
Over a Third of Americans Battle Job Burnout Every Single Week - spking
https://www.studyfinds.org/the-new-normal-over-a-third-of-americans-battle-job-burnout-every-week/
======
CalRobert
"Conducted by telecommunications company TollFreeForwarding.com, "

an odd source, but OK.

I work remote from a place outside the US. Last thanksgiving my boss (from the
US) was on Slack. So were... all but one of my US colleagues. I see them
writing at all hours of the night. On a work trip it was more or less assumed
I'd work from 9 AM (8:30 ish really if you count coffee before) until 10 PM.
I'm not on pagerduty anymore but my daughter still sings Frere Jacque as
"Something's broken Something's broken It's your fault!, It's your fault!" I
spent half my life on pagerduty (so over half my life - waking and asleep,
working in some sort of fashion).

It depends on the industry but there's too many people who are de facto
actually at work every waking moment (and sleeping, if you count on-call).

Combine this with the nagging suspicion that none of this actually matters
(See "Bullshit Jobs" by David Graeber) and burnout, detachment, etc. shouldn't
be a surprise.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> It depends on the industry but there's too many people who are de facto
> actually at work every waking moment

If "at work every waking moment" means "needs to be able to respond to
emergencies", then this is actually the norm for everyone in the world until
very recently. Anyone who doesn't have an employer is "at work every waking
moment" by this definition. Peasants, housewives, aristocrats...

Given the nearly 100% rate of this for all of history, it seems weird to argue
that the current -- much lower -- rate is too high.

~~~
rixrax
You mean emergencies such as your hot shot boss calling you 2am because he
wants to discuss some bullshit idea he just had?

I’ve worked in a couple of places where this kept happening. First time I was
junior enough to care and put up with it. Everyone understand: this is not
normal. Unless you specifically signed up for pager duty sort of job, no one
should put up with this.

~~~
spking
> First time I was junior enough to care and put up with it.

I think that's the game at a lot of companies, to just prey on the young and
hungry who probably don't know any better and are more likely to put up with
bullshit like that.

~~~
WalterSear
I get the feeling that ageism in hiring is often driven by this.

~~~
yardie
As a fully formed adult with responsibilities and kids. There are so many job
posts you can tell right away aren't for a certain demographic. People who may
push back because they have a parent-teacher conference on the schedule
already.

------
beat
So why do they stay at these awful jobs?

Health insurance. Fear of losing, or even changing what they have (sometimes
accompanied with some very real and not just anxiety out-of-pocket costs
running into the thousands of dollars).

Decoupling health insurance from employment is the #1 thing we could do to
improve quality of our work. But in the long run, I dream of a day when wage
labor is looked back on as nearly as terrible as chattel slavery.

~~~
Mountain_Skies
Most companies would love to do away with the expense of health insurance and
all of the administrative headaches and costs that come with it. But since
most full-time white collar jobs offer health insurance, changing jobs might
change your coverage some but won't leave you insuranceless. Now if you want
to go out on your own or create/work at a startup, health insurance can be a
big issue.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Big companies already have the HR staff to deal with health insurance. It’s in
their interest to keep health insurance tied up with employment, as it gives
them an advantage over small business and individuals, because individuals who
work for small businesses that don’t offer health insurance have to pay for it
with post tax dollars.

------
scottious
A year ago I had a 6-week paternity leave at 33 years old. It was the first
time since I started my career that I was able to unplug for a significant
amount of time.

This time off was truly a magical time for me, and even though I had to do a
ton of work around the house and with the baby, I felt a sense of purpose. I
started to feel like a real person again.

I came back to work and I made some huge gains for the company for a short
period of time... my creativity was back, my motivation was back. The things I
did after paternity leave paid off a huge amount and had ripple effects of
increased productivity for the entire company.

Then, I burned out again. Now I'm just a zombie who occasionally writes code
and counts down the hours until I can go home. It's obvious to me that I just
need some extended time to myself, but that doesn't fly in America. I think my
employer would rather me be a zombie than to just have some time off to
recharge.

~~~
zamfi
> I think my employer would rather me be a zombie than to just have some time
> off to recharge.

And you probably don't think you can even ask your employer about this: what
would it say about your devotion as an employee?

~~~
commandlinefan
> don't think you can even ask your employer about this

I wonder how much of that is in our own minds, though - my boss is a pretty
cool Chinese guy, and I tell him I need time off to deal with something, he
says no problem, let me know when you’re back. But I still feel like I’m being
silently judged - not just by him, but by everybody.

~~~
zamfi
> But I still feel like I’m being silently judged - not just by him, but by
> everybody.

Does "everybody" include you, too, by the way? Are you actually just judging
yourself for taking time off, and assuming everyone else is?

