Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

https://technical.ly/2021/08/30/vacation-employee-burnout/

by clockworksoul • 5 years ago

247 231 5 years ago

technical.ly

Animats• 5 years ago

"8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what we will!" - union slogan, 1920s.

"Unions. The people who brought you the weekend".

Waterluvian• 5 years ago

I would be so miserable if it had to deal with a union.

Though to be fair I am not overworked or undervalued. I imagine there’s a lot of engineers who large companies just grind through.

Afton3• 5 years ago

Why would you be miserable? Union dues? occasional union communication? I'm just trying to understand what hypothetical issue you feel would be super arduous.

ineedasername7• 5 years ago

No need to be miserable in a union. If you don't like the union you just don't deal with it. Ignore their meetings & other communication. In the US at least, Per the SC's Janus ruling, public unions can no longer require fees at all, and the same goes for private unions in right-to-work states.

eatonphil2• 5 years ago

What do we do? Well, root out the real causes of burnout. If it’s not those top workplace issues, it may very well be the burn of extended, heightened stress. For employees surveyed, flexible work hours and mental health support were more popular than even a four-day work week or unlimited PTO. The point then is lots of professionals like their actual work, they just don’t like the restrictions and environment. Give direction, let them do the work. Remove barriers.

PTO and a healthy work environment are both good.

sharken• 5 years ago

Restrictions unfortunately play a large part, e.g. changes to Production can only be done by request.

Requests then take weeks to be completed even though the actual work involved can be measured in minutes

Another core issue for me is the ratio between challenging tasks and more simple tasks.

There should always be a few tasks to work on that are challenging, otherwise procrastination sets in which can turn into some form of burnout if nothing is done.

sneak2• 5 years ago

The passive-aggressive lie that is "unlimited PTO" is part of the growing toxicity of startup work environments.

stadium2• 5 years ago

Depends on the company!

If it's inauthentic though, employees can smell it from far away.

MisterBastahrd2• 5 years ago

In reality, the only person who has unlimited PTO is usually the CEO, because he's the only one who can afford to get away repeatedly.

noirbot6• 5 years ago

To me, the most important part of unlimited PTO isn't the "unlimitedness" but the fact that it's not something I'm having to log in a system. It's that usually I can just take off a Friday or a Monday here and there without any issue as long as I give a bit of notice.

My company just got rid of unlimited PTO for all the reasons people say they hate it - they didn't think people were taking enough PTO for their health, it was used unfairly, etc... Functionally now though, I have to file paperwork with 3 different groups to have someone approve even a single day off so they can make sure I'm not going over the number of days off that I have in accordance with my level and seniority. Thankfully my manager has essentially told us they don't care and we're still on unlimited because they don't want to do the paperwork either.

It's not to say that "unlimited" can't be toxic, but it's easy to forget how onerous other systems can be, which can lead to you taking less time off in the same way. One of my friends is the junior on their team on a fixed PTO system and is being forced to take nearly random days off now in order to have any at all because they didn't get their holiday plans in as early as their more senior team members, so now they're stuck with the dregs. Toxic cultures are gonna be toxic. The framing just changes the mechanism.

beerandt2• 5 years ago

Unlimited PTO is crazy to me. It takes the principles of spelled-out employment terms and throws them in the trash.

The "flexible hours" policy was bad enough at my last job. Wildly varying interpretations between different managers and department heads under the same roof.

8ytecoder2• 5 years ago

It's really great - when it works. I have worked at two companies with this policy - only in one of them I took (rather could take) 4-5weeks off every year.

bb883• 5 years ago

There's a lot of companies in the world where "vacation" is offered, but the managers will many times terminate those who take it. All it takes is for one or two employees to be terminated after just getting back from a vacation to send a message to the rest of the employees.

The right to use benefits has to be enforced by the CEO. If people aren't using their vacations (and effectively losing them), then that sets the culture off on the wrong foot from the start.

labster• 5 years ago

My last job implemented an unlimited PTO policy. In 2020, I took about 7 days off, and worked at least 20 days on weekends. With the increased responsibilities, there just wasn’t any time that was good to leave… until I left for good. It was definitely a factor in my current burnout.

The funny thing was before the VCs bought the company, I had two weeks but in practice could ask the CTO for as much time as I wanted. But unlimited PTO functionally meant negative days off, because performance would decrease when you left. Setting a minimum PTO might help.

f69281c2• 5 years ago

Unlimited PTO means there's nothing to cash out at the end of the year if you took 0 days of PTO.

