Hacker News Reader

Comment by alissasobo | Hacker News Reader

It's a sick reality that, in this country, we sell wellness to the masses as if "wellness" and "health" are entirely one's own responsibility. One of the main roots of the problem is a work culture that exhausts many of us and pushes most families to the edge.

View on HN

That is an exaggeration. We have the ability to choose careers and jobs, so we have the ability to choose a healthier lifestyle via career moves. If someone has locked themselves down with debt, children, unhealthy stress levels, etc. an employer is not the one that is held responsible at the end of the day. Part of being in a society that values the individual, is that the individual gets the praise in good times, and must own the blame in bad.

If you believe your employer should be taking better care of you, you can vote via leaving your employer. Who exactly should be responsible if not yourself, and how? Many people on HN sit at desks most of the day doing tasks that are laughably easier than what 2, 3, 4 generations ago were doing.

If I understand you right, you're saying an employer has ZERO responsibility if their employees are overworked because the employee could always just "choose another job." This does not align with reality the vast majority of the time.

I was commenting on the parent saying "It's a sick reality.." That seemed a little over the top, when you can leave your employer if the situation isn't good. I know job transfers can be hard to find, and career moves are difficult, but it is reality that quitting your job is never impossible.

Technically correct answer, but missing the point about how job transfers/retraining are way more difficult than they need to be... hence people being "unable" to quit.

If you believe you should be able to talk down the street without getting harassed or raped, you can vote via not dressing like a slut. Who exactly should be responsible if not yourself, and how? Many people on HN sit around trying to avoid sexual violence that is laughably less brutal than what 2, 3, 4 generations ago were doing.

Morally repugnant victim blaming by any other name smells just as foul.

We need general worker protections because general employers do not protect their workers. I bet a century ago you would have used this line of logic to argue against the 40 hour week, or fire escapes.

And in China, firms like Huawei are touting how their employees are volunteering for 72 hour work weeks (Hint, they aren't). There is a backlash against it. The employeer is not an innocent party when they impose onerous working conditions, and voting with your feet, every time a new manager comes aboard or a reorg happens is not a stable situation for workers or humans anywhere to be under.

> you can vote via leaving your employer

You are implying that:

- There is a better choice

- That better choice wants you

Neither of which are a given.

> We have the ability to choose careers and jobs, so we have the ability to choose a healthier lifestyle via career moves

The greatest predictor for financial success in the U.S. is inherited wealth. The greatest predictor for longevity is financial success.

> If you believe your employer should be taking better care of you, you can vote via leaving your employer.

Please don't use "vote" as if our workplaces are somehow democratic. That said, you vastly underestimate the asymmetry in the employer-employee relationship. For people in IT, this is easy to forget because our business is booming and currently favours labour. For most people, changing jobs is hard, time consuming and a gamble.

After all, talk is cheap - especially during company presentations in the hiring phase. There is no guarantee changing jobs will solve the root problem if the new employer is a burnout shop (again), has toxic management (again), doesn't respect work-life balance (again), etc.

> Many people on HN sit at desks most of the day doing tasks that are laughably easier than what 2, 3, 4 generations ago were doing.

This glosses over the fact that while a lot of jobs 2-4 were physically grueling or repetitive, they were also in production. Those jobs created real, tangible value, in stark contrast to many of quaternary and quinary sector jobs today. Pay kept parity with inflation. Employers would train you and hire you without requiring college degrees. You had job certainty until you retired.

Since then, a lot of "externalities" have been socialised, humans have become "resources", productivity went up by 240% and wages stayed the same or decreased for 60% of the population in real terms.

> an employer is not the one that is held responsible at the end of the day

That view is historically and socially myopic as well as based purely on supply-side economic philosophy. Who benefits from that line of reasoning? Why should employers have no responsibility when it comes to treating employees fairly, humanely and with respect? Why should taxpayers alone bear the fiscal responsibility when burnouts, boreouts and work-related depression and suicide are epidemics - not to mention opioid addiction as a façade for depression?

And don’t forget lengthy commutes that some/most people have. Even with a workday that elapses 9 hours you’re probably out at least 11 hrs.

Absolutely. And people often try to blame the commuter themselves for their own commutes, when in a lot of cases it isn't fiscally possible to live closer (see all major cities for example).

The real question is: Why are businesses opening in expensive areas and forcing long commutes rather than cheaper areas? And seemingly the only answer is: Keeping Up with the Joneses i.e. show how big and impressive of a business they are by having a HQ in an expensive neighborhood.

At risk of blaming the commuter, I think a lot of this comes down to whether the non-commute option allows you not to own a car at all. Cars are expensive, like $700/mo expensive by some studies, and not having to have one (or worse, two) probably allows most families a very significant bump up in money able to go to their housing expenses.

I think for a lot of people the calculus is "well, I need a car no matter what (cost $Y), and because I have a car, my mortgage payment can be at most $X-$Y, and since I have a car anyway, I don't mind driving it for ten hours a week, so I might as well live way out in the boonies to maximize the amount of house I can get for $X-$Y."

But all of that unravels if you revisit the initial assumption that a car is necessary, and look at non-car housing options for $X. In many North American cities, a car really is necessary. But it's not everywhere, and it's getting better all the time.

These businesses pay expensive rent to be in a downtown vs. the boonies who gladly would let them build a sprawling corporate campus and pay no taxes. There are actual business decisions for burning that rent money downtown.

- Close to colleagues/network of other businesses in your industry downtown. Meetings can happen over lunch, or drinks after work. This is pretty advantageous for the employee; your next job could be just a block away and offered to you by the guy you see in the elevator every day.

- Close to transportation. Chances are, all the rail lines, bus lines, roads and highways all lead to downtown. A business located downtown can have workers from all over the metropolitan area. A location in the suburbs just gets workers who are able to drive to that suburbs, the infrastructure isn't there to move large amounts of people from around town to the suburbs. Moving businesses to suburbs introduces sprawl, which is bad for the environment, and also slowly bled every great American city after WWII as downtown became vacant (see Detroit).

Health and wellness are your own responsibility. Everybody wants to blame some amorphous "X" culture for their problems, though.

If you're running yourself ragged at work, ask yourself why you're doing so. If it's because of a perceived social obligation to do so, then it's up to you to recognize it's just that - it's social pressure, not a physical force keeping you at your desk.

> Everybody wants to blame some amorphous "X" culture for their problems, though

We don't exist in a vacuum. Any number of things could be holding you back, some of which you don't actually control.

Plus, if you observe that cultural (economic, political) differences appear to be causing worse outcomes in one society than another, for little to no benefit, then it's silly to just go "oh well, technically people could make individual choices to improve those outcomes, so no reason to worry about it".

Explain that to Amazon warehouse workers who are measured down to the second, with a 3 strikes you are fired for not meeting their merciless actions/minute. There are labor laws for a reason, and we stopped allowing child labor a long time ago. It is not a social obligation in most situations, it is implemented as part of how the company operates and its culture. How are you not aware of that?

Of course I'm aware of that.

You're telling me that nobody in that Amazon warehouse who is unhappy has the ability to get a job doing something else?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com