Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress | Hacker News Reader

Suicide of an Uber engineer: Widow blames job stress

sfchronicle.com

468 pointsBinaryIdiot293 comments

This is not unique to Uber.

I have worked in toxic environments that depleted and debilitated me to the point that, in two cases, I was psychologically completely incapable of even thinking about finding work for three months after being laid off from one, and quitting the other.

It doesn't even take abusive bosses who don't like you, although that just makes it far worse.

It simply takes being treated like a robotic code monkey who is expected to do everything that is ordered, without question, and micromanaged to the point of insanity, while people in management positions make decisions - and then reverse them - that are so obviously wrong to any competent engineer that it makes Dilbert's PHB look like Einstein in comparison. This is not much of an exaggeration.

This is bad enough for any regular human to endure, but take a skilled engineer who probably suffers from impostor syndrome and the upper end of the Dunning-Kruger effect, and it is a recipe for a breakdown and, quite possibly, suicide.

Those who would glibly criticize such people for not going and getting another job, or just quitting, are out of touch with how badly one's confidence is damaged by that point; it would not be unreasonable to compare the psychology to that of abused spouses who don't leave their abusers.

Also, I could not leave one of the jobs without losing my work visa and being deported (it was back in 2003 before visa portability). Maybe others are in situations that make it harder than expected to move on.

My deepest empathy goes to this engineer, and to all others who suffer in this way, and to their families. We need to pay far more attention to the destruction that is done by quasi-sociopathic managers.

Well said. I've worked at 3 start-ups and at all of them I've worked long, grueling hours with the most recent one I was doing at least 65 hours a week (typically longer especially with a 3+ hour commute). I became severely burned out to the point where I didn't want to look for work or do much of anything. I was depressed and had severe anxiety. I went to the hospital with an anxiety attack so strong that I literally thought I was having a heart attack and was going to die in front of my two year old (I was trying to explain to her what to do if daddy passes out). My chest was in pain, my arm numb; I still don't understand how it wasn't a heart attack because of how intense it felt.

I eventually took some time off and started interviewing at various places. Shortly after taking time off I was told that the founders felt I wasn't "working fast enough" and was fired. I had never been fired from a job before and I contest their reasoning but secretly felt incredible relief to the point where I barely even argued, I just packed up my stuff and left with a smile on my face.

Now I'm working at a place with fantastic work life balance.

Ha! Funny you say that. When I was laid off the job I was stuck at because of the visa situation, my colleagues thought I had gone insane because I was so obviously happy and smiling right after getting the news.

The fact is, it was such a huge relief to be shot of that dysfunction-personified environment that I thought, and I quote, "This is one of the best days of my life!"

The twist in the tail was that I had just received my permanent residence in the USA, and by laying me off, the company had been forced to forgive the many thousands of dollars in legal immigration fees I would have had to repay them, had I left voluntarily to seek other work.

That's brilliant, very happy for you!

When I was made redundant from my last job, which was a very toxic place, I was extremely happy as well - seeing as I no longer had to work for those people.

Needed the redundancy payment for the time to get myself back in mental shape, though... and then to find a new job.

I feel sad for the family of the Uber engineer.

How long did it take for your residency to come once you moved to the country?

I totally relate. I'll never forget my first anxiety attack, what makes it so bad is that you don't know what's going on, and that only makes your anxiety worse. First my mouth went numb and then it started spreading down to my chest and right arm, I thought for sure I was having a heart attack. I thought anxiety attacks were just freaking out of something in particular. I was relatively relaxed when it first hit me.

Right? This was my second one, too as I had one at my previous job (also a start-up working with the same folks). My first one was apparently incredibly minor because I thought I just had some labored breathing and soreness but that last attack...I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

I too always thought an anxiety attack was someone just freaking out because they can't handle something and they're being a little bit of a baby, etc. Boy did my attitude change completely. I had no idea!!

This is why I am highly sceptical of start ups, and it would take a helluva a lot for someone to convince me to join another. I prefer big corps, as its possible to control you work load a little more and transfer internally if you get a bad boss.

Yeah I don't think it's that simple. In my current job (team of 30) we work with lots of very large corps (telcos, finance, airlines, etc), and I've been exposed to the internal workings of their IT & dev teams, and in almost all cases I've seen intense mismanagement and high-stress environments.

Imagine the stress that comes with figuring out new tech and solving new problems at the level of a startup, and then cross that with the financial stakes, entrenched processes and the management abstraction that exist in a large corporation, and you can see how big corps have their own versions of the same problem..

The combination of feeling like you're responsible for solving massive problems but have none of the ability to influence or determine how they will be solved is a terrible situation to be in.

I will vouch for this. A large company in many cases behaves like

    $startup_dysfunctionality + $dysfunctionality_from_fast_post_startup_growth + $years_of_wild_hiring + $years_of_reorgs + $useless_and_obstructive_policies_and_standards

I work at a startup and leave after eight hours. They're not all bad.

Yup, even with my story the very first start-up I worked at wasn't that bad with the hours. We had the occasional crunch time, sure, but I rarely worked more than 8 hours a day. It really depends on management style, the stage of the start-up, and how technical management is (the less technical the more customer promises and more hours for employees to work, in my experience, because they don't entirely understand what is or isn't doable in a specific timeframe and burn-out is a lot harder to explain to someone non-technical).

I work at startup called Mixpanel usually 8 hours a day and sometimes even less if I get mostly what I need to get done.

I've worked at big cos like Microsoft and other smaller companies too. Some startups legit give a shit about employees.

We are also hiring if anyone is interested.

Same here. The other day my supervisor caught me working late and told me to leave ;)

My observation is that this is far more a function of the business' product/market fit than it is the size or age of the business. When you're struggling to pay salaries and bills, and there's no end in sight, often the business (knowingly or not) overworks and stresses their teams to try to make up ground. Unfortunately, the last 3-5 years have seen a lot of very high-risk seed investments in products that seem to have no actual viable path to revenue, which fuels this belief that startups are the problem.

This is not to say startups are without risk; they obviously carry risk. My point is simply that you can absolutely find a startup that will provide you with a reasonable work/life balance. Remember, interviews are as much for your benefit (if not more) than they are for the business. Use the opportunity to ask them about their product, their revenue, their roadmap. You'll probably get a good idea of how hectic things are.

And for any founders/employers out there - respecting the personal lives of your teammates will actually make them far more productive, not less. Aside from just being the right thing to do, it also has the benefit of earning their trust and respect, which will keep them with you.

This issue isn't exclusively about big corps vs startups. There are parts of big established corps where they're growing so fast in new lines of business that it's essentially a startup in terms of the stage of process and systems maturity. There are startups at the other end of the spectrum. I think it has more to do with the leadership than the size or age of the company.

I wish it was that simple for me...by all rights I work at a place with good work-life balance (not a startup) and good management that doesn't drive stress into devs, but I feel innately against everything in this industry at this point. 99.99% of everything anyone does, including myself, seems utterly pointless.

I've had anxiety attacks so bad because of this that I haven't been able to get out of bed in the morning. I can't remember the last time I've legitimately felt happy.

I'm sorry to hear that. Have you talked with anyone? Have you explored jumping to a different industry?

Anxiety attacks are awful. I hope you can find something better.

I haven't talked with anyone, unfortunately. And I have thought about moving to a different industry but I don't even know where to start with that. Despite my total, and growing dislike, for this industry, it remains the sole thing I identify with (which is also a problem).

I do recognize that the first step is talking with someone but...it's a tough first step.

> I do recognize that the first step is talking with someone but...it's a tough first step.

It actually does help to talk through things and therapists are trained to be non-judgmental and supportive. I urge you to try it if things get too tough for you.

I can't help you with the job situation problem, but on the subject of anxiety attacks, you might find this post by a psychiatrist helpful: http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/05/the-case-of-the-suffoca...

Hope you don't mind me asking, but why would you work 65 hours in the first place? Or what do people expect to truly gain for "giving up" almost all of their waking hours for a company? High salary, equity, respect of peers, personal growth?

Sure. So we had all worked together before and we all just "got shit done" no matter what. At a previous job sometimes this meant working extra a few weeks but it wasn't every week.

The management at companies like this take it to mean you can do this every week and every week it has to get done in order to get a customer, etc. So you don't want to let anyone down and possibly lose business. So you bust your ass, week after week, putting out fire after fire, until you burn out.

I'm all for people working extra during certain crunch times. That's unavoidable a lot of the time. But doing it, week after week, for years? No good. I don't care how great the company is it simply isn't sustainable without significantly harming employees.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I experienced a similar issue with chest pain at my last employer, freaked out and took a day off to visit a hospital. My parents talked me down from thinking it was a heart attack, so I didn't go to the ER but ended up talking with my general practitioner the next morning. He suggested that it might be due to stress-induced inflammation at rib cage joints.

Years ago I worked for a hospital. I noticed that many nurses smoked while physicians (mostly) did not. They read the same studies on the effects of smoking and treated the same emphysema and lung cancer patients. Yet, the difference in behavior was there. A friend of mine was a psychologist who worked on smoking cessation so I related the phenomenon to her. Apparently, it's well-known that people in jobs with high responsibility and low decision-making authority tend toward smoking and other stress relievers. That description certainly fits nurses.

Software developers tend to be in that position now. Organizations increasingly rely on software as the embodiment of their processes and gatekeeper of their information. Yet, we seem to be a leaf-node on the decision-making tree.

The job I had prior to the hospital was a startup company in the Boston area, circa 1995. I was picked for a team of 8 or so to implement a system that was, in essence, an PaaS forerunner. (They put the senior-most people on the project, which was sad because I had only two years of professional experience as a developer. But, that's another matter.) For about 8 weeks, we worked between 60-80 hours trying to jam it in. During that time, one team member went to the hospital with chest pains while another had an outright heart attack. But, the company did reward us with a $100 American Express gift card for each team member.

At some point, I keep hoping that organizations will start recognizing that we need to be used strategically: a voice in decisions on how to use technology. Frankly, organizations aren't getting full value for us until they do.

I keep reading stories like these on HN, yet I don't know a single person who has experienced anything even remotely close to this.

I don't live in the Bay Area.

Are SV startups, in general, really this badly managed? If I add up all anecdata from reading HN comments about toxic work environments, I get the impression that 50% of the Valley is run like this. I have a hard time comprehending how this can happen.

I'm not a psychologist but I have observed this kind of syndrome a couple times and I think it's usually more like a performance anxiety. You take the big fish out of the little pond and all the sudden he's a small fish in a big pond and it's a culture shock.

The time lines, the compromises and the urgency are all different at a startup. You are used to being the smartest guy in the room at a mid sized or big place, you go to a small startup that got money because the founders are exceptional and they've staffed up with some exceptional people and they are all running like hell, you might look or feel kind of ordinary and that's a tough pill to swallow. It's especially difficult if you've never felt it before, all the sudden you're "failing" Combine that with a family that thinks the world of you because "you're the best" and I expect it's worse. Or at least that is how I've tried to understand it. There are clearly other issues when it results in suicide though. Again, I'm no doctor, but I try to give them an interview problem they can't solve, I think it's good if they say "I don't know how" or "I can't do that yet"

Another symptom I've observed, when someone is in that space, they often try to do more. Rather than botching one feature, maybe they'll rush and half-ass three or four to try and "make up" for earlier shortcomings. That usually creates a rift with the team that then starts to think less of them, the new guy is a bull in a China shop.

