Mental health is still an issue in the workplace - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@OlarkLiveChat/its-2017-and-mental-health-is-still-an-issue-in-the-workplace-61efbef092f <comment><USER3> Great article. A few years ago (at a previous job) I took a sick day for "sanity", but told them I wasn't feeling well. I felt guilty about doing it. I think part of it is the association of sick leave with externally visible medical issues, and the corresponding "straightforward" medical verification.

In other words, if you have a temperature or are vomiting, that's obvious. Many infections or physical injury can be trivially verified by a doctor. But a "sanity day", as truthful and necessary as it might be, is neither of those.

Out of curiosity, I checked my current employment contract. It says sick leave is for "A personal illness, injury or medical disability that prevents the employee from performing his or her job, or personal medical or dental appointments." or "Exposure of the employee to contagious disease when attendance at work would jeopardize the health of others." There's a dozen or so other cases listed in the contract, mostly about allowing sick leave to care for sick family members/children. Our contract also allows for verification, "If the Employer suspects abuse, the Employer may require a written medical certificate for any sick leave absence."

I've never heard of anyone here being asked for a verification, but it would tend to discourage people doing the "sanity day" sort of thing.

<comment><USER4> >> I've never heard of anyone here being asked for a verification, but it would tend to discourage people doing the "sanity day" sort of thing.

I suspect that the lack of trust this indicates on the part of the company (not to mention foster on the part of the employee) is probably a sign that you're past the point of no return. I suspect a company that asked for verification was not doing so to see if you were genuinely ill, they're doing so because it's already a problem and they want a nice paper trail for when they terminate you. Of course if you _are_ abusing it, I think that's totally reasonable.

But I think most of my employers (except for one, where I quit for exactly this kind of disrespect) would have had no problem with me saying, "hey I just need a mental break day in order to keep doing this job - I'm taking one of my sick days". If one significantly exceeds allocated sick days, then the reason starts mattering more.

<comment><USER5> You're generally correct for the folks who have decent salaried careers. If I got asked to justify a regular random day or two I took off as PTO I'd tell HR to pound sand as anyone rightfully should.

Get into hourly low wage stuff and you are treated like children, many shops require a doctor's note for any and all absences with 1 or 2 dermits until you're fired.

This has reasons from both ends of course. When I was younger I saw the need for this sort of policy or you'd get eaten alive by the low-wage masses abusing it (and abuse it they did). But on the flip-side, these policies tend to simply be abused by management once enacted - with no leeway for people to be human.

In the white collar arena it's pretty damn trivial as a manager to tell who is abusing a PTO policy and who isn't, so only the shittiest of companies enact such policies. Managerial laziness is definitely creeping into this area of life as well too though.

<comment><USER6> >by the low-wage masses abusing it (and abuse it they did).

This feeds directly into the popular narrative that the working poor somehow lack moral fortitude. Do you have evidence to justify this claim?

<comment><USER7> If his experience was anything like mine it isn't the working poor. It is the young workers who are not poor. They are still living at home: they do not need to pay for their room, meals eaten at home, health insurance. That is every penny they earn is pure spending money and so despite making minimum wage they are rich with no need to work as many hours as they do.

When I was working minimum wage there was also the working poor: they needed every penny. If they called in sick you knew they were sick. If you asked them to work overtime they did their best to take it because the extra money was needed (they often couldn't find a sitter on short notice though). They didn't stay in minimum wage for long, their efforts were noticed and they were offered promotions to management (not all accepted because management often meant moving away from family, but in that case they still got maximum raises until they reached the top of the pay scale).

Note that many of the working poor got themselves into that position because of their choices, generally they had a kid at 16 and dropped out of school as a result (at best finished at the bottom of their class). They were failing to dig themselves out of the hole of their bad life choices because that kid takes the time needed to get a better education. In short they lack moral fortitude in that they were (and are...) sleeping around, but not in that they are not working hard for their employer.

<comment><USER8> So basically you're boiling it down to sex and laying down the guilt at the feet of the healthy young adults whose behavior is all but unexpected.

Wouldn't you rather call it the failure of a community - a society - <USER2> prepare its new members to the complexities of life?

Oh but it's easy to climb up the high horse, brandish the sword of Morals and throw the erring off the tower (incidentally, it's the same ISIS does to its own "deviants")

<comment><USER4> It's nothing to do with morals. Unsafe sex at an early age is just plain a stupid dangerous decision, and there's plenty of people to tell you that. Sure - I feel bad for the people who are now going to be paying for the consequences for the rest of their lives, but it's not some arbitrary religious code. It's not so different from experimenting with drugs in that regard.

<comment><USER9> Kids make stupid and dangerous decisions because their brains aren't fully developed, they don't have the same sense of perspective that they will (hopefully) have as adults. Once upon a time, this was part of why we had a separate judicial system for them, too.

Religion comes into play because the lobby against making birth control available to teenagers is also the lobby against abortion clinics (and any clinics that offer health services and birth control to teenagers) is also the lobby to teach abstinence in schools (or not teach sex ed. at all), and that lobby gets most of its funding from religious organizations.

So, the slightly awkward week in sixth grade where my teacher gave us anatomy lessons and a birth video is something my daughter didn't get to experience, even though I brought my family back to my hometown. Instead, she gets the even more wonderfully awkward talk from her parents, which my wife likes to paraphrase as "your mouth won't get pregnant" (thanks Bill Clinton).

Teen pregnancy is not currently a common issue (it has been declining since 1990), but that doesn't mean it won't start going back up if we continue making it more difficult for young women (and men) to have access to birth control and education about safe sex.

We even had some discussion in school about how to reduce the risks of experimenting with drugs, though I don't think many people followed those directions.

<comment><USER10> Religion _was_ the birth control for a long time. It appears to have stopped working sometime in the late 1960's though.

<comment><USER7> In the old days they used to say "First babies can arrive whenever they want, the second baby better take nine months". Which is to say they knew unmarried people would have sex, but any girl that got herself pregnant was expected to marry the father before the baby was born and stay married.

Religion never worked great, but it was all they had.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is a kinda secret code for OOO or WFH emails that managers should respect. Definitely got to "Respect the code" (say in a pirate voice). As a manager I'd write purposely vague emails to contribute to this, "Sorry will be late, got jumped by a gang of ninjas" because I really don't like to set a cultural tone that isn't trusting of employees. I basically need to know you aren't going to be here but I don't need to know why.

There was an eng manager that would pester people about vaguer emails asking for clarification. I really wanted to just sit him down and explain that he isn't being clever and he was basically being a jackass for prying into people's personal lives - vague email is vague for a reason.

<comment><USER12> I decided years ago to avoid detail in "I'm sick" emails, because I don't want to one day think "do I need to say I have horrendous diarrhea, or can i just say I'm sick?"

<comment><USER13> Me too, I also used to say "I have an appointment on Thursdays" instead of telling people I was going to the shrink. Though I'm guessing that code was not exactly impenetrable.

<comment><USER14> I did _exactly_ the same when I was in therapy the time before last. The only person who knew where I actually was, was my Manager (and I guess HR as well) - but my team (peers and subordinates) didn't know. I felt at the time this was the correct way to handle it.

Third time around in therapy (last year), I decided to be very open about my mental health, and the steps I was taking to help myself. So my emails became 'I can't do that then, I'm in therapy.'.

I found personally, that being honest and open to everyone about my problems actually contributed in a small way to my recovery effort. Even now, stabilised and medicated, I'm still honest and open about my [ongoing] journey, and who I was as person then, and who I am now.

I am never going to lie about being crazy again, it's not healthy.

<comment><USER15> Might I ask if the using the word 'crazy' at the end was a conscious choice? I do not wish to pry or pose a rhetorical question. I'm curious only because from the rest of the email you seem to be speaking in a dispassionate manner about the situation but that bit stood out as being different.

I could be way off the mark of course. I intend no disrespect or ill-will of any kind. I understand if you just say "None of your business" or something like that.

<comment><USER14> Nah, it's fine :)

'Crazy' is how I view myself. It helps me accept my broken brain, and more importantly, makes it easier to stay on the meds. Without the meds, I'm into serious depression and anxiety territory. It's no fun being there, so better to call myself Crazy. It is what it is. Also, I use self depreciating humour as defence mechanism. People I know personally don't like it when I call myself Crazy though, not sure why.

One day I do intend to get an 'I AM crazy, the doctor had me tested.' t-shirt. (see what I did there?)

<comment><USER16> IMHO defining yourself as "having" or even "being" __some mental health label __can be reinforcing and self defeating.

And if I had a friend who defined themselves as crazy that would honestly strike me as obnoxious. (I'd give a pass for schizophrenia or the like. Then your brain truly would be _broken_ ).

I say this having struggled in my own way (as, many, many - probably the majority - of people do at some point) with forms of anxiety and depression.

Everybody is trying to focus. Everybody is trying to be happy and stable. Everybody is trying to get by.

<comment><USER17> Just to dispell some common misunderstanding in this area: People with anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder can act in ways that make people think they're just as "crazy" as people with schizophrenia. There isn't a hard dividing line between schizophrenia and other "less severe" psychiatric conditions. The definitions of them are fuzzy and it's better to think of the whole thing along the lines of a spectrum of affectedness.

My point is that anyone can be "broken"... Not just people with schizophrenia. And sometimes, for both schizophrenia and other conditions, accepting that you're somewhat broken in a way can be very helpful. It allows you to accept help more easily and relieve yourself of personal blame for the ways you may have acted or continue to act due to the condition.