Do you judge others for taking time off too?

I don't have an agenda here, really, except the point out that this being "in
our own minds" is not that different from "assumptions that come from our
culture"...

------
Ididntdothis
Americans really need more vacation time. For a while I worked with only 15
days a year. This never gives you the opportunity to ever really relax. Life
becomes just one endless meaningless time of working year after year that
kills any kind of creativity . I can see this in a lot of workaholics. They
just go through the motions of working hard but don’t get much done.

And once you have been in that machine for a while taking a little time off
feels scary and unfamiliar.

~~~
mercutio2
“Only” 15 vacation days?

I’m not sure if you’re in the US, or if you’re including paid holidays, but 15
days is the average number of vacation days for people with 25 years of tenure
in full time jobs in the US. Most people with less tenure get much less.

So that wouldn’t be an “only” in the US.

[https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm](https://www.bls.gov/news.release/ebs.t05.htm)

~~~
volkl48
Your general position that Americans often don't get a lot of vacation time by
the norms of developed countries isn't wrong, but your choice of data is.

That table is 23 years out of date, and it was only for employees at "small
private establishments", which generally means <100 employees in BLS
terminology. They generally provide less vacation time than the overall
average of employers.

\---------

As of 2017, the average in the US is around 15 days after _5_ years, 17 days
after 10 years, and 20 days after 20 years.

[https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/private-industry-
workers-r...](https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/private-industry-workers-
received-average-of-15-paid-vacation-days-after-5-years-of-service-
in-2017.htm)

Approximately 90% of full time workers have paid holiday and vacation in some
form.

[https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ownership/private/...](https://www.bls.gov/ncs/ebs/benefits/2017/ownership/private/table32a.htm)

\--------

Also, to note the obvious: The norms for your average HN reader in terms of
benefits are likely to be different (better) from the average person in
society. I would consider 15 days to be an "only" in the part of the job
market I am in.

~~~
mercutio2
I couldn’t figure out in what year my bls link was published; thanks for
finding better data, 23 years old is terrible.

------
Simulacra
Job burnout? Try LIFE burnout. The job I've managed to compartmentalize and
keep at bay, but life is burning me out and I'm not out of my thirties yet.
Things are getting faster and more expensive just to live.

~~~
thedaemon
Kids will do that to you. Don't take on a huge burden if you aren't prepared
for it.

------
nbrempel
I find that If my work isn’t meaningful, it can really drain the life out of
me (even more than truly demanding jobs).

I wonder if a couple generations ago people felt just as burnt out. It seems
like this generation is the most burnt out but who knows. With everyone
connected all the time, I doubt people are getting proper rest between work.
If you’re answering emails over lunch, you’re still working and not resting
your eyes/brain.

There is a movement[0][1] towards shorter workweeks which I’m really
interested in and, shameless plug[2], I run a site on this topic as well.
There is real movement right now towards a 4 day work week in Western society
especially in the UK.

[0] [https://www.4dayweekus.org/](https://www.4dayweekus.org/)

[1] [https://www.4dayweek.co.uk/](https://www.4dayweek.co.uk/)

[2] [https://30hourjobs.com](https://30hourjobs.com)

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I think there are some fundamental things that _have_ changed that are much
different than 40-50 years ago:

1\. Work was much more compartmentalized 30 years ago. People may have worked
long hours, but for the most part, when they were "done" for the day, they
were done (obviously there were exceptions, like people on call). Now, though,
there is always email and texts and Slack, so it's more difficult to fully
decompress from work.

2\. The nature of big business has drastically changed. First, many more
people are in service jobs, and I'd argue that actually building something
concrete has a higher immediate payoff for most folks. Also, as jobs have
gotten more efficient and segmented, most people are more removed from
decision making and a tangible feeling of how their effort goes into producing
a valuable product.

3\. The increasing inequality in America means there is more fear of falling
behind, and jobs themselves are more tenuous, so there is more stress to work
harder lest you fall out of a middle/upper-middle class.

~~~
CalRobert
40-50 years ago if there was an emergency my boss had to pick up a nice,
chunky landline phone and call me, and _hope_ that I was home. Now they can
just summon me on a whim. Of course, my boss might not even know a thing was
broken, because he was at home and not at work too! (Unless he worked for a
factory on shifts, power plant, restaurant, etc, - other non 9-5 business)

There's a reason all my vacations are mysteriously vague camping trips to
places with terrible reception.

------
tombert
In Academia, it's not too uncommon for people to take extended sabbaticals to
focus on a project without being distracted with work nonsense, but I haven't
really heard of any company doing that in the US.

I would love to take around a month every year just to focus on a purely
technical problem instead of focussing 20% of my time in technical stuff, and
80% of my time going through bureaucratic hoops that seemingly have no reason
to exist outside of creating a job for the bureaucrats.

I have an OK job overall, but there's just a metric ton of approvals and
paperwork that I end up having to do to actually write code, and as a result I
get burnt out fairly often.

