How Exhaustion Became a Status Symbol
newrepublic.com
newrepublic.com
It has constantly puzzled my why people are sleep deprived. why?
There are studies somewhere that if you ship people out to camp in remote areas with only fire as a light source, their circadian rhythms almost always realign within a few nights.
Furthermore, the genetics that determine how light-sensitive one's circadian rhythms were never selected against because it really didn't affect survivability except at the very far ends. Event then, Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome might have been allowed to remain around because it produced night-watchers that contributed to the survival of the pack. The result is there is a very large spectrum of light-sensitivity fairly well distributed amongst the human population.
All this adds up to: Very few people are not light sensitive, and a majority of it display varying degrees. So much so, difficulty maintaining a natural sleep pattern is considered the norm and not many people question it anymore.
My wife is guilty of the Netflix and News descriptors mentioned above. I avoid the news and prefer to read but I still get stuck in the "one more chapter" hole.
I am curious to know the breakdown of sleeping habits based on some simple personality distinguishers like introvert vs extrovert.
Age, anxiety, work-load, sleeping conditions, habits, physical health - to name the more obvious reasons.
Is that really such a puzzle?
I'm pretty sure it partially has to do with my environment (living in NY, which is loud and full of light, even at night).
But also some people are simply lighter sleepers than others. No one in my family is ever able to stay asleep longer than 5am, and all of us are very light sleepers.
My boyfriend is able to fall asleep and stay asleep WITHOUT being blackout drunk. I am amazed by this.
Noise is a little tougher. Luckily, my place is pretty well insulated. But white noise like fans and such and earplugs can help a lot.
I don't understand people who constantly deprive themselves of sleep, willingly.
I doubt that. You must be at least partially aware that people often have long commutes and/or expectations of long work weeks.
Puzzle solved.
When I talk to people about wanting to work reduced hours, take a teaching job, or whatever is required to lower my stress level, I get nothing but encouragement. Working one self into the ground is starting to be seen as something stupid people do. Being able to take action before becoming exhausted is what smart and empowered people do. At least that's the impression that I get.
Where I see the remaining issue it the lack of accountability for businesses. If a company push employees to exhaustion that should have hard repercussions than just gaining a reputation as a horrible place to work.
I know people who aren't working to burnout levels. They're not doing great. Living paycheck to paycheck and in tiny cramped apartments. Not ready for that lifestyle, myself.
They also tend to have less traditional employment (e.g. consulting / freelancing instead of W-2), giving them more "time flexibility" (which is different from more time, and somewhat orthogonal), "space flexibility" (e.g. don't need to commute, can blend travel and work as desired), and "situation flexibility" (e.g. freedom to switch clients / employers, or to turn down high-paying high-stress work in favor of lower-paying lower-stress work).
Finally, most people in this category are also much better at saying no, communicating clear expectations around deadlines, identifying the right problems to solve, and negotiating raises than most people.
It sounds like you want it both ways: you want to reduce your workload without giving anything up or learning the skills that make that possible. You're right - it doesn't work that way, and you have to decide what you want more. Personally, I'd take the added time in a pinch.
If you have 60 hours a week, plus 4 hours of transport everyday, you have 16 work day. I feel bad for you, I really do, because those kinds of hours makes people sink or kills them. Some people handle it better than other of cause, but you can't have much of a life with those kinds of hours.
I'm not in anyway qualified to advise people like you. Personally though, I'd quit my job and move. But I'm in a welfare state, there's someone that will look after me if I'm unemployed, I won't end up without a roof over my head.
I really hope you'll be okay. No one should work themself to exhaustion, and waste their life like that.
> To say that you’re exhausted is to telegraph that you’re important, in demand, and successful. It’s akin to the humblebrag of ruefully describing yourself as “so busy”
I don't think exhaustion telegraphs any such thing. It's not something people are proud of and want to sustain. Instead, it's unfortunate normalcy for workers in 2016. People would gladly give up their exhaustion if they could.
I guess that this depends a lot on the society that you're in. While it's a good thing, it's unfortunately that this doesn't really hold in various parts of the world.