As for management, they share some of it. Uber seems like a broken place in a lot of ways. They should know it takes time to ramp up. Also success begets success, I take things off a new employee's plate when this happens. Make it small enough for them to create a little success and then build on it. In SV there is a large talent pool and a belief that the "right person" is around there somewhere so building long term success might not be as important to some companies.

I know exactly what you're talking about. I've seen it and even been that guy.

We should be clear, though, that the "small fish in a big pond" scenario isn't exactly what happened to Joseph Thomas. According to the article he had already had a successful run at LinkedIn and had an offer on the table from Apple.

Sometimes even brilliant people just aren't a match, no matter what. But a mismatch is a mutual responsibility, and shouldn't be a brutalizing experience. The fault there lies with Uber.

I'm no fan of Uber but I think this is putting too much blame on them. If you see a toxic culture, leave. I know there are other factors, psychological things that keep you from making rational decisions etc. But lets please be clear: the world is actually a pretty brutal place for most of humanity. Most humans are stuck in a poverty loop they can't ever hope to escape. And we have a story of people who can't just say: "enough! I'm outta here?".

I'm certainly not putting the blame on Joseph, he seems to have suffered a lot despite having objectively been a good engineer. But lets not forget that we're all (mostly) at-will employees, there is nothing stopping us from getting up and leaving just right now. Personal responsibility is really important. Perhaps we should be teaching some of this stuff in high school? I don't know what the solution is IMO.

I've personally been in toxic situations as well. As soon as I realized my happiness delta was negative, I immediately started looking at other positions and switched.

> If you see a toxic culture, leave.

This is easier said than done when your own self-worth and ability to see your own value is diminished due to stress, when you have a mortgage and financial obligations and a family to take care of. Not many people are financially independent enough to just quit a job the moment they feel it's become "toxic".

> This is easier said than done when your own self-worth and ability to see your own value is diminished due to stress, when you have a mortgage and financial obligations and a family to take care of. Not many people are financially independent enough to just quit a job the moment they feel it's become "toxic".

Well, I never said it was easy.

To elaborate more, it is incredibly important to have contingency plans in place, to prevent exactly this sort of situation from happening. One of the first things I did when I started working professionally was to have enough liquidity to last at least a year, which I was able to do only after 3 years of saving aggressively. Which really came in handy after I was laid off a job and had to spend 3 months looking for another one.

I really don't understand how one can get married, have kids and not have such plans in place? IMO it seems kinda irresponsible, especially if one is working in tech, where saving money is much easier than in other professions.

It's more like you are the only fish is a small pond that they want to put an ocean liner into.

Startups by their nature seem to rarely have the correct amount of resources for projects/sprints/etc. Anytime you try to cram five gallons of shit into a one gallon bucket, there are going to be repercussions.

Some people thrive on that environment, others like more traditional, better staffed and funded environments. Each to their own I guess. I feel sorry for this guy and his family, no job is worth that.

Likewise. I've worked at startups at it was a rare occasion my boss could convince me to stay past 6pm. When we were working on a big release and the work wasn't getting done fast enough or his liking the solution wasn't for me to work extra hours - it was to tell him, "you need to hire another developer to work with me". There are laws to protect you from being worked into the ground and at the end of the day, if you're a developer, finding another one isn't particularly hard whether it's at a startup or a big corp. It's a job, not a lifestyle. Work 9-6 and get out of there.

I don't disagree with you, but you're overestimating the desire of most devs (at least most I ever knew) to hop between jobs.

Yes we're sought after but that doesn't mean we want to re-adjust 4 times a year.

Of course, what I meant was that if your employer is forcing you to work 60 hour weeks you shouldn't fear threatening to quit as if you have to follow through on your threat it's unlikely you will be without employment for long. Unfortunately, in a lot of industries people don't have this luxury.

I agree with this, yes and thank you. I talked about people with more specific requirements like myself (100% remote being example).

> 4 times a year.

I think if you have to switch 4 times a year, either you're exceptionally unlucky or exceptionally bad at evaluating jobs for their effect on your personal fulfillment/happiness.

For better or worse, SV is home to a lot of incredibly high-risk investments, and a large of early startups.

Startups with a lot of money on the line and no path to revenue will do crazy things that frequently lead to toxic work environments. Raise $10 million for a product that doesn't have a market fit, hire 10 people, provide them no clear vision for your business or product, tell them to make money, and watch as your business gets pulled in 20 different directions, employees fight, and people stress out. It's not likely to end well for anyone.

It's definitely going to be more common in places where riskier investments are more likely to happen. Uber, as an example, was last valued at nearly $70b and loses nearly $800m every quarter. I would imagine that kind of cash burn with no clear path to profitability is incredibly stressful on everyone. It's almost certainly the cause for many of the horrible decisions that seem to have been made there, and the same thing can apply at smaller scales to earlier businesses.

It's sample bias. People who experienced dramatic things are far more likely to comment about them. The community is large enough that even a relatively tiny sample produces many comments under this effect.

Well, there's the stigma of talking about anything related to mental illness or depression. Personally, I've never shared any of my struggles with inner demons with anyone other than my wife (and now here).

Yes, but that's a separate issue from the work environments that I think the GP was wondering about.

Thanks. I was hoping it was just this.

All of my experiences were on the East Coast. I don't think it's unique to the bay area I just think there is a larger concentration of start-ups so you'll hear about it more frequently but it can easily happen anywhere.

This isn't unique to startups, let alone SV startups. I know from personal experience that work environments like this exist in finance and advertising, too.

I'm such a person, and it's not restricted to SV. My worst experiences were in the South East. I think that many startups, regardless of region, are poorly managed, especially as they go through the transition from startup to something bigger.

Do you have kids? Imagine putting a toddler in charge of millions and millions of dollars. Now your house and paycheck and all of your life is dependent on the demands of the toddler, and shall you try and instill any reason, she throws a tantrum and threatens to replace you with anyone else who just says "yes." That's a simple, and yet so close-to-real way to look at the reason why bad apples exist.

That said, your 50% view is probably skewed. We like to read "sensational" stories, but for every bad company out there, thousands smart and caring founders build great companies every day.

You could call it the Steve Jobs problem... or at least he is a well known face of it.

Amazon apparently has similar issues as well so it is not just startups.

The worst are whisper campaigns of passive aggressiveness.

> It doesn't even take abusive bosses who don't like you, although that just makes it far worse.

Far worse.

I've worked at startups where we had to bust ass to get things done... mid-90s... sleeping at the office, going weeks without a paycheck to get the product to launch, living off Jolt and pizza -- and trying to build something that we honestly weren't sure could be built. And even if the work wasn't always done the exact way I would have suggested or agreed with, if I had a boss that took 5 minutes to explain why we were doing it... it was fine. No stress, just get it done.

I've worked at places that didn't require anywhere near that level of focus or time commitment that left me feeling just drained and miserable. Miserable to the point of wanting to pack it up and never see a computer again. Miserable to the point of acting out... little self-destructive things like sending snarky emails, calling in sick to play hooky, or indulging in office gossip. All because I had a boss who just demanded I do things without giving any reason, or who wasn't consistent with their stories.

Now I know enough, years of therapy / career coaching... and just age... when I see someone in a leadership position who just says, "Do what I say..." I start shopping for a new job. Or if they pull any manipulation crap like, "Sally and Mike know about X, but John thinks it's Y, and Sally can't know that Mike knows..." Or just simple lying... if they tell you something different than they tell anyone else. Life's too short to deal with those people.

Transparency, integrity, honesty... without those things in a boss, it doesn't matter how much work there is to do -- it'll be very stressful. It took me 10+ years to really nail down why I was successful at some jobs and not at others... for me, it all came down to the sort of boss I had. Didn't have much to do with me liking the person (or the scope of the work), or vise versa, as long as they weren't Machiavellian we could work well together.

While I can't possibly say that I know everything about your situations, one of the things that has worked very well when working with bosses I don't like is being 100% honest and trying to get to their concerns and trying to reach a reasonable agreement on management style. I get it that most of us programmers aren't inherently good at social skills, but its a skill that can be learned and has been incredibly useful for me.

Of course if the boss is just a dickwad, that is a pretty clear indication for you to leave. But more often they are just clueless about good management practices and/or have no idea that they're alienating the team.

I feel like a lot of times they're out to game the situation.

And I feel disrespected that they aren't being honest with me about what they want. Someone comes up and says, "Oh we have to do X before Y... because it's the right thing to do!" And I just feel like they're trying to play me. I have no confidence that they won't come back tomorrow with, "Y is better than X!"

Someone comes and says, "My bonus depends on X, and not Y..." and even though I'm doing the same work, it's not stressful because I know why I'm doing it and I'm not worried the ground is going to come out from under me while I'm doing it -- if that makes sense. Having people change direction once they give me a goal is something that always causes me stress.

Contract I was on was hard. Never felt anything like that pressure and very much about setting you up to fail. In fact I think it was a case that the CTO specifically set you up to fail and try and put the blame on you suggesting you work for free to pull it up to standard. He was very keen on making you take 'ownership' and, hence by inference, the financial risk, despite constantly changing requirements.

A number of contractors working there stated how they'd never experienced anything like it. It was phenomenally toxic.

Arriving home after my last day, I hugged my daughter and broke down in tears. The relief was unbelievable.

the last job I quit was at a small company that went from having an autonomous, highly agile engineering team (of which I was an early member) to having 3 tiers of management overseeing an engineering team that had less people in it than the management hierarchy above it.

the emotional corrosion that this causes can't be understated. bad management, even without explicit abuse, is a serious driver of burnout.

burnout is a SERIOUS fucking condition and it should be acknowledged as a tier 1 health risk. people kill themselves because of it.

I also was in a similar situation. Not as bad as the engineer in discussion but, I went through similar situation.

Years ago, I started getting signals that my work was preparing to let me go, like putting me on Performance Enhancement Program, etc etc. The thing is I had not kept up with my skills and so I really couldn't find any work with similar pay I could switch to. I also decided to stay to do better work in order to prove the managers wrong. I wanted to prove the management wrong, that I'm someone worthy of employment. I wanted to prove to them that I am a person, not some disposable tool to be tossed aside. I now know it was a mistake.

The stress at work kept building up in me for weeks. I woke up in middle of nights, and I am someone who sleeps like a brick.

And it hit me. One morning, as I was stuck in a stop-and-go traffic on way to work on freeway, I went over the little section of freeway that allows you a full view of the long lines of cars packing the freeway. This view suddenly caused me panic attack and I began to feel claustrophobic. I felt the urge to take off my socks (and strip off shirt, which I didn't) and open the window (which I did) so that I could relieve the feeling of trapped in the car. I had never felt such sensation before. I believe the issue of claustrophobia went on for about 2 years, as I remember worrying about taking a flight to visit family.

I never never had such issues before.

