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Comment by watwut | Hacker News Reader

The least productive people I knew simply did not worked much. They did spend time in work, sometimes a lot of time, but ultimately most of that time was slacking around and then pretending that 10 minutes task actually was difficult and took whole day.

So like, avoid not working on the job.

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They might have been burned out. At the stage before your body prevents you from getting physically to work your work output takes a very serious nose dive.

No, people I have in mind were not burned out.

How do you know? Sometimes it can be difficult for others to tell if somebody is burned out or not besides that their productivity, motivation etc tank.

Burned out people have history of producing a lot in the past or working on high pressure projects. Also, they don't keep doing nothing long term, they tend to seek solution.

Lastly, not sure how them being burned out would changed all that much. The impact on team would be all the same.

Regarding your second point, sure, it wouldn’t have changed the outcome much, but most people have more sympathy for someone who is burnt out than for someone who is just lazy. Also, a burnt out person can be helped to recover while a lazy person probably should just be fired.

I agree with helping people, especially those burned out because your own management pressured on them. And it is also true that a lot of demotivation happen when management is bad and those people start working good once they are in better environment or more suitable position (it positions are not made equal and one can excel in one and fail in different one).

But sometimes, laziness is the thing.

My original point was meant to be that as long as you think about out productivity, have somewhere back in your mind that something should be produced today, you are fine and not in that worst performer category. Because you are trying and that will keep you away from such fall. It was meant to be reassuring in some way.

Absolutely, I didn’t mean to imply that they weren’t lazy in this particular case, I just wanted to make sure because I often hear people dismiss actual problems (eg recently I heard someone say that most people with anxiety are making it up...). Obviously that isn’t the case here, but I sometimes feel compelled to defend people who might suffer from burnout/anxiety/depression/etc, so I wanted to be sure.

But, sometimes, laziness really is the thing.

Also, alcoholics should try to moderate their consumption.

can confirm. I'm at work.

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