57% of Tech Workers Are Suffering From Job Burnout, Survey Finds (bleepingcomputer.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A survey conducted among the tech workers, including many employees of Silicon Valley's elite tech companies, has revealed that over 57% of respondents are suffering from job burnout. The survey was carried out by the makers of an app that allows employees to review workplaces and have anonymous conversations at work, behind their employers' backs. Over 11K employees answered one question -- if they suffer from job burnout, and 57.16% said "Yes."

The company with the highest employee burnout rate was Credit Karma, with a whopping 70.73%, followed by Twitch (68.75%), Nvidia (65.38%), Expedia (65.00%), and Oath (63.03% -- Oath being the former Yahoo company Verizon bought in July 2017). On the other end of the spectrum, Netflix ranked with the lowest burnout rate of only 38.89%, followed by PayPal (41.82%), Twitter (43.90%), Facebook (48.97%), and Uber (49.52%).

Comments

I hole-hardedly agree...

[Anonymous Coward]

But, allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are wrong. In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go. Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn't take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It's clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother's mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like itâ(TM)s a peach of cake.

I just landed my first career IT gig

[Anonymous Coward]

My blood pressure has never been higher!

Not to mention my managers who openly joke about how being stressed "is just something you deal with" and openly laugh about it in front of me anytime someone mentions it.

Fark this noise

Re:I just landed my first career IT gig

[110010001000]

Try working construction for minimum wage and not knowing where your next job will come from. Then have your blood pressure tested.

Re:I just landed my first career IT gig

[Jfetjunky]

This is usually the type of thing I tell myself to keep perspective. But the truth is that tech jobs can be stressful too. I imagine people in blue collar jobs believe we are living high on the hog with not a care in the world, but it's not really that way. But I also have two brothers that work jobs requiring much more manual labor. It absolutely takes a toll on your body.

We've recently had a few people come over to hardware management (I am a hardware developer). Both my manager and I told them, hardware projects change EVERY DAY. Every day its, "so and so (big customer) just had issues with this", or "The market is way behind on these parts and we are short", or "The product you just designed is failing ____ test right now, what are we doing to fix it".

I've watched it drive many people out. My own mentor told me when I first started "I'll tell you the first thing my Mentor told me, 'Get out now'". A bit much for a new engineer to take in, but now I know why he said it. Right before he left the company, he started telling me he wasn't sure how much longer he could handle the pressure.

Honestly, I don't care as much about the pay, the fancy benefits, or any of the fluff. What has nearly drove me out is when I feel like every day is just another barrage of unbounded problems. Like you're the guy on the track, your problem is the chains holding you there, and management is driving the train and they aren't slowing it down. You better get those chains undone.

I've been an auto mechanic, welder, machinist, and now EE. My back-up plan / exit strategy is machining. I enjoy it, it is so much more bounded (in my opinion), and still presents good challenges to keep me engaged. I already have a colleague in another company on his way. We've talked at length about it.

Re:I just landed my first career IT gig

[The-Ixian]

Try living in a paper bag in the middle of the lake and then talk to me about your resort shack!

Re:I just landed my first career IT gig

[rkordmaa]

Learn your fair share of Dilbertism, then it's not so bad anymore. Can't keep stressing out all the time, you gotta learn when something is really on fire and when you can just not give a fuck. "Customer just had an idea" type of situations can more often that not be ignored until they go away. "Production is down, entire factory has just stopped working because of your mistake" kind of situations cannot be ignored, even if it's bloody 2am. Just make sure stuff like that doesn't happen very often and you will have less to stress out about.

Re:I just landed my first career IT gig

[Anubis IV]

But the truth is that tech jobs can be stressful too. I imagine people in blue collar jobs believe we are living high on the hog with not a care in the world, but it's not really that way.

I was pulling long hours one week to try and finish a software update in time. The deadline was fast approaching and the outlook was grim. As usual, the cleaning lady came by to collect the trash that evening and we got to chit-chatting like we usually did (I arrived late and stayed late back then, so my being there when she did her rounds was perfectly normal). Part way through the conversation she paused for a moment, then said something to the effect of, "You know, before I started working here I used to think that you guys all had it easy with your cushy jobs and nice offices. But then I see people here with the look that you have in your eyes right now and I realize I was wrong. It's just as tough. Different, but just as tough, if not tougher."