Source: I have a schizophrenia-spectrum disorder.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My only issue with this is how he seems to lump in the "mental health" days that people without diagnosed mental health disorders face with the stigmatization that the other group feels. I fully support people who need to deal with mental fatigue in these ways, but if just taking time off "cures" your mental health issues, it's a different class of problem from what others are dealing with.

The "still" is incredibly premature when it comes to mental health in the workplace. We're just scratching the surface when it comes to acknowledging, accepting and understanding those with mental health disorders. Depression, ADHD and even Autism Spectrum and OCD are all on the leading edge of disorders that are receiving less stigmatization and more acceptance over time. But there's a lot more in the DSM-V that are completely misunderstood or completely unpublicized. And our workplaces are completely unprepared to deal with them.

I saw this first hand at my previous employer. We had a coworker who had a number of personal disagreements with other coworkers. In discussing it with my mother, a psychologist, she mentioned that much of his behavior sounded, to her, like someone with Borderline Personality Disorder. He was everyone's best friend up until they did anything he interpreted as being against him at which point he'd flip and try to sabotage them at every opportunity, including filing numerous baseless claims with HR. The organization was completely unprepared to deal with an individual like him. Each HR claim he filed was treated seriously, but there was never encouragement or a requirement that he talk to a trained mental health professional who could have been helped guide the company to a productive outcome. Instead, his conflicts with other employees caused at least 3 of them to quit before he was eventually forced out of the company for taking on someone who had too much pull with upper management. I can only imagine the carnage that would have been caused if he had been a she and had been able to abuse the sexual harassment policies.

HR is only trained to help the company avoid getting sued. But there's damage to both the employee and the company that can happen without the lawyers getting involved. The company's HR failed him and the rest of us that had to work with him by not knowing how to deal with that sort of psychological disorder.

Rather than "it's 2017 and mental health is still an issue," I'd say, "it's 2017 and we're finally starting to acknowledge the long road ahead of us."

<comment> aaron-lebo You are very very right.

When people have disorders like you list they are disabling. That's expensive for the worker and the employer and ultimately our social systems but it's just kind of expected that those people are forgotten with no resources but their own to cope. That's a horrible broken system.

What scares me is the undiagnosed (as you pointed out). There's way too many people in public perception that when analyzed closely have some kind of personality disorder. Not to play psychobabble but way too often these disorders are recognized for the success they provide but the destructive aspects are ignored. Some of these people have been so successful that they'll die untreated and it's a loss for them and everyone else.

Jobs had something wrong with him that he appears to have recognized and mitigated over time. Trump has something wrong with him, he'll never get treated. There are some other popular figures that are less controversial but in the same boat. Straight up sociopathic behavior that is applauded until enough people get hurt.

Then you've got the unsuccessful delusional people who end up committing mass murder. How many shootings and terrorist attacks could have been prevented through relatively cheap mental healthcare?

It seems like an obvious weak point in society that we don't really address. Worse, you gotta wonder if social media is exacerbating it in some people. It's easy to become a delusional narcissist these days. Maybe it always has been?

<comment><USER18> > Trump has something wrong with him, he'll never get treated

A bit off-topic, but in case you're interested in that 'something', here's one analysis from a psychologist that made the rounds of liberal psychologists that my mother associates with: [http://www.nationalmemo.com/psychoanalyzing- donald-trump/](http://www.nationalmemo.com/psychoanalyzing-donald-trump/)

<comment><USER19> Please stop sharing that tripe.

The author himself admits it's horribly unethical and overwhelmingly likely to be entirely wrong in the very first paragraph, but somehow justifies his continued speculation because a random group of peers (as if these peers being located within the grounds of Yale for a conference gives them some sort of authority) decided it was okay this one time because they don't like the subject in question.

If you truly care about creating political change and/or defeating Trump you'll focus on policies that the majority of the electorate are willing to vote for instead of sharing feel good tabloid pablum to justify your superiority complex.

<comment><USER20> Not only that, they are basically turning this whole mental health thing into a farce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Not that long ago, I was considering joining a startup where an old manager of mine was the head of eng. They seemed to be doing some cool stuff, another friend had recently joined and spoke well of it, and I thought I'd give it a go. As part of that process, my old manager took me out for coffee to talk about the company, etc.

When we chatted, he basically laid down that he was concerned- when I had worked for him, I'd been depressed. He wanted to protect his startup from that kind of attitude. So there I was jumping through hoops to assure him that I had gotten therapy, that I was keeping an eye on it, on and on... only afterwards did I realize how fucked up that was.

Yes, he's got a right to try to protect a fragile young startup. But on the other hand, he's doing it via discrimination due to health issues.

In the end, I also realized something else that mattered: I was always feeling like shit those days that I worked for him in large part because of how he ran things. After he left, we got a much better manager who honestly seemed to work hard to make me happy. Why the hell would I want to go work for that guy again in the first place?

<comment><USER5> This is where it gets tricky.

Is your negative attitude due to a medical condition or you just being an asshole who has an attitude problem?

And is that even material to the decision to hire you or not? No one really cares _why_ you act like that, they simply care that you do.

I'm going to say it's entirely on you to present yourself in a positive light at work, and I honestly think your ex-manager was doing you a solid there. The typical way this plays out is your mental condition (or possibility of one) gets discussed by management behind closed doors and you never know why you didn't receive that offer or promotion. And yes, based on my limited experience with larger companies this is exceedingly common at the executive level. The one thing you don't want on your "record" is a history of mental health issues - there is no recovery to your (management) career once that is known.

In your case I think you simply had the curtain pulled back a little, out of consideration from your past manager.

Your other points stand though.

<comment><USER21> > Is your negative attitude due to a medical condition or you just being an > asshole who has an attitude problem?

I'm always unsure. These days, I'm generally a pretty positive guy but I know I've struggled in the past.

On this particular team I was definitely not the biggest asshole. In fact, after this manager left, the biggest asshole was fired pretty much based on the fact that the new managers weren't willing to tolerate his attitude. The bro culture of the team was curtailed (which is why I was so much happier on it afterwards).

It's very hard to be a manager, a people leader. I don't think he was _wrong_ to bring up the fact - he was doing it because he wanted to protect his company - but it certainly danced around a line of legality. After I withdrew my application he made sure to tell friends of mine that he had rejected me because of my depression. Really mature, that guy is.

<comment><USER5> > Really mature, that guy is.

This is really the only issue I have. Maybe your manager sucked, I don't know. But this specific story is absolutely the opposite. He put himself out on the line (as you say) and was honest with you. Typical folks would simply not talk to you whatsoever, but have the same reasoning.

Maybe I'm strange, but I'd far prefer the latter.

Story time. My best hire I've made was an employee with a speech impediment. This job was for a night shift as a sysadmin/support role, and that required answering the phones at 2am when customers called. Customers don't call at 2am to have a friendly chat - so those calls typically were high stress, and it really caused his speech to falter quite a bit.

I could have easily simply bounced him on the phone interview, since we were a tiny startup at the time and one wrong hire had the potential to sink us. I had other livelihoods to think of - not just the "legal" situation.

So what I did was I asked the guy back for a second informal interview and laid my cards out on the table. He could have gotten up right then, left, and immediately sued me. But he didn't - we had a productive talk about it, and due to that talk (and other self-starting qualities he had shown) he got the job.

I've now worked with him for over 10 years, through thick and thin and switching companies.

If I had followed your advice here - as the hiring manager I would have simply round-filed the resume due to the potential issues, and went on with my day. I took the risk, and it worked out. I don't believe what I did should have been punishable by death of my company - but it absolutely was if that potential hire had been ethically challenged. I also started the career of someone who was having challenges finding work elsewhere due to "unknown reasons" \- aka people seeing his impairment and silently crossing him off the candidate list. Due to the insane legal framework around this stuff, very few companies will take risks like I did any longer.

<comment><USER22> Since we're playing the "here's an issue I have with what you just said" game...

You "laid your cards out on the table" \-- which, as you note, is likely grounds for some sort of legal proceedings -- and it turned out.. I don't know even know. You got lucky that you weren't sued, as you willfully trampled through anti-discrimination laws. Why did it take some sort of put-it-on-the- line moment for you to consider the candidate beyond their physical disability?

You even go on to say that if the candidate was "ethically challenged", your company might suffer. You admit here that you were considering not hiring them because of a disability. How is it ethically challenged to possibly fight back over a dismissal based on being in a protected class? Do you view people with disabilities as simply a liability to companies?

Your closing sentences really smack of backdoor bragging. Good thing he found you, how lucky of him, someone that would tell him flat out to his face that they were worried he couldn't perform his job... and then decided to grace him with employment.

As the OP said, really mature. :/

<comment><USER5> > Your closing sentences really smack of backdoor bragging. Good thing he > found you, how lucky of him, someone that would tell him flat out to his > face that they were worried he couldn't perform his job... and then decided > to grace him with employment.

Fair enough, could be seen that way. I only mentioned it because he's made that specific point himself to me many times. No one was willing to give him a shot for over a year due to his disability, yet in pop culture (as you have so clearly pointed out) I'm the evil one. I suppose that was an ill-advised addition, and should have been kept personal.

> Why did it take some sort of put-it-on-the-line moment for you to consider > the candidate beyond their physical disability?

