Your Boss Is Not More Stressed Out Than You, Science Says (vice.com) 245
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.
Correlation != causation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Correlation != causation (Score:5, Insightful)
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Call it "I got mine, fuck you". Or if you're of a Biblical bent, "To him that hath shall be given".
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may be being a psychopath means you don't give a fuck about people, so your less stressed.
(would seem to tie in with the research that indicates most bosses tend to be psychopaths)
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Well if that improves your fitness for survival then I guess it's OK.
Depends on the type of Boss (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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Re:Depends on the type of Boss (Score:4, Insightful)
You've made the mistake of presenting an argument that puts people with wealth or power in a positive light on Slashdot. Prepare for immolation. You're right of course, and I've met and worked for people like that myself. But being right will not save you from what's coming...
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Re: Depends on the type of Boss (Score:5, Informative)
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I have personally seen a manager or owner stress to the point of depression when facing the task of laying off an employee.
Sounds like he wasn't the right person for the job. Not everyone should be a manager.
On the contrary I think this /was/ the right person for the job, namely, someone who actually cared about the well-being of the staff and regretted causing hurt and harm.
I know sometimes layoffs are necessary to keep a company afloat and save all the rest of the jobs, but being unmoved about it is no merit as a manager.
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Right. Because the CEO has to do all those things himself.
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Re:Correlation != causation (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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Especially if you're on a zero-hours contract. But yaywootahundredandeleventyone, gig economy and appy appy APPS!
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If by "dealing" you mean "taking out your stress on your underlings"
Managers that get angry and lash out at subordinates are those that handle stress poorly. Anger does not relieve stress.
"shifting your responsibilities, and hence your stress, to other people, including your underlings".
That is what underlings are for. Good managers delegate (shift responsibilities), poor managers micromanage. Which would you rather work for?
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Very, very old news. (Score:5, Interesting)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (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]"
Troll much? (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 [battleswarmblog.com], 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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Capitalism today is broken. Capitalism has lead us down a path of unbridled consumption that rather than fix or upgrade things, we throw them out and buy new things. The attitude towards capitalism is predictable. It's broken, so let's just get rid of it for something new and shiny.
The people who are pro-capitalism though, regard the bugs in capitalism as features. And until that changes, capitalism will just get worse, and the people calling for its replacement will become more justified in their point of
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Re: Troll much? (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea and theory of Capitalism didn't take huge multinational corporations into account that basically hold governments hostage these days.
Free entry to the market? Where? Name a business where there isn't already a WalMart, a Google, a Kraft Foods or another corporation that pretty much not only dictates how and if you can actually exist in that market, more and more they also dictate the relevant legal environment.
This has nothing to do with capitalism anymore. That system is broken.
Debt liability (Score:2)
In a truly free market owners would be liable for the debts of the company. Funnily enough scrapping limited liability isn't part of the free market manifesto.
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"Work under capitalism is a brutal psychological gauntlet -- low pay, long hours, and little to no safety net."
Compared to what?
Why does it need comparison? Is it not a brutal psychological gauntlet with increasingly lower pay, long hours and little to no safety net? The minimum wage isn't increasing as the value of money decreases or as productivity increases. Office working hours were previously a total of 8 hours where now it's 9 hours. Our social safety nets are really lacking.
Just because brutality is par for course doesn't make it any less brutal.
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.
How is this a partisan issue? Are people on one side of the political spectr
Re:Troll much? (Score:4, Insightful)
re: Work under Capitalism (Score:2)
Actually, no .... Capitalism doesn't encourage laziness or "slacking off". That's for sure. But "increasingly lower pay"? That's B.S. There's absolutely a pretty standard concept of receiving regular raises throughout the American workforce. And especially in times like we've seen in the recent past where there's really no inflation happening? Even those "cost of living adjustments" amount to raises that slightly increase your buying power.
You can't use the "minimum wage" as the sole metric for whether peo
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Re:Troll much? (Score:5, 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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He is telegraphing that he intends to make his problem, yours, whether you like it or not.