I think I mustered a tired "Thanks?" in response.

I don't make any claim to having it tougher than anyone else (I have a MASSIVE appreciation for manual workers, among many other fields, since I couldn't do that work), but the only people I find suggesting that tech work is easy are those who either aren't in the field and have no awareness of what it entails, or those who are a burden on everyone else around them in the field.

Re:I just landed my first career IT gig

[Shotgun]

I worked for a large company that made networking equipment. My job was to run a sanity test framework for their operating system. Developers load the images in a queue, the system pulls them, loads them on real hardware, and executes a body of tests.

The problem was that a bad image would hose the system to where it couldn't reboot, and then it would not be able to correct itself. Every image after that would fail. My job was to come in, clean up the mess, and apologize to each developer. It was actually stressful.

I repeatedly told the manager how I could fix it, and he always said we didn't have time. I waited for him to travel for a week, I shut down the system, and fixed it so that the system got completely initialized between every run. From that point on, every failure was a real failure cause by that developer's changes.

My job became a cake walk. I find most of the stress in this industry is self induced by clueless fucks being in charge.

Surprise, working people to death leads to burnout

[sinij]

Tech work culture is seriously broken when 80 hour weeks and never going on vacation for any reason is encouraged and celebrated. Burnout under such conditions is inevitable.

Gee, I can't imagine why?

[rsilvergun]

Long on call hours. Declining inflation adjusted wages. Having to spend hours and hours of your own time training because companies don't train anymore. Constant threats of outsourcing or being replaced by an H1-B applicant (despite the fact that that is explicitly illegal).

Re:Demand vaca time and use it.

[b0s0z0ku]

Always take it. Every year -- don't set a precedent that you're overly hard-working...

Re:What we need to enact...

[b0s0z0ku]

Or at least raise the wage floor where overtime == time and a half. Obama tried this, Trump unfortunately rolled it back. Also, sometimes you need to work overtime two weeks in a row, crunch time to finish a project. I'd change that requirement to get the time back to something like a 2-3 month period.

A good chunk of it is probably incentive

[MikeRT]

If companies were to regularly take 10-20% of their profits and divide them up into bonuses for employees who work overtime, I bet a lot of these people would be much happier. Where I work, it is just a given that even if you brought in a few million dollars of new work for the company, if you're not "management," you typically don't see a bonus. Then they wonder why no one below management tends to give a damn about finding new business unless they're guaranteed a salaried slot on it (which is rare, so motivation is low).

Re:A good chunk of it is probably incentive

[b0s0z0ku]

Not enough. Money is not a substitute for time off and free time.

Re:Not sure you know what "burn out" is then

[drinkypoo]

Telling people that aren't being abused quite as badly as you are that they aren't being abused is itself a kind of abuse.

That you are in worse straits than some others does not qualify you to define the term for those others. There are also people worse off than you are, is your life therefore perfect?

Re:Demand vaca time and use it.

[jrumney]

Meanwhile, in the civilised world, the government would be sending in labour inspectors and shutting your employer down if they heard that they gave you 3 weeks vacation, and only after you demanded it.

The office

[Anonymous Coward]

I've done a lot of Peopleware like consulting, mostly for software development teams. The IT office space is in general the enemy of these teams. They are noisy and destroy your concentration. You can only break someones concentration for a finite number per day, certainly with introverts, after that the dev is just excausted. As a rule of thumb, the correlation is more people wearing headphones -> more burnout. It's fucked up that people need to wear headphones to attempt to do their work, and a clear sign the environment is poison to their jobs. Of course they put all these people in the same space, to save money. Hardly ever do they do the math, and contemplate how much it costs them in burnout and turnover.

so...