I think I can understand why the engineer didn't leave for another job. With his experience, he could've have gotten another similar or better job, but I believe he wanted to prove the management wrong. But unfortunately the stress got to him first.

I agree that most managers aren't very bright. It's like in the movie "idiocracy" except with the added frustration that being intelligent doesn't get you noticed or promoted.

This was so difficult for me to read.

I have struggled with extreme anxiety and chronic depression and brushed up against the thought of there being no way forward or out but suicide. During the closest calls, I was making the most I ever had, living in a nice house, etc. It didn't really matter though. I felt a tightness in my chest and a boiling kettle of acid in my stomach from the second I woke up until the second I fell into fitful sleep. I had a Pavlovian response to the sound of email arriving on my phone, to the point where it would be in my nightmares. But it was more than just work; irrational panic and anxiety filled everything facet of my life. I would nearly pass out from panic attacks when flying, or worry that the police I saw were going to arrest or harass me for an unknown crime, or think that any time my family was calling it would be tragic news.

About three months after I most seriously considered suicide, I got a new job, saw a psychiatrist, saw a counselor, and a few years later I was pretty much stable. I did have to detox off benzos, but that wasn't too bad.

It has to be understood that highly motivated, highly intelligent people can be driven to irrational levels of stress from their work. Unfortunately it isn't as easy as just reminding the person that they aren't their job or their career, just like you can't treat depression by telling a depressed person to turn their frown upside-down. This man may still have struggled with stress, anxiety, and depression even if he left Uber for somewhere healthier; what's important now is that people reading this story or these comments realise that there are always so many ways out, and that no matter what there are resources to keep you afloat.

> I had a Pavlovian response to the sound of email arriving on my phone, to the point where it would be in my nightmares.

I went through a rough period last summer where a project I was involved in was a complete disaster. I basically spent 24x7 terrified that a new "emergency" was going to roll in on my phone via email with a stakeholder telling me how this new issue was ruining their life and how disappointed they were; an issue which I was expected to deal with immediately. After that summer and to this day I keep my phone in "Do Not Disturb" mode 24x7 and treat it as a passive communications device that I only check when I want to, because I have literally run out of notification tones on my phone that don't send a burst of adrenaline through my body upon hearing them.

This is even after that project is over. I feel like it permanently damaged my brain and my ability to deal with stress.

I have used smartwatches that notify you when an email comes in by vibrating on your wrist. I view these as modern-day human "shock collars" where the shock collar beneficiary is actually not you, but your employer. I actually warn others against falling into that trap of wearing a "shock collar for work". Having your arm vibrate the moment an email comes in is not healthy.

I just don't put work email on my personal devices. If I'm not at the office, I'm not working. Done. Otherwise you can pay me to be on-call, and that's a whole other discussion.

100% this. Last time I had work ask me to install slack or email on my personal device, I politely declined, but suggested they provide me with another mobile device specifically for that purpose. They didn't do that; but if they had done, I would have most likely kept it off of me after work hours.

Notifications has always been one of the dissonant topics in our industry. We constantly complain about interruptions in our jobs, how it kills our productivity, yet we keep inventing new ways of interrupting us.

I also use my phone like this. It's in my jacket pocket or shoulder bag, and I check it in the evening (sometimes).

I do still have a sound for incoming phone call, but thinking about it now, I am going to consider disabling that too. There aren't a lot of things these days that can't be communicated by a text message, if only to say "hey can we have a chat about <this or that>". I hate that phone call sound and the stress of running to get the phone, anxiety about possibly having to deal with some shit, etc.

> I view these as modern-day human "shock collars" where the shock collar beneficiary is actually not you ...

Heh. I grew up in the days before mobile phones. A friend observed, when I mentioned my shiny new pager indicating a certain level of Importance in the workforce, that these devices made both parties happy.

The carrier felt smug about being so important they were paid - whatever it was, some small number of $'s a day - to be on call.

The person on the other end of the equation had eager and proficient technical resources at their beck and call 24x7 ... for some small number of $'s a day.

And some people say that the tech industry keeps going in circles.

I was so pumped to get a smartwatch, but in stressful times I would nearly rip it off my wrist if it vibrated.

Eventually I set it so that only whatsapp messages alert me. Everything else can wait.

And the whatsapp messages can wait too - it's an asynchronous communications technology.

Work emails will never trigger a notification. If there's a genuine emergency, I can be reached over the phone

I handle everything through email for one reason, it's self documenting. My current job I don't have to worry, but i've worked jobs where this practice saved my butt a few times.

> I had a Pavlovian response to the sound of email arriving on my phone,

I hope somebody finds this useful: I setup a 1 second "silent" mp3 as the notification sound for emails, messages, etc. If the phone actually rings, I pick it up. Yet the email notifications (got seven email accounts on the phone), the text messages, Telegram, Whatsapp... they are just silent now.

Hope this helps someone!

This is great; thanks!

Man I so relate to this right now. Is there anyway I can email you? I really want to know how to overcome this.

I'm going through something similar right now. We could open a Telegram support group :)

A Signal group perhaps? Think of the children!

(Telegram isn't secure and choosing stickers over security will yield more stickers and less security.)

Sure, works for me.

Count me in too.

We could meet on IRC and exchange numbers, then migrate to Signal... I've taken the liberty of setting up ##hackerblues on Freenode.

Thank you for this. We need to hear more accounts like this one, and mine, to bring this issue into widespread view.

It's amazing how a toxic work environment can dismantle an otherwise perfectly fine human in a matter of months. For anyone who is reading this thinking it can't, I've seen a number of friends get completely demotivated and numb due to the circumstances of their work. Luckily all ended up finding better jobs, but the PTSD was real and took everyone a long time to shake off.

I can totally believe this guy was a great engineer too, as I've seen the work stress affect the best ones the most. The lazy and dumb can coast for months, speaking fancy words and pretending to be working, but really smart people actually want to deliver value and they grow tired and frustrated when they can't.

Stress isn't talked about much in SV, as the focus is on growth and revenue, and it's a shame. You can't build a long-lasting company without good people.

Totally concur.

My heart goes out to the whole family.

A while ago, a long long friend of mine suddenly messaged me out of the blue reminiscing on old times and stuff. I could sense something was amiss. I planned an impromptu trip to see him. I didn't bring anything up...we just chatted about the good old times, cracked a few inside jokes etc. He was visibly much better when I started back after a few days. We promised to be in touch but it kinda dwindled from there.

He got back in touch again and this time told me that he was seriously contemplating the last ride and my trip made him change his mind.

Kudos. I wish I had done the same. Years ago an old friend got in touch and we started taking about going to see the Corvette museum together. For various reasons I couldn't do the trip any time soon. Not long after he killed himself. I don't know if going on that trip would've changed anything, but I'm forever left with the doubt. I can't say I will never again, but I don't want to ever let down friends or family again.

Funny, I had a colleague who we all thought had cancer (terminal), fundraising had begun for treatmenet etc. Anyway another friend and I went over to see him one evening to play computer games and just hang out, as he seemed pretty down. During that time we were chatting about his cancer etc. and the subject of suicide came up. I (apparently) said that "I thought it was the cowards way out" (I do not feel that way any more I may say)

Anyway, apparently this stuck in his mind as he had been planning on committing suicide that evening. He never told me this, but it was relayed. Turned out the cancer was entirely made up as he wanted to have a legitimate excuse for committing suicide!

He's well now thankfully.

It's funny the tiny chancy things you can do that can have huge consequences.

My heart goes out to this family, and if you do have friends / colleagues that are down or talking darkly. Do reach out to them (however uncomfortable you may find the process), you might really make a difference.

Please encourage your friend to see a psychiatrist. It may save their life.

Not that you're necessarily wrong, but you're not necessarily right, either. I've been in not too different a place, and I can say with some confidence that all the psychiatrists in the world don't add up to one good friend who cares.

Look after those relationships, folks. Lose them and they're gone forever.

The parent comment noted they fell out of touch with their friend.

As for your confident advice, that's only true for you. The Uber engineer who took his life had a loving family.

Everyone having suicidal thoughts should be screened by a psychiatrist. Sometimes it takes medication and medication saves lives.

Medication is a problem unless you are sick. We all need confirmation and less pressure...are we sick because of that?

Please know that if you are feeling hopeless, like you are a failure, and that there is no recovering, there are people who will help you. You are not your job or your accomplishments, you are worth it and there are people who love you and will help you.

In the Bay Area, call (415) 781-0500 to talk with someone who can help. http://www.sfsuicide.org/

> You are not your job

This. 100% this. While I've been fortunate enough to not be in a position of job stress like this, the moment I realised that who I am is not defined by my job was the moment life (both inside AND outside of work) became so much easier.

Edit, to elaborate: take that higher-paying job but less 'prestigious' company because who the fuck cares. Clock out of work on time and refuse consistent unpaid over overtime. Work not doing what you want it to, leave and find something better. Quit defining yourself by your employer and instead work on you.

This sounds like the definition of someone with high self worth, who values themselves.

If someone is in the state of mind of wanting to take their own life, will they desire to call to talk to a stranger on a hotline?

"In spite of their popularity and attractiveness, so far there is no conclusive evidence on the effectiveness of suicide prevention hot lines and crise centres" (2004) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1414695/

Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, we should still strive to give that person alternatives.

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle". -- Plato

Edit: @aaron695: that is what I was trying to communicate

I think the point is we should be careful about "doing something" and then indulging in the satisfaction of "something has been done", especially if there is no evidence that the 'something' we pick is beneficial to anyone.

I would agree with you if the cost was high. Running a suicide prevention hotline strikes me as a low cost preventative measure, moreso if you get actuarial/gruesome and take into account someone's dollar value as a human being (mid to high six figures for most people).

The real cost of doing something because something must be done is the false sense of satisfaction. That cost is potentially very high in this case.

An educated guess now is better then perfect data later.

We should of course continue to research ways to stem suicides and the conditions that cultivate someone feeling they have no other options.

And so is the potential cost of not doing anything, so what's your point?

You seem to conjecture that refering someone to a hotline raises the chance of that person commiting suicide, while AFAIK all the evidence points towards suicide hotlines being effective at reducing stress and suicidality.

Why do we, in general, accept any personal decision that does not interfere with other people, but refuse to accept the ultimate decision a person can make in regards to his live?

I'm not suicidal at the moment and feel that my life has some purpose - but why would I assume that a person who is suicidal knows less about his own life than I do?

The decision to commit suicide is rarely made in a rational state of mind. Unlike most decisions, however, this one is permanent.

This is true for suicide due to depression or other mental health issues.

However, deciding to commit suicide due to intractable terminal illness is often done in a very rational state of mind.

The big difference is that the later is a decision that is/should not be made alone, but with the assistance of your family, friends and or doctor.

Euthanasia is not really relevant to what's being discussed here.

Almost all of our decisions are, really, permanent - and most of the time, we're not making them rationally. Break up with your significant other - then, even if you decide to "reverse" it and get back together, it won't be the same relationship anymore. Quit from your job - most likely, you won't work for the same company ever again.

