Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

http://theconversation.com/overworked-good-habits-not-holidays-are-the-answer-17744

by bootload • 10 years ago

205 170 10 years ago

cballard4• 10 years ago

So if we need to work long hours, what can we do to recover?

Not work long hours? This is what unions are for (now, if we could just have one without dues/political contributions).

toomuchtodo2• 10 years ago

Dues are fine, someone needs to pay for the people who manage the union (Bernie Sanders contributions could be considered dues for those who believe in his causes, me included). I agree that political contributions should be prohibited though (as well as corporate political contributions).

falcolas2• 10 years ago

Political contributions are how the current labor laws came into being.

Abuse of said political contributions are another (but important) matter.

cballard4• 10 years ago

Why does the union need management? Can't we do it in a chat room/mailing list - for which there are numerous free options?

falcolas2• 10 years ago

Dues are how you pay the folks who are spending their time working for your rights. Lawyers, administrative assistants, marketing... these are not cheap.

Abuses aside, you don't get the positive - that is someone fighting for your rights - for free, and without playing in the field of politics.

cballard4• 10 years ago

Why do you need all of that, though? Couldn't a private chat room for the engineering team to plan collective action be enough?

Hey all, management's been asking us for too much unpaid overtime. Strike?

Apocryphon3• 10 years ago

I've long been a proponent for hackers to "disrupt" labor by reinventing unions. (And call them guilds, because hey it's a name that works on multiple levels).

On the subject of dues being required to pay for full-time guild leaders as brought up in the sibling comments, that makes sense. But could it be supplemented by crowdfunding and alternate pay models, instead of mandating a set price? Tiered membership? Freemium guilds? Free 2 Protest?

On a less semi-satirical level about startups, hackers already voluntarily contribute willingly to non-profit endeavors, namely open source projects, and sometimes causes such as Wikipedia/Wikimedia, the Internet Archive, even tech-related lobbying like the EFF, etc. Surely some could put that same spirit of voluntarism towards supporting their labor class.

cballard4• 10 years ago

Maybe unions (which are large monolithic organizations covering many employers) are not what I'm looking for.

It just seems that more startup engineering teams should engage in collective action, because in many cases, if the entire team left, the company would be crippled.

prawn• 10 years ago

Definitely agree that there's an opportunity to modernise unions and remove potential corruption.

Has anyone explored trying it with a private membership app?

walshemj• 10 years ago

Your not going to remove the need to engage in the political process.

makosdv• 10 years ago

We don't need unions for that (and I certainly don't want unions either).

I work as an R&D manager/software architect and I simply don't work more than 40hrs per week. It just takes some self discipline and efficiency. My CEO doesn't argue with me about it because I do my job and I do it well.

However, if your employer expects you to work more hours than you get paid for, find a different employer who actually respects your time.

fennecfoxen• 10 years ago

If you'd like to bring pro-union propaganda to the table, I'll have to bring in some Scholarship and point out that the story was complex and as such more unions may not necessarily be a panacea: While unions did play a role in shortening the American work week to 40 hours, broader forces in the labor market played substantial roles as well, like a rapidly expanding economy, reduced immigration, and electrification. I will refer you to The Shortening of the American Work Week: An Economic and Historical Analysis of Its Context, Causes, and Consequences (Whaples, 1991). http://www.jstor.org/stable/2122588

"The eight-hour day was won during this decade primarily through labor market tightness (wage increases, manufacturing employment expansion, and curtailment of immigration)."

Apocryphon3• 10 years ago

No one thinks unions are a panacea. But a market without a single union is diseased.

com2kid• 10 years ago

Not work long hours?

Consumers demand their new toys on a regular cycle. If one company doesn't keep up, another will. Too long not in the news and people forget about you.

The only way to stay relevant in a world with a thousand distractions is to keep making enough noise that customers pay attention.