What you are inferring is closer to paranoia than a logical conclusion. I'm telling you that the problems we face will be the same and not because of anything either of us has done. The point is to cause you to logically reconsider your position in regard to the situation because your initial assessment may be flawed.
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Socialism is the least of their problems [wikipedia.org]. And capitalism without regulation and elements of socialism is doomed.
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Such incredible bullshit. There are plenty of countries (such as in northern Europe and Scandinavia) where people work less, have have a better quality of life because capitalism is tempered. Fuck you and your lying Fox News bullshit.
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If you want to see what life is like without capitalism, trying looking at Venezuela [battleswarmblog.com], where they're rioting because socialism can't provide enough food for them to eat.
One of the biggest and most overlooked problems with capitalism is that first you need the capitals, then you can get it. You know, Somalia has free market, zero taxation, so you may think it is some kind of capitalist heaven. It is not. Like India, or most of the world for that matter, where you have all the bases of the capitalist system, but there's a lack of capitals and so widespread poverty, precarious health, starvation.
It doesn't matter if Venezuela is socialist or not, because now Venezuela is lik
Let me fix that for you (Score:3)
Unions 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.
Not only is my version correct, it's shorter.
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Righto (Score:3)
Of course it's all BS and it's always been. You get fired - you usually get nothing and then break your neck trying to find a new job. Oh, and your wife may divorce you in a process 'cause you've become insolvent.
Guys who are upper in the corporate hierarchy enjoy golden parachutes and resumes which say that they've got experience in managing other people, so they move to other management positions in other companies where they continue to manage while those at the lowest rank get all the flak for the company's failures or misfortunes and get fired whenever the quarterly goals are not met.
And don't get me started on their salaries and benefits.
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Get started??? Your rant on salaries and benefits was due last Friday!
That's the reward for busting your ass! (Score:2, Insightful)
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... but enough about your Amway franchise!
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#survivorshipbias
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And losers usually blame others for their problems.
Tell me, how many people with nasty personalities, who refuse to work, start from poverty and become rich? By what mechanism would that work?
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I know a few people with nasty personalities who have started from poverty and become rich, but none who refuse to work. Refusal to work would make it impossible to gain wealth through work, so that's just a red herring, suggesting that those who have not become rich have failed to do so because they refuse to work.
I know many more people without nasty personalities who work hard and have remained poor. Doing everything right is not even close to a guarantee of success - it only gets you a slim chance of su
Re:That's the reward for busting your ass! (Score:4, Insightful)
I am not sure why certain people are eager to blame individuals for societal problems. It is really obvious to me that things are very tough if you are born in the wrong place, or to the wrong parents, or in the wrong time. I have a lot of sympathy and understanding to those who struggle on this beautiful planet. You seem really condescending and smug in your good fortune. In fiction you'd be on the verge of catastrophe.
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I know mine is... (Score:4, Interesting)
But she deals with a bunch of garbage that I don't have to care about because she insolates me from it so I can get my work done. I see some of the E-mails about the issues she's keeping off my plate and I shudder to think what my life would be like if she didn't do what she does. She takes the stress so I don't have to and I owe her both my loyalty and thanks.
But I can assure you, my current manager isn't typical.... No sir. In my 25 years of having all sorts of managers, she's in the top 5% and I will be sad when she retires. My previous manager was totally opposite, visited his scorn for failure to meet real and imagined (by him) requirements when he demanded (regardless of if they'd been communicated or not). I'm sure he was stressed too, given all his direct and indirect reports generally didn't care one bit about keeping him out of trouble given the likelihood of getting your head handed to you when you raised an issue. He was a moron of a manager and I am lucky I escaped with my self respect from that place. I find this kind of manager much more common....
So, Yes, my managers ARE more stressed than I am.... I'm guessing the good managers are LESS stressed though than the ones who should have never taken the job in the first place.
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Ditto here. I have been a manager, and I was one of those who took on the task of shielding my team from the bullshit, and managing the politics.
I hated it, and it nearly killed me (I have the heart attack and the stent + brutal daily medications to remind me of how shitty that life was.) Now, I am an individual contributor (a contractor actually), and my current boss does an AMAZING job of insulating me from the bullshit. I am very grateful.