Yes, these are only parts of life, and suicide ends life as a whole - but you have reasons why you're not stopping all of your friends from making all the small wrong decisions, right? You probably reason that they might know better, and if anything, their freedom includes the right to make mistakes.

Well, the same reasoning logically works for suicide, too - the magnitude of the components change, but the formula is still the same. I agree that it's a good idea to talk to someone who tries to commit suicide and make sure that they really want to make this decision and have thought about it - but our culture, meanwhile, painfully rejects the notion that in the end, you may agree with that person in their pursuit of suicide.

On another hand, you probably (statistically, given HN typical audience) support right to euthanasia; you think that if someone have immense physical suffering and no hope to escape from it, death is a viable alternative. But why do we reject the same treatment for emotional and intellectual suffering? You can't really feel both types, but for some reason, you suppose that one is more 'real' than another. That any emotional trouble can be healed, because "it's just in your head".

Respect for someone's freedom begins with respect for his decisions and respect for his mistakes. Too often the true reason for all this unasked for "help" is in selfish desire to "do good" instead of real empathy for another human being.

Clinical depression is significantly different from terminal illness. Depression doesn't have to be a death sentence. Yes, it is immense mental, emotional, and intellectual suffering. But that doesn't mean death is the right answer, and someone who is suffering from clinical depression is not in the right frame of mind to make that distinction.

I speak as someone who has been there, is currently taking antidepressants, and has seriously considered the option at multiple times in my life. Depression will tell you there is no other method of relief from the pain, but depression lies.

I believe that most people, if prevented from suicide, are glad to have been prevented. You might want to read http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/25/in-defense-of-psych-tre...

Personally, if someone told me in advance that, if they ever attempted suicide, they'd like me to not interfere - then I'd accept that. But I have a friend who's alive because she hadn't told me that, and I did interfere, and she's glad I did.

> Regardless, we should still strive to give that person alternatives.

No.

We should strive to help them.

This comment it literally saying we should feel better about ourselves even though I'm sure it wasn't your intention.

It goes beyond just hotlines (which IME are useless at best and actively harmful at worst (having law-enforcement called on you is no fun)) -- the suicide rate for the past 80ish years in US has remained remarkably flat, despite many advances in psychiatry: https://twitter.com/sarahdoingthing/status/68238219583987712...

"Suicides In Rural America Increased More Than 40% In 16 Years"

http://acsh.org/news/2017/03/16/suicides-rural-america-incre...

Unless you know now of a better solution, it is important to, at least, point out the options available.

Are there other interventions that are better than hotlines?

According to science, regulating firearms is effective is reducing suicide rates.

https://soundcloud.com/science-vs/guns https://soundcloud.com/science-vs/gun-control-pt-2

Alternatively, according to what most of the rest of the world would like to call "common sense".

I'm not sure. I just get the feeling the hotlines are more for people to feel like they're doing something to help, when maybe they're really not doing much at all. I'd like to find out more about what really would help, and hope that I and others would be willing to put the real effort in to make a difference, behind something that works.

The next line immediately after the one you quoted was "Admittedly, it seems that their efficacy to help people in crises (not necessarily suicidal) is far greater than their impact on suicide rates."

Crisis hotlines are definitely doing things, even if the suicide prevention analysis bit is inconclusive.

> When they analysed results of studies combined by setting and intervention, and by exposure to intervention, sadly enough, the highest percentage of reduction in suicide rates observed was 4%.

Wow, that's unfortunate. I wonder if any follow-up studies have been done with more modern technology. For instance would / does SMS or other message services fair better than a phone call today than the phone call itself faired in 2004?

I wonder if there are any ways to help when simply existing as an anonymous person on the internet. You always see hotlines and other resources copied and pasted and I had always hoped they helped.

TBH I did once and they were angry and rude.

Or better yet, talk to someone you know.

real depression is disease, nobody on any hotline is going talk you out if it

That's a gross mischaracterization of what hotlines are for, and what they do. Their purpose is to talk you down, and direct you to the resources that can further help you (like seeing a medical practitioner).

If you want to end things, walk away from your life and career. Stand up from your desk, put one foot in front of the other, and proceed in this way until you tire.

It seems people are confused by this comment. My interpretation is that you mean what I've heard phrased as 'kill the person you are'. Meaning, if it's your life situations and identity that are causing you such distress, why not just walk away?

This could mean switching careers, getting divorced, cutting ties with friends, moving far away, or a combination thereof. After all, suicide would end all of those things too, in a worse way. So if you were willing to do that most final and extreme action, why not just say screw it and start driving? After all you'd have nothing to lose compared to suicide.

In some cases just the realization that one can make changes is significant.

Suicide means an end to all pain and consequences for your actions though (or at least consequences you will have to deal with yourself, as you will no longer exist), and dropping everything and just walking away means you will still have to deal with the consequences of walking away, and the pain of picking up the pieces afterward.

The downvotes speak for themselves. This advice is too unclear to be helpful, and too general to be useful. Instead of giving general advice and feeling better, we should try to dig deeper, and resolve the actual problem. As far as the other person wants help, at least.

Uhhh, that was solid advice until the last sentence.

You're right, we should seek to avoid the death of self at any cost.

So thinking about your advice a bit more, it's actually pretty good. I've been in a pretty weird situation where I'm realizing [traditionally well paying and considered successful career] is not the route I currently want to go in my life and want to spend a few years chasing a dream of competing in the top levels of a sport I love.

I'm kind of suicide those original career goals at the moment, but want to make sure I gave life somewhat of the biggest attempt I could.

The are always simple answers to complex issues, and they are usually wrong. This answer desperately needs more insight.

I've heard this advice many times, mostly in shitty memes and as part of /feels/ threads.

I think the problem with it that if you are at that point, you're already feeling utterly hopeless.

Suggesting that someone who's suicidal:

* willingly loses everything in their life

* starts from nothing

* fights their way through the chaos that is building a new life for yourself

* in a strange and unknown place

* with no support at all

is naive and unhelpful.

To me it also feels pretty dismissive, up there with "you should smile more".

Not sure what you're getting at there.

That people can abandon their life instead of committing suicide. But it does not matter, the message was downvoted for lack of clarity, and is too general to be useful.

And those are valid criticisms in this case. There's value in what you said at the top of this reply tree. It deserves to be expressed with more care and clarity next time than were invested this time.

I think it was probably the choice of words in the last sentence (before edit) in particular that bothered people.

I downvoted the message because it's wrong, not because it's unclear.

Your comment shows a lack of understanding of suicidal thinking across a population.

This article has resonated with me far more than I thought it would.

I can't help but think that this is not just an Uber culture problem but a problem of culture in general. Hyper productivity is so in fashion and I don't think it's good for us.

I spent a number of years in tech in Vancouver and during my time I went though a period of unconscious breakdown which ended up with me in the hospital with perimyocarditis (heart failure due to unknown reasons, ie: stress).

After a number of years doing what I have aspired to do for what is really the majority of my conscious life, I ended up quitting my career and just leaving altogether. I met a girl, she was not from my country, and when she had to leave, I took the opportunity as an out from the life that I was living. At the same time, I began using photography as a way to explore my new city and as a creative outlet, as tech no longer was that outlet and became a source of stress.

The interesting thing is, once I left tech and began to put my free time in to photography I got caught up in the same culture that I've been trying to leave. Managing Instagram, Facebook, 500px, Flickr, and YouTube profiles to garner my following. The constant idolization of " work work work" I see YouTubers and IGers tout. Constantly judging myself against other people. Always feeling like I'm not good enough yet or that I'm lacking in talent that other naturally have. Believing that I'm not living my life correctly in relation to the perceived 10xers around me. Chasing the illusion of the 1%.

This article handed me an epiphany. I'm only taking the life I want to leave with me.

Why is it so that I feel the need to chase hyper productivity as a measurement of success?

> Why is it so that I feel the need to chase hyper productivity as a measurement of success?

The ideals of Protestant Work Ethic have historically dominated north american culture, and provided a work-oriented definition of personal worth. Nose to the grind stone as the most salient measure of personal contribution...

It's one of the reasons I believe that aggressive photography is so common from American, German, and Japanese tourists: it's a vacation-job to fill the days so that even vacation seems like needed production.

Fevered work dreams do not a life make, and cameras quickly turn into filters to avoid experiencing things directly. And the bottom line is that we all need to learn to sit on the floor and play like a 2 year old, without filters and without external expectations.

X-posting my comment from the other post because I think it's worth discussing:

> Uber denied the benefits claim through its insurance carrier.

That seems like an extremely terrible move, even if Uber might be technically correct. Deciding to do that makes them look awful, and I think that's what matters most, given everything else contributing to their public image right now. It could have been a great opportunity to look magnanimous.

I wonder if accepting such a claim also meant accepting that Thomas had faced an "extraordinary employment condition". That is, did the benefits claim come with an accusation that Uber was at fault? If so, then it's not just a consideration of "common decency", but legal liability.

Note: IANAL and didn't even know what California law was in regards to insurance claims and suicide. Genuinely curious as to the technicalities of the law, and in this case specifically.

Good point! IANAL also, but I read a bit about this and got the following[1]:

> Ultimately, the WCAB emphasized that it was the “work condition that must be uncommon, unusual, or totally unexpected” in order to qualify as an extraordinary employment condition

So, I wonder if by rejecting the claim, Uber is claiming that whatever work conditions Thomas was facing is normal. I wonder if the converse is also true, that accepting the claim also means Uber claims that his work conditions were actually unusual.

[1] http://pknwlaw.com/Newsletters/2015/Q1/2-LC3208.html

I imagine this would. E evaluated by a judge and or a reasonable standard clause. We don't tolerate domestic abuse in the home so maybe those concepts extend to the workplace.

> Uber denied the benefits claim through its insurance carrier.

> Deciding to do that makes them look awful, and I think that's what matters most

Yeah a dude was driven to kill himself and left his family behind and some bad optics are what matter most, please tell me I'm misreading this somehow?

You could say matters most 'to Uber', without it being as shocking a statement since they are famously a big corporation with a loose connection to ethics and human morals. If anything, they've got an inverse connection and need to continually signal that they are fierce and mean, and won't make any concessions to anybody or anything.

Ok, maybe not "most". But I hope you get my point -- even at the most pragmatic, even considering that technically Uber might be right because Thomas only worked less than six months, it seems like a terrible PR move to deny the benefits claim.

Does anyone know if Uber self-insures its various plans (like most billion dollar companies), or uses regular insurance? That is, would Uber itself be liable for paying out?

They could've met halfway...but no, they had to do this. Despicable.

All, Hear me out. The first thing you need to overcome is not your wallet, or your options, timing or any other thing. It is -- your mind.

If you experience this level of pressure, quit. And then start looking. Do not be influenced that your boss is the boss of your life or your career for that matter.

If you've got a family to take care of, quickly join a consulting firm. Worst case you'll have to travel some, but it buys you some mental time to start looking for another job. And it sure beats Hell. People WILL tell you to not quit but they won't know how much pressure your in. They don't need to know. Just quit and find a better place. Garden, paint, chill with your espresso, take up that book you never read, or that new lang you never used. Do something positive.

