> I'm not well off like most people on here, I can survive 4-6 months with no salary
Be careful of comparing yourself to what people post online. It's easy to read social media and think everyone else is waking up at 5am, drinking their keto coffee, and making millions with their startup while working as a digital nomad.
Even on a tech heavy site like HN I would classify someone with 6 months of savings as very well off.
> Even on a tech heavy site like HN I would classify someone with 6 months of savings as very well off.
I'm under the impression most on here make hundreds of thousands of dollars, I make nowhere close. I am saved on this front purely by living in a very low cost of living area.
You're right though, comparison with people online is probably just a recipe to feel bad.
Making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year doesn’t make you rich, history shows that people who make more than average amounts of money have a hard time retaining meaningful amounts of it. Making a lot of money doesn’t automatically make you good with money.
>Making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year doesn’t make you rich
Speaking of HN people living in bubbles.... Yes, it does explicitly make you rich, at least in terms of earnings replenishment. A person making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year is literally in the top 1% of the top 1% of the world's population. Regardless of how well they manage that money, they're making more of it than virtually all other human beings on the planet.
Also, unless you live in one ridiculously expensive place (and do nearly everything possible to maximize your expenses while living there), or you are absolutely clueless, or mulishly stubborn about your spending habits, (or possibly have incurred truly catastrophic medical bills in a place without decent public healthcare), then there's no way you COULDN'T manage to live below your means on earnings like these. Even in very pricey places like San Francisco, London, NYC, Paris etc, there are many, many people living right in their core areas on modest salaries and..... getting by without nearly bankrupting themselves! What a wonder.
Even if your employer 'had no say in the matter', it is still generous. Somebody had to pay for that medical leave whether it came out of the profits of the company you work for, their insurance company (which leads to higher premiums for everyone), or came out of the taxpayer's pocket.
It sounds like you could benefit from a completely different environment. If you can't find any joy working in your chosen field, it might be time to explore a completely different field. Many people have switched careers because of this.
I don't consider it generous, it's a basic right of workers that anyone in my country is entitled to should they need it. It's part of the social safety net and every worker pays into it should they need it.
I felt extremely guilty having to use it myself and beat myself up for it so much early on, but in the end it was the right thing to do.
> If you can't find any joy working in your chosen field, it might be time to explore a completely different field. Many people have switched careers because of this.
You should absolutely not feel guilty for using sick leave. We all pay into it, either through taxes or lower salary in case we need it. The stigma regarding mental health absolutely should stop, as mental health is health.
Some of the commenters on here should hang their heads in shame.
Taking humanity out of the equation, sick leave makes economic sense as it allows people to recuperate and get back to work, rather than having to find a permanent replacement.
However, it sounds like you are still sick, and therefore you should go back on sick leave. Both to protect your income and your health. Don’t make a martyr out of yourself, it won’t serve any purpose.
As you haven’t really mentioned specifics (that I have seen yet), it seems that the working environment did this to you, so the company does have a responsibility to you. As such, I wouldn’t feel guilty at all about continuing to draw a salary from them while getting better for the damage they caused.
On one hand you don't consider is generous
On other hand you feel guilty about it.
I think you should make up your mind. Maybe the burnout will also go away then
> Even if your employer 'had no say in the matter', it is still generous. Somebody had to pay for that medical leave whether it came out of the profits of the company you work for, their insurance company (which leads to higher premiums for everyone), or came out of the taxpayer's pocket.
Workers "pay" for it by having on average a bit lower wages in said country, then they could have had otherwise.
It's just like any other country wide or industry wide constraint companies can do little about avoiding, and have to price in somehow somewhere or not operate at all.
Generosity is a weird concept to apply for mandated things.
> Even if your employer 'had no say in the matter', it is still generous. Somebody had to pay for that medical leave whether it came out of the profits of the company you work for, their insurance company (which leads to higher premiums for everyone), or came out of the taxpayer's pocket.
What a guilt trip; you should be ashamed of yourself (and, frankly, you should probably also keep your US-centric thinking, which is entirely divorced from the rest of the civilized world on such matters, to yourself).
Before the pandemic I was really good at presenting and running workshops with groups. Then after work from home and with the gyms closed I put on 12kg pretty quickly. It changed my whole attitude and made me very insecure to the point where I never stood up in those groups. Someone else quickly moved into that role and I never regained that position and confidence I once enjoyed. I've been a bit of a shell at work ever since. Because I'd turned myself into a background character I no longer cared too much about my appearance and didn't get better.
Sometimes just focusing on the basics is so important. Yes maybe it's a shallow position from me but I've never been overweight and it hit me right in the identity and flowed on to the rest of my life. I'm happy to say I went for a run yesterday and am trying to overcome this.
I feel moderately well off and COULD take several months off but it could not be comfortable. I'd almost rather put in lower effort at a job and continue to get paid than have months of no income where I'm pulling from savings.
Yeah HN is a bubble within the tech bubble and there seems to be a vocal minority here that derives pleasure for putting others down for making less than 250k TC.
My favorite recent example of this was someone talking about how they were "really struggling" in their early days as a founder and going through all the ways they were scraping by and saving which included eating out to get a burrito at Chipoltle everyday, possibly for multiple meals.
After tax and any extras, that's likely near $8/meal! 8x3x30 = $720/month. For ONE PERSON! I spend ~$900/month to feed my family of four in CA, in what I consider to be an extremely privileged and luxurious way with all organic food, etc.
Be careful of comparing yourself to what people post online. It's easy to read social media and think everyone else is waking up at 5am, drinking their keto coffee, and making millions with their startup while working as a digital nomad.
Even on a tech heavy site like HN I would classify someone with 6 months of savings as very well off.