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It's different at the top than it was (Score:3)
That's strange, because times have changed for anyone outside the very senior executive levels of a company. Previously, promotion into middle or upper management was like being admitted into an exclusive club, where everything was basically taken care of for you and you were just the public face of your organization. You had a high salary, a whole staff to manage every aspect of your life, etc. Now, flatter organizations push a lot of things onto lower numbers of managers that they wouldn't have to deal with in the past.
I think it's the flatter organizations that cause more stress...the managers are responsible for more than they used to be, and the speed/pace of business has wound up to levels that are beyond healthy.
Straw man argument (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Details (Score:4, Insightful)
Peter Principle? (Score:2)
There could be some personality filtering going on: those who can accept heavier pressure are more likely to move up into management.
It's more or less the Peter Principle: you raise up until you hit your pressure limit.
My wife rejected a management position that paid more than her current position because it was more stressful. She used to do that kind of work so she knows what's involved. She prefers to save some energy for family and friends. Because we have 2 white-collar incomes, we don't have significa
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Let's see. . . . (Score:2)
. . . .I'm a manager, and I'm stressed as all hell. We've got 2 of 5 slots open, no decrease in workload, and I haven't even seen a candidate resume in months. Our contract is up for re-compete, and we're getting continuous 30-day extensions. Several of my reports are "problem children", who have been foisted off on me for my demonstrated ability to not throttle the lazy bastards and take all the arguments out of customer earshot, as well as being the overall team troubleshooter.
I'm not getting paid enou
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Really? (Score:2)
Why don't you ask Cold War era Eastern European citizens how work was under Communism?
Low pay? Check.
Long hours? Check.
Safety net? Well maybe a plastic tarp to catch the body when quotas were not met.
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Shh. Don't burst the bubble. Remember there are only 2 choices. American freedom or slavery!
Unless you are the president, that is (Score:2)
Welcome entrepreneurs (Score:2)
How many lower-level workers are willing to spend the up-front costs and take the risks associated with moving up? I'll tell you how many -- all the ones that moved up, and none of the ones that didn't.
I've got many friends with the skills and abilities to easily either start they own business in their trade or move up in their existing industry, but don't.
Usually, they don't start their own business because they aren't willing to risk being unsuccessful. They won't take the initial pay-cut during the tra
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...and that would be a reason to get stuck: not willing to learn a new skillset. So sorry that advancement requires something more/new.
and bullshit. I'm a technical person, I started my own company the moment I hated the way other companies did things. I dropped out of school, I worked hard, I experimented a lot, I failed my fair share, and now, 25 years later, I'm still going strong. I've chosen my lifestyle, and made it suit my personality and my goals. And because of that, no one in history has ever
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Very true. Not everyone is capable of advancing. Not everyone is capable of learning something new. Not everyone is capable of being any more successful than they already are. But it's never (typically) about them being held back, it's about the risks that they aren't willing to take.
And if you own your own company, then you're likely very familiar with one of my philosophies: if a million people do it every day, then I'm able to learn it too. There are plenty of reasons to avoid learning something new
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Bullshit. There are SIX skillsets, any one of which can advance you. You need to refuse all six of them to hit that career plateau.
I was an awkward, highly technical, coludn't-talk-to-adults teenager. I got clients with one sentence and one sentence alone: "you won't pay until you're happy with it."
I built business solutions for small and mid-sized companies, for, at that time, anywhere between $100 and $10'000, and I'd often get $0 for months at a time as I developed, learned, tested, presented, adjuste
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Why should skilled people waste their efforts on management? Because of business structures dating back to the industrial revolution?
If people 'moved up' by being good at their job, instead of having to fit into a management role, then the calculus on making such a decision becomes much simpler. Entrepreneurs are useful. But we've OVERWHELMINGLY overvalued them, and give them far more money than they deserve, even though it's tough to accurately evaluate their contributions, and the data we do have sug
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...because younger people are cheaper at any task that can be taught, tutorialized, trained, or proceduralized; they can also be automated.