You hold the power to fix this. Quit, and find a new Job. Do it for yourself, do it for your family, for your friends, do it for open source communities that you contribute to.

There is always a way out, and don't let anyone make you think that the only way out is a tiny little door -- to hell. Because what they don't tell you is that the door is fake. Your already in hell.

Bust down the walls of your mind and get out.

Can't afford to quit, thanks though. Work or die.

Tell that to somebody who has a family, or is paying child support/alimony. I'm sure their ex will sympathize that it's not about your wallet, but your mind.

Thank you, just quitting and crossing your fingers hoping you'll maybe get a new job at some point in the next 1-100 months is not an option for anyone with actual responsibilities.

So that is what you'd say... to this guy the day before he did what he did? uh...

What responsibility is he addressing now? What money is he bringing in now?

Exactly. Nothing.

Yea, I'm sure losing your home, wife, and family, or getting served papers by your ex and declaring bankruptcy, would work wonders for your mental health. Events like that never drive somebody to suicide. Nope.

consider that for some people the alternative to quitting is mental health breakdown that often results in conditions that will MOST DEFINITELY cause your ex to miss her alimony payment, well, I'm not seeing what your point is.

if it's really a matter of life and death, and it is, then doing what you need to do in order to step off the ledge is the only thing that matters.

What does this guy's family think now that he's gone? His child?

I'm sure your worth is more than just Alimony.

I think we are missing some information here: "All suggested that he leave his job, but he was adamant that he could not. "

The question is why? what conditions need to occur where a man who most likely can get another job easily enough and who has switched jobs before decides that ending his life his a better course of action then switching jobs.

They wrote that he eventually saw a psychiatrist, was he prescribed SSRI medication (I.E. Prozac)? If so, the other articles on HN suggest that that may be the cause, and not Uber's work environment.

All of that isn't to say to Uber's work environment is ok, but unless there was some form of coercion to keep the job (debt, noncompetitive wages, medical insurance issues), I don't think it's fare to blame Uber for the suicide. Mass worker exodus or a union is the way to change a company's work environment.

Getting a job "easily enough" is still a big risk to take when you own a home and have a wife and two kids. I was in a job that deteriorated to the point that it was making me so miserable I would get physically ill around 3-4pm on Sundays due to having to go to work on Monday. It took me about 5-7 months to get to the point where I quit.

It is not an easy step to take. I was 24-25, enrolled in a Master's program (easy enough to explain why I left without a job) living in a house that I was not paying rent for and had the full support of both my parents and my fiancé. I didn't want to be a burden to my family. I was scared it would take me another 7 months to find a job like it did when I graduated from college in 2010. I had bills to pay. All of that was overwhelming despite me logically knowing I would be fine and that I wouldn't starve or go homeless or miss a bill payment because my fiancé or parents had stated so.

I can only imagine the pressures he thought he faced at home if he felt like it was his responsibility to take care of his family. It was probably so overwhelming that he saw no other out.

It is hard to describe to someone who never experienced a job that is overwhelmingly and exclusively awful how much of an impact it makes on you. And I am not talking about a job that you don't like or don't enjoy. I mean a job that has zero redeeming qualities and a culture that is incredibly toxic. You feel like a failure at work. You are miserable. And you see an out (quitting) but if you quit (without a job) there are a whole bunch of questions. And in some ways those unknowns are even worse than the misery. But then you go back in the next day and go "no way the prospect of losing my home can be worse than this." Then you go home and it is "no way my job can be worse than losing my home and failing my wife and kids." And it both cases you realize that, yes, somehow, both of those statements are true. The job is more miserable than losing the home which is more miserable than the job which is more miserable than letting down my wife and kids which is more miserable than my job which is more miserable than...

... and suddenly you find yourself with a gun in the front seat of your car because there is nothing in life that is not miserable. Nothing.

> It is hard to describe to someone who never experienced a job that is overwhelmingly and exclusively awful how much of an impact it makes on you. And I am not talking about a job that you don't like or don't enjoy. I mean a job that has zero redeeming qualities and a culture that is incredibly toxic. You feel like a failure at work. You are miserable. And you see an out (quitting) but if you quit (without a job) there are a whole bunch of questions.

This is one of the most brilliantly perceptive comments I have read here. I encourage you to write an article based on this.

I am early enough in my career that I would feel utterly uncomfortable doing that. My blog is under my real name. It would be so easy to look at my resume and go oh. That company. Woof. I don't really want my public feelings of that experience tied to me like that. This isn't a startup. This is a non-tech business that has been around for decades. Don't burn bridges and all that.

I will add this tidbit... you would literally have to pay me "f--k you" levels of money for a middling developer to even think of going back to that company. My professor had the ability to get my a coding job at a completely different location (physical and business-side) inside that same company (I was in Procurement previously) for about 150k (almost 3x what I was making). $150k in a rust belt city is a lot of money. Due to my work history there I would have been immediately vested and they had a 6% 100% match on a 401k. My commute would have been 10 minutes. I literally laughed at him. The amount of money that could get me back in those doors is way out of the reach of a 9-5 systems programmer. The first dollar figure where I would have to pause would be in the $1 mil a year range. And I honestly don't know if I would have said yes even to that.

I understand. Makes perfect sense.

I think many very pertinent stories and points of view never surface because of the very real threat of retaliation or ostracism - burning bridges, as you say.

I think that people who expose the mistakes, weaknesses, and perhaps even evildoing associated with people and companies are seen in the collective mind as whistleblowers, who appear usually to be regarded - and treated - badly. This is a sad but real tendency of human nature.

The irony is that many whistleblowers do a great public service, and at the very least keep entities honest by exposing their wrongs. If everyone turned aside and pretended not to notice that the emperor had no clothes, we would be in a dark place indeed.

This isn't a criticism, by the way: I suffer from the same misgivings, which war against my instinct and desire to tell the stories of the injustices I've seen firsthand.

I wish I knew the answer.

> what conditions need to occur where a man who most likely can get another job easily enough and who has switched jobs before decides that ending his life his a better course of action then switching jobs.

From my perspective (which isn't as bad as considering suicide over changing a job...but still pretty bad in terms of depression), there's a huge mental block in terms of ability to interview, especially given the terrible interview practices across most of the industry (5+ hour algorithm regurgitation sessions).

This would require "studying" algorithms for hours a day to refresh my memory. In my currently depressed state there's not a chance that I could bring myself to do that once I'm off work for the day...nor could I possibly imagine even participating in the interview process itself right now even if I felt confident in my ability to vomit back algorithms to the interviews.

As others have written, it is similar to people reluctant to leave abusive relationships. Just as people who have not suffered clinical depression can advise to "just snap out of it", those who have not experienced this phenomenon, or are psychologically less vulnerable to it, will say "just get another job".

Sometimes the answers just aren't easy.

I know some people, especially women, in this situation right now. They are under tremendous stress at work, sometimes marginalized or bullied. But they are forced to stick through it due to equity agreements.

Leaving means some wont see their equity grants vest. Some may be forced into major tax payments if they leave (due to options.) And some lose it alltogether. The way these things work, sometimes you end up paying enormous taxes and still end up with largely illiquid equity, which may remain illiquid for years. It is hard enough to land a job where the equity is worth something. People stick it out because a liquidity event can be life changing and liberating.

I realize equity agreements are created for retention, but they have the unfortunate impact of keeping people in jobs when it is better for both employee and employer to part ways. Something needs to be done about that. I don't know what.

Sorry, but making a deal you later regret is not the same. You can negotiate a slightly higher salary and no options if you can't deal with the risk.

In the case of one friend, yes she made a deal. She didn't think the deal included constant harassment by colleagues. Life isn't black and white.

Your OP was specifically about being handcuffed to a job because of equity considerations. How it isn't so easy to quit, you see, because equity.

In the case of this 'one friend', she was not handcuffed to a job because of equity considerations. Therefore, no problem for her to quit.

Kind of works against your original point, not for it.

I'm not really sure how you know my friend, or even which friend I'm speaking about, so I don't know how you'd know her situation. She's handcuffed because she's put in years of effort and hoping for a liquidity event before she leaves, lest she leave with little or nothing. She's miserable for entirely different reasons -- due to treatment she receives at work from what she tells me.

Not sure why this would be surprising -- this situation is very common across startups. I am a co-founder also, and I have equity vesting agreements, understandably, as I want retention; I don't want employees constantly leaving with the next wind that blows. At the same time, I'd hate to keep a miserable employee who isn't fully productive. I'd like to think I set a good enough workplace culture that there wouldn't be harassment/bullying, but who knows...

What is more wicked, and beyond me as a business owner, is US tax treatment on illiquid equity. That really needs to change.

You can prevent employees from constantly leaving by simply paying them enough, see what any sector without equity comp does.

>But they are forced to stick through it due to equity agreements.

That isn't what 'forced' means. Any of the people you are talking about could quit. They control their own lives and are responsible for them. Some theoretical equity in a company does not somehow hijack personal agency.

It's going to be darkly ironic if we are finally able to talk about certain medications' involvement in suicides and violence because Uber is forced to use that data for its own defense.

But I don't care how we talk about it -- we've lost too many good people in this world because we're afraid to talk about well-known and well-documented side effects.

I imagine people are wanting to blame Uber because there have been other reports of bullying, hazing, sexism, etc. in the company. Couple that with all the accounts of Uber's willingness to test or even flout the law and it doesn't paint a nice picture.

It's really mind-boggling this happened after less than 6 months at Uber. I wonder what it must be to work there. Sounds absolutely horrifying.

I know someone who left after 6 months for similar reasons, fortunately things didn't go as far for them as this poor man. I was warned off joining the company by that engineer and often think about how lucky I am to have dodged such a toxic place.

It's not just Uber. There is no shortage of toxic workplaces, sadly.

Nobody's saying it's just Uber, but this post is about Uber.

Just remember there no point earning the mega $$$$ when you're going to put a bullet in a gun and shot yourself in the head because of the stress. Look after yourself first.

I've never felt like he seems to have felt, so I can't put myself in his shoes. But my first thought on seeing the picture of his family at the top of that post was that trying to reverse-engineer whatever misery would cause a man to take that step, to leave his family that way, to do it in a way that was almost certain to force his wife or even, horribly, one of his kids to confront the results, is fruitless. Maybe someone with a deep professional understanding of the human mind would have some insight. "Uber did it" is a far too coarse answer imho.

Throwaway as usual:

Just last weekend (Friday), I thought I had reached my breaking point. I could not handle my job, my friends, my parents and my side idea to the point I convinced myself that the only solution to my problems was suicide. I went on to 4chan to ask for help on the quickest solution.

The only reason I'm alive today is because Amazon does not have a quick shipping policy (what I ordered would have taken me over a week to receive). Now I'm taking one day at a time in the hope that I don't reach that situation again.

I truly feel sad for both the Engineer and his family!

Quit your job and work the rest out later. Ask your parents and friends for support. I'm a total stranger and I'd rather you not be dead, so imagine how the people that know you would feel.

We have this problem in our American culture: If we're not careful, we begin to derive our self worth from our work. You can choose not to do that. Quit, and when you're ready to go back to work, work to live, not the other way around. Fuck it, take something menial for a bit that doesn't follow you home.