It also reminds me of the old negotiating tactic - never be the first one to offer up a number.

plorkyeran• 5 years ago

Flexibility is a multiplier to the existing work environment. Flexible work hours and unlimited PTO make an already good environment better, and make bad environments miserable. Rigid rules for when you're working and when you aren't working is a great defense if your management is going to push you to work as much as they can so you should be wary when job hunting if they are "flexible", but flexiblity can be great too.

spaetzleesser2• 5 years ago

"unlimited PTO" is a scam in most cases. I interviewed with one of these companies a few years ago and told them that from my freelance experience 8 weeks per year is the sweet spot for me. The manager got really quiet and the interview ended quickly.

I now have a contract with fixed 4 weeks off and everybody takes their time. The people I know who have "unlimited PTO" mostly take off less time. I have never heard of anybody taking way more than 4 weeks.

It's basically the same unbalance as some companies having flexible working hours which means you are expected to work overtime during crunch time but when things are slow you are still expected to put in at least 40.

MisterBastahrd2• 5 years ago

Once again we have a CEO pretending to know what works best for the rank and file employee.

First we didn't need bonuses, we just needed a pat on the back from managers and co-workers to achieve happiness.

Now, we don't need vacations if we're burnt out, instead we just need flexible hours so we can schedule our death marches around our other responsibilities and mental health resources. 10 hours is 10 hours regardless of how you schedule it. Pressure doesn't go away just because your boss describes impending doom using nice words.

What's next? Desks aren't the answer for writing surfaces because our walls are already flat?

eatonphil2• 5 years ago

I didn't assume that he meant anything like that. Digging into the company a bit:

Though results matter most and Technically Media prides itself on flexibility, as a guide, this role might expect to work roughly 40-45 hours a week.
Technically Media offers 10 paid holidays per year; 15 PTO days accrued per year with additional P TO offered progressively; as well as a month of paid parental leave.
Technically Media additionally closes its offices for the final week of the year to relax and unwind before each new year. This serves as additional paid holiday time.

https://technical.ly/job/editorial-director/

It's not the most generous but it's par for Philly area tech companies and its not a tech company, it's a journal.

hinkley• 5 years ago

this role might expect to work roughly 40-45 hours a week.

I “expect” a lot of things that never happen.

babarganesh2• 5 years ago

I don't want "mental health support" from work. I only need that if my workplace is causing serious mental health issues in the first place. (Which it is at present.)

haswell• 5 years ago

A personal counterpoint: I do want mental health support from work. Many of the downsides of complex childhood trauma didn’t start to really interfere with my life until my late 20s/early 30s.

When I started really struggling at a job I’d already established myself in, I learned of and am incredibly grateful for the mental health benefits offered by my employer and for leaders who are open, understanding and willing to work with me when things aren’t going well.

When I first had to broach the subject, easily finding resources about the company’s EAP benefits instead of feeling like it was all some hush hush thing really helped reduce the anxiety of opening up about a difficulty topic.

hnaccount141• 5 years ago

I think it depends on what mental health support means. If it means helping pay for therapy and managers making accommodations and being genuinely supportive of people when they're having a hard time, that's fantastic.

Unfortunately at many companies it just means a presentation from HR every couple of months that boils down to "10 strategies to cope with the burnout we're causing". Meanwhile the people with actual power to change things keep pushing the same "aggressive" deadlines and refusing to provide the support/resources necessary to meet them in a healthy and sustainable way.

babarganesh2• 5 years ago

I think that's valid and I want that possibility for everyone. I don't want it linked to work, though.

noahtallen• 5 years ago

Time away from work absolutely is important for recovering from burnout. If work is causing burnout, prevention means adjusting the parts of work that cause burnout.

decebalus1• 5 years ago

Bullshit. Vacation [1] IS the answer for burnout. Long vacations are even more ok for burnout. Sabbaticals are the most ok. Guess what a doctor would recommend you do if you're having health issues from burnout?

If there's chronic burnout in your company/org then indeed, no amount of vacation will fix that. But neither would flexible work hours or mental health support.

[1] Vacation means complete and total disconnect from work or work related activities. That goes beyond not checking work emails. I'm talking no leetcode or learning some new JS framework.

suzzer99• 5 years ago

Agreed. We need European-style month-long vacations in the US. And sabbaticals every few years. Also we should start looking at 36 and 32-hour workweeks.

We're 20x more productive than 40 years ago, yet still work the same hours or more for pay increases that barely keep up with inflation.

dopidopHN4• 5 years ago

As a European living in the US since a decade. It starts to impact my mental health.

I went from 8 weeks / years to 4 or 5. Currently 3. Ha.

I cannot recharge the same way ( meaning : travel for weeks at a time, or chill hard for 2 weeks in a row )

It’s flexible all right. But I feel like I’m always working somehow. Work is near, lurking.

