
Why are Americans’ lives getting shorter? - pseudolus
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/11/27/why-are-americans-lives-getting-shorter
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Daveyson
Well not an expert on this but one obvious factor I've seen, crazier and more
exhausting work hours and boat-loads of work stress. Even for super-skilled
professional types, it grinds you down. I work in one of those supposed dream
jobs in a tech firm in Colorado, and every year it's worse and worse. We're
forced to put up with impossible tasks, not just coding related but now like
20 hours a week of administrative so we're pushing above 70 hours a week even
though salary hasn't gone up anywhere near to cover the additional hours. If
you call in sick or go on vacation, you may not have a job waiting for you
when you can get back because HR will just hire cheap labor from abroad.

Result? Everyone's burning out and getting sicker and sicker every year but we
can't go off the treadmill or we wind up "redundant" and lose our health
insurance. Just last month one of the ladies who'd been with us for a decade
died of a heart attack- in her late 30's! She hadn't taken a vacation day in 5
years. Another guy died when his car ran into a guard-rail. A kid working
here, super-skilled and promising, died apparently of a meth overdose after
working 3 days straight no sleep.

Meanwhile our two partner companies in Europe, people work around 35 hours a
week or 40 tops, get 6 weeks' vacation, everyone healthier and happier. But
here's the crazy thing, they get just as much done as we or even more.
Probably because they're a lot healthier and can think on their toes better
not being worn out all the time. They make about as much money as we do,
sometimes more. They don't even pay more taxes than we do in Colorado, that's
some dumb misconception. Americans are basically modern slaves and we only
have even worse working conditions to look forward to every year. And no, it's
not just working class, it's horrible for professionals and skilled too. I
think they're saying now lawyers, doctors and engineers have the highest
alcoholism, suicide and meth overdose rate of anyone, at least in this part of
Colorado. So it's only gonna get worse from here.

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DanBC
> I think they're saying now lawyers, doctors and engineers have the highest
> [...] suicide [...] rate of anyone, at least in this part of Colorado

I don't know about alcoholism or meth overdose rates, but I do know about
suicide and doctors or lawyers do not have the highest rate of suicide in
Colorado. I don't know what you mean by "engineer".

[https://cohealthviz.dphe.state.co.us/t/HSEBPublic/views/CoVD...](https://cohealthviz.dphe.state.co.us/t/HSEBPublic/views/CoVDRS_12_1_17/Story1?:embed=y&:showAppBanner=false&:showShareOptions=true&:display_count=no&:showVizHome=no#8)