I really don't get this point. Why would I have taken the actions I did if I did not consider the candidate beyond their physical ability? I loved everything about him, but his disability put into severe question if he could perform the job. I had three choices at that point.

1) Round-bin the candidate. The vast majority of all employers do this at this stage.

2) Hire him blindly and hope for the best. In a 5 person startup this likely isn't a great plan for success. Plus if you make a hire like this and have to fire due to the disability not allowing him to perform the job I'm in a much stickier legal situation. Most likely I now get to hire another person to also do his job, and as a 5 man startup that just ended the company.

3) Talk with the candidate about my concerns, and see if we can come up with some reasonable accommodation. This is hugely risky as an employer if we end up not being able to come up with anything that works for us both. I took this option as I consider #1 absolutely immoral, and #2 had financial realities attached to it all the wishful thinking in the world wouldn't make go away.

And I do think you missed my point. The vast majority of employers completely ignore candidates like this because of posts like yours (e.g. the social climate) and legal liability if they say the wrong thing. In your estimation, I'm required to hire someone with a disability that cannot do the job. That is not true.

It took that moment because there were serious and legitimate concerns about his ability to do the job. Since he was a reasonable person he discussed those concerns with me like an adult, and we found a solution that worked for both of us. Hired. Had we not been able to find a workable solution, I shouldn't have had to open myself up to a potential frivolous lawsuit due to that fact.

And yes, you can say I trampled through anti-discrimination laws I suppose. But doing so got him hired, when before it would have been an open question if he could legitimately perform the job duties required. In this case, following the letter of the law would have hurt him since I could not have even broached the subject.

> Do you view people with disabilities as simply a liability to companies?

Again, I think you are having severe problems separating what reality actually is, to what the law says. I never said this in any way - I specifically noted how there were legitimate concerns over the employee's disability to do the job required. There are no reasonable accommodations to be made if the job is talk on the phone and you are incapable of doing so, and I would have had zero way to know if this problem was able to be mitigated in any fashion until I asked. Which I legally cannot do.

My point was if I had followed the law, that guy's resume would have been trashed like it was for the 50+ companies he got into and interviewed with to that point. Magically zero companies were interested the second he had to speak in person or on the phone and his disability revealed itself. He was otherwise solid, and me taking the time and liability to actually engage him in discussion about my concerns allowed me to feel comfortable hiring him and got his career started. My secondary point is good managers will absolutely color outside the lines with you and work with you to be successful in your career. OPs manager took him aside and outlined his concerns - in my opinion (as someone who has suffered the same condition) that's extremely respectful. The typical manager would have simply never even talked to the guy again, as it wasn't worth the risk.

I guess I simply will refuse to feel bad about this, even though you'd like that outcome. I'm absolutely proud I stuck my neck out and did the right thing - very few companies will these days. There are entire classes of untouchables I could talk your ear off about that everyone has utterly forgotten where the laws supposedly "protect" them but do the exact opposite. I put my money where my mouth is, where most simply ignore the problem exists due to perceived liability while simultaneously patting themselves on the back over how progressive they are being. It's sickening to me.

Edit: cleaned up some prose, less confrontational.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> One of the big problems with mental health is that it's aggravated by bruising that you can't see. If someone came up to you and gave you a paper cut every day for the next 3 years, you'd show some major scars and there would certainly be enough evidence to gain some sympathy. All the interactions you have in your day can also have a cumulative effect on the mind.

We can have laws or corporate rules or whatever but at the end of the day people just have to stop being so _lousy_ to one another. Obviously this means there shouldn't be people screaming at each other but it's a lot more than that. It's also the little things: don't cut in lines, don't be a jerk in traffic, don't eat stinky meals in the middle of crowds, don't get in peoples' way or be generally oblivious to what's around you, etc. These are all the "paper cuts" of the mind, gradually aggravating people day after day until they just can't handle it anymore.

<comment><USER24> I say this with as much compassion as possible (though it's going to be hard to sound that way over the Internet). A lot of those aggravations are more perceived than actual, thanks to the mental illness itself. You could say "how's it going, buddy" to a depressed and a non-depressed person, and the non-depressed person could see it as a genuine and caring remark and the depressed person could see it as sarcastic or uncaring or whatever. A depressed person could see someone cutting lanes as a jerk, a non-depressed person may see them as in a rush and busy.

Depression is something that colors the entire world dark and gray. It turns a bunch of normal remarks into thousands of little papercuts. No one is right or wrong here, but for a depressed person, understanding how depression colors the world can be useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> My partner works at Olark. It truly is a human-focused business. I love that she is there. The intention that their team and leadership have applied into creating a safe environment is deeply rooted and honest.

As someone who struggled with depression for two decades, while ultimately thwarted, it was a hopeless, numbing plague. As a coping mechanism, I developed my career working remotely. I was unable to function within a typical office environment. At home I could steal away to my bedroom and hide from the black under cover of blanket, when I needed to.

It's encouraging to see the silent struggle find words and champions. May others who are going through the darkness find supportive and loving environments; any change to find them is worth it. You are the author of your journey and the hero: write a happy story.

<comment><USER26>
      My partner works at Olark. It truly is a human-focused business.

Perhaps that explains the lack of openings on their jobs page?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I applaud the author for destigmatizing mental health issues. More companies need to be like this. Its really hard for people to understand mental health issues because you have to take many optional classes to even get an idea of what they are. Also, many people throw around terms like psychopath / ADD(ADHD) and either diagnose themselves or others and that can lead to more stigma or even misunderstandings. I think better education of mental health would help solve this.

<comment><USER28> > Also, many people throw around terms like psychopath / ADD(ADHD)

I can't stand this because I suffer from a double whammy: true diagnosed comorbid ADHD and OCD which people assume means that I'm just really hyper and picky. Also, people nowadays tend to assume that I was self-diagnosed (I wasn't) which I find to be a rather disrespectful and demeaning assumption.

Living with ADHD and OCD as a computer programmer is a daily struggle. I have to constantly stop myself from getting hyper-focused on problems unrelated to my job and stop myself from needlessly spending hours getting meaningless details just right. These distractions negatively impact my productivity, so I'm thankful everyday that I've accumulated enough smarts over the years to make up for it with what I produce.

It sucks having to fight yourself everyday in order to live some semblance of a normal life and it really sucks when people minimize your problems by adopting them as monikers for quirky personality traits.

<comment><USER29> > Living with ADHD and OCD as a computer programmer is a daily struggle.

I've struggled with this for as long as I remember, but I didn't really understand what was wrong with me until I was diagnosed a couple of years ago after having a particularly difficult time.

I was as open with my manager about it as I felt I could be, and they gave the impression of being supportive. When I got a new manager, I laid it all out (which my therapist encouraged me to do), and explained how I was trying new medications and that some of them had negatively affected me. He said he understood and that he'd make sure I got the support I needed. When review time came, he said things hadn't been perfect, but he considered that to be because I hadn't received the appropriate support from my previous manager. Things improved: he made sure I was assigned longer-term work that didn't involve having to switch between tasks too often. Unfortunately, everything I'd done suddenly became irrelevant when they decided to reboot a project, invalidating nine months of work.

Then one day, out of the blue, just as I was getting into the restarted project, I was called into a Hangout and told that that would be my last day, with no formal explanation given, other than that they were suddenly no longer happy with the quality of my work. I was devastated. My son had just started at a private school (because of his own problems with ADHD), and I was due to lease a new car later that day. We ended up homeschooling him for the rest of the year.

What really gets to me, though, is that there was no process. The VP of People had given a talk not longer before about "How to get fired from <company>", and one of the key takeaways was that no one should be fired without knowing it was coming, but for some reason I was treated differently. And all this from a company that preaches "love" as a core value. I'm not naive: I understand that it's all about the bottom line, not caring about people, but this was a company that wanted us to believe it cared about things like mental health.

I've learned my lesson, though. In future, I'll keep personal things to myself, and just try to do my best. I've learned not to think of colleagues as friends, and I will never again fill out a self-assessment except in the blandest, most generic of terms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> First hand experience. As a founder it's terrifying to let people know that you are experiencing debilitating levels of burnout, anxiety and moderate depression that prevent you from being effective at your job. There are days when you're just sitting there staring at your screen for 10 hours hoping nobody can tell you're checked out.

You put on a smile, try to follow the usual routine as a robot, and secretly go to your therapist to try to fix it before someone catches on. I was lucky therapy got me out of it, or at least mostly smoothed it out, in under 6 months.

<comment><USER31> Uhg, I am in that exact situation right now. I've done the therapy thing in the past, didn't help. Meds in the past seemed to help but hard to isolate them as THE factor that helped me out of a rut. So now I feel out of options.

I am so burned out. So much on my plate, so much work to do, and literally not one neuron fires to get me going. My memory and mental function, at an all time low.

I gotta believe this just goes away, otherwise I lose my job for sure.

<comment><USER32> Ask for a sabbatical.

Take a month (or better yet, three). It will benefit both you and the company. Discuss options here, and whether or not it's paid (or paid partially).

It's a hard ask and a really hard conversation to start, but it sounds like you need the time.

<comment><USER33> I've just started my 3rd month of sabbatical. It's wonderful. Best money I've spent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's not controversial, there's even a term for it - airing dirty laundry.

People don't talk about it because they don't want to all of a sudden be treated differently because 'mental health', and now people around you are walking on egg-shells or being fake supportive.

