Slashdot Mirror
Burnout and Depression Among IT Workers?
Cultural Sublimation asks: "All of us working in IT seem to be
especially prone to problems like
burnout and depression. Could part
of the reason be directly related
to our professions? Recently, there
have been a number of interesting
features on Kuro5hin which have focused precisely on this issue. From people claiming that "
The Internet Is Driving Me Crazy",
to an in-depth two-part series trying to
demystify
depression, the message is that too
much information might be making us sick.
What are the experiences of fellow
Slashdot readers on this topic?"
I've been watching this pretty closely, preparing for a masters program in a related topic. This isn't directly related to my research, so take it more as an idea than a finding, but:
Information overload will only affect certain personality types. There are those of us who inhale Google daily. Recent example: "I went home last night, discovered Hibernate, learned it, and converted our 70,000-line service center app to use it. Want the diffs?" Yeah, there are people who do this; we had it happen at work about a week ago.
Others simply cannot absorb and process information that quickly. These people are potential info-burnouts. Tends to correlate, in my experience, with a general unwillingness to learn new programming languages or adapt to new systems. They're not being sticks-in-the-proverbial-mud -- they understand that they simply can't cram it into their brain quickly enough, and it often makes them anxious.
There are a lot more types of programmers than that, but you get the idea. In my case, I was trained from an early age to work around my ADD by constantly juggling large amounts of data. (My parents are ADD programmers too.) I have the opposite problem: my productivity declines as my tasks get simpler. It becomes too easy to become distracted.
My point: don't reduce the problem of burnout. There are a lot more variables than just information.
I suspect work conditions have far more to do with burnout and depression. Programmers tend to be expected to work long hours, and at least in my experience, a surprising percentage of programming shops have hostile, competitive, or abusive environments.
Geeks in general don't exercise as much as they should. Lack of exercise leads to depression in a big way. Cut 40 minutes off your other hobby projects and get some good hard exercise, exercise as in you're in the zone for a solid 15 minutes at least. Go get a Polar monitor, it's a nifty gadget (mmm gadgets) that will tell you for sure when you're in the zone. For most people, it's less effort than they think -- you don't have to exhaust yourself to get your heart rate up, though it's pretty punishing to keep it up for the first couple weeks.
If you exercise regularly, your mind will be sharper, and you'll write better code. This I guarantee.
My polar HRM is of course gathering dust. I need to take my own advice.
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
They are brainwashed into thinking they must consume and therefore must earn a higher wage. A bigger house, a bigger car, a bigger Television, a bigger diamond ring, and it never ends.
Because they have only time for working there is no time for walking or bicycling (and American isn't really designed to to bike to work every day like I do), so if they do twig that exercise is required for wellbeing they sign up with a health club, which is yet another expense!
Worse still: All that time working leaves no time for preparing meals so fast food or preprepared are the order of the day.
Now back to you points about the American work place (which I have worked in for no small time) the whole system is designed to get most out workers for the least salary (AKA market value) so it's really common for less than scrupulous managers (or really under pressure) to resort to unreasonable methods to achieve this. (My experience with this was during 'review' time.
So 6 years ago I began to demand different things... For four years when I went through my review and they said "oh pay raises are capped to 2 or 3 percent I said "No problem I'll take the 2% and the balance as holiday time" for a total of 11 weeks per year. They said we're closing the factory and moving to Europe and I said "No Problem, I'll come with you"... So now I bike 10 minute each way to work (I've lost 35 pounds), I only work 25 hours a week so my family and I spend many times more time together and are much happier, We bike down to the local farmer market 4 or 5 times a week for food and eat healthy meals (which has had the side effect of teaching my girlfriend & daughter to cook), we go on a one or two day hike once a month (another thing that's difficult in the US), and we travel twice a year to somewhere we've never been for holidays.
The problem with American Unions is that they are abused and don't apply to all workers, so that there are a relative few being vastly over paid for what they do. And that in turn reveals a problem with American society and with the concept of "corporations"...
Just my 2 cents as a very, very refugee from the insanity called "The United States of America" And I have to wonder just how many whacked out slashdotters will read this and think I'm some granola hippy who still thinks he's touring with the 'dead. Word to the Wise: High Tech does not mean "unhealthy" or "wage slave" nor is anti-human or anti-nature.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Consider what it's like to be a programmer (especially an American programmer) in private industry:
:)
1. Management doesn't like you. They consider you a big sunk cost, a drain on their precious profits. It won't matter whether the product YOUR team developed is the only thing the company has to sell, it won't matter if your skill in setting up their network made them leaner and meaner than the competition, nothing you do or say will change anything. They consider you an anchor around their neck and they resent you for it.
2. You are painfully aware that management (the guys from #1 who don't like you) keeps investigating various outsourcing options. From time to time, you see the CEO having warm conversations with guys in suits, who you know from a conversation in the elevator are with a large outsourcing firm.
3. Although all the guys in Sales are out the door by 5:01PM, and in the bar pickled by 6:00PM, YOU're stuck at work until 9PM every night trying to get a product release out the door. You're working your guts out because your idiot project manager doesn't care (he's drinking with the guys from Sales). And no matter how hard you work, your only thanks is going to be "Damnit, Bill, you're a week late on this! This is going to go in your performance review!"
4. Because you live at work, and therefore are a pasty, nearsighted, vaguely unhealthy dweeb, you haven't been laid in a year. But you have to listen to the sales guys bragging about all the pussy they're getting when they're drunk in the bar you never make it to. Once in a while, one of them catches a venereal disease and you get to enjoy a minute of Shadenfreude. Then you go back to your compiler. What the fuck! It was compiling fine a minute ago... How the fuck did that... Oh. Right. Never mind. (Type, type, type).
5. The ONE NIGHT you go home early (at 6PM) because you're dead exhausted, you run into one of the suits and he quips "Half day, Bob?" The rest of the elevator ride is you fighting the overwhelming urge to stab him in the neck with the pen your father gave you for Christmas. The reason you DON'T is, you're afraid the police won't return it after the forensics guys are done with it. It really IS a nice pen.
6. Every day, on your way in to work, you walk past Smith, who is some vague middle manager or something (you don't know what his actual function is, but he seems to be always present). If you're even a minute late, he makes clucking noises as you pass. If you forgot to shave, he rubs his chin and shakes his head, smiling. The one time you spoke, he got snotty with you, implying that you were a hippie freak.
7. You can't work for more than ten minutes without somebody ruthlessly interrupting you to ask you a question they could have answered with Google in two minutes flat. You briefly consider buying a spray can and filling it with cold water (it worked on your ex-girlfriend's cat). Then you think, nah, better use battery acid. THEN you worry about why you thought of that, and THEN, you worry that you're a big pussy because you worried.
One day, you realize: THIS IS MY LIFE. I picked this on PURPOSE! And just like that, you become a burnout.
DISCLAIMER: When I figured out I was a burnout, I left the private sector and found much happier environs. I feel a whole lot better now.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!