If a product can be done properly in 16 months and ignored, or done in 12 months of way too many hours, and be a hit on the market, well the only damn choice is work 12 hour days.

lisivka• 10 years ago

Sorry, but damn choice is to work 4 hours per day and be more productive than someone working 12 hour per day.

sremani• 10 years ago

Some are missing the point, most of the work we as software developers does not need long hours but deep focus. The best of the best are able to have 4 hours worth of deep focus, and we are lucky to get an hour or two of it. That would be huge. So the good habits that help us with focus and emphasizes on recovery like walking in the woods (our natural habitat), meditation etc. Its not the time, the hardware of brain is pretty much fixed, its the software, habits and mindset that make the difference.

arca_vorago2• 10 years ago

On the same point, this is one of my primary frustrations as a sysadmin, because sometimes I need to be available lickety-split, but sometimes I need to be in deep focus mode, but my office environment isn't very conducive to deep focus mode... so sometimes I have to disappear myself to a hidden place just to get some thinking in.

Or, what happens more often, is that my productivity suffers and I end up staying late till everyone has gone away so I can actually not be interrupted.

Also, I really don't like shared open office spaces, and as a vet with ptsd, I really don't like having my back turned to the door, but management wants to be able to see everyones screen as they walk by.

While we are talking about overworked, the other issue that bugs me is disparity in expected work vs pay. To me, employment is a contract of goods and services. You pay me money to get a job done at a certain level. If you want me to be superman, you better pay me more like it! Instead, I continually hear the guys who have worked at a place more than 15 years say "You have to put in the work and effort and then hope they give you that raise, perk, etc...".

I don't think the baby-boomer generation realizes that there is no such thing as company loyalty in the big scheme of things anymore, especially in an at-will state. I'm tired of employees bending over backwards because they bring no power to the negotiating table on just about anything. I have a personal life and identity that is completely separate from work and I intend to keep it that way. If you pay me enough I would reconsider my work life balance, but I'm not going to do it for free and hope for it, it needs to be a deal struck in agreement between both parties and in contract form.

If there is one thing I could encourage we teach IT workers, it's the power of learning how contract law works, and all the stuff that comes with that. (eg: no you don't have to sign that, yes you can amend it, no that TOS is bad and unenforceable, that falls under the UCC, etc)

learningMachine• 10 years ago

Any good suggests on where to learn how contract law works?

Swizec• 10 years ago

You pay me money to get a job done at a certain level. If you want me to be superman, you better pay me more like it! Instead, I continually hear the guys who have worked at a place more than 15 years say "You have to put in the work and effort and then hope they give you that raise, perk, etc...".

As Jay-Z put it: You don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.

gozur88• 10 years ago

I don't think the baby-boomer generation realizes that there is no such thing as company loyalty in the big scheme of things anymore, especially in an at-will state.

I very much doubt this is true. It was the baby boomers who bore the brunt of the new paradigm in the '70s and '80s. By the time gen-X entered the workforce you had to be a bit delusional to think your employer saw you as anything other than an expense to be minimized.

refurb10• 10 years ago

management wants to be able to see everyones screen as they walk by

Jesus! Are you serious? Do they have a good reason or is it literally to keep an eye on everyone to make sure they are working?

If it's the latter, I'd suggest looking for a new job.

Whenever I take a "brain rest" at work, I'm surfing the net and often it's Hacker News. My boss (and her boss) have often walked in, looked at the screen and asked me if I'm reading something interesting.

My company's culture is basically "get your work done, otherwise I don't care how you spend you time".

rbanffy3• 10 years ago

I continually hear the guys who have worked at a place more than 15 years say "You have to put in the work and effort and then hope they give you that raise, perk, etc...".

This is just disgusting. The oppressed defending the unfair system that enslaves them while hoping, one day, to be rewarded and turned into one of the oppressors.

gerbilly2• 10 years ago

most of the work we as software developers does not need long hours but deep focus.

Most of the demands for long hours in the software business come down to the fact that no one wants to be the one to _organize_ things.