Why can't it just be a personality thing - some people need time alone more than others, for whatever reason that is. When you start labelling it mental health, all you're doing is self-diagnosing yourself into a hole that's hard to get out of. Unless you have debilitating problems of course, in which case the employer should know from day 1.

<comment><USER35> > Why can't it just be a personality thing...

For the same reason a cold isn't "just my body." Just like a virus can put your body in a bad state, so too can various stimuli to your mind. You don't just chalk it up to "how things are", you attempt to resolve it. For a cold, your body does that on it's own and you mostly just wait it out. Mental health issues can be similar (I'm just feeling off today), or they might require some effort on the part of the sick person to resolve. Either way, you don't treat it as a personality quirk, as that undermines the severity of the issue (it really is a health issue) and implicitly shifts the blame to the person who is sick[0].

> When you start labelling it mental health, all you're doing is self- > diagnosing yourself...

I don't see it as any different than self-diagnosing your cold as a physical ailment. Sometimes people are not capable to doing meaningful work due to their mental state, and people should feel comfortable saying that they need a sick day for their mental health.

[0]: Which, it could be their fault. But ideally we want to describe issues without implying blame. But just like you could unable to work due to a hangover, you could knowingly put yourself into a scenario that you know (or should know) will put you in a bad mental state.

Edit: Forgot the dirty laundry quote. I want to comment on that too.

> It's not controversial, there's even a term for it - airing dirty laundry.

Airing dirty laundry is providing "too much information", saying "I need a sick day for mental health" doesn't strike me as an inappropriate amount of detail anymore than "I need a sick day for physical health". I suppose you could shorten it to "I need a sick day" if knowing any more information is too much.

<comment><USER34> I agree with everything you're saying. I think you summarized it very well with

> I suppose you could shorten it to "I need a sick day" if knowing any more > information is too much

It's not at all unreasonable to say you need a couple of days off and say it's for personal reasons, and leave it at that. By providing personal information that's going to make other people see you in a lesser light, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

You can muse all you want about society being more accepting of this that and the other - the time and place you do and say things matters. A lot! When you're in a position of power - go ahead and make people under you feel safe to talk about mental health etc. Don't assume other people are interested in accommodating your needs when you're a relatively replaceable employee.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I couldn't afford to do this.

My mental illness is sufficiently severe that I need months, not days, to unpack and unwind, and I haven't felt not-burnt-out in about half a decade. I only get to do this between jobs.

I'm glad that this situation worked out alright for the employee, but there often isn't enough sick leave available.

<comment><USER37> That's a good point. It's trivial for almost any company to accommodate a 'mental health' sick day here or there - in fact nobody cares what you take a sick day for. So the situation in the blog post is a bit contrived and the boss pats himself a bit too much on the back for his response.

I would think true mental health accommodation would involve long periods of leave, or limited hours, or limited days (e.g. 3 day work-weeks) or all of the above. Not many businesses are setup for that.

<comment><USER38> In the Netherlands, it's a legal requirement that businesses must accommodate any employee requests for reduced hours, at proportionally reduced pay.

The average person in the Netherlands works 25 hours a week, yet they still have a higher GDP per capita. Not per hour, just overall. They work less, yet generate more.

<comment><USER37> Small point of contention. Netherlands have lower GDP per capita than USA.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(PPP\)_per_capita)

Generally small and/or resource rich countries tend to have a high GDP per capita, so comparisons usually aren't very fair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Here is what i learned from my now blue collar career and my old white collar career

Take sick days. Plan sick days.

My corp job had unlimited sick Time - after 5 days required disability. I felt i had to go every day; no breaks. No way to get a health day. Wanted to be that (very stupid) employee that never took a sick day. Didnt realize it benefited company. I chose my company over my family by not calling out. I wasnt "sick" i thought.

My Blue collar jobs i have to show sick dr note, but that is quite legit and easy. No stress. Dont feel well; tired? Back hurts? Spouse ill? I call out. NO GUILT.

Avoid the mental health or stress words. Use stomach or lyme or back injury or vision.

Looking back all my "i dont call in sick" didnt do me one iota of good

Now, i take off if and when i want. How i wish i was blue collar first before white collar

</comment><comment><USER40> One of the hardest things to explain to anyone is burnout and the after effects. I've experienced it myself, along with plenty of people around me. But I also know many friends and family members who are committing themselves to their jobs beyond their ability to healthily sustain their lives. This includes working very long hours, essentially never turning work "off". It impacts their health, their relationships and their mental well-being.

Trying to warn people who have yet to deal with it seems impossible. I've had sit-down heart-to-heart conversations with people I love about commitment to work, expectation setting, work/life balances, etc. and I've never had a good outcome. I've watched people go through the inevitable physical sickness that never seems to go away, and then have that turn into emotional and mental sickness which also never seems to go away. In the end, I always wish there was something more I could do to help them head this off. But no matter how hard I've tried it still happens.

</comment><comment><USER41> While it's great that we are discussing this topic, my first reaction is: why does a worker even need an excuse?

Isn't it a bit odd that companies who otherwise trust employees with business critical matters, sometimes matters of life and death even, won't trust them to be mature enough to decide when they need to take time off?

When I was in grade 7, me and this girl Elissa were seated at the back of the class. We had the kind of desks where you had to lift up the top to get at your books.

We were lifting the tops up to hide behind them while 'secretly' telling each other stupid jokes and giggling.

In retrospect, the teacher definitely knew what we were doing but he probably figured since we were generally good kids he'd just let us get away with it and have a bit of fun.

</comment><comment><USER42> I don't understand. Why isn't it standard practice to just issue a set of "personal days" without regard to "sickness", "leisure", or "mental sanity"? My company switched to this a couple of years ago and doesn't require an explanation. They are your days off, take them as you see fit.

<comment><USER43> It's strange to have that allowance laid out as a fixed number up front.

Most of my jobs in my career have offered 25-30 days paid holiday, plus the 8 or so days of public holidays, and paid sick leave.

That way you don't fall into a trap of debating whether you should use your last allotted "personal day" on something you might thing isn't worth taking it for as you might need it later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I find it strange any employee would need to be specific about a sick day.

In general, we as a culture tend towards confidentiality about medical conditions.

I have rarely used sick days when in a salaried position, and take a bit of pride in that. But when I do, I expect to not need to explain myself. And I have no problem on a personal ethics level using a sick day for pretty much anything that feels beyond my control, unavoidable, unexpected, and would prevent me from doing a good job.

Maybe that's not the exact letter of what a sick day is for in my employment agreement, but I've never been questioned about a sick day.

I am under the impression the stipulations about what a sick day can be used for are protection against abuse by employees who will game the system. Since that's not me, I don't give it much thought.

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't get this whole thing. Whatever happened to talking to your superiors about this kinda stuff? I've taken plenty of "sick" (of this job) days over the years and often times would proactively tell people to stay home if they were killing themselves (even locking out their accounts, if they went home and tried to work).

This had nothing to do with "mental health" it was just part of keeping people happy and not letting their work dictate their lives.

<comment><USER46> I'm bipolar and personally I would be afraid to tell my manager about it because there's still a great amount of social stigma.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> "1 in 6 americans are medicated for mental health." \- that is very high. What's causing Americans to have so many mental health issues? I don't have the stats, but I cannot easily believe that this would the case in let's say Europe.

<comment><USER48> Remember that getting medication doesn't necessarily mean that there's actually something wrong with you when prescribing medications has a positive effect on your doctor's income.

<comment><USER49> Indeed, the number seems disproportionate. But it can be possible depending on the definition of "medication".

I'd expect the number of mental health issues with an underlying [known] physiological nature (say, bipolar, schizophrenia), and thus mediated with the proper treatment to be _very_ low.

Mental health issues resulting from workspace, work, stress and in general lifestyle issues can still be medicated to help recovery, though the proper solution would obviously be a change in lifestyle.

I've witnessed many people with depression. I can only speak for relatives for which I know the full story. When faced with the issue, at least here, you have two choices. The psychologist will talk you into a lifestyle change whenever possible.

Going to a psychologist is still considered medication here, and it's covered by national health. When going to a psychiatrist instead, the medication (chemical) is almost always guaranteed.

It's helpful to say though that no amount of medication fixes mental health issues related to workplace issues if the underlying cause is not removed. This is a very dramatic issue, as for some people with limited working experience (and thus unable to have a leverage), it's often insurmountable. I known relatives in this situation for 20+ years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> It's one thing taking a day off for mental health, but what if the job itself is contributing to said mental health problem?

For example being bullied or having unreasonable expectations with some kind of negative reinforcement loop.

Certainly doesn't sound like the case at the company in the article. But that CEO sounds exceptional.

We also need to address treating employees as humans not workproduct producing AWS instances.

</comment><comment><USER51> Well, mental health has always been and will continue to be an issue that needs to be addressed in the workplace. This is because the workplace now is at least half composed of programming related tasks. Programming is such a mentally tasking task due to the need to get everything just right to get your computer to do what you want with it, that the fallout from it could be compared to a hangover. Your mental faculties do get tired by the process of programming leaving you in the lurch when you step outside that mental zone, and making you susceptible to attacks on issues unrelated to programming, that many managers and other people that don't exercise their mental faculties enough tend to indulge in. As a programmer, it's just as important to learn what to do outside of your programming related tasks, specially ways to relax and rejuvenate your mental faculties. If you don't do this, you'll burn yourself out leaving you susceptible to mental disease.