I’m nursing a nice little depression that I feel a road trip would cure easily. Too bad I need to keep my last week of vacation for Christmas week.

kaycebasques• 5 years ago

I'm 3 months into a sabbatical / gap year [1]. Feels great. The water is fine. Come on in!

[1] https://kayce.basqu.es/sabbatical/prologue

11235813213455• 5 years ago

For me a vacation, it's every day, every time I take my bike, go in the nature, it's something short and intense. I don't need to cut off several week from a job, take a plane to an exotic island. No, not only for environmental reasons, but I don't need it, just working less every day will be more efficient for me when I need to regenerate

thrower123• 5 years ago

One week of vacation is just not worth bothering with. It's not enough time to even disengage before you turn around and come back.

lazyant• 5 years ago

Yes, and let's stress _long_ vacations.

We need our brains to disconnect and we need at least 4 days to a week to start feeling "on vacation" [citation needed], so anythin less than say two weeks or whatever (milage may vary) and you just came from work or are worrying about going back to work. Last time I went on vacation I forgot for a moment where I worked :-)

wccrawford5• 5 years ago

I will agree that a sufficiently long vacation is an answer to burnout.

It'll never prevent burnout, though, and having "job satisfaction" will, as many of the other commands are saying.

It's not a either-or situation. You should have both.

jstx1• 5 years ago

Burnout isn't always caused by overwhelming jobs - dull, boring, undemanding jobs with little to do can be their own hell and spiral off into depression. Then I don't need vacation; I need meaningful work.

throw0101a2• 5 years ago

See also The Onion:

Man Returns To Work After Vacation With Fresh, Reenergized Hatred For Job

* https://www.theonion.com/man-returns-to-work-after-vacation-...

runawaybottle4• 5 years ago

Lol. Thanks for making my day better.

Edit: But to add to the comedy (all comedy is tragedy, and all tragedy is comedy according to the Greeks), that’s pretty much the reason why I don’t take vacations. It’s not going to change anything, so I much prefer to take days off so I don’t completely lose it.

The sadness is hilarious.

kekebo• 5 years ago

They may not fundamentally change ones attitude towards a job, but when carefully planned and executed vacations may have the potential for creating some worthwhile times and memories

co2benzoate• 5 years ago

Why not both? There are many companies and countries where you can do just that. Work a 30 hour week with a month+ vacation a year.

agumonkey4• 5 years ago

People at the office joke about the fact that when bad weather ruins their vacations, they come back happier to work.

actually_a_dog2• 5 years ago

I hate to be "that guy," but I don't understand this joke. :/

SkyPuncher• 5 years ago

I'm burnt out right now. Layoffs, a spin-out, and huge situational challenges related to both.

Vacation is great, but I agree with the author here. Vacation _can_ be a tool to combat burnout - but burnout is often a result of other things besides hours worked. I've worked times of 80+ hours. While feeling worn out, I never got burnt out. I've worked times where I can barely put the effort into 30 hours/week.

Right now, I'm attributing my burn out solely to the fact that we have huge amounts of "keep the lights on work" to complete the spin-out while continuing to deliver product. Neither the workload nor the type of work is bad. There's just so much of it and it's wearing.

----

For me, a vacation doesn't solve much for me. I'll be back to "more of the same". What's really helping is the change in pace of my work and the ability to get back to things that engage and excite me.

mikepurvis• 5 years ago

100% agree. Burn out for me has everything to do with what the work is, whether there are enough hands for it, and whether it’s being properly recognized/appreciated.

It has nothing to do with the hours; indeed some of my most productive and least burnt out times have been when I was happily pouring in 60+ hrs/week because I was having fun and so energized by the project and my team’s excitement and collaboration dynamic.

dbs• 5 years ago

I would bet that flexible work hours are contributing for higher employee burnout.

awsthro009455• 5 years ago

I agree. In my experience, "flexible work hours" is often code for "everyone works weird fucking hours so instead of having a set routine, you have to be quasi-available at all times to respond to the person who decided to wait until 8pm to do the work you were waiting on". It's great for the person who needs flexibility, and shitty for everyone that depends on that person.

Flexible working arrangements are great when the team is able to asynchronously work, but I have yet to see a team that really does asynchronous work right.

dopidopHN4• 5 years ago

Excellent point. If the expectations is to not respond right away and not be available right away. It can be fine.

I’ve seen it work. But it require discipline.

In my situation the time difference were too striking to hope having synchronized interaction, and the team built on that habit.

But then one day we had a major refactor in our orgs and that was gone.

mhitza• 5 years ago

I have yet to see a team that really does asynchronous work right.

I think the Linux kernel developers can be considered the biggest software team that does asynchronous work, and it works just fine.

