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Your Boss Is Not More Stressed Out Than You, Science Says (vice.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Work under capitalism is a brutal psychological gauntlet -- low pay, long hours, and little to no safety net. But bosses usually expect you to take some solace in the fact that you're not doing their (supposedly more difficult) job, even if they make more money. Some part of you might think that's bullshit, but hey, what do you know? Well, according to new work from researchers from the University of Manchester, University College London, and the University of Essex, it probably is bullshit. According to their study, published on Friday in the Journals of Gerontology, people lower on the corporate ladder are, on average, more stressed than people higher up. Worse, according to the study, the elevated stress continues into retirement for average working people. 'Workers in lower status jobs tend to have more stressful working conditions -- they have lower pay, poorer pension arrangements, less control over their work, and report more unsupportive colleagues and managers,' Tarani Chandola, a professor of medical sociology at the University of Manchester and one of the paper's authors, wrote me in an email.
Maybe being better at dealing with stress is what allows you to climb higher up the corporate ladder.
Getting a start on the clickbait lying right with the first sentence, I see:
"Work under capitalism is a brutal psychological gauntlet -- low pay, long hours, and little to no safety net."
Compared to what? And when? Lord knows no one under feudalism, mercantilism, socialism or communism ever worked "long hours for low pay."
Life in a state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Capitalism, and the technological progress it helped engender, is the system that helped lift those out of the poverty that previously plagued all but a tiny hereditary elite since time immemorial until a period just two centuries ago.
If you want to see what life is like without capitalism, trying looking at Venezuela, where they're rioting because socialism can't provide enough food for them to eat.
But enough. This is just another example of Slashdot leftwing clickbait, because evidently covering actual News For Nerds is evidently too boring compared to launching yet another left vs. right flamewar.
Is msmash the designated leftwing agitprop admin now?
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Responsible Owners of companies and high level executives are burdened with the fact that they are responsible for the livelihoods of their employees. I have worked for several companies where I have personally seen a manager or owner stress to the point of depression when facing the task of laying off an employee.
Contrary to what people think, most managers are good people and have the back of their employees.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
He probably thought, "If a black man can do this job, how hard can this job be?"
Seriously. I've worked INCREDIBLY hard, and voluntarily submitted myself to WAY more stress than my peers through my earlier years. My friends thought I was nuts. But where are they now compared to where I am? You can likely figure that out on your own. The stress should be your driving force to move up. You're constantly presented with challenges that you need to accept in order to get to where want to be. What's that old saying? Ain't nothing in life free. I continue to work very hard, although now I work on different and more broad projects than those under my direction. My stress level is indeed lower than it was in past years, my salary is much higher, my debt to income is very low, and my retirement accounts are looking pretty nice. I worked really hard to get here, and I make no apologies for those who merely "come to work and do their job." You have to go above and beyond, you have to look forward and look upward in order to succeed. If your idea of a promotion is doing the minimum to not get fired long enough to "deserve" a raise, you will be stuck forever as one of the people bitching about "those rich people." Money opportunities are astoundingly abundant in America (and many other countries). But you have to put forth the effort to go out there and get it. I'm now, and have been for quite a while, at the point in my life where I have the flexibility to relax more. I built my home closer to work, both are in an area where I'm not wasting my time in traffic or spending a fortune to merely exist. I'm 15 minutes door to door and earned the ability to take time off to be with my family pretty much any time I wish. That is worth more than money at this point in my life, and I built that by not partying my ass off and blowing off work during my 20's. Life is what you make it. If you make it about doing nothing, you'll have nothing. If you make it about setting and achieving goals, you'll have success. It's a simple concept that has always and will always work. Further, if you read this and made a mental excuse for my success, you just answered every question about not being where you "deserve" to be.
Work under capitalism is a brutal psychological gauntlet -- low pay, long hours, and little to no safety net.
Average wages in the US are among the highest in the world. "Brutal psychological gauntlet"? As opposed to what? The rainbows and daisies that come from living under a dictator?
Capitalism does not imply the lack of a safety net either. There is nothing about capitalism that prevents a safety net from being put in place.
But bosses usually expect you to take some solace in the fact that you're not doing their (supposedly more difficult) job, even if they make more money.
Which bosses? "Usually"? This is a straw man argument. Some managers are more stressed than those who report to them. Sometimes it's the other way around. Furthermore stress is not an easily quantifiable state so comparisons of any sort are fraught.
'Workers in lower status jobs tend to have more stressful working conditions -- they have lower pay, poorer pension arrangements, less control over their work, and report more unsupportive colleagues and managers
In other news water is wet.
People lower on the ladder make less money. Less money means more stress.