Does anyone think that this culture of extreme competitiveness and "working hard" benefits employers before it reaches the employees?

Surely, the question should be whether anyone thinks whether the reverse is the case: Do anyone actually think employees benefit from working themselves (to death..) before employers?

My point exactly.

It never reaches the employees.

That's the trick.

Man, this really hit home. That guy's life could have been mine.

I had this almost this same experience 2 years ago (we were at the job for the same length of time even, five months), and it led to a long period of depression for me. I didn't kill myself, but I have to tell you, I could see how someone could.

In my circumstance I interviewed as a Senior Engineer, and got offered a Lead engineer position because apparently I had impressed everyone so much (this is important because later, they would claim I wasn't even good enough to be a senior engineer). I erroneously thought that I would get support and encouragement, I got none of those things. Worse still I was the only black engineer in the entire company at that location, which left me incredibly isolated during my work days, when things got really really rough.

Essentially, 70 days into my tenure, despite 30 and 60 day reviews that seemed fine, my manager and architect of the codebase I worked on, decided I wasn't up to snuff, and essentially started a process of managing me out of the company. My manager was a very smart engineer but a world class jerk, so when I complained to HR about the unfairness, he was demoted so that both of us were now leads, but guess what?

The Performance improvement process continued ... I got a new boss, but he just picked up where the other guy left off. The kicker?

He worked in another city so he actually got feedback on my performance from guess who? my new peer, who clearly now had an axe to grind.

Everything was downhill from there, everything I did was shit, everything. I remember going into work one day and my boss sending me an email that essentially said "you're not performing at lead engineer level, and you are not even at senior engineer level, if we're being honest", great morale boost.

When I tried to ask for help (remember I'd never been a lead before) it was turned around as me trying to assign blame to other people. I had nobody to help me, and worse, I was the only black engineer at that location. I felt like and absolute failure everyday for 30 days (they had a 90 day introductory period, so they gave me an additional 30 days to "prove" myself, but in addition I had to agree to that Performance improvement plan, I mentioned earlier.

At one point, I was barely sleeping, was super stressed out and anxious, even on weekends. I'd go into meetings with my new boss, and the old one (remember he's my peer now) with his superior knowledge of the code base (he built it) would throw me under the bus, claiming I wouldn't hit my dates, or that my estimates were wrong. Openly, in front of 7 or 8 people, and the new boss would tolerate it.

To add to all this, I was on an h1b, and had left a job that was processing my green card to join this new company. So if I lost the job, I would be right back to square one with everything, and I'd have to find a job within 30 days. Throw that in the mix with being told everyday that I was crap, not having anyone at work to talk to about what was going on, being on a performance improvement plan and walking around totally humiliated wondering what everyone must think of the dumb black engineer who couldn't even hack it a couple of months.

Anyway, the final straw came when I delivered my project pretty much on time, but my boss changed his tune from "poor performance" to "culture fit". I had known the game was rigged and I was just being managed out, but at that moment I knew it for a fact, and asked to be allowed to give 2 weeks notice, but spend the 2 weeks at home not working for the company, but looking for a job.

They agreed to that, and I was gone.

But that wasn't the end of that. turns out that at the end of that 2 weeks they had my h1b revoked (usually companies will let it sit a few weeks, especially if they know you're looking for work). This meant that when I landed a job 30 days later, my visa couldn't be transferred, and the company had to take back their offer, and move on.

If not for an amazing lawyer who worked some black magic to get my green card 8 months later, (I had an approved i140 from an earlier job, but didn't realize the significance of that, turns out, its VERY significant). I really don't know what I would have done.

Those 8 months were truly some dark times, I left the job in October, and let me tell you, being out of work over holidays is no joke, everyone is out making plans and traveling to see family, and there you are contemplating the epic shit your life has become, almost overnight. In addition to failing so badly at a job I desperately wanted to succeed in, I couldn't work for 8 months, and even worse, didn't know if I'd be allowed to stay in the country. I was pretty depressed, but I had a group of engineering friends that helped me keep my spirits up, and listened to my rants (no idea how they put up with it honestly), and I think the biggest thing was that a good friend of mine (pretty much my sister), got me into therapy. That was MASSIVE.

If not for that ... who the fuck knows.

So yeah ... I can totally see the cascade of events that lead to this mans death, I lay the blame squarely at the feet of horrible management, as was the case for me. I wouldn't be shocked to find that he was placed on a performance improvement plan, and just ... gave up.

PS: I'm a bit of a fighter, I don't shirk from an argument, and I'll call bs when I see it. This has got me in trouble at a couple of places I've worked, but ironically, thats probably something that helped me power through the absolute disgrace of an experience that I went through. I could see how a more mild mannered person, especially a high achiever would just ... not.

I mean, can you imagine having to explain to your wife and Children that you're on a performance improvement plan (which I'm almost 100% sure that this man was on). As a man that has to absolutely destroy you. I didn't even tell my parents and brothers what had happened for several months, I was just too ashamed.

You should name the company that treated you so badly. They would likely continue such treatment to others who are on visa.

Thanks for sharing your story. Unbelievable how they treated you. Which company was it?

In Japan they have a name for this.. karōjisatsu.. It literally means suicide from work. I wrote about this about two years ago below. Our industry (IT) could be worse than others due to the different kind of stress it creates. Here's some work/research I have done on this.

http://itrevolution.com/karojisatsu/

http://itrevolution.com/karojisatsu-in-plain-english-burnout...

We have to band together and do something about this plague...

@botchagalupe

I'll put this out there.. somone who has destigmatized and open sourced depression is Rob Delaney. Now has an award winning show featuring the late Carrie Fischer (Catastrophe) but nearly killed him self a few times in the past and has written extensively about it[1]. Alcoholism too. Psychiatric medication saved his life. REALLY funny guy, check him out on twitter (best reason to use twitter still).

[1] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/comedy-545-v17n10

Unfortunately, I can't read this post yesterday. We are working a similar solution, which can detect and prevent similar situations at management level, plus gives more productivity based on healthy system (little bit coaching system). Every manager want a healthy system, don't want to circulate lot of people in the company day by day. So, I saw ton of different personalities and skills and every person need to know, where is the border really (is this the right place for me or what do I need to change? - like a coach). Manager's views are really subjective.. and therefore many times.. with wrong advisors.. going in the wrong way. I think, very important for the c-level, to identify similar problems and create actions. Nobody want to see similar things. The very stressful jobs.. mainly coming from other problems (I worked cxo position, c-level, board etc), eg. somebody stolen money, slacker in important position and lot of things. Identify the problems is very important. That is not so easy and very hard.. to find the right way, .. because every person needed different viewpoint, how to talk with that person. Plus I saw, the assertive communication solve many things (in large companies works well).

  Free markets just means 
  unregulated capitalism just means 
  out-of-control companies ruining workers lives.

  This isn't unique to Uber.

That's not code and quite annoying because only the first ~24 chars are shown on mobile devices.

I stated something similar in a reply below, but I think it is worth repeating on its own...

You feel like a failure at work, but there is nothing you can do to improve or impress the higher ups. Nothing is good enough. Period. Managers are instructed not to give out performance reviews any higher than a 3/5 for their best performers because the company does not want to pay out bonuses. You can be outputting 44% of the work of a 13 person team and you are called out by your immediate supervisor because you had a word document open and "it was closed the next time I walked by. So you clearly are not working your full 8 hours a day." You have to handle the work of three, then four, then five people because everyone else seems to be getting hired elsewhere and quitting. And the company certainly isn't replacing them. (Cost savings, yay!) You aren't able to find a new job despite putting out dozens of feelers and going to a couple interviews a month, and getting to the final interview rounds for 3 or 4 jobs. Congratulations, you worthless POS. You cannot even get hired out of that company. Maybe you really are that awful of an employee. You are miserable. And you see an out (quitting) but if you quit (without a job) there are a whole bunch of questions. Will someone like you ever be able to find work again? If you can't find work over five months while you are employed, what makes you think you would stand out anymore if you were unemployed? And in some ways the unknowns caused by quitting are even worse than the misery.

So, you go back in the next day and go "no way the prospect of losing my home can be worse than this." Then you go home and it is "no way my job can be worse than losing my home and failing my wife and kids." And in both cases you realize that, yes, somehow, both of those statements are true. The job is more miserable than losing the home which is more miserable than the job which is more miserable than letting down my wife and kids which is more miserable than my job which is more miserable than losing my home which is more miserable than my job which is more miserable than letting my family starve which is more miserable than my job...

...and suddenly you find yourself with a gun in the front seat of your car because there is nothing in life that is not miserable. Nothing.

I was able to quit my toxic job. But if I was in a situation similar to that of Mr. Thomas, I can easily see why he thought he only had one option. And it is heartbreaking for his family.

I wonder how much the equity handcuffs are to blame here.

Ed Finkler is doing great work with his non-profit Open Sourcing Mental Illness. They are currently looking for 2017 corporate sponsors, so please talk with your employers about it!

It would also be a nice move of HN to help them out since this is a huge problem in the startup world!

Can we get a link for those who want to donate individually?

Its sad to see why smart people set themself for failure. Under bad situations at work all it takes is to go out the front door and not come back. Living a life where you're just trying to out-compete everybody or oneself is a trap. Best not to do that.

tragic loss.

I wonder what would happen if companies with high-stress environments employed on-site counselors. even if employees have outside help already, as mr. thomas did, it's very difficult -- for so many reasons -- to approach HR or consider a medical leave due to stress or mental illness. maybe creating a less daunting first step could help. in general, getting employers more proactively involved in asking how their employees are doing -- and if they need time off to heal -- could go a long way. at a certain point, an individual's motivation or willpower will not turn a situation like this one around, but outside intervention still might. how do we effectively intervene sooner?

In the UK occupational health schemes have limited success, especially in companies that have stigmatising views of mental health.

that's unfortunate but I guess I'm not too surprised to hear it. I kind of wonder if it would be more effective in silicon valley where mental health problems are a bit less stigmatized through a kind of necessity; the most notable thing about the high school I attended in palo alto is its ongoing cluster suicide problem.

Countries outside America have labor laws to prevent that kind of shit. You gave away yours.

Edit: I`ve been through two burnouts while working remotely. Gave it up for good, happily working in my city and have freedom, dignity and respect now. It is a human need.

Edit2: F*ck Uber.

I think best to avoid some discussions. If only to avoid being confronted with the realization you know but try hard to avoid of a world where empathy is in short supply.

Bad things happen but its how we respond that shines a ray of light through the darkness. It may gives others stuck in a similar situation a context.

Sometimes we just have to stop and consider where we are as a collective. The sense of bleakness of an uncaring unfeeling world is devastating I think to even the most cynical amongst us. When money is put above everything what is left is this dehumanizing bleakness. And wealth for those who embrace it.

So what should you do if you find yourself in one of these situations and get let go? It gets really irritating having to explain what happened at the previous job in every interview.

That's part of the problem - and it's one of perception, not reality.

People are good in the right environment and with the right team. If the fit is bad, it could be a lose-lose.