Instead of planning our work so the team knows what they are building, we go in two weeks sprints to build half baked solutions to ill posed problems.

Then we fight fires in production at all hours and feel like big heroes for cleaning up messes that could have been avoided.

simplemath8• 10 years ago

Overworked?

Everyone is overworked. We live in a post scarcity industrial world, or very very close to it, and bad actors have gobbled up the spoils of the huge gains in productivity in the last 50 years.

How much of the entire economy is predicated on grey money? How much of your time is indirectly consumed by this leviathan?

The more I think about it, the more i want to opt out of the entire fucking thing.

static_noise• 10 years ago

The cancer has befallen the whole planet. Everything will be made to money. The whole world is becoming one big machine.

wrong_variable• 10 years ago

Damn, glass half empty much ?

losteric• 10 years ago

We're seeing the rise of humanity's vile offspring (to borrow from Accelerando)... ethereal ideas birthed from greed and made corporeal by law, financial machines beyond the power or comprehension of individuals.

imtringued• 10 years ago

We fear superhuman AI yet we don't realise we already are that hypothetical paperclip maximiser.

refurb10• 10 years ago

How much of your time is indirectly consumed by this leviathan?

If you're talking about taxes, I'm right there with you!

jgh• 10 years ago

No I believe he meant the fact that wage gains have not kept up with productivity gains

6t6t62• 10 years ago

So, you took the red pill?

aninhumer3• 10 years ago

Just so you know, while it's a complete misappropriation of the reference, "the red pill" is a term associated with a particular group with strong opinions on gender politics: https://www.reddit.com/r/theredpill

golergka4• 10 years ago

I really hope you're talking about taxes. That's where half of my salary is going to, not to some mythical "evil rich", but to pay for beurocracy and welfare programs.

etherael• 10 years ago

Por que no los dos?

One is the hand, the other the wallet.

dragonwriter6• 10 years ago

You see the part of your salary that goes to taxes; less visible is the share of the economic gain produced by your work that doesn't make it into your salary I the first place.

The GP was referencing the latter.

Retric6• 10 years ago

My taxes are inflated so rich can pay a lower percentage than I do or even just skim off the government. Beyond that, my Rent and healthcare costs are ridiculously inflated, but you can find a lot of padding in other areas.

FYI even just at the federal level things are effed up. 33.9% of taxes collected are payroll taxes, but social security caps at ~120k. Hint it's just a tax, you can receive benifits without ever working and millions on disability are simply pulled off welfare rolls.

DenisM• 10 years ago

I know a guy in a project that generates a few millions per employee. His share is less than 10% in salary. In this case the discrepancy is easy to see, but the same is true in many other places where it's not so obvious.

But we can see it in the big picture, statistically half the money in the country goes to the 0.01% or something along those lines. All the gains from productivity went to the super-rich.

It doesn't make a lot of sense for you to keep your eyes fixed on taxes and welfare when there is a lot more money at stake. But it makes a lot of sense for the super-rich to ensure that you keep doing it.

devishard2• 10 years ago

You realize that if the rich paid the same percentage of their income that you pay, you'd pay drastically less taxes? And that a lot of your taxes go to the evil rich?

maxxxxx2• 10 years ago

I don't know about your situation for most people the salary increases of the last 30 or so years have gone to the "rich".

minikites• 10 years ago

Taxes are lower now than at any point in the last 100 years.

dota_fanatic• 10 years ago

Imagine if all the 10x and 100x engineers were all on the same team.

Keep competition, but play for the same team. The losers are losers because they didn't create the best solution, but the losers are winners because they get to enjoy the spoils, since they're on the same team. Isn't status everything, after a point? Why can't the United States actually be united?

