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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.

8 of 245 comments (clear)

  1. Correlation != causation by dmt0 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe being better at dealing with stress is what allows you to climb higher up the corporate ladder.

    1. Re:Correlation != causation by king+neckbeard · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or, maybe succeeding in capitalism is easy once you've got enough capital.

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    2. Re:Correlation != causation by Gavagai80 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You can live on minimum wage by managing your money well. You can never be secure on minimum wage though, and insecurity is the cause of stress. Knowing that you're one injury or one layoff from being homeless makes it hard to sleep at night.

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  2. Very, very old news. by queazocotal · · Score: 5, Interesting

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... (began in 1967)
    "The studies, named after the Whitehall area of London and led by Michael Marmot, found a strong association between grade levels of civil servant employment and mortality rates from a range of causes: the lower the grade, the higher the mortality rate. Men in the lowest grade (messengers, doorkeepers, etc.) had a mortality rate three times higher than that of men in the highest grade (administrators). This effect has since been observed in other studies and named the "status syndrome".[3]"

  3. Troll much? by Nova+Express · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

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    1. Re:Troll much? by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, "We're in this together" means we share something in common. In this particular case, people in the US are part of a single capitalism based economic system regardless of their own political affiliation or beliefs.

      If you are so blind that you cannot see that then you need to take a break from politics because your viewpoint has become so heavily distorted that it has no bearing on reality.

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  4. Depends on the type of Boss by sycodon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    1. Re: Depends on the type of Boss by avandesande · · Score: 4, Informative

      I was a manager once and had to lay off people, it was the worst experience I have ever had at work. I ended up quitting management because of it.

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      love is just extroverted narcissism