I've seen great people (I personally knew) do worse in a subsequent job, and vice-versa - people who were subpar in a previous job do great at a new gig.

Atleast AFAIK in Bayarea, nobody cares as long as you have the skills. I have had the pleasure of working with some amazing engineers & team players who were let go in earlier jobs.

Twice there you have re-sealed the trap. Oops.

As an indie developer doing one sort of 'dream job' (distributing exceptional software for free and moving towards open source, supported entirely by voluntary small contributions like some DSP Bernie) it's pretty easy for me to see the catch.

You can do anything you want IF you 'have the skills' and are 'amazing'. If you're not sufficiently amazing, then you're fooling yourself and might as well suicide (that's the feeling) because you're doomed anyhow. There is no one specific level of 'the skills' or 'amazing', it's a sort of sliding scale in which you can begin to lose simply because everyone around you took a level in 'amazing'. And everyone around you is incredibly driven and desperate…

You can call this motivational and not be so far wrong, but there's a really dark side when society is set up to have harsh punishments for losing. Ain't no welfare T-Bone steaks for homeless people pooping in the streets of San Francisco. I can't help but feel that in the Bay Area, there's no clear floor you can drop to. You can be amazing… or you can be NOT amazing, and there might be a level of 'untouchable caste' to the NOT amazing.

My own psychological method of fighting this (in my field there's definitely an element of 'abandon the losers before they saddle you with being associated with their fail') is to be defiant, claiming that I'm very poor but on an upward trajectory because I've seen the light of Open Source etc, that I am audaciously redefining what it means to be a dev/creator, and might decide to be always poor as dirt just to be defiant about it. It does keep me from suicide: finally committing to that POV made a noticeable difference. I think this attitude is echoed among other open-sourcers.

You have to have your own standards/narrative that you really believe in.

Or rather you have to shake off the years of schooling where you've been judged and accepted it.

Living below your means is a good ethic that allows you to battle idiot bosses.

Defiance of the lunacy in the workplace is key for mental health.

I truly feel awful for the family, but to play devil's advocate: What could you do if you were in Uber's position to prevent something like this?

And no cop-out answers like "Don't make an environment that pressures people" (everyone has deadlines, pressure is ubiquitous). What, specifically, would you do tomorrow to prevent this in the future if you were the CEO of Uber?

> would you do tomorrow to prevent this in the future if you were the CEO of Uber?

Resign, and recommend someone in my stead who is capable of managing a more compassionate organization into existence. Those exist - and conversely, the apparent shit-show that is Uber is driven from the top-down.

>What could you do if you were in Uber's position to prevent something like this

I would have resigned a loooong time before this.

Deadlines are guesses and predictions that are chosen by people.

There're two critical ways out of the situation like this which looks like severe major depression to me - 1. remove yourself from the stressful situation 2. seek medical help.

The worst in this situation is that the person is unable to clearly understand the severity of the situation and take an action so the role of friends and family becomes the critical one.

Every time I hear a story about Uber I seriously wonder if the employees and drivers should unionize.

Presuming that even if there was some positive story to come out of Uber and that news editors know negative stories about Uber brings in clicks, when has anything positive regarding them come to light?

My condolences to this persons family. May his memory be a blessing.

Ever hear the saying "where there's smoke, there's fire"? At this point I'd really have to evaluate whether or not Uber is the right kind of fit for anyone to be working there. There are other options.

Mental health is often an issue that comes up on Hacker News. Perhaps, Y Combinator can contribute to the community yet further by providing research and services for mental health issues which plague the tech industry.

It would be really great and important if HN would partner with Open Sourcing Mental Illness (OSMI): https://osmihelp.org/

Anyone notice how quickly this got removed from the front page?

It's still there as of this writing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14194112

Whatever's the cost, Uber should make it right for the guy's family.

At this point one might ask, why have we not heard this stories before?

This is so depressing. Shame on you, Uber.

"For Zecole Thomas, mourning the loss of the husband she met in 11th grade, it was “baffling and confusing” to be denied workers’ compensation. “He had a great work ethic; he devoted his life to work,” she said. “I was sure they would reciprocate.”"

How stupid are you if you're willing to sacrifice your life (literally) for work. Yeah... I'm sure your employer will recipocrate... (not)

What I have found out over the years is that having roughly 4-6 months worth of living expenses in the bank (unblocked and accessible within 24 hours) alleviates stress. Figure out how many months worth of savings makes you feel comfortable, and have an 'oh shit' budget figured out for times of willing/unwilling unemployment. For example, I can cut my spendings by 40% in case of unemployment simply by cutting luxury items. That 2.5 kilograms of light roasted coffee each month, dining, massage and clothing expenses isn't all that necessary, and can be cut temporarily.

So yeah, being able to quit and leave whenever I want and take 2-3 months of break does take off a lot of weight from one's shoulders. 40 hours a week with no overtime or on-call for me! I will not be the employee with the mad bonuses when the time comes for that, but I will also be the one not on medication/suicide watch/psychiatric aid. The company will have a stable workforce that is able to care an adequate amount for the company's well-being, and I will not spend my bonus on keeping my health intact. If you don't want to employ such a person, I don't want to work for you either. Easy as that. :^)

So yeah, the essence of my comment, I would say, is that make sure you have financial get-away. You don't have to subscribe to the crazy USA way of overtime>money>health issues>expenses>overtime to compensate for expenses. Having a small vegetable garden also helps, or just caring for plants on your windowsill.

Also, cats.

It's easy to forget that depression isn't rational. A depressed person may worry that they're unhirable and won't be able to find a job in those 4-6 months. They may expect that any job they do find will be as bad as the current one, or worse. If they're on a visa, they may worry about deportation and having to upend their lives if they leave their current job. They may worry that a gap on their resume will affect their career prospects. They may worry that their friends and family will judge them if they're unemployed for a while. Etcetera ad infinitum.

I agree, good point. In such case, visit your nearest meditation center and start breathing. Things will be alright.

I speak from experience.

I have 3-6 months buffer, depending on lifestyle (can probably stretch it a bit more). I'm sure it's better than it would've been otherwise, but my stress isn't gone still. I still struggle with whether I'm good enough to get another contract. Do I network enough? Do I go to meet-ups enough? Do I read up on industry developments enough? And this from someone who has his own company and doesn't answer to anyone but clients, and have never been fired from a job.

Confidence and security I guess can never come externally. I'm better at it than when I was younger, but I haven't arrived yet.

Doesn't help when you have notice period of 2 months

I bet you can find enough enjoyment in 0 overtime, long lunch breaks with co-workers, and those articles gathering dust on your reading list to entertain yourself for those 2 months. Not that you shouldn't do work, far from that, but for most people once they quit, emotional attachment to work ceases to exist.

So cut some slack, put in the hours contractually necessary, but don't break your neck being at work 9AM sharp, meeting arbitrary deadlines set by management, or attending the meetings you could have just set to "tentative, but I'll probably pass, thanks".

if you feel so shitty about work that you're getting suicidal im sure a doctor/psychologist will write you a doctors note for those 2 months

That note probably won't do much for your mental health if you _know_ what's on the other side of your break. I think the OPs advice is pretty sound, give yourself some options.

Give notice, then take two months off under FMLA.

For the most part, in the United States, this kind of notice is a courtesy not 100% required.

Are there any states where it's illegal to just walk out? I know you can in New York and all of the Midwest.

I have no legal knowledge, but since that has never stopped anyone on the internet from speculating in the past:

1. Seems like it might be criminal to walk off the job if you're a surgeon in the middle of a operation, firefighter at a fire, etc.

2. Otherwise, it seems possible that you could be sued by your employer for walking off the job but criminal, probably not.

3. If my employer tried to physically prevent me from leaving work, I'd call the police immediately.

I'm in the UK, yes you can get sued.

>40 hours a week with no overtime or on-call for me! I will not be the employee with the mad bonuses when the time comes for that, but I will also be the one not on medication/suicide watch/psychiatric aid.

I'm guessing you'll bring in more per hour than they will, even with their bonus.

Cats are cool. They love you and hang out regardless. I've followed this pattern recently and realized that there is a balance that can be met in the middle. Do the easy stuff all and any of the time and do the hard stuff as little as possible. That way you can make the $$ and stay sane.

The trick there is to at least do the hard stuff some of the time so you stay up to date and ready for the next thing.

Meta but relevant: 57 points in 35 minutes with no heated debates in comments, but not top story, suggesting high number of flags by users if I remember correctly about HN ranking algorithm.

Edit: Apparently this was a repost of the story, initially posted 15 hours ago (and 8 hours ago again):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14194112

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14198372

Edit again: Now this submission has also been marked as dupe after 1 hour of front-page. Looks like mods don't really want this story to get too much attention.

This story was also submitted several times before (with plenty of upvotes and comments, before having what I assume was a downmod from flags/etc) , so that might have impacted the ranking of this submission.

Totally missed that, my bad.

As much as all the recent events seems to be targeted campaign, I wouldn't think it's unusual. This is probably the most heated topic in startups right now and I too myself upvoted the link after seeing it.

I didn't flag this, but there is an argument for doing so: People commit suicide everyday. Many because of job stress. That this person worked at Uber doesn't make it newsworthy.

There seems to be a trend where anything negative against a major company (most often microsoft, apple and google) is flagged rather quickly. My guess is that they realise how important HN is for public perception by tech people and run PR teams here.

The only major trend I see is the perennial one of drawing conclusions about trends. People base this on the limited sample of what they happen to notice and dislike and remember. Such 'trends' are in the eye of the beholder. This becomes obvious when you see how many comments like this get posted and how contradictory they are.

For example, HN has a plethora of stories about abuses at and by major corps and they often stay on the front page. Someone with a more pro-business bias would look at the same front pages as you and see the opposite 'major trend'. In fact I'm sure someone is, right now.

As for shadowy brigades of astroturfers behind story flagging, that is so classic a cognitive bias that we just ask people not to go there. The users who flag stories you favor aren't shills—they're normal users like everyone else, who simply have different views about what belongs on HN. Exceptions to that exist, but they're so rare as to have zero explanatory power. If you want more info about this, I've posted countlessly about it: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&prefix=true&page=0&dateR....

Very possible.

If an Uber executive or PR person were particularly unscrupulous (would that surprise anyone at all?), another method would be to say something really insensitive in a thread like this and start a flame war to trigger HN's ranking algorithm. Imagine how easy that would be... a somewhat carefully disguised comment with the sentiment of "depression is just weakness, suck it up!" would rightfully send this thread into a frenzy of angry commentary and downvoting.

I noticed that story about flying cars has been posted like 20 times. Maybe the PR from firm is trying to get this story buried in the noise

Bots are run against everything else, no reason to think they aren't here.

That theory doesn't fit the data. The overwhelming majority of flags are by users who vote and comment indistinguishably from everybody else. If they're bots, somebody should tell OpenAI.

At the end of the day, OpenAI is only providing guesses, and I don't think it's unreasonable to speculate that there could be bots that are able to simulate voting and commenting indistinguishably from other users.

I'm not saying it figures in any specific thread or context, just that it's possible that bot capabilities may outstrip HN's ability to detect them.