[buddyglass]

Does this result argue for wider adoption of Netflix's H.R. model, as expressed in the manifesto that went viral a few years back? Namely:

1. Hire "A" players, because the competence of one's coworkers is a large contributor to employee satisfaction.
2. Don't use golden handcuffs as a means of mitigating hiring churn; you want employees to stay at the company because they want to be there. Employees choose how much stock they want vs. cash.
3. Don't use performance based bonuses; high performance is the base level expectation, not something to be singled out and rewarded.
4. "We're a team, not a family." You don't "cut" people from a family; you do "cut" people from a pro sports team.
5. "Hard work - Not Relevant". They care about productivity, not how hard you worked to be productive.
6. Low tolerance for "brilliant jerks".
7. Pay "top of market" wages. "One outstanding employee gets more done and costs less than two 'adequate' employees." "Employees should feel they are being paid well relative to other options in the market."

Re:so...

[TFlan91]

Then refuse to work, yes you may get fired, but what's worse than getting fired? Working for free.

My boss is lucky if I even look at my phone off-business-hours, let alone pick it up and respond.

Sure, if an email is prefixed with "URGENT" or whatever, I take a look, but then I lazily come in the next day an hour or two "late".

It's all about the contract you signed with your employer. Don't sign shit you haven't read, and don't sign away your youth for pennies.

Re:Demand vaca time and use it.

[TrippTDF]

Lots of companies now offer "unlimited" PTO- but that really just means there is less incentive to let you take time off, and you won't get paid out for unused vacation when you leave.

I've worked for companies that offer 2 - 3 weeks and unlimited. The companies with the unlimited policies ALWAYS track your PTO more closely than the ones that give a set number of days.

Surprise, poor survey sampling gives poor results

[ranton]

I'm not surprised that a significant number of users who don't feel comfortable talking to coworkers without anonymity are feeling burnout at work. This wasn't a commissioned study with careful target sampling, they just showed this question to their users. The title of this article should be "57% of Tech Workers Who Use The Blind App Are Suffering From Job Burnout, Survey Finds".

Fallacy of relative privation

[sjbe]

Try working construction for minimum wage and not knowing where your next job will come from. Then have your blood pressure tested.

Ahh the "staving people in Africa" argument your mother made to get you to eat your vegetables. Great example of the fallacy of relative privation. Just because other people have it worse doesn't mean you should be grateful for a possibly better but still bad situation.

Re:Demand vaca time and use it.

[houghi]

Working in Belgium and some of the things I have had happened to me.This is in several companies:
On a Friday at the end of February: Hello, you still have not taken your 5 last days and you need to take them at the end of Febrary. "So that means I have the week of next week?" Yes. OK. Have a nice day I see you after that.
They literately told be right before I went home, so no way to hand over anything. Yes, my manager was there and wished me a nice unexpected holiday.

Another one:
"We see you have worked 2 hours extra, when are you going to take them this week?"

And a nice one. We saw you worked from 9 till 5 for the last year. However we forgot to mention that this did not include you break, so please work the legal hours from now on and sorry for the misunderstanding. (No, they never asked to do those hours they paid)

In Belgium a manager of a supermarket was fired, because he came in early to do extra work, so his employees would need to do less. That company had a strict "no overtime" policy. Mind you, before they fire somebody, they will be warned at least 2 times if not more.
No, it did not matter that he did not claimed the payment for it.

And having a healthy work-play relation is important in most European companies. In many places people will work 4/5, meaning having one day extra of and earning enough with the 4/5th to make it interesting. This on top of e.g. homeworking.

Yes, I do have 35 holidays and unlimited sick days, because being sick is not something you know how long it will take. Could be one day, could be 10 months.

Comparison data?

[cleavet]

Does anyone know how this compares with other professions?

Re:Manage your choices wisely

[Anonymous Coward]

If you work under such conditions by choice then it is on your shoulders alone.

No, you're wrong. Those working conditions are spreading everywhere. Companies have figured out that instead of hiring more people, they can force others to work more for the same pay.

Don't like it? Get out. And then there's the bullshit of "well, others are doing it!"

And the days of walking out of one job into another are gone - unless you're in the hot skill du jour. Which these days is AI. And god forbid you're over 40: things get real hard then.

And then how does one check on that when interviewing? I had questions about hours and being on call and the interviewer picked up on it. When asked if I had a problem with long hours, I replied, "I want a life."

I received an email later that day, "We're sorry, but you don't have the skills. We are going with another candidate."