If you want to make more money, your idea of "better" means nothing. You need to be your employer's idea of better. These days, and for most industries it's always been true, that means you need to make decisions out of experience, not work harder.
Making decisions out of experience is called management. Whether you're "managing" yourself, others, or the company as a w
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Who said anything about "working harder"? The value is in being smart, and MBAs aren't the smart ones.
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You find me a low-level worker,
willing to go one month with zero pay,
then two years before linearly making it back to the same pay-rate,
and willing to lose it all if they truly screw up (they effectively need to guarantee their own performance),
and willing to learn the new skillsets required of the new job responsibilities,
and willing to fail, fall off the horse, then get back on and try again,
who then didn't evenntually wind up advancing accordingly.
I've got plenty of examples, right in-front of me every d
CEO (Score:2)
the world according to Linda Hill, et al. (Score:3)
The highest work-stress job, from the Wharton–Harvard perspective, is the star performer (software developer, sales person) promoted into their first management position, often without any prior psychological preparation for the change (how hard can it be to manage people doing what I so clearly excelled at doing? larvae in ointment: without actually doing their work for them?)
In a high-pressure setting, first year is hell, usually devolves into an unrelenting fire fight, with a high ultimate attrition rate. (Who new that hardball sales tactics don't translate well to daily proximity?)
Once the junior manager recovers from Boot Camp, the job remains difficult, but the compensation is pretty good, if you "manage" to hang around long enough to get promoted off the management front line.
Year one: learning how to delegate down
Year two: paying more attention to what lies above (and not just the marching orders)
Year three: fully investing in peer relationships with other managers at the same level, elsewhere in the organization
Someone who entered the work force intending to become a manager likely accomplishes this in less time. But these people have always been a small minority in the studies I've read.
A year into the job, there is nearly a 100% response rate that the new managers had failed to appreciate the importance of investing in peer relationships (not that they would have found the time during Management Boot Camp 101 in any case). Lateral politics. It's a thing.
Back to the article, at the bottom of the heap, how does one carve a reasonable line between general life stress and work stress?
I can't even imagine.
Dunderheads. Imagine having to manage the people who wrote this study. One can only imagine.
Look on my workers, troubled sea of mighty dunderheads, and despair!
Most of my stress is financial (Score:2)
"Capitalism is a brutal psychological gauntlet" (Score:2)
Money theory (Score:4)
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She did not make it worse. She sold it for 6 billions $ more then it was worth when she took it.
(If we talk value of yahoo, excluding the Alibaba stocks, which she had nothing to do with).
Re: Duh (Score:2, Informative)
You think her changes made it more valuable? All the value was in foreign stock that she had no part of.
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Probably, and then he reveals that NO ONE knew healthcare could be so hard or that actually being a president is a time suck.
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Perhaps the structure is, ummm, a tiny bit suboptimal?
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Okay, let's say that's true. I'm okay with NOT subsidizing the rest of the world's research, so let's just move to a single payer system like a civilized nation. There are plenty of issues. We could certainly improve the FDA approval process, and work on global testing standards so we can distribute that cost as well, at least to economically similar countries. We can pour money into more advanced modeling to reduce the labor costs involved. There are a hundred things we could do to improve medicine gl
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Not because of his skin color or genetics, but because his experience and his goal is destruction.
He should have told the Republicans to take a hike and done single-payer for healthcare instead.
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But if he'd done that they'd have called him a lefty.
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But if he'd done that they'd have called him a lefty.
What does Obama being left-handed have to do with healthcare?
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A lefty is a cormanust. You're thinking of caggies.
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A lefty is a cormanust.
Obama took a page out of the Clinton playbook, co-opted the Republican agenda (healthcare, bin Laden, tax cuts), and is too right-of-center to keep the progressive/liberal/communist wings happy. Even if he embraced single-payer for healthcare, he still wouldn't be left-of-center.
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Certainly not by yoorpan standards, no. From that PoV the US has a right-of-centre party and a very-right-of-centre party.
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I someone has to get drunk with you to trust you, you put on your big boy pants and get drunk with them. Duh.
But don't confuse that with just getting drunk for it's own sake.