Develop universal human code, highly vetted, secure, and performant code; employable by everyone to satisfy the tedious data management and automation of everyday needs that arise as a consequence of our biology and community structure, like health care, administration, maker technology, infrastructure, education, and the creation of art. The amount of mediocre code getting created, and relied upon, is atrocious, and often the highest quality, most valuable software is completely inaccessible except for by some very small subset of the global population! It's some kind of collective insanity.

bad actors have gobbled up the spoils of the huge gains in productivity in the last 50 years.

I would say the worst of the present are written deeply into the structure of our societies, iterative processes spanning a very, very long time. These non-friendly, non-cooperative entities are very self-protective. It is only recently that it has been able to reap such unimaginable power.

How much harder does it become to create a better form of government, the longer this goes on? Our existing governments clearly can't handle current problems in any kind of respectable schedule, much less the ones that will result from the increasing acceleration of technological change. Perhaps whatever comes after human is already here, and it's eating us.

yongelee• 10 years ago

What an interesting and revolutionary idea! That could actually change the world.

darkr3• 10 years ago

I think you've just described a modern version of the socialist utopia from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_from_Nowhere

jes5199• 10 years ago

I'm not sure but I think part of the problem that you're describing may be "Baumol's cost disease" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease

amelius• 10 years ago

Imagine if all the 10x and 100x engineers were all on the same team.

Yes, and imagine they were doing fundamental physics or medicine, instead of social media apps...

im3w1l• 10 years ago

Wanna think of something scary? A post-work world with scarcity.

dragonwriter6• 10 years ago

That's rapidly approaching (and, arguably, already here for a growing number of people.)

dragonwriter6• 10 years ago

We do not live in a post-scarcity world, and to say that we do shows a failure to understand the economic concept of scarcity.

If goods aren't scarce, they have no opportunity cost -- anyone in such a society could get as much, e.g., filet mignon as they want without sacrificing their ability to get quality healthcare, education, or consumer electronics.

Greater overall and per capita productivity isn't, and doesn't even approximate, post-scarcity conditions.

If we lived in a post-scarcity economy, "You Need A Budget" would fail, because you wouldn't.

simplemath8• 10 years ago

We're close to post industrial, at least in the 1st world.

We're close.

We certainly don't need to live in a world where millions die for lack of will, or failing that, where trillions of dollars of value are siphoned off of the working class in an upwards waterfall.

austinjp2• 10 years ago

I don't quite follow this.

I'm inclined to believe we are experiencing scarcity. Sure, I can buy just about anything I desire and can afford. Any food item, cheap clothing, cheap travel. But I think that's an illusion.

Let's say I'm prepared to pay £50-£100 for an item of clothing. Shoes, jacket, whatever. It's likely to be made by impoverished people on the other side of the world who are paid peanuts.

I could even pay £5 for a pair of jeans if I wanted. God knows how that's even possible.

But it's a sliding tile puzzle. If I experience cheap apparently-plentiful goods, it's only because someone else is suffering.

I'm not prepared to pay £300 for a long-lasting item of clothing. The thought barely crosses my mind because I never see that stuff in the windows of high-street shops. Instead, I typically buy "cheap", "plentiful" goods that fall apart after a year or two -- or go out of fashion -- then replace them.

Ethically I dislike this, and try to shop "ethically" and donate old clothing to charity. This requires high levels of vigilance, and is not convenient.

All the above apply to food. I can buy apparently any item I want. Or can I? In actuality, I can buy whatever trendy item the supermarkets can buy in bulk for best profit. Great, I'll have some kale and coconut water and acai berries. Is that "plenty"? What about locally produced fruit and veg? Why do I have to invest in a comparatively-expensive box delivery scheme if I want apples that were grown in my country?

If I want to eat locally reared meat I have to pay a premium, because provenance has become a valuable attribute. Instead I could buy mechanically recovered pressed meat, which is unbelievably cheap and widely available. Even if I believe it's healthy to eat that stuff, and even though both products are undeniably "meat", they're not the same.