<comment><USER52> I agree with what you are saying. I am having trouble finding tasks that rejuvenate my mental facilities. What works for you?

<comment><USER51> Exercise. Cooking. Sketching. Paying attention to grooming. Practicing ignoring people as much as possbile in public. Reducing the amount of information I process outside of programming. --> Not using a smartphone. Using public transport. Minimizing internet use, no social media. Walking as much as possible to help slow things down. Consciously taking breaks from mental work, instead of just getting absorbed in a programming task. The equivalent of interval training. its possible to strengthen your ability to focus while you program through interval training. Observing nature, such as bird-watching, wind conditions, cloud formations etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> While I think most companies need to do better at making this acceptable, and I'm in no way downplaying the importance of treating mental health like any other health issue...

One of the things I like about our unlimited/flexible vacation policy is that I don't have to justify time off and can take it at short notice. I think there's quite a spectrum from "vacation for an event", through "vacation to relax" to "time off for burnout" and finally to "sick days for mental health" – I don't think there are clear cut lines between some of these. I tend to take relatively short notice days off to relax and recharge after stressful periods, and while I call it a vacation day, it's probably much closer to this. Unlimited vacation policies get a lot of criticism, but I see this as a big benefit.

</comment><comment><USER54> Sure if people like you you can get away with even a month of being 'sick' but its really depends on the person.

At a company i worked there was a guy who did that. He got away with it but he was a very senior programmer.

If i tried this i would have to worry about them using it as grounds for a firing.

</comment><comment><USER55> My grandfather taught me well: one should never, _ever_ talk about their health unless it's good.

<comment><USER56> At least as long as we live in a society that is always pushing competition as a primary virtue, you may be right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> What do people do when they take a couple days off for mental health? I love the idea, but have no idea what I'd do.

<comment><USER50> It'll depend on the issue. Maybe see a counselor, talk to a friend, get into nature or hide in bed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> People who recognize they are having a mental health issue and are working on getting better are often not really the problem. We all wish them better.

What is a problem are people mental issues creating trouble for others. It can get compounded by bosses looking the other way as results are coming in so there is no problem. Except the costs were externalized to the team around them.

</comment><comment><USER59> Very nice article, thanks for sharing! It reminded me of this one, written by my coworker Tyler: [https://medium.com/smells-like-team-spirit/teamwork-and- ment...](https://medium.com/smells-like-team-spirit/teamwork-and-mental- illness-in-the-workplace-302014e0ba96)

</comment><comment><USER60> I have trouble understanding this. You work in an organization, they have goals, priorities. You have a role and responsibility. Since when was it a company responsibility to take care of your mental well-being? If you need some time off to work on it, shouldn't you just take some time off? Am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER61> I don't think it's likely that a day will come, at least in our lifetimes, where workplaces are free from mental health issues. Yes, that would be great, but it's about as realistic as having colds and flus not be an issue in the workplace. These things are not going away in our lifetimes.

<comment><USER62> Even people on the Enterprise had mental health issues, I think it's part of being human.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> My cousin worked at European owned bank that had "mental health days". I liked that term because it sounded more proactive than reactive. They were viewed as a way to take care of your mind and reduce stress. You could use them for baseball games or just relaxing at home.

</comment><comment> wu-ikkyu >We are in a knowledge economy. Our jobs require us to execute at peak mental performance. When an athlete is injured they sit on the bench and recover. Let's get rid of the idea that somehow the brain is different.

</comment><comment><USER64> Heh. If you're a contractor in a lot of places you don't get sick time or days off either - you get to put a direct dollar cost on "taking a day off".

</comment><comment><USER65> I found it interesting that the article mentioned their product so much.

But, if this is genuinely how they treat mental health; they deserve all the free marketing they may get.

</comment><comment><USER66> I think taking downtime is good. I sort of wonder if actually affect my mental health by not working though.

</comment><comment><USER67> We have too many people with mental health issues in general. You would think it should be a societal goal.

</comment><comment><USER68> Your mind is localized to your brain. Your brain is apart of your body.

</comment><comment><USER69> Hnooch707

</comment><comment><USER70> first off, good for madalyn, it takes too much courage to introduce specifics regarding any kind of sick time and mental health is especially burdensome.

now, moving on to the rest of the post: of course it's still an issue. taking sick time for any reason is still an issue. everyone feels the pressure to not be sick, to not take sick time, and to work while sick. i have never worked for any organization where this was not the case-- even in some good places that were good to their workers-- and have only escaped it by working for myself.

>It's 2017. I cannot believe that it is still controversial to speak about mental health in the workplace when 1 in 6 americans are medicated for mental health.

you see, mental health is more of a threat than "physical" health. you get better from having a cold. you sniffle through a few days of work, maybe take a day at home, then sniffle through another day or two, and the lost productivity stops.

the spectre of mental health is that it is a long term sap on an employee's productivity that will also have flare-ups which result in time taken off, total work stoppage, malingering, unreliability, and bad morale. and it can't really be "cured" just treated. it's the profit seeking organization's nightmare. they'd never hire someone mentally ill, if they could reliably avoid being sued for their discrimination.

>It's 2017. I cannot believe that it is still controversial to offer paid sick leave.

only in the blisteringly backwards and proudly ignorant USA is it controversial. we are far behind the rest of the world when it comes to labor rights and treating people like human beings.

elsewhere the issue is settled definitively. to be blunt the CEOs haven't done their part in fighting for this basic right, nor has the government, nor have the workers. everyone has too much to lose by being the one to push, so nobody pushes.

>Our jobs require us to execute at peak mental performance. When an athlete is injured they sit on the bench and recover. Let's get rid of the idea that somehow the brain is different.

the difference is that an athlete ages out of being competitive after a time, and so their profit-driven self-infliction of injury ends earlier.

workers are stressed by work for most of their lives, for most of the hours of their waking day. work is far more detrimental to people's brains than being an athlete is to the body.

oh yeah, and workers can't choose when to stop, unless they want to choose to stop eating too. to be blunt there's no way that american workers could possibly operate at peak mental performance with their mental scaffolding so occupied with maintaining job security. this causes mental illness too, of course.

name a bigger stressor for people than their jobs / money.

>Take some time this week to express gratitude to individuals on your team. You might be surprised at the positive impact.

this is a bare minimum, not part of any solution.

the real solution (which won't be implemented because it is expensive) is to have an iron law in your corporation that your employees must take X paid sick days per year or per month. it's that simple.

then it won't be an issue, because it'll be a policy that people are forced to follow. there's no guilt about taking sick days for any health reason at that point. nobody feels like they're being dead weight when they take a sick day.

>Take some time to reflect on how your company's values help create a safe- space for your teammates

this is more likely to be lip service or self-deception at most companies than it is a reality. most companies value profit, and act accordingly when that value contradicts the health of their employees because their employees are replaceable.

>1 in 6 of whom is likely medicated for a mental health issue.

this should tell us that our society is violently unhealthy for our minds, as is our work culture.

and they are.

<comment><USER71> Not sure why you're being downvoted, thought you had some great points.

As someone who has struggled with mental health myself in the past, I'm kind of wary of the whole "let's reduce depression down to how we would treat a broken arm." argument. While it's good intentioned, and I totally agree we need to reduce its stigma in society, I wonder if it does more harm then good in the long run.

Depression is a disease of the soul, and I think it is so deeply embedded in the human experience that we can't just compare it to a physical ailment. I agree you shouldn't define yourself by a mental illness, but it no doubt deeply affects how you perceive and think about the world, sometimes for worse, but also in my experience, for the better. Good employers take this into account, although i think it happens more on a employee-manager relationship level than through organizational rules. But culture helps a lot.

I think we should broach the topic of depression as a society with deep care, empathy, and patience, recognizing how enormous and fundamental it is to the human experience. To compare it to a physical ailment is restrictive and a bit reductive. (If you can't tell, I think the biochemical causes of depression are a bit overemphasized in today's society.) We will be less frustrated at the lack of progress if we understand the enormity and complexity of the problem.

<comment><USER72> > Not sure why you're being downvoted

Probably because of the toxic tone.

<comment><USER71> Huh really, didn't get that vibe but okay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> While I agree with the author's argument, stating the current year does not advance it. Seriously, it's even a meme.

<comment><USER74> [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/come-on-its-2015-current- year](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/come-on-its-2015-current-year)

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Can someone please explain to me what is special with 2017?

<comment><USER76> It's a meme that John Oliver popularized, and people like to use it as an argument, when it's just a shitty strawman.

<comment><USER77> Considering how effective it is in persuasion, "shitty" is probably not an entirely accurate adjective.

<comment><USER76> Donald Trump memes were also very effective in persuasion for certain parts of the Internet this past presidential election.

<comment><USER77> You are correct.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Honestly, kind of sounds like the work she does may be the reason for the mental health issues. Maybe find a job that doesn't depress the shit out of you? I know, easier said than done.

</comment><comment><USER79> Isn't it always the primary issue?

</comment><comment><USER75> Shouldn't vacation days be used to help your mental health? If vacation days are not enough, there might be a more serious problem ...

<comment><USER80> If you're getting ready for work in the morning and you're suddenly hit with an overwhelming panic attack and you feel afraid to leave your house, that doesn't leave much time to request the day off to use for vacation.