~~~
dominotw
I took a sabbatical for couple of months last year and totally wasted the
whole thing lazing around.

~~~
olyjohn
That's not a waste at all. Sounds like you probably needed it.

------
bpyne
I feel burnt out regularly. Earlier in my career I loved reading about
software development, both research and practice. But my job isn't
particularly stressful. At some points, I feel stress at work, often due to a
lack of control over the work environment and vision of the leadership. But
they don't push me to work a lot of hours. We're encouraged to use our PTO.

I think the issue, in American culture, is bigger than just employers and
career choices. My wife and I discuss this subject often. The problem is that
we are a two career couple who are raising a child in a culture that hasn't,
and may never, adapt to not having one parent at home. Our society isn't setup
for it. Vital services, like healthcare or simply furnace maintenance before
Winter, require a person home from 9am-5pm. Doing so requires either working
remotely or a promise to make up the time when you get back to the office.

I'm not sure what the answer is. Maybe working remotely will help. Maybe we
need to postpone careers until kids are raised like my parents' generation
did. (My wife is far better suited to a career. I would gladly volunteer to be
at home if we didn't need both pays.)

------
grawprog
I work six days a week. I leave my house at 7am return home around 7pm, pretty
much have time to make dinner and chill for an hour so then go to bed and do
it again. I haven't really been out and done anything for a few years now. My
body is in pain constantly, I'm always exhausted but my sleep is always poor.
I don't remember what it's like to not feel burnt out. It's been like this
pretty much since I was in my early twenties and I'm in my thirties now and
there doesn't seem to be much in the way of this stopping any time soon.

~~~
mcv
That's not healthy. Please take some time off for a vacation and return to a
normal 40 hour work week.

There's a good reason why people fought for a 40 hour work week. Life is not
just about work; you need to relax too.

I refuse to work more than 32 hours a week, and that's working out very well
for me. I have time for my hobbies, my kids, my friends and family, and I have
time to just do nothing at all on occasion. And the hours I do work are very
productive as a result. Admittedly my current project is so interesting that I
often work a bit more than 32 hours, but it's because I want to, not because I
have to.

~~~
radcon
> Please take some time off for a vacation and return to a normal 40 hour work
> week.

You might as well say "Please win the lottery".

Seriously though, please tell me you're not so out of touch with reality that
you actually believe the sentence you wrote is meaningful advice. People can't
just snap their fingers and create a better job out of thin air.

~~~
mcv
People should and people have. A century ago, unions declared massive strikes
for these and other issues.

A normal, sane job is not as rare as winning the lottery. Entire countries
have people working very normal, sane hours. Americans need to stop tolerating
these ridiculously long hours. Do 8 hours of good work for 5 days a week, then
relax, sleep well, so you start your next day well-rested and ready to deliver
another 8 hours of good work. This is a sane balance. Working more than you
rest is not. Sacrificing your health and your life for your employer is
idiocy.

~~~
Goronmon
_Sacrificing your health and your life for your employer is idiocy._

Hardly anyone is sacrificing their health and lives for an employer. They are
doing it for the money and hopefully insurance.

------
thrownawayinusa
I'm burnedout because I'm bored.

I'm not a dev, I'm closer to a BI Analyst if anything. What I do is the
epitome of bullshit jobs. The company would be wildly profitable if I just
stopped showing up. Yet my reviews and feedback are always glowing even if I
do 1 'thing' a week, and yeah 6 months down the line some finding I put into
motion results in some marginal change somewhere. It's hard to feel the
motivation to do more when the output feels irrelevant.

I'd leave, but it'd be hard to match the benefits, salary, and work/life
balance in my region. I know I need to change though because my skills are
atrophying due to the ennui.

------
esotericn
As a European (for now, oho) this doesn't surprise me at all. American working
patterns are bonkers.

You guys have this concept of 'vacation' which well, isn't.

15 days or whatever per year pretty much all just must either get banked for
emergencies, admin, or maybe that one Mega Holiday where you fly across the
world and spend a week or whatever trying to forget your life.

I don't get it at all. It might make sense if you're a founder or whatever and
you love your job. Most people are working to live, but there is no "live",
because there's no time that isn't work.

I'd rather be homeless. Can I choose to be homeless in Europe instead tho? ;)

~~~
tombert
I'm genuinely curious; how many days do Europeans typically get?

~~~
tremon
The legal minimum in NL is (the equivalent of) four weeks per year (20 days on
a 40 hours/week contract), so not that much more than US. Some fields
(healthcare, construction, education) get more than that.

However, none of that can be usurped by your employer for other things than
vacation. For example, your employer isn't allowed to deduct pay or withhold
vacation hours for doctor's visits during work hours. Major life events, like
funerals or child births are paid leave. And for most professions, there's no
such things as unpaid overtime: you work more hours, you either get more pay
or receive more vacation hours.