Perhaps meat being expensive is actually normal. That's certainly been the case for most of history. In which case, the cheapness of the lower quality meat products is the illusory factor.

So I think "plenty" is an illusion, and scarcity is far, far closer than we conspire to believe.

Edit: I forgot the most obvious and familiar example. Ad-funded content/services vs paid-for content/services.

sbank• 10 years ago

Where do you live? Because if you live in the western world and in a country with a reasonable amount personal and financial freedom, you are out of your freaking mind.

simplemath8• 10 years ago

I make 6 figures in the Western US.

anon4• 10 years ago

It's called Shadowrun. You're living it. The only thing missing is corporation-states and those are coming fast.

FreedomToCreate• 10 years ago

These points are spot on, but I also believe these are common sense things everyone knows. The issue is that its extremely difficult to detach from the digital world and many jobs require you be available at any time. A a previous job (they named themselves after a fruit) I couldn't even think about turning my phone off. I was pretty much on call 24/7. Companies are global, and there are always problems to deal with and any time of the day.

l33tbro• 10 years ago

Yikes, kudos for enduring that. I've actually started to turn my phone off at night, and it's actually crazy the feeling of relief I get from that small action. It's like there's some invisible unbilical cord between myself and that device.

stuff4ben• 10 years ago

Yep, my company has the same tendencies. Some folks I work with have their phones configured for company email which I refuse to do. When I'm home, I'm home and it's the only time I have with my family. When they're all asleep and the wife is watching her netflix, I'll usually jump on the VPN but turn off email and IM so I can get real work done. Most of my days are sadly filled with meetings and email, the 30-60 minutes of extra work I occasionally do at home does wonders for my productivity.

thorin• 10 years ago

While I understand your pov,why don't you flag to your boss if your feel you are spending too long on meetings and emails and find time during your actual working day to do that work. I'm a family man too and I've made a decision that any evening work except emergencies will be stuff I enjoy such as researching a new technology experimenting in code watching tech videos or reading tutorials not corporate "work"

neltnerb2• 10 years ago

I don't think everyone knows these things; particularly tricks like "don't start a new task right before you leave" took me probably a decade to figure out on my own. But I agree that disconnecting digitally is hard for a lot of jobs if you work on a project rather than small tasks especially, where half the work is planning, logistics, and coordination.

I definitely sleep so much better putting my phone into airplane mode about fifteen minutes before I want to go to bed though. That certainly seems fair all around, and means when I inevitably wake up in the middle of the night I don't see a pile of unread emails to deal with and get tempted to read them while I should be sleeping so I can be productive the next day!

droithomme• 10 years ago

So "instead of" taking an annual vacation, one should limit their work hours to 48 hrs a week, organize their time better, and take up a hobby like knitting.

I've got a better idea. Keep the vacation and cut work hours down to 40.

gerbilly2• 10 years ago

I've got a better idea. Keep the vacation and cut work hours down to 40.

Pff, more like we should go to 35hrs with mandatory _paid_ overtime and also _increase_ vacation to 6 weeks.

And also demand reparations for all the stolen time. (Real pay hasn't increased since 1970.)

After that we can talk about taking it further.

kagamine2• 10 years ago

Welcome to Norway except for the bit about reparations, and it's 37.5 hours.

darkr3• 10 years ago

Real pay hasn't increased since 1970

It has, it's just been pretty shallow growth. That flatlined in the late 90's. And then fell to 1970's levels in 2008/2009

adrianN• 10 years ago

I work 37 hours and I think that's too much.

PeterTMayer2• 10 years ago

You might get better organized daily and find a good hobby but vacations are important, especially if you spend it with some traveling. A good hobby I recommend everyone that will help you totally tune out from your work is jiu jitsu.

preordained• 10 years ago

A good hobby I recommend everyone that will help you totally tune out from your work is jiu jitsu

Yes! If people only knew the type of escape that was possible, both mental and physical. American blackbelt Chris Haueter once recalled how he would eagerly drive hours to the gym in his shitty car, from his shitty job and shitty relationship, because he knew it would all roll off him when he hit the mat.