Most people will judge you if you call in and say "I am experiencing extreme anxiety this morning and I'm afraid of leaving the house, so I won't be coming in today." So instead you shoot your coworkers/boss an email or a text that says "Hey, I'm not feeling well today. I don't want to get you guys sick!" Because that makes you seem caring and thoughtful instead of a weak coward who can't handle the stress of real life.

Even people with "serious problems" have to pay the bills.

*Edit: I just realized that when you said there might be a more serious problem you might have meant that the employer is not offering enough vacation days. If that is what you meant, then I'm sorry for unfairly maligning you with my last line.

<comment><USER75> No. When I said "serious problem" I meant the patient. Yes, people need to pay bills, but it is not your employer's responsibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> I have started a remote work week business that allows office teams to work together in a tranquil, nature-filled rural environment for a week and get away from the hustle and bustle of urban cities. The response has been really good. Reach out to me: email@example.com

<comment><USER82> So a remote work office that you rent? Also, that email alone screams questionable to me.</comment></comment>


GitHub CEO Chris Wanstrath To Step Down After Finding Replacement - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2017/08/17/github-ceo-chris-wanstrath-to-step-down/?c=0#33c9269eadd3 <comment><USER2> Random story about Chris...

I saw him speak at a startup event in 2010 at MIT called Startup Bootcamp. It was probably my first startup-related conference and he was the first talk in the kick off slot at 9am. He gave a great talk recapping the origin of GitHub and how it grew out of another projected called FamSpam, a social network for families.

After the talk I had to run to the restroom and happened to run into Chris out in the entry way. I introduce myself and we starting chatting. As we were talking, people started walking into the event late. They saw us standing in the entrance, and started asking questions on where to go.

Instead of deferring responsibility to someone working at the event, Chris sat down at the empty welcome table and started checking people in by giving them schedules and helping them create name tags. We ended up checking in a few dozen people together while we talked more. No one knew who Chris was when they walked in, and just assumed he was a member of the event staff. I think had they known he was the co-founder of GitHub they probably would have paid more attention to him.

I ended up sending him a t-shirt and he took the time to shoot me back an email saying thanks. The subject line was "Dude" and the text was "Got the shirt. It's so awesome. You rock. Tell your brother yo, too!"

Anyways, I just thought it was kind of cool he took it upon himself to help out with checking people in at the event even though he had volunteered to travel all the way to Boston to speak for free to help out young, aspiring entrepreneurs by sharing his learnings. It always kind of stuck with me that you need to stay down to earth and pay it forward no matter how successful you get.

<comment><USER3> Brother Andy. I read this article and before clicking into the comments I started drafting an email to you with a link to it: "Hey, didn't we send Chris a t-shirt and he sent us back some dino stickers or something? I remember him being awesome."

Yo Chris!

<comment><USER2> Funny that we're catching up on this story here instead of in person or on the phone, Brother Alex.

HN, bringing families together since 2007.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Github is among the best things that ever happened to OSS. Compared to anything that came before, it is a pleasure to browse, it is intuitive, and it has managed to corral millions of people with vastly different backgrounds into a golden age of OSS productivity.

In the 10 years+ before Github, I never even tried to contribute code–each project had its own workflow, and sending an email somehow felt intimidating. Today, spending an hour here or there to improve it slightly has almost become a guilty pleasure.

So, I guess what I'm saying is: Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER5> Forbes is ad-infested hell, here is an Outline link:

[https://outline.com/mntwGu](https://outline.com/mntwGu)

<comment><USER6> Woah. This is an amazing tool. They should make a browser that just does this by default.

<comment><USER7> It's not a legitimate tool, it's copyright violation.

<comment><USER8> Is google cache also a copyright violation? What about the internet archive? Or do you mean just because they choose not to display certain elements it is a copyright violation? What about just not running javascript?

<comment><USER9> I guess the op was referring to storing the content which I am not sure if outline is doing. If the save the content and make it searchable then it is kinda violation to take away unique content.

<comment><USER8> Google cache does exactly that

<comment><USER7> Google cache does not transform the content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When I was at GitHub Satellite last year in Amsterdam, I saw Chris walk in to the venue and look around at the amazing production and smile. You could tell how proud he was of his team and the brand he helped create. I am glad to see he is staying with the company, I'm sure the new CEO will need his advice from time to time to keep GitHub great for the next 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why the title change? As far as I can tell, it's factually incorrect, as well.

Wanstrath is _planning_ on stepping down and hasn't stepped down yet.

</comment><comment><USER12> Any other way of viewing this story? On my iPad with Focus, I just get a blurred out screen when I visit Forbes.com now. I remember it used to show a 'please turn off your ad blocker' dismissible splash screen, but that seems to not be the case any more.

<comment><USER13> Not from Forbes but it should be readable:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/17/github-ceo-chris- wanstrath-i...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/17/github-ceo-chris-wanstrath-is- stepping-down.html)

I seriously believe that Forbes is playing a game of trying to build the worst website in existence.

<comment><USER14> I'd believe it.

It's getting worse + worse. I'm adding it to my list of undreadables...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've never met the guy but have a ton of respect for his work - his open source projects like Resque and pjax were awesome for their time. I imagine GitHub has benefited a lot from having real coders at the helm for so long.

</comment><comment><USER16> > Wanstrath plans to focus on product strategy and the GitHub community after > stepping down from the CEO role, working directly on products and meeting > with customers.

Just a theory, perhaps they bringing in a new professional CEO for an IPO?

</comment><comment><USER17> > GitHub may seek to become more of a marketplace that can help developers > show off their work and take on additional projects, with GitHub taking a > portion as a fee, says Sequoia investor Jim Goetz.

They already have a Marketplace offering.

</comment><comment><USER18> Chris is one of the few well-known developers who conveys a deep love of software engineering. Looking forward to reading some of the code he writes in the coming months.

</comment><comment><USER19> The title is misleading. He plans to, but hasn't!

</comment><comment><USER20> Wrong title

<comment> ryan-allen Defo throw away PHP man. It's 2017.</comment></comment>


Scalable memory allocation using jemalloc - <AUTHOR> http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/scalable-memory-allocation-using-jemalloc/480222803919 <comment><USER2> I'm impressed that there is still room to eke performance improvements out by fiddling with the base data structure, the original author has been working on refining it for quite a while*

* [http://t-t-travails.blogspot.com/2008/07/treaps-versus-red-b...](http://t-t-travails.blogspot.com/2008/07/treaps-versus-red-black-trees.html), [http://t-t-travails.blogspot.com/2010/04/red-black-trees-rev...](http://t-t-travails.blogspot.com/2010/04/red-black-trees-revisited.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> 40 points and no comments?

Just wanted to say it is great submissions like this that make me come to Hacker News...

Thank you for taking the time to write this up and post it here...

<comment><USER4> It is a long article and requires some time to digest. No comments is a good thing that implies people do take time to read. I am still in the progress of reading ...

<comment><USER5> It also shows people here are unwilling to comment from a position of ignorance; a smaller percentage of readers will be authoritative on such an advanced topic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> YMMV but for my Python web app executing mostly OO Python 2.5.x code, I got a 10% performance increase by using jemalloc compared to the malloc in RHEL 5. It's as simply as LD_PRELOAD=/path/to/libjemalloc.so -- memory usage is also better (millions of objects allocated than eventually released in a long running process ended up with smaller amount of memory used when using jemalloc).

<comment><USER7> This is kind of surprising given that CPython uses its own ad-hoc allocator (see [http://docs.python.org/release/2.3.5/whatsnew/section- pymall...](http://docs.python.org/release/2.3.5/whatsnew/section- pymalloc.html)) which resorts to malloc() only for large chunks of memory and buffers... I wonder what's happening there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> It would be interesting to see a performance comparison with nedmalloc. It uses a trie instead a of redblack-tree for a faster information access.

<http://www.nedprod.com/programs/portable/nedmalloc/>

Some time ago I evaluated both of them, and they seemed the best available choices. But I never found a comparison study.

<comment><USER9> I tried to include nedmalloc 1.0.5 in the benchmark, but it quite simply isn't polished enough for actual use. To start with I had to remove an invalid assertion in malloc() and implement posix_memalign(), only to find that it crashes within moments of application startup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why is this not the default malloc shipped with libc's around the world yet?

<comment><USER5> Because if there is one library that needs to be conservatively packaged, its libc. A critical flaw in libc pushed out around the world could cause nightmares too awful to contemplate. Our entire modern world literally depends upon it.</comment></comment>


H-1B: Outsourcer HCL games visa system to discriminate against non-South Asians - <AUTHOR> https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/08/h-1b-outsourcing-giant-games-visa-system-to-discriminate-against-non-south-asians-in-hiring-lawsuit-claims/ <comment><USER2> Delivery managers at WITCH (Wipro, Infy, TCS, CTS, HCL) outsourcing firms are paid based on how much they can earn from every account. So, this drives them do many things. One of the consequences is the perception of the said discrimination.

Delivery managers prefer a cheaper resource to an expensive resource. They also practice this in India: that's why every team in India is filled with 80% freshers or those who get paid $5k per annum in India.

In the states, they look for the cheapest resource to fill a position. Often times, they find spots that just require warm bodies to add billable hours. Guess, who would they go for? They will hire some H4 EAD who asks $65K per annum in NJ. These people are happy to get some job and experience.

In old days, companies used to have lots of people coasting in their jobs. Now, WITCH companies have captured that profit in a two prong process: offshore to India and charge the client $30 per hour per person, then pay some desperate college grad in India $3 per hour. And capture that $27 per hour.

