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Comment by Reubend | Hacker News Reader

> In November 2019, I experienced my first panic attack while I was working from home. It was around 4 p.m., and my left pinky went completely numb. At first, I ignored it, but it got worse: An hour in, my ears were ringing, and my heart was beating really fast.

> One day, she experienced intense stress at work, which brought on a severe migraine that sent her to the emergency room. She knew she had to make changes and ultimately quit her agency job.

These people made the right move. It's not worth sacrificing your health if you're able to get a decent job in a more relaxed environment elsewhere.

With that said though, some people handle stressful situations really well, and others handle stressful situations poorly. One of the reasons these jobs pay so well is that they're stressful, and they need people who can handle that.

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So, I completely disagree. I work in tech, and I personally empathize how stress can get to you, but I came from a blue-collar family- as a kid I watched my dad risk his life to drive though an ice storm for some shitty job, eventually it almost cost him his life after a bad wreck. I saw him pick up construction gigs after his divorce, and he would tell me on a regular basis how he had to cover for a friend that shot a nail through his hand or fell off a roof.

My point is, the 99%, or whatever we want to call them see people like us complaining about how our lives are so stressful as weak and embarrassing. Honestly, I have to agree. There are statistics to prove my point. Poor, working class countries have an almost non-existent rate of suicide and psychological issues.

Clearly all the people saying we should be have a higher EQ and be accepting of mental health issues were full of it, and frankly, I’m waiting for them to admit it and society to take a new approach.

> Poor, working class countries have an almost non-existent rate of suicide and psychological issues.

Instead they have sky high alcoholism, substance abuse, and domestic violence.

Also lol about non-existent “psychological issues” - I am sure they also “don’t have gays”. If that’s too indirect - associating societal stigma makes all kinds of issues “almost non-existent”.

This is a pretty rude generalization, though I get it.

As you grow in this career I promise you'll see people with real, serious problems caused/exacerbated by their white-collar jobs.

I don't think the difficulty of other careers means we shouldn't demand fair treatment for ourselves. Is letting ourselves get treated poorly supposed to help them?

> people like us complaining about how our lives are so stressful as weak and embarrassing

The biologically correct way to deal with stress is to punch your boss in the face. Back in the day, a family member has done it, broke the guy's0 nose, says it was one his best days.

These days we cant do that, corporate culture has us by the balls

> Poor, working class countries have an almost non-existent rate of suicide

That's fantasy - it's like saying that in year 1000 noone dies of cancer. They did, there jusy werent any doctors around to diagnose the problem and no statisticians to record it.

I lived in a poor country, noone ever goes to a psycologist, they hide issues, and, if someone kills themselves, they will record it as something else to avoid the shame

I agree with your logic, but I'm not sure on the conclusion

In my limited anecdotal data*, you learn to handle as much stress as your formative enviroment exposes, and the problems start when the stress ramps up too fast for a person to adapt

Which is why, for someone from a "worse" backgrounds other people "feel soft", is like comparing a strongman to an average person and expecting them to handle similar weights, but then they also tend to have other coping mechanisms, which may or may not be a net positive

*Venezuelan migrant here, I recently saw on reddit list of suicide rates by countries in LATAM, Venezuela was I believe second to lowest and it was a significant difference, even after a crisis large enough to move a population the size of Laos out of the country

Not to minimize the risk to health in blue collar jobs, but I’ve done some, and if you reduced that risk to be similar to office jobs and equalized the pay, I’d pick them over office work, no question.

Now, that’s some big “if”s, but all I mean is that some aspects of office work are in fact pretty bad.

A couple weeks into my wife starting a “cushy” standard knowledge work office job with a fairly typical level of demand for actual work (i.e. not all that much, really), coming from one that kept her on her feet and constantly busy and thinking, she said something like: “oh wow, now I get why you’re always so drained at the end of every day”.

Staring at a computer all day sucks. That doesn’t mean I’d rather be doing roofing, all factors considered, but it does suck.

You have a point. But what is the cause then? That the fight for survival and chasing a bit of comfort and relaxation is actually mentally beneficial? Certainly seems so

What an odd take. You start from a significant oversimplification and then point to 'statistics' in an entirely different context/culture/society as 'proof' that, basically, white collar stress isn't real stress.

I think real world stress is something that academic institutions don't prepare you for. Unless you're doing unique research, there is always a solution, always a reasonable way forward. In the real world you'll be tasked with solving some bullshit problem where there is no good solution. What I notice with successful people, especially management, is that they are able to take control of the situation and reframe the problem into something tractable. In school you would be punished for doing something like that. In real life it's often necessary. I think it's a learnable skill, but some people just burn themselves out instead of adapting. Usually a mentor is someone that can help you with that.

> I think real world stress is something that academic institutions don't prepare you for.

Should it, though? Stress results from abuse and abusive working conditions, and a workforce should not be conditioned to take abusive relationships as normal or acceptable.

I argue the opposite and go as far as to claim that software developers are in a dire need of a union. Having to work nights and weekends should not be tolerated in any industry, which includes also FANG jobs.

>Should it, though? Stress results from abuse and abusive working conditions

It doesn't have to be school, but you should learn how to manage stress. You can have a perfectly fine job and still get stressed out, or have a horrible job and manage fine. Personally I can handle a lot of stress well, and I enjoy the rewards that it brings. Infact, it's fun for me.

> It doesn't have to be school, but you should learn how to manage stress. You can have a perfectly fine job and still get stressed out, or have a horrible job and manage fine.

There's something awfully broken in a society that would argue that the entire youth of a nation should be conditioned to accept stress as normal or acceptable, and that stress should be considered normal in any working environment.

I would say what's broken is a generation of youth that go out into the world thinking that they won't encounter stressful situations .

There's a colossal difference between encountering stressful situations and thinking it's normal that jobs should be so stressful so often that the national school curriculum should prepare people to endure mental and emotional abuse. There is no way around it: it's screwed up.

Guess we'll just have to disagree on the framing. But if you really want a less stressful job there are plenty outside of silicon valley and wall street, you'll just have to live with being paid significantly less. Don't see why you have to ruin the jobs that work well for so many others.

I agree. Real world job performance often rewards you for bending the rules or reframing the problems you face, whereas academia rewards you for following a path set for you.

> successful people, especially management, is that they are able to take control of the situation and reframe the problem into something tractable. In school you would be punished for doing something like that

Academia treats collaboration like it's cospiracy, treats leadership like it's mutiny, treats optimisation as lazyness and original thought as rebellion.

And then we wonder why kids with good grades steuggle outside of school

I work in consulting the people I know a ring or two up the ladder all have weird ticks or unexplainable random medical issues. I have no desire to do that to myself, even their rewards are not that great. Certainly not worth becoming a messed up freak of a person, incredibly productive and knowledgeable but also an emotional and physical basket case.

Not in consulting but have the experienced the same. Some people get completely broken.

Friend's friend made ten million plus a year. Banking. Got a stroke at 48. Quit.

Still, for those years set up family for success.

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