PeterTMayer2• 10 years ago

Learning to escape is part of the mental chess, what jiu jitsu is. Many people bring a bunch of sacrifices for the love the gentle art. :)

diogenescynic2• 10 years ago

As someone who routinely has more work than they can finish in an 8-hour work day, the headline and article strike me as tone-deaf and victim blaming. It's simply not possible to solve the overwork problem entirely by 'good habits' alone. When you do a good job digging ditches, often your reward is a bigger shovel. When you do well, somehow more work finds it's way to your desk. I don't think you can always be finding ways to optimize when your workload is constantly expanding. Sometimes you have to get up early and stay up late to finish a project.

neltnerb2• 10 years ago

First, it's clearly talking about steady state, not emergencies. And if you're always in emergency mode these are even more important to know about in terms of the psychology...

Maybe you can't stop reading email or have time to go biking after work, but ten minute breaks to go outside scattered around the day? Creating a ritual to help your brain to switch from hard core work mode to resting mode?

It can literally just be a cup of tea when you get home. It doesn't have to be hours of time and energy, but the point that not doing so will cause you to become sick is certainly accurate.

But I think the point of the article was how to cope with overwork and reduce your stress, not to actually reduce your work load.

diogenescynic2• 10 years ago

it's clearly talking about steady state, not emergencies

I'm also clearly talking about steady state, not emergencies--that's what I meant by "routinely." Yes, taking breaks helps and so do rituals but it doesn't make the work go away or let you get home any sooner. My point is that some jobs always have a backlog or glut or work to catch up on. Usually this is because the company purposely under-staffs the position/department. However, I don't see these systemic issues as something the individual can change. They can merely cope or find a new job--neither of which provide an 'answer' as they headline implies. Healthy work habits are great, but it's no solution to simply being overworked.

Qantourisc• 10 years ago

My take on this is easy: if you have the occasional overtime, sure I'll pitch in. If it's however a structural imbalance, I will not sacrifice myself for it. The tricky part is stopping to care to get things done in time, when it's a structural problem. If you don't, it will eat you (eventually).

foxbarrington• 10 years ago

If anyone's interested in the tl;dr bullet points:

  * At home have a sense of separation (psychological detachment) from work:
    * avoid work emails at home
    * incorporate a ritual like changing out of work clothes
    * get fully immersed (no negative work thoughts) in a sport, exercise, volunteering, musical instrument, or other creative pursuit
  * At work reduce nagging thoughts of "unfinished business"
    * plan and organize your work day / develop a clear picture of what you can realistically get done during the day
    * do not start a new task right before leaving
    * take rest breaks, and seek out natural environments if possible,
    * do not do errands on a break

elcct• 10 years ago

Regardless of how much time you you spend at work I think having a couple of weeks in a year for yourself to explore the world or be it just mindlessly staring at the sea waves is a reality check and time when you can evaluate whatever you are doing. It is also a good benchmark - if your current job doesn't allow you to do that then - is this a good job? Or you can't really afford to go at the other side of the world, then - am I being paid right? Go figure...

maxxxxx2• 10 years ago

Vacations also can bring interest in your work back. I used to do freelancing and take off at least 8 weeks a year. When I worked I was really interested in my work and put a lot of effort in. Now I work in a corporation with only 3 weeks vacation and it's just one big long never-ending drag of the same thing again and again. The quality and creativity has gone down a lot. I just don't care that much anymore.

sandworm101• 10 years ago

>> So instead of having large breaks every few months or once a year, it’s better to incorporate simple recovery practices into your everyday routine.

Is this some Orwellian nightmare? Rather than have the workers do less work through holidays, let's have deal with the stress during their off hours. Don't take a 2-week holiday, just exercise more every day. Sitting at a desk all day isn't making you fat, it's that you're spending the hour between work and sleep with your kids rather than at the gym.