This is similar to outsourcing the manufacturing, as the middle layers capture the profit, by paying peanuts in China and by getting rid of expensive employees in India.

Edit: basically, these companies are making money off of outsourcing lots of bullshit jobs. They are NOT eliminating bs jobs. In fact, most of WITCH company onsite people are project managers pretending to be super smart workers.

<comment><USER3> Does it mean that South Asian employees are more productive and have better performance (output to expenses ratio) than US or other employees? And that there is no discrimination, the company just hires the best people fitting for the job?

Also, I wonder, if South Asia employees are so productive, why do they need an expensive US-based management reaping most of the profit? Why cannot they create their own company?

<comment><USER4> No rocket science here. They are productive in same sense mexican immigrants are productive in orange and tomato farming in States. Cheap and desperate to work even with demanding and exploitative employers because conditions back home are worse else they wouldn't have agreed to such arrangement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The last good paying jobs in America are in software and the tech cartel in backhanded collusion with outsourcers are actively working to suppress the wages by flooding the market pure and simple. 10 years ago I had a neighbor who at the time was 40 was a QA analyst and was earning decent wage fast forward 10 years he is driving Uber because his company brought in hundreds of new labor and gave him the option of "transferring" as a contractor to the outsourcing company where the starting hourly pay was $25 an hour. Simple supply and demand mechanics.

</comment><comment><USER6> It seems to me the problem of the H-1B system can be very easily solved. Instead of lotteries to cap the number of people accepted, just raise the minimum salary requirements until you have the number of people you wanted.

Companies that want to discriminate by country of origin clearly aren't using immigration visas as they are intended. Do you really think they'd still be in the game if there was a $200k minimum? I doubt it.

<comment><USER7> Every time I see an H-1B related thread comment like this will pop up. No, it cannot "be very easily solved" by sorting salaries. For example, what about other industries who also need foreign talents? $100K might be top wage for some other industries but no where near the top in tech. Even in tech, how do you expect small start-ups or small businesses to compete with giants like FAANG who can just throw money at the problem? Also, what about the cost of living factor? Is $200k in SV considered more competitive than $150k in some other rural area?

<comment><USER6> You make a lot of good points and I'm not saying I disagree on all of it. But many of these issues are orthogonal to the problem here. (Tech startups always have a problem of salary competition, which they fight via stock options; SV's problem is housing and local legislation that prevents sufficient supply; etc).

The USA has, as a society, decided it wants to limit the number of immigrants. (I say this as a non-American who has had work visas in the US before, and left). If you disagree with that idea, vote for politicians who will change things. But if we take it as given that the number of immigrants on H-1B should be limited, then the question is: how do we decide who gets them?

I contend that raising the salary minimum is better than lotteries. First, if you're going to limit the number of immigrants, you should be limiting it to the most talented rather than a random assortment of anyone at all that applies. Salary limits isn't a perfect fit for that, but it's a close approximation. Second, companies shouldn't be using immigration as a means to have cheap labor, given the laws around limited immigration. The H-1B isn't meant to be a means to lower the salary costs of a company, it's meant to bring the best talent to America.

Lastly, in a lottery with limited winners, small companies will always lose out. Why? Because companies with less integrity can and will abuse the lottery system by inundating them with applications, often for job positions that could be easily filled by Americans. These companies want H-1B employees that they can underpay and abuse.

Worth adding as well, if every H-1B holder is making $200k+, they're paying taxes on that huge salary too. This helps shut up those xenophobic types saying 'lazy immigrants don't pay their share'.

My argument isn't that it's a fix-all for every problem. But given the premise of limited immigration, I think lotteries are a terrible solution companies to salary-based sorting.

<comment><USER7> I am all for raising minimum salary to rule out abusers, but my point is there are also a lot of other factors to consider here in addition to absolute salary number, and if you ignore those factors, it will be unfair to a lot of people & companies just as lottery is unfair to a lot of people & companies.

This is a complicated problem and the solution has to be non-trivial. Both lottery and salary-sorting seems too trivial, and are therefore prune to cheating. For example, abusers can just pay their employee $200k but then charge them $100k "legal fees" for "immigration processing"? (I know some companies are already doing something similar)

<comment><USER8> Until then raising the minimum salary sounds like it will do significantly more good than harm.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> @ransom1538

>>> "H-1B, employing visa holders directly and through outsourcers, and has lobbied for an increase to the annual 85,000 cap on new visas." >>> My alma mater UC Davis graduated ~300 students in computer science per year (big school). 85,000 new visas.

Firstly, not all 85000 visas are for computer science graduates. So the better number might be the total graduates from UC Davis, or at least the total graduates in Engineering, Management, Economics, etc, etc.

Secondly, UC Davis is not the only school in the country, however big it is. There are thousands of schools.

The total Undergraduate enrollment in the USA is ~10million per year. You can assume 1/4 of that are seniors(2.5M) and perhaps 80% graduate (2M). Obviously not all are Engineering, Management, Economics -- but my point is the "300 student vs 85,000 spots" figure is wildly wrong.

</comment><comment><USER10> H1B is just a tip of the iceberg. HCL etc. employ a lot of people on B1, L1 and J1 visas. They bring them on-site for 3 month, rent an apartment for like 6 or 7 of them, pay pittance and send back to India.

</comment><comment><USER5> They don't need to game the system. The legislations are written by lobbyists with convenient loopholes. Unfortunately for this guy this mega outsourcer has ton of legal firepower to wiggle out of this.

<comment><USER11> There isnt many loopholes to the H1B. Most people that want it dont get it.

<comment><USER12> Yet, outsourcing companies that are decidedly not hiring rare talent gobble up the majority of it.

<comment><USER11> A tip of the iceberg. United states could import 2 million doctors easily (there is a market for it) and it would be the full H1b quota forever.

What I don't understand is what is defensible about putting any non- demographic limit at all. Why 80k and not 160k?

<comment><USER13> There's no good reason, its politics. If one party says they want to increase the limit, the other party will say: well, just give us this instead and we will increase the limit. And if neither party cares very much or has other priorities, this issue just keeps remaining where it is.

<comment><USER11> Thats one interpretation. After all, immigrants don't vote.

<comment><USER5> They don't get to. You don't immigrate to China on a work visa and get to vote and dictate their destiny.

<comment><USER13> Interesting. Would you say that the immigrant in question should:

* pay local and federal taxes * pay into the social security benefit system (if such a system exists)

If yes, would you still say that they shouldn't be allowed to vote?

<comment><USER5> "Paying taxes" is a common theme used to support argument in favor of letting temporary immigrants vote in their host country. I am still searching for a country that lets it's temporary immigrants vote before they are naturalized. There is an argument to made to tax the working immigrants. They use the public benefits of the host country - free public education, law enforcement, judiciary, libraries, roads and various other benefits. And finally they are not obligated to pay taxes if they don't like to, they can simply return to their country.

<comment><USER13> Your arguments are totally garbage because the recommendations are fundamentally untenable. Yeah,if those pesky immigrants want to vote they should just go back, right. I regret having entertained the semblance of an intelligent debate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> If you are interested in analysing h1b data, please check out my project, [https://github.com/serv/h1bhub](https://github.com/serv/h1bhub)

It's a tool to ingest raw h1b data into postgres, so you can study the data easier with SQL.

I am also working on an app that allows you to look at h1b data on web.

<comment><USER15> Why don't you put this in big query or Collab notebooks?

<comment><USER14> I never used those two before, but this may be a good idea. Feel free to create issues in the repository, and we can continue our discussion there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is h1b abuse by Indian companies still an issue?

According to this article: [https://m.economictimes.com/nri/visa-and- immigration/h-1b-ex...](https://m.economictimes.com/nri/visa-and- immigration/h-1b-extension-rejections-rob-indian-it-firms-of-visa- power/articleshow/68312136.cms)

Six Indian companies — TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, and the US arms of Tech Mahindra and HCL Technologies — accounted for nearly two-thirds of the rejections among the top 30 companies, the think tank said after analysing data put out by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

The six firms got just 16%, or 2,145, H-1B work permits, less than the 2,399 visas that Amazon bagged in 2018.

Cognizant, which is headquartered in the US but has the majority of its workforce in India, saw 3,548 rejections during the year — the highest for any company.

From this: [https://m.timesofindia.com/business/india-business/tcs- among...](https://m.timesofindia.com/business/india-business/tcs-among- top-10-firms-to-get-foreign-labour-certification- for-h-1b-visas/articleshow/66328540.cms)

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the only Indian company among the top 10 firms to get foreign labour certification for the H-1B visas for the fiscal year 2018 by receiving over 20,000 such certifications, according to official data in which Ernst & Young was ranked No 1.

London-headquartered Ernst & Young, a multinational professional services firm, has emerged as the top employer to have received the certification, the date from the US labour department said. In fact, Ernst & Young with 151,164 H-1B specialist occupation labour certifications accounted for the 12.4 per cent of all foreign labour certification for the H-1B work visas for the fiscal year 2018 ending on September 30, according to the latest annual report released by the Department of Labour early this month. Ernst & Young is followed by Deloitte Consulting which received 69,869 H-1B specialty occupations labour conditions programme. Indian-American owned Cognizant Technology Corp comes at number three with 47,732 specialty occupations labour conditions programme, the Department of Labour said in its latest annual report. Cognizant is followed by HCL America (42,820), K Force Inc (32,996), and Apple (26,833). India's Tata Consultancy Services or TCS is the only Indian company in top 10 for the year 2018.

