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Comment by CarbyAu | Hacker News Reader

Coming close to burnout, I realised the work game is bigger than me.

If I have so much work that I am drowning and people are looking for me to do more and more and more.....

that means my manager failed their Real Time Strategy Game and they need another worker at my level. Maybe that's because the next manager up failed their game, etc etc.

But it doesn't matter why.

I do 9-5. And I go home. That is the employment contract. That is what I do.

I try to make good on my 9-5 so my own self worth is fine. But I only do my job.

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Many however don't do this and it often reflects badly on those who do try to work normal hours. They essentially set the bar higher and unless you're more efficient, you fall behind in performance assessments or output.

One environment I interact with are all hypercompetitive and I probably look like an idiot to some of leadership because I refuse to work 60 hour work weeks like some of them grind away. If they decide to reduce or remove my services, life goes on, but we're somehow rolling back on labor's mentality about work life balance and being eaten alive by structures in place designed to force us to compete for the lowest rates (by adjusting either work or time in some way, shape, or form).

I have managed to find a niche where others are not grind-minded either. I won't pretend to tell you or anyone how to do this given the complexities of everyone's life. I'm sorry, I don't know.

I am obviously not Startup material! :-P I am not management material. I am not an entrepreneur par excellence. I won't die rich.

But I hope to leave the world a better place than it would've been without me, even if only a little bit.

And enjoy it in the meantime.

That only works if you either don't care about retention or long-term gains(which is an extension of retention).

You can argue the humanist point of view to not burn people out or the business point of view that happy, well rested people produce better work over the long term. There's tons of data to back it up if you want to go that route as well.

I've found you can frame the productive discussion beyond hours in the office by emphasising that we work hard and use the time outside work to be refreshed enough to do it consistently month over month, year over year.

I once read an article linked from Hacker News. I don't remember the title or anything that could be used to rediscover it. It might have been something about Scrum, waterfall etc.

It said there are 7 ways to deal with impeding deadlines, and only 4 of them are available to the people in the trenches. The other 3 are available to managers.

They are:

  - extending the deadline

  - assigning more people to the project

  - changing the scope of the project (requirements)

Managers are notorious for avoiding responsibility and pushing it on other people. In degenerate workplaces, they want you to think failing a deadline is ALL YOUR responsibility and solely within your capabilities. Just work faster! Harder! LONGER!

Provide me a link to original if you have.

Looks helpful.

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