Things like “do you work 40 vs. 60 hours a week” are not obvious choices here—longer hours probably increase risk of burnout, but you also get a lot more work done for as long as it lasts. In fields like corporate law or medical residency, people do long hours for years (though especially in medicine, there are definite quality vs quantity tradeoffs).
I agree that how long you work is not an obvious tradeoff. I was responding to the “[The EA org] is not trying to guard you against burnout” part. A rephrasing of that sentence might be “The EA org is doing nothing to prevent people from burning out”, right?
I’m quite sceptical that an EA org is making the right call by spending zero effort preventing very common and devastating mental health issues like burnout? This doesn’t have to mean to tell the employees to work less, but it might mean
managers should monitor mental health
telling employees to take a break when they are at risk of burnout
providing resources for mental health support, coachings that help with maximizing sustainable productivity
I’m sure they’re not doing literally nothing to prevent burnout, but it’s not a high priority for them, and when it trades off against something else (like taking a break, or using manager capacity on supporting mental health) I expect burnout prevention will often come behind other priorities.
Things like “do you work 40 vs. 60 hours a week” are not obvious choices here—longer hours probably increase risk of burnout, but you also get a lot more work done for as long as it lasts. In fields like corporate law or medical residency, people do long hours for years (though especially in medicine, there are definite quality vs quantity tradeoffs).
I agree that how long you work is not an obvious tradeoff. I was responding to the “[The EA org] is not trying to guard you against burnout” part. A rephrasing of that sentence might be “The EA org is doing nothing to prevent people from burning out”, right?
I’m quite sceptical that an EA org is making the right call by spending zero effort preventing very common and devastating mental health issues like burnout? This doesn’t have to mean to tell the employees to work less, but it might mean
managers should monitor mental health
telling employees to take a break when they are at risk of burnout
providing resources for mental health support, coachings that help with maximizing sustainable productivity
I’m sure they’re not doing literally nothing to prevent burnout, but it’s not a high priority for them, and when it trades off against something else (like taking a break, or using manager capacity on supporting mental health) I expect burnout prevention will often come behind other priorities.