<comment><USER2> That article is wrong about 16%.

In 2018, for these 6 companies, the initial approval rate is 60% = 2145/(2145+1405)

Continuing approval rate for these six companies is 77% = 29638/(29638+ 8742)

Source: [https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Re...](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/Immigration%20Forms%20Data/BAHA/Top-30-H-1B-Employer- Table-FY-2018.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> A person who is a citizen or a green card holder in the US, compared to a H-1b bonded (tech) laborer, has way too much rights and way little incentive to slog for an employer that is paying peanuts. It's very easy for a manager to get more out of a team member who is on H-1B than from someone who is a US worker. So often US managers In US companies also prefer to hire H-1b workers because they/employer have/has such disproportionate control over their immigration aspects.

In addition to this, if you consider the cost of healthcare (to the company and employee) which makes it too expensive to hire an older US citizen instead of hiring 2-3 young H-1B workers even if the per hr $ rate is higher. A US worker will balk at the kind of health insurance offered by these employers. Fresh grad h-1b often has no idea nor does care about it because they are young and healthy.

How can this be solved so that it is fair to the US workers?

Convert aspects of H-1B into a green card equivalent visa:

Aspect 1) employer can sponsor and bring in or hire a local non-citizen candidate. The new employee gets a 3 yr work permit to work anywhere at any time. Possibly the worker can leave on day 1 of work also.

What does this achieve? It means the employer will make sure the worker coming in has the best pay/benefits etc compared to anything offered anywhere else in the country.

If that happens, why will an employer, even if it is one of the WITCH companies, hire someone for below market rates at the risk of losing them the next day? If anything, at this point anyone who doesn't need a visa, even a 50 yr old US worker (costs a lot w.r.t healthcare to the company) may be cheaper to the employer.

Aspect 2) automatic conversion to permanent green card after 6 yrs: Since it's been proven with Aspect 1 that the non-citizen is capable of being employed for 6 years without displacing an US worker, after being on this new H1b / temp GC visa, just mail a permanent Green Card to this non-US worker.

The only thing in such a visa is that the employer who is into abusing H-1b visas or wants to replace costly older employees with cheap young contractors stands to lose quite a bit. But why should anyone care about such employers? Sadly, these are the employers who lobby hard to keep h-1b visa with bonded labor aspects, alive.

Pet peeve: This article is making so many racist/regionist generalizations it is hard to understand what "South Asian" means. Does it mean people from India/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka/Pakistan? Or is it just a euphemism to refer to 1/4th of the world population ?

About me: I'm an ex-H1b person who became a Canada permanent resident without stepping into Canada even once (except for the landing procedures). This, after working for 6 yrs on H1b and my last US employer trying to get me to slog for my green card application. Being born in India, I saw no point in going in for a US GC and remaining a bonded laborer till retirement. While o fee sad that US and USians are squandering this opportunity, I'm glad to see Canada capitalizing on this and see a great future for Canada.

<comment><USER18> Wait, how did you do that? Canada surely has a presence requirement before you can be a permanent resident.

<comment><USER17> Nope. I got it through Express Entry under the Federal Skilled Worker stream. You get points based on Education, Experience, Age, English/French proficiency etc.

The first day I landed in Canada, I became a Permanent Resident.

The requirements may be there for other streams / work permits / students (I'm not aware of those paths).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This lawsuit has more likelihood of success if the plaintiff is part of a protected class (non-white, female, age over 40). The article didn't mention this.

</comment><comment><USER20> If we are going to use a lottery for the H1B, we should also place a ceiling on the number of visas issued to nationals from any particular country: I suggest 10%.

This is similar to how the Green Card lottery works.

Otherwise one or two large countries will just monopolise the whole system, spamming applications from their brethren.

This is exactly what is happening, with Indians making up 76% of H1B holders.

<comment><USER17> 10% is too much.

Why not 5%?

Actually, why not just ban applicants who are born in China and India?

</sarcasm></comment></comment>


Don't Assume PostgreSQL Is Slow - <AUTHOR> http://thebuild.com/blog/2015/10/30/dont-assume-postgresql-is-slow/ <comment><USER2> My fun postgres story is the time I spent a week learning and using CouchDB to do some operations across five to eight million tweets. I mean, _surely_ a relational db is ill-suited to something like that, right? After no small amount of frustration, I just threw a cleaned-up version of each tweet into postgres and did a `LIKE` query across all of them. It returned in, iirc, less than a second (vs nearly a minute for couch).

The lesson, of course, is not that couch is bad and postgres is great, but rather as the OP said: "Human intuition about what might be slow is almost certainly wrong."

<comment><USER3> I once built a location aware application on MongoDB. After months of Mongo being the bottleneck in the application and periodically crashing, I switched to a naive implementation of the application with PostgreSQL and the application sped up five-fold. I've learned my lesson on Mongo. Postgres, however, has always been pretty awesome.

<comment><USER4> Postgres with its Geo extensions are also pretty solid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> FYI: The source code to the nextval() function:

[https://github.com/postgres/postgres/blob/71fc49dfe1d99bd83c...](https://github.com/postgres/postgres/blob/71fc49dfe1d99bd83cd99c2e7a39f93e07d19310/src/backend/commands/sequence.c#L498)

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not sure where this mantra that pgsql is slow comes from.

My sense is it's more from the monolithic nature of a typical install which makes it difficult to scale horizontally to handle supreme amounts of load.

For most development use cases, and even most production use cases, pgsql is plenty fast for almost everything if you design your schema well and leverage things like indexes.

<comment><USER7> It's because SQL has no performance model. You can't tell by looking at the code (the query) what the performance will be like. For example, you can speed up or slow down code by orders of magnitude by changing a line in a completely different part of the code base (i.e. adding a index). And it's also not an orthogonal change -- increasing your read speed decreases your write speed.

The _common_ case for business apps is suboptimal schemas and missing indices.

Postgres is fast enough, but it's not trivial to use well. On the other hand, anyone who has programmed in Python or Ruby pretty much has an intuitive feel for how well Redis operations perform. With SQL you get these wild swings, depending on what the query optimizer does.

I'm not saying you should use Redis -- it's worth it to learn how to use Postgres. But there's just a lower barrier to entry for non-SQL solutions.

<comment><USER8> > On the other hand, anyone who has programmed in Python or Ruby pretty much > has an intuitive feel for how well Redis operations perform.

… have you ever seen that not inevitably lead to wild performance swings as people reinvent SQL in their favorite abstraction layer? The same kind of developers who used to make an ORM demand-load a million objects to calculate a number are now doing that with Redis, Mongo, DynamoDB, etc. and telling themselves that it's okay for it to take 5 minutes to sum a million records because it's Big Data™.

I would posit that you're more likely to see good performance from a database engine with many thousands of engineer-hours poured into optimizations than what the average developer is going to produce reinventing a reporting language in Ruby/Python. Those same developers who can't add an index on a SQL database are not suddenly going to figure out how to maintain denormalized records in Redis.

<comment><USER9> >telling themselves that it's okay for it to take 5 minutes to sum a million records because it's Big Data

If it's the kind of query you run every week, it probably _is_ okay.

I've not optimized tons of queries like that before - and prevented other developers from doing so - not because it's "big data", but simply because the risk introduced by changing the code and the effort involved in mitigating that risk simply didn't make the optimization worthwhile.

In most cases I never would have built it _myself_ from the ground up in such a way that it would take 5 minutes (e.g. without indexes), but somebody else's dumb system that's running in production and solving real human problems in an entirely acceptable time frame is still code that's solving people's problems. And, changes always come with a higher cost and risk than most developers imagine - _especially_ in big systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Postgres isn't slow. But this is a very specific example that doesn't actually prove anything either way.

</comment><comment><USER11> It sounds like this was more of a tip to always test your assumptions, rather than an serious attempt as a benchmark. It does its job in that respect, but there's so much more to both of these servers than the test case.

It sounds like OP wrote a _for_ loop in Python but was surprised that the Redis one was only marginally faster. Nearly all of the speed loss would have been in that loop, not in either server. Both servers are so fast that all of the latency was in the mechanics of a sequential _for_ loop.

Postgresql is awesome for so many things, and certainly so is Redis, but those are really two distinct sets with very little intersection. Knowing when to use each is something that a good architect intuitively grasps. (these two in particular complement each other very well.)

Always test your assumptions within your specific use case, and don't embark on performance optimizations until you've solved all of your other requirements first.

</comment><comment><USER12> Redis can do a lot more than 12k operations/sec. Bottleneck is not the backend here at all.

<comment><USER13> I am guessing this is a single threaded benchmark.

Performance concerns in practice are much more complicated than "What is the average response time for a single thread on one operation?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Not really (test on an Amazon i2-2xlarge instance, client over local > sockets, Python client)

This is a flawed benchmark setup with little connection to the real world.

<comment><USER15> No, it's the right way to do it. This way you don't pollute your benchmark with random things like connection speed, connection pool performance, networking issues, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> There are valid reasons to distribute load between redis and your database, per query performance ranks pretty low compared to your overall database load, for example.

</comment><comment><USER15> The biggest problem with this benchmark is it being single threaded.

Redo it with 32 or 256 concurrent (local) requests and see what happens. I bet Redis will end up being quite a bit quicker.</comment>