Sure, but in that case they're also passing a Turing test.

I am very glad to know that HN has the necessary data to conduct such investigations and is doing so. Now I have much more confidence in HN.

Also, it would be an interesting read if you could publish some of the findings as a post or something.

Given that a systematic effort by a PR company with sufficient "organic" looking users and automation could probably eventually "win" any online discussion / voting mechanism, this should be illegal outright.

You may only discuss as a private person, stating your own opinion, OR disclose which company/government organization you represent.

Well, NOW you've done it. Now they're immorally bound to do what you suggest, or basically vanish in a puff of logic ;) you've told Uber something it can't do because it would be cheating and would win!

Without a doubt. I have had insightful, but critical comments with a dozen karma suddenly downvoted into oblivion. Really lowered my expextations of having meaningful dialouge on HN.

I have experienced that frequently. And I think it is easily explained by normal human behaviors.

People see comments that they don't like -> They send the link to their group of friends -> Their friends who share the same sentiment downvotes you in quick successions.

Moderators:

This thread has essentially disappeared, along with a great deal of very useful comments, because there are apparently duplicates of it. Never mind that this has more comments than the others.

Instead of being near the top of HN, where I believe it deserves to be, it is gone. This is unwarranted, and merits serious consideration of merging the so-called dupe threads.

Failure to do this will surely look rather suspicious, don't you think? Some people are already mentioning that it didn't rise in the ranks even after getting around 50 points in several minutes.

If you don't want HN's poorly designed algorithms or dang/sbct's whims to control your discussions/what you see on HN, I strongly encourage you to use http://hckrnews.com/, where posts don't get disappeared.

Thanks, didn't know about that one.

Previous discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14194112

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14198372

This thread had more points and comments than the previous two combined.

yeah very upsetting to see such a good discussion shut down just because its a dupe.

Get the hell out of SV. It's become a pressure cooker because of many, many reasons.

Oh, yes. Strikes a chord. Work till you drop and not make any friends = disaster.

I'd like to address the many comments that try to be helpful and offer advice, while expressing bemusement that the obvious step of just leaving and getting another job was apparently rejected in favor of suicide.

Edward de Bono of Lateral Thinking fame wrote a book named "Po: Beyond Yes and No" [1].

While not the most catchy title, in the book he describes the process of forming patterns in the mind as analogous to pouring warm ink over jello. After a while, channels begin to form and the ink naturally starts to flow down the channels, deepening them. It's pretty obvious that (a) knowing you are stuck in a groove takes some insight and (b) breaking out of the thought patterns can be pretty challenging.

De Bono also invented the L game. The interesting thing about this game is that it demonstrates very visually a flaw in human thinking: once you have started down a path in a decision tree and pruned off other possibilities, all your answers from that point onwards will be wrong if that path doesn't contain the right answer.

Pretty obvious, but where the flaw comes in is that, unlike computers, humans don't tend to backtrack past a point of a belief that "this is axiomatic", and never reexamine it.

I think that - and this is just IMHO - people who go on to commit suicide when there are other, obviously better solutions, are stuck deep down the wrong branch of a decision tree and incapable of reevaluating prior decisions.

Offering rational advice to people in this position is futile; what's needed is to help them pour warm ink to form new channels.

[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Po-Beyond-Yes-Edward-Bono/dp/01401378...

Can you express any way to 'pour ink' in a literal sense? Or is this all just a fun game likening something breathtakingly complex, to 'ruts form'. It sounds distinctly like well meaning bullshit itself.

> Can you express any way to 'pour ink' in a literal sense?

Yes. You get a pot of liquid ink, and pour it. I'm not sure why this is confusing, or why you dislike the metaphor so much.

> turned down job at apple

> was scared he'd lose his job at uber

Seems like some sort of the cover up by the family to blame shift on work stress.

What a sad waste of life. Rest in peace friend.

an old story for uber :(

I'm pretty sure Uber is responsible for global warming too. I mean yes, that's very sad, but let's be reasonable about it, uber is probably not the only intensive work place, and the guy was not the only one under pressure.

This is kind of ridiculous. My condolences to the bereaved and all that, but come on. High-paying jobs can often times be extremely stressful, and whenever I have worked in a pressure cooker environment I have often found myself questioning whether or not it is worth it to continue working there. Sometimes, the answer has been no, at which point I figured out my exit strategy. What I have not found myself questioning is whether or not I should take my own life.

Obviously, quitting is a much better solution than immediately jumping to suicide. Of course depression doesn't work logically like that, but unless he was being systematically bullied or hazed it seems completely unfair to blame the employer in a situation like this rather than his own psychological makeup.

I'm not saying that an incident like this shouldn't be alarming and merit internal investigation and rethinking of cultural norms. Sure, and I'm sure they did that. But I don't think it's a good precedent for an employer to be held responsible every time an employee self-harms. They aren't your parents; it is after all "At Will" employment.

First of all, this is not ridiculous (i.e. deserving or inviting derision or mockery). Many of us are under immense pressure to provide for our families in HCOL environments, and love our families more than ourselves. From personal experience, I can say this pressure can make you feel like you have no out -- you must take care of the ones you love or else face them living an extremely hard life. This can easily drive you to feel like there is no other option but keep on working hard to support your loved ones.

Switching jobs is no guarantee you'll escape this spiral, and switching to a lower-paying career would put you in a corner. And therein lies the dilemma -- you can't quit, but you'll die (or be extremely depressed) if you stay.

Additionally, at least in the US, the government does not provide the types of social benefits to augment the pressure of the corporate workplace.

Therefore, corporations (who are often generating millions if not billions in revenue) have a social responsibility to their workers to make sure they are operating in an environment where they feel they can succeed and provide for their families, without compromise for mental health.

I mean that the outrage at Uber for this is what is ridiculous. Maybe not the story, or even the lawsuit (I understand the family seeking compensation for something like this), but the vitriol directed in Uber's direction for this seems more to do with their place as the current evil tech boogeyman more than anything else.

It was his decision to live in a HCOL area, from what I read his family was encouraging him to quit the job and decompress but he refused to listen. My point is that this sounds like a psychologically compromised and severely depressed man who ended up committing suicide. I'm sure a big part of that was because of his job. But I'm not sure that this ipso facto means Uber should be the subject of our ire.

And to be clear, I'm bearish on Uber, and frankly I usually enjoy the Uber schadenfreude that gets posted here recently. I just don't think this particular instance has much merit, it's just more ammo for the Uber = The Devil bandwagon jumpers.

>>> "Before his death, Thomas expressed both to his father and wife that he felt immense pressure and stress to the point where he was scared he would lose his job. In meetings with a psychiatrist, Thomas told the doctor he was experiencing panic attacks, trouble concentrating, and debilitating anxiety. Everyone instructed him to leave his job, but he was adamant that he could not.

“He was always the smartest guy in the room,” said his father, Joe Thomas. But while working at Uber, “he went down the tubes. He became someone with very little confidence in himself. The guy just fell apart.”

His wife added, “It’s hard to explain, but he wasn’t himself at all. He’d say things like, ‘My boss doesn’t like me.’ His personality changed totally; he was horribly concerned about his work, to the point it was almost unbelievable. He was saying he couldn’t do anything right.” "

I think Uber is currently a lightning rod for everything that's wrong with technical employers, especially in the USA. I think there is a great deal of simmering rage against the widespread mistreatment of engineers, and Uber has, in a sense, become the monster that has the villagers getting out their torches and pitchforks.

> but the vitriol directed in Uber's direction for this seems more to do with their place as the current evil tech boogeyman more than anything else.

Other companies have had similar levels of scrutiny after people died by suicide.

I know this doesn't completely address your comment, but the article mentions a Facebook message made by him:

> “The sad thing is this place (Uber) has broken me to the point where I don’t have the strength to look for another job,” Thomas wrote.

Be frugal. Don't buy a house unless you have at least 6 months of payments in the bank. Don't buy a car if you need to take a loan. Save as much you can. Build and maintain a strong network outside work (family/friends/professional contacts).

Every time I got into a difficult situation at work, I take a deep breath and tell myself: "Don't worry, give it your best shot to resolve this. And if that's not good enough, you know you can walk out that door and take a break for some time". It's been working well for me.

There's a lot of truth to this, but if you've never worked this kind of job, you won't be prepared. Working this kind of job is what made me really understand the value of being able to say "FUCK YOU" and quit/not worry about getting fired. It drove me to build savings and now I insist on having no debt and at least $10k in the bank. It also drove me to move to a cheaper city, find a cheap apartment there, etc. $10k isn't a huge amount to some of you, but it's enough to pay the bills through a decent job search if your fixed expenses are low. Once I paid off debts and had that buffer, my soul-sucking horrible job seemed way better since I no longer feared being fired. It even allowed me to quit that job abruptly and enjoy life for a few weeks before going back to work.

We're pretty smart in some ways, but too many of us live essentially paycheck-to-paycheck. In an industry where jobs aren't hard to come by, and the pay's pretty good, it's easy to fall into that trap. If you're doing this, stop! Do whatever it takes to break the cycle. Sell your car. Sell your unnecessary stuff if that helps to start saving. Stop acting as if your future paychecks are guaranteed. You have no idea what a weight off your shoulders it is to not fear losing your job.

It's well-meaning advice, but understand that, in situations like these, certain personality types don't think as rationally as you would expect. One size does not fit all when it comes to handling adversity.

He lived in Pittsburgh about 35-40 miles outside San Francisco. Maybe a hour drive with no traffic 2 with, or a 1.5 hour Bart train ride and I think there's a transfer now so it maybe longer. Anyway he didn't go out and buy a mansion the bay area is so expensive even with his pay he lived far from the city where house prices are only crazy...not insane

Depression is not entirely genetic / psychological. Environment (and stress) can and frequently does play a role.

If an employer creates an environment which is likely to be detrimental to their employees' mental health, shouldn't they be liable?

I haven't made up my own mind on this to be honest, and could probably argue both sides, but I think it deserves to be thought about instead of dismissed out of hand.

Easy to say this from where you are. I was of that opinion too.

For some, it can be like a abusive personal relationship. They are so invested in this that all they can think of is to make it alright; divorce or separation is not an option. Some people just get up and go while some others want to stay and try to work things out.

This. Other comments amplify this point.

> an incident like this shouldn't be alarming and merit internal investigation and rethinking of cultural norms. Sure, and I'm sure they did that.

...because if there's any employer who history has shown would undertake a thorough internal investigation and rethinking of culture in response to employee issues it's Uber.

But I don't think it's a good precedent for an employer to be held responsible every time an employee self-harms.

Why not? What is there to gain by employers not having a duty to look after the mental health of their employees?

Well there could be a strong disincentive to hire people who may be at risk, resulting in worse employment outcomes for some kinds of people. Also, more intrusive questioning for everyone at interview.

Then there's the question of fairness. Why should an employer be held accountable if they were not actually contributing to the problem by any reasonable definition.

The more that costs of regular employment increase, the more we will see stratified employment. Employers will substitute contract, offshore or just not hire to avoid those costs.

Read my comment elsewhere in this article; it might give you a different perspective.

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