rational to argue that the alternatives are bad because of things that can
happen (in extremes) when the proposed alternatives are _not_ used.

~~~
lisivka
I tried that and damaged my brain to point that, when I think about a problem
at work, I feel like knife is put in my head.

If you have some spare brains to throw out, you can try alternatives on them,
of course.

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Tempest1981
While working 80-hour weeks at a startup, our boss would walk by in the
evening and say, "go home". I never knew if he was serious or not. We never
went home.

(A different kind of burnout vs. call center burnout)

~~~
romanovcode
Why do you do that? Why do you work much more than you have to?

Are you afraid that you'll get fired? It's not like you will have a hard time
finding a new job these days as a developer.

~~~
Tempest1981
We thought we were changing the world -- like all startups.