Some things matter more than productivity. Give your people the time off they need. Or how about just allowing employees to exercise and de-stress on company time.

readymade• 10 years ago

Agreed, I'm kind of shocked people aren't seeing this for what it is.

Like the much ballyhooed open office plan, or the typical "we don't track vacation time" policy in modern startups, the real bottom line, so to speak, is always the bottom line.

It may very well be that employees who don't take vacations are more productive, overall than those who do. But by placing the burden of self-repair entirely on the employee, on their personal time and dime, the employer effectively washes its hands of the matter. If we take this article to its logical conclusion, burnout is your own fault, even in the face of pathological organizational structures, workloads, etc. That's an outward radiation of risk and responsibility par for the course in the new economy.

michaelhoney• 10 years ago

This is an article from Australia, where we have 4-week legally mandated vacation time. What the article _is_ saying is that positive vacation effects only last a couple of weeks and that everyday routines can help you, well, every day.

cableshaft• 10 years ago

Or how about just allowing employees to exercise and de-stress on company time.

That's the key to the obesity epidemic right there. Have an onsite gym, and let employees take up to an hour off their normal 8 hours a day to exercise (or perhaps at a nearby gym, with some sort of oversight).

If you just give people that hour off, they'll be lazy and use it for other things, but if it's set aside specifically for exercise (or at the very least sitting their butts in the gym), it'll get done over time.

But it has to be unstructured and unforced. They can do it any time throughout the day, for as little as they want, but it will be no questions asked if they're in the gym (or out taking a walk or something).

And then group health premiums will drop, employee energy when they are working will increase, and they'll get just as much work done as they would have otherwise.

As a society we went from having mostly active jobs to mostly sedentary jobs. These sedentary jobs are slowly killing their employees. It should be the company's moral imperative to allow for exercise breaks during company time.

hackercomplex• 10 years ago

I have an idea. What if some startups began incorporating hiking and/or climbing (easy/moderate skill level) into their process ? You can find trailheads that have wifi at various waypoints. The team could plan challenges and expeditions that span multiple days, but instead of hiking all day like the pros they set a less grueling pace and hack more. The company could purchase gear, and could rent private wifi-shelters along the way that are stocked with modern amenities, tiki torches, rest rooms, ready-to-go-bonfire pit, gormet catered cuisine, and more. This way there really is a comfy environment to spend time resting and working (perhaps for more than one day) at each major waypoint. There could be pre-planned short nature hikes around the waypoint, and the team could engage a nature conservationist or an expert on the local geography.

I imagine that this kind of expedition planning could even be provisioned somehow as a service, so there might be a startup idea in there somewhere :)

I'm imagining a good way to ease into it might be first climbing the flatirons in Boulder or Stone Mountain in Atlanta.

timwaagh• 10 years ago

forgive me for saying this but the title sounds like an employer (or someone paid by industry) feeling bad about that employees are complaining they get no holidays. corporate ethics is the answer. not a blog article.

q-base• 10 years ago

From reading the comments a lot of people take a really negative spin on this for some reason. I only see it as trying to explain that if you rely on vacations alone then you could still be overworked and stressed. They only dim the symptom but does not cure the disease. If you are overworked and stressed a vacation might help in the short run but if you go back into the same routines, then of course you'll end back where you were before taking the vacation.

What they do advise instead is working on the disease itself and try to manage your day-to-day better instead of ONLY relying on annual holidays. They aren't saying you shouldn't take holidays only that they won't cure all your stress permanently.

I think this is good advice. Not groundbreaking or new knowledge, but still - good advice!

drjesusphd2• 10 years ago

I always thought there was something wrong with me because I don't feel "recharged" after a vacation. Of course, sometimes a break is desperately needed, but there always seems to be a period of readjustment where work was harder than before I left.

Overworked? Good habits, not holidays, are the answer

Related Stories