Skip to main content

Solving Stress & Work in Silicon Valley

"Stress makes us depressed, fat, sick - and we do it to ourselves"

This is great news! Now that we KNOW what's hurting people we can DO something about it!

... oh wait, that is easier said than done.

In the UK people use this expression, "I can't be assed" which means, basically, "I cant be bothered". Imagine ever saying that in an office? I never hear this expression over here but I hear it all the time when I travel abroad. I think this says a lot about how we deal with stress vs. the English. You have to have a certain amount of personal pride to just state your limits out loud. I love to compare ourselves with the UK. They also have a national health system, four plus weeks of vacation, and an extensive network of pubs.

I've found that most of my stress is caused by money, or other people. Usually stress comes from a cascade of people influencing other people with money mixed in. Work seems to cultivate this like a petri dish especially since technology has such an incestuous relationship with money. It's really difficult not to get stressed out in SV. I really really want to tell some of the stress causers (like disease carriers) NOT to inflict this toxic practice on other human beings. It sucks.

I don't think the Chronicle article delves into actual solutions for this problem. Doesn't everybody else see the solutions around them? or am I just simplistic? There is a solution for every problem, the trick is to find the right solution.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

BEWARE Work on the Web? Get Spammed!

The really sad thing is, I suspect I've been 'sold out' by a sub contractor I worked with last Fall. This person was found through a freelancing (outsourcing) website called rentacoder.com. It was my project manager's idea to use rentacoder.com, not mine. I suspect this sub contractor posted my gmail email address to a message board where con artists look for personal info. Thanks. I get some very sophisticated spam, such as this email I just received: - - - Bernard Lee show details Mar 24 (23 hours ago) Dear Stephanie I am Bernard Lee, a legal practitioner.Please be patient and absorb the contents of this email which I believe is a message that will be beneficial to the both of us. I am the legal representative to Late Julius Sawchenko.who herein after shall be referred to as my late client.He died in March 2006 as a result of heart condition. Basically,my aim of writing you is to assist me secure the funds left behind by my client before it is confiscated or decla...

Human / Nature

About twelve years ago I didn’t really understand Climate Change but I was actually looking forward to it, sort-of like a good mystery I could become enthralled with.  At the time all I knew was I wanted a different lifestyle, and I thought, maybe Climate Change might make that happen? Maybe my life will actually be better because of it?  I had this fantasy about being a self sufficient bohemian gourmet, growing my own food harvested right in my yard. Mother Earth magazine seemed so bucolic. I wanted the opposite of my cramped apartment in San Francisco. In 2008 Climate Change was just an excuse to make changes, quit a job and move.   I moved East, close to my dad. I didn’t mention anything about Climate Change to my father, a total denier who was a meteorologist when he was in his 20s. There was no amount of practical data that would change his mind. He retired in ’93, with nothing to be stressed about so he simply didn’t care about anything but football, fishing a...

Takashi Murakami at the Brooklyn Museum

Blog confessional #1 I don't like anime, I don't like manga. This is very uncool , I know, but there's something about these genres which is just annoying. Perhaps it's the bad writing, the usually offensive depiction of female characters, or maybe I've never seen any good ani-manga. Photo by Collin David, originally posted on Collectorsquest.com Confession #2, it was the Louis Vuitton that got me into the Brooklyn Museum to see the Murakami show. Takashi Murakami had collaborated with the LV to create some fabulous limited edition bags and accessories which I needed to see! So off I went. Once I was there I found the actual show to be exceptional and full of surprises. Sure I liked all the stylistically cute characters, of course I loved all the candy like colors... you can never go wrong with pink and purple on platinum. I was surprised at how sophisticated and grown up a lot of the work is. I'm not so sure you want to bring your kids to this one unless you w...