Cringey type of article - tbh. It reads a lot like - “people are programs - here’s how to optimize them further.”
Which is exactly what causes a lot of burnout to begin with. People being overworked or worked in such a way that only optimized for the manager - and no one else.
I find myself having not worked insane hours very often. I’ll be real - I’ve never worked much more than 60 hours in a week. (Excluding college) Even then - those were exceptional. However - I’ve been “logged in” for 80+ hours many times. Constantly consumed by the ideas of work, what’s going on, hating my manager, disliking the systems we work in, etc. in some sense it might be better to just log more hours in the chair and actually do a thing that might move the needle but honestly - I’d rather not. I feel they don’t deserve that and when I have done it - it never was recognized or was substantial enough to move us forward or change the fundamental cultural issues.
The fundamental issue is that managers in tech treat people like programs and not like human beings. I know this happens outside of tech too but we try to act like we don’t do that here. But we really do. It’s all a lie.
It’s insane how much lying we all do just to get by. Sometimes I want to found a company just to see if I could actually get rid of the bad incentive structures and actually have a radically honest and helpful company that was driven by compassion and enthusiasm for helping one another. Far fetched tho - I’m not really into brown nosing anyone, VCs included.
Which is exactly what causes a lot of burnout to begin with. People being overworked or worked in such a way that only optimized for the manager - and no one else.
I find myself having not worked insane hours very often. I’ll be real - I’ve never worked much more than 60 hours in a week. (Excluding college) Even then - those were exceptional. However - I’ve been “logged in” for 80+ hours many times. Constantly consumed by the ideas of work, what’s going on, hating my manager, disliking the systems we work in, etc. in some sense it might be better to just log more hours in the chair and actually do a thing that might move the needle but honestly - I’d rather not. I feel they don’t deserve that and when I have done it - it never was recognized or was substantial enough to move us forward or change the fundamental cultural issues.
The fundamental issue is that managers in tech treat people like programs and not like human beings. I know this happens outside of tech too but we try to act like we don’t do that here. But we really do. It’s all a lie.
It’s insane how much lying we all do just to get by. Sometimes I want to found a company just to see if I could actually get rid of the bad incentive structures and actually have a radically honest and helpful company that was driven by compassion and enthusiasm for helping one another. Far fetched tho - I’m not really into brown nosing anyone, VCs included.