I mean how can you defend the point of burnout and depression as a status symbol?
I read here that on Facebook if you work after 5pm you have to do it hidden away from others.. because it means something is not ok, either the estimation, you are not communicating problems or VP/board/president/whoever want to exploit you.
I've always explained it away with the majority's staggering ignorance of mental health. Hanlon's razor calling.
https://m.signalvnoise.com/avoiding-the-trap-8df59e718f3e#.f...
Why do we continue to think burnout and depression are unique problems? Why do we keep letting it happen to ourselves? We style ourselves as so smart, yet we continue to make the same mistakes, over and over again, and act like it's a new problem each time.
The answer is very simple: productivity + youthful optimism.
The fact of the matter is that productivity — that feeling of "getting shit done" — feels good. Being smart doesn't help. On the contrary, it makes things worse, because smart people find clever ways to multiply their productivity, and their sense of pride for doing so contributes to the pleasure and satisfaction they get from their work.
Now combine this with the fact that software engineers tend to be young. Young people can endure longer work hours — they tend to not have families and kids to worry about and their bodies can take more punishment. They also tend to be idealists and really optimistic about their chances of actually making a difference in the world. These two factors can cause them to justify insane work hours, even if they are aware of the dangers of burnout and depression.
The other is a disincentive to improve. By this I mean that becoming a better programmer means taking on deeper challenges and solving increasingly obscure concerns and constantly reaching a point where no IRC channel nor Stack Overflow thread can help you. This takes you out of flow. It's not fun to work right up at the limit of your ability, you have no hope of bullshitting through that level of difficulty in crunch mode, and developing those skills alienates other programmers who are not burdened by the demons you have fought. Plus the majority of software businesses have arranged themselves around making some use of fresh, mediocre coding talent, so going too deep and too specialized can make you less hireable!.
So it works out that prevention with good engineering can grow discouraged in favor of all nighters.
This is something I ferociously agree and disagree on at the same time.
1. Yes automating labour inputs is the key to growth. Always has been. That is the point in your favour.
2. But paradoxically once you have automated your labour input you grok no further efficiency gains. Why would you when you've reached '100%' efficiency?
This is a bit counterintuitive. Here is a toy example; suppose I manufacture hammers at HammerCo Corp. One day I manage to automate all labour relating to the manufacture of hammers. I am rich and successful as competitors die off.
Then suddenly I myself go bankrupt because a new competitor introduces hydraulic or pneumatic hammers onto the marketplace in which I had my niche. I have no expertise to counter the move and cannot defend against it. You don't comprehend you were in a local maxima.
When a worker closely observes a technological process he or she is involved in they might notice details (or going the other way, general rules) that would not be noticed by causal observers. This leads to creative insight that coupled with capital can allow the invention of new designs and ultimately technologies.
I guess the same thing is true of programming. If you abstract too much (something we've been doing for some time now with frameworks/libraries etc) you lose the thread.
I'm sure somebody else has thought of this before and given it a name.
> Plus the majority of software businesses have arranged themselves around making some use of fresh, mediocre coding talent, so going too deep and too specialized can make you less hireable!.
So many people get institutionalized into mediocrity. If they don't get you at school, they'll get you at work. Very few people manage to escape those traps.
This isn't just for programmers. Pretty much any occupation where you're routinely in a situation where you are responsible for making decisions based on incomplete information or with a large element of chance/luck affecting the outcome will wear you down fairly quickly.
President, pope, EMT, infantryman in foxhole, cartel kingpin (and other criminals who make enough money to be "noticed" by authorities) etc., to name a few.
Culture also plays an important role. In the U.S., work ethics largely trumps work-life balance, and the threat of being perceived (or seeing oneself) as a slacker spurs you to work long hours or take very few holidays. It also relieves some anxiety, as in, "I work hard, at least they can't take that away".
But there is a high price to pay for it, and burnouts or massive regrets later in life are parts of that price.
https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Smart-Why-Arent-Happy/dp/B01DYF...
Understanding Burnout [0] by Christina Maslach [1].