I had recruiters stop calling me when I stressed my need for free time and the requirement of 40 hour work weeks. I even got a lecture.

This field is shit and pays shit for the time and stress one endures.

Re:Demand vaca time and use it.

[Notabadguy]

Working in Belgium and some of the things I have had happened to me.This is in several companies:
On a Friday at the end of February: Hello, you still have not taken your 5 last days and you need to take them at the end of Febrary. "So that means I have the week of next week?" Yes. OK. Have a nice day I see you after that.

These stories are precisely why Belgium, and the rest of Europe are the king of tech development, innovation, and the global leader in envelope-pushing ideas.

Re:Surprise, working people to death leads to burn

[avandesande]

I hear this all the time but WTH actually does this? Anyone here at slashdot? Even when I was younger I did an all nighter just once or twice. I've been working 8 hour days the last 15 years.

Strawmen galore!

[sjbe]

Yes, but the stress that tech people experience is completely fake. It REALLY doesn't matter if your work is done on time.

It does if you want to remain employed with your current company. If that doesn't matter to you then you probably aren't stressed to begin with. If anyone who worked for me expressed that attitude they would be "succeeding elsewhere" in short order.

No one is going to die if your software or network doesn't work.

I'd like to introduce you to some folks who work in medical IT who will disagree with you rather strongly. Same thing with software that controls/drives cars or airplanes or manned rockets or traffic signals or ocean navigation or food safety or electrical grids or nuclear reactor controls or.... The list is very long for things that actually do matter. Yeah, nobody probably cares if your word processor crashes but more than a few of us do things that have serious consequences.

Amazingly humans survived for thousands of years without IT or computers.

Ok we're done here. Claiming people shouldn't have stress because computers didn't exist 200 years ago is irrelevant and stupid.

meaningless wanking

[argStyopa]

A single data point is statistically meaningless "woe is us" wanking UNLESS other industries are surveyed.

If the "burnout" rate for tech workers is 57%, but for medical workers is 75%, factory line workers is 62%, and teachers is 60%, then the rate for tech workers is really not bad.
If OTOH other industries scale at 20-30%, then the tech sector really is dire.

In short: I suspect that everyone feels like they are underappreciated, underpaid, and is "fed up with all the bullshit at work"...like everyone else.

Re:Manage your choices wisely

[sinij]

It is very nice to be independently wealthy and not have to worry about getting a paycheck, but for the rest of us we have to do it for a paycheck or face homelessness and possibly starvation.

If all available work is under such conditions, is that really a choice?

Re:Not sure you know what "burn out" is then

[TomBauserman]

Are you seriously trying to gatekeep job burnout? This is some quintessential crotchety greybeard material.

gatekeep? You going to call someone a virtue signaller next?

Re:Demand vaca time and use it.

[Hydrian]

Because US's annual raises rarely meet the US's annual inflation rates. So you are forced to move up the salary chain or effectively get a pay cut ever year.

Re:Surprise, working people to death leads to burn

[swb]

I work with people who proudly complain about "working until 2 am" or willingly take on all kinds of client work at ridiculous times because it burnishes their reputation.

Some after hours work is unavoidable in IT, but I just refuse to work those kinds of hours regularly without added compensation of some kind (added vacation days without strings and/or more money).

As a more skilled/experienced/older worker, I think I can get away with it but I'm not gonna lie, the people who do it seem to have more street cred in the organization because they are willing to bend over.

I think it's highly organization dependent and sometimes individually dependent (ie, can you get done what needs doing in normal work hours). And I think there are definitely orgs where if you're not doing that, you might as well resign now because you will get shuffled to the shit work.

Re:janitorial jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Too many tech jobs are just cleaning up after Indian disaster after Indian disaster. And not in any sort of permanent way, just putting out the same fires over and over.

There are two kinds of IT people. Those who create. And those who fix creations. If you're tired of doing one, then figure out how to get paid doing the other, and feel good knowing you'll be working to fix your own disasters.

Am I surprised?

[whitroth]

Yep, so many folks LOOOVVVVEEE 50, 60, 70 hour weeks, and having to respond to the boss 24x7x365.25. Who needs a life?

