Looking over your shoulder for the boss when you are the boss and own the shoulder
And a few other mental health and funny things you might want to see
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Still Burnin’
OUT, that is. See, that’s putting a shocking twist into one’s writing.
Coming up on a year since we did our Depresh Mode episode about burnout with Jennifer Moss, who has been studying the issue and writing about it for a long time. Her take back then: it’s a huge problem and employers aren’t doing nearly enough to deal with it.
I interviewed her again yesterday to see what, if anything, has changed in the past year. In short, it’s gotten worse and it’s gotten noisier. Jennifer told me that according to a huge Microsoft-funded global survey, 41% of people say they are planning on leaving their job in the next three months. Not just thinking about it, planning to do it.
I suppose I can’t relate all the way on this topic since I’ve been self-employed for quite a while. I can be mad at my boss but it also means being mad at all the employees because everyone is me.
But I’ve been noting how closely I stick to the idea of a 9-5 job, even though I don’t have one, and the idea of being “at” work in my office in my house even though there’s no expectation that I do so. I behave as if there is any kind of expectation upon me aside from myself and from people with whom I work in partnership.
I think it’s kind of nuts, really. Because I still end up doing work over the weekends and at night. I still respond to emails or maybe get some writing and editing done. But what happens is that I stick mostly to the office hours model and then tack EXTRA hours onto that.
Maybe that all helps me get stuff done but it reminds me of the idea of behaviors of people who grew up in an unstable home. In a situation like that, anxiety can be valuable because there are threats impending, gotta be ready. Depression can be useful because it might help shield you from feeling horrible things. But then those people grow up and, hopefully, achieve a more stable adulthood. The tricky thing is, they often can’t let go of the anxiety and depression even though it no longer serves a function.
The traditional office work model - you put on nice clothes, you go downtown to an office building, you are just there all day long in case someone thinks you should be - is pretty fucked up when you think about it, which I still do and often. But it’s hard to shake.
Speaking of burnout, the mental health of medical workers
Nurses are wonderful and also human. So they’re going to be subject to the same stresses and burnout factors as everyone else. And they’ll be subject to more of them because they’re both on the frontlines of covid and have been for years at this point.
Wisconsin Public Radio with a report on just how bad this has become.
Beginning in March 2020, health care workers were lauded as heroes. Now, two years into the pandemic, burnout in the health care field will be one of the pandemic's many lasting effects.
"We have really got to be aware that their mental health may be destroyed at some point," Russell said of nurses who have been working through the pandemic.
According to a 2021 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 62 percent of frontline health care workers said COVID-related stress has had a negative impact on their mental health.
Russell worries that a generation of health care workers will suffer because of what they’ve seen over the past two years.
"We're always sitting here thinking like, 'Oh, my god, did this person make it through the night?'" she said. "Carrying that type of weight around is mentally exhausting."
And now, funny things…
If, like, Ministry played a senior prom in 1985 and did only covers
via kottke, Brian Borcherdt took an Alvin & the Chipmunks album of 80s songs, slowed it down to the 16rpm setting on a record player, and “revealed what was secretly the most important postpunk/goth album ever recorded,”
I love seeing funny character actors picking up paychecks
Or at least watching them do the work for which paychecks shall result. Here at Moe Manor, we’ve been enjoying Our Flag Means Death, an HBO comedy series about a posh aristocrat who decides to become a pirate. Rhys Darby plays the lead, Taika Waititi is in it, and a whole bunch of “that guy” actors I’ve been enjoying for a long while.
The other day, I went to get a haircut and the fella at the next chair over got to hear all about this show from his hair stylist. She was a fan of not just this show but everything Darby and Waititi have ever done and she explained their careers in depth with ample quotes. She then, naturally, transitioned into an in-depth monologue about the virtues of Flight of the Conchords, including more of this song than I thought anyone could pull off:
Anyway, yeah, sometimes shit goes down at the Roseville, Minnesota Great Clips.