~~~
jmpavlec
I think 20 is the minimum but from what I've seen 24-25 is the most common (at
least in the IT field). I've got 28.

------
GiorgioG
Sprints? I love sprints...I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel day in, day out.

Seriously, screw scrum and 'agile'

~~~
mcv
This has nothing to do with scrum and agile. Or if it does, then they are part
of the solution, because one of the rules is that you don't do overtime. If
there's too much work to include all features before the deadline, you drop
some of the features. Scrum is meant to help estimate based on real work by
developers, rather than on overly optimistic planning by managers. They
empower the developer and give them the autonomy to do the job the way they
see fit.

~~~
arvinsim
It's funny that some managers give the deadline first and then direct the
developers to do Scrum to figure out how to do it in that timeline.

~~~
gherkinnn
“But we need to know how much it will cost us”

“External factors demand we implement feature X by that date”

“Let’s just hire more people, preferably more PMs”

“We have many more ideas in our pipeline. In order to orchestrate these, we
need precise estimations.”

~~~
thedaemon
My last job kept hiring more PMs and no techs. It was horrible. I kept having
to tell the customers "Sorry we can't get the projects done, we have 5 project
managers and only 2 techs."

------
alexandercrohde
What's interesting to me is -- for every "burnt out" coworker I see another
one with similar pay and title who isn't burnt out.

I think a lot of people think they are unable to say "no" nor "pushback." In
my experience, saying no actually gets you more respect than saying yes.

~~~
commandlinefan
My personal experience has been the opposite, actually. Early on, I realized
that I was constantly being asked by coworkers to “look at this, look at
that”, none of which were related to the work that my actual manager had
assigned me. So I said no: I focused on what my manager was telling me to do.
That seemed to be the “right thing” to do. Everybody hated me because I
wouldn’t help them. They showed up in meetings and said they couldn’t meet
their commitments because commandlinefan “wasn’t available to help me get CVS
set up on my computer”. Management churn being what it was, I never had the
same manager for more than six months anyway, so by the time performance
reviews came around, whoever my manager-du-jour happened to be based my
performance review on the consistently negative things he was hearing from my
coworkers. I couldn’t even defend myself by pointing to having accomplished
what the previous manager told me to focus on, either: priority churn being
what it was, most of it ended up being scrapped before it was used. I finally
saw the writing on the wall and did a complete 180. I became the most helpful
guy in the world. If anybody, ever, for any reason, asked for my help, I
dropped whatever I was doing and focused on helping them until their problem
was fixed. Performance reviews went from “needs serious improvement” to
“exceeds expectations”. I rarely, if ever, finish anything that I’m actually
supposed to be working on, and nobody cares. It’s all reputation, and mine is
stellar. I haven’t said no in 20 years and I’ve never been more loved by
corporate.

------
heroHACK17
I was let go from my first dev job (fresh out of college no less) and the
couple of months following were actually some of the happiest days of my life.
Despite being unemployed, I got my mojo back, taught myself a bunch of new
shit unrelated to programming, and tried a lot of new things I wouldn't
otherwise have tried. Oftentimes I wonder how I could have been so happy given
the circumstances, but it finally dawned on me: getting let go obliterated any
conscious or subconscious burnout I had been suffering. I felt like a person
again.

------
dredmorbius
This ... article ... is awfully scarce on details concerning the study,
authors, methods, or links to any of the above.

There's a more direct link here, though still nothing on methods or sampling:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20191103070123/https://tollfreefo...](http://web.archive.org/web/20191103070123/https://tollfreeforwarding.com/blog/stress-
anxiety-and-exhaustion-the-extent-of-workplace-burnout-in-modern-america/)

------
2sk21
Just a couple days ago there was a big discussion about an article that said
that early retirement will lead to cognitive decline. Work and burn out or
retire and vegetate? Surely there are some better alternatives?

~~~
andrei_says_
Retirement for me would mean working on what I love and only that. Presuming
that my creativity and contribution are dependent on having an employer is
shortsighted.

And I can’t imagine being an exception.

------
tripzilch
How do you burnout every week? Is that a new use of the word? As far as I
know, burnout takes months if not years to recover from.

------
pwinnski
On one hand, I think this could depend very heavily on exactly how the
questions is asked.

On the other hand, this doesn't really surprise me.

------
RomanPushkin
100% in Silicon Valley