UNIONS are why we have benefits, weekends, holidays and vacations. No company did that out of the alleged kindness of their hearts.

But none of you here need them, they're *so* "ancient", never mind they could get you a 40 hour week and no being bothered off hours, no, enjoy your (non-) life.

Options

[sjbe]

It is very nice to be independently wealthy and not have to worry about getting a paycheck, but for the rest of us we have to do it for a paycheck or face homelessness and possibly starvation.

You don't have to be independently wealthy to make a living doing something that you don't enjoy. If you hate IT work then go find something else to do. It's a big world with lots of opportunity.

If all available work is under such conditions, is that really a choice?

Are you seriously claiming that someone who is bright enough to find work in the tech sector will find it impossible to do something else if they put their mind to it? Possibly even something they actually enjoy doing with reasonable hours and adequate pay. Point is very few people are forced to work in IT. Arguing that they don't have a choice is really just nonsense in almost all cases.

Re:Options

[apoc.famine]

That's hilarious. Do you have any idea how many jobs there are available in academia? Not many. The issue is that if you do what you love, what's the incentive to stop? There's a reason that the average age of professors always hovers in the 50s and 60s. It's not uncommon to find semi-retired professors still kicking around well into their 70s teaching one or two classes they love.

Re:Surprise, working people to death leads to burn

[painandgreed]

I hear this all the time but WTH actually does this? Anyone here at slashdot? Even when I was younger I did an all nighter just once or twice. I've been working 8 hour days the last 15 years.

My understanding would be Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. although I've only really heard from people that have worked at Amazon. They hire new young and eager workers who they can work and fire them when they burn out. However, just as many leave before that. It's all part of an understood system where new workers agree to be overworked while padding their resume and looking for a new job. This lastrs for an average of 18 months before they have found a new job or get laid off. They hopefully hop to a better paying job than does the same till they decide upon an exit strategy of looking for a place with less upward mobility but more stability once they have reached the desired salary and skillset.

Re:Demand vaca time and use it.

[b0s0z0ku]

Sarcasm? Why is it a bad thing not to be "top dog?" Being less innovative with better quality of life is just fine with me.

-1 Troll? It is meant to be FUNNY!

[Futurepower(R)]

It's FUNNY! It is written by someone with an extensive knowledge of English colloquial expressions, or copied from someone with that knowledge. MOD PARENT UP!

(There are areas where English is trashy. You may need to take a shower after you read this.)

Title: "I hole-hardedly agree..." -- I whole-heartedly agree...
"doubles advocate" -- devil's advocate
"all intensive purposes" -- all intents and purposes
"a diamond dozen" -- a dime a dozen
"a blessing in the skies" -- a blessing in disguise.
"on a petal stool" -- on a pedestal
"a bunch of pre-Madonnas" -- a bunch of primadonnas
"taking something very valuable for granite" -- taking something very valuable for granted"
"mustard up all the strength you can" -- muster up all the strength you can
"it is a doggy dog world" -- It is a dog-eat-dog world
"you have a huge ship on your shoulder." -- you have a huge chip on your shoulder.
" throw everything in but the kids Nsync" -- throw everything in but the kitchen sink
"you are having a feel day with this" -- you are having a field day with this
"I have a sick sense" -- I have a sixth sense
"I cannot turn a blonde eye" -- I cannot turn a blind eye
"I have zero taller ants" -- I have zero tolerance
"what comes around is all around" -- what comes around goes around [what goes around comes around]
"supply and command" -- supply and demand
"Make my words" -- Mark my words
"when you get down to brass stacks" -- when you get down to brass tacks
"it doesn't take rocket appliances" -- it doesn't take rocket science
"to get two birds stoned at once" -- to kill two birds with one stone
"who makes the pants in this relationship" -- who wears the pants in this relationship
"sometimes you just have to swallow your prize" -- sometimes you just have to swallow your pride
"come to this conclusion through denial and error" -- come to this conclusion through trial and error
"I swear on my mother's mating name" -- I swear on my mother's maiden name [not a usual expression]
"when you put the petal to the medal" -- when you put the pedal to the metal
"you will pass with flying carpets" -- you will pass with flying colors
"it's a peach of cake" -- it's a piece of cake