Honestly just some basic mailinglist software installation goes a long way.

And an organization can still have a process in place on how to get synched when its needed (scheduled calls, impromptu emergency response situations, etc).

nickjj2• 5 years ago

I think this is a contributor, especially with working remote where folks are spanning many time zones.

A position I'm thinking about joining requires being available 9 hours between 9am-6pm EST (I live in EST) to ensure there's reasonable overlap between the west coast US and most European countries. They were really strict on these hours and at first I was against it because I thought what's the difference if I work 2 hours early one day and clock out early or decide to be unavailable for 3 hours in the afternoon (1h lunch break + the 2 hours).

But the more I think about it, the more I think it's a better system for everyone in the end when everyone has strict hours. I wouldn't want to be expected to review a PR at 7pm EST because someone else decided to start a bit later one day.

They have no problem for exceptions like leaving early for a doctor's appointment or picking someone up. The only rule here is you need to give a few days notice which is also reasonable because it lets your team members know you won't be around when you usually are. They don't need to know the details, only that you won't be around. They're also ok if you need to bail without notice because it's something important. Basically don't abuse the system and it's all good.

tharkun__5• 5 years ago

I don't get how that's a better system than not requiring overlaps between timezones that are essentially too far away from each other for reasonable overlap? Other than being good for the employer of course.

I do agree that having "core hours" is very valuable with flexible hours. Core hours need to be less than a regular working day though and they should be negotiated by the team internally. Have a team of night owls? Core hours can be 4pm to 10pm for example.

Why would you review a 7pm EST PR any earlier than the next day (which is when you'd see it) and your next day happened to start at 10am only that day? Unless you had started your day late or were working later for another reason (like wanting to take half of Friday off) and you happen to see it.

Timezones suck and make things slower. Companies need to acknowledge that and not by making people work longer than they should.

paulpauper• 5 years ago

The issue is also people bringing their work to vacation. This lowers the effectiveness of vacations.

jonnycomputer• 5 years ago

It is not the answer, but definitely part of the answer. When I have to work twice as hard before and after vacation, to make up for it, well, that's pretty damn exhausting.

foolinaround• 5 years ago

unless the entire team/company takes vacation at the same time, it is not too helpful.

the person comes back to a ton of work waiting for him.

also, when others take vacation, the work pace often does not stop, and the person, who himself is going through a burnout phase, takes on even more load

awsthro009455• 5 years ago

Not only is it not the answer, vacation can actually be a contributor to burnout, IME.

In my current role, taking PTO is a legitimate punishment. If I take a day off, there is nobody else on my team who has capacity to pick up my work in my absence. When I return from PTO, not only do I now have double the amount of work to catch up on, but I also have 15 emails from angry managers upset that I didn't get to their request sooner.

"you should just take some vacation" is often a convenient escape hatch for managers that want to seem like they're helping, but without actually putting any effort into solving the problems that make people want to escape from work in the first place.

dQw4w9WgXcQ• 5 years ago

Weird. If you're the king of the jungle then it doesn't matter what your managers or their emails or schedules say, now does it? Take your PTO and let the rabble do their rabbling, they can't fire you or else they'd be getting rid of by far the best man on their team and they wouldn't want that, right?

stuff4ben2• 5 years ago

If you can't afford to take a day off, then that's on you my friend. The people on your team can take up your slack if you let them. I work for someone just like you. He hoards all of the meetings and knowledge and "power" (for lack of a better word). When he goes on PTO, things halt when they shouldn't. Me and others on my squad can pick up the slack. But gatekeeping and knowledge-hoarding prevent us from helping out. Not a big deal for me, but I'm sure my squad-lead will get burned out eventually. I have warned him about that in our 1:1's, but nothings changed...

awsthro009455• 5 years ago

If you can't afford to take a day off, then that's on you my friend. The people on your team can take up your slack if you let them. I work for someone just like you. He hoards all of the meetings and knowledge and "power" (for lack of a better word).

Lmao. Nobody else on my team can take up slack because they have literally no space on their calendar. My team is currently at half of our target headcount. Every person is currently working 60 hour weeks and is still behind. "If I let them"? "hoarding meetings"? Please, keep your assumptions about my workstyle to yourself. I literally beg my teammates and managers to join my meetings and share the load, but nobody has the time.

rubicon33• 5 years ago

I think burnout is mostly related to a lack of intrinsic motivation / reward. When you're no longer deeply interested in what you're doing, it feels like a grind whether its 30 hours a week or 80.

mcast• 5 years ago

There are many root causes for burnout, but companies not properly valuing and appreciating their employees is definitely a big one!

dimeatree• 5 years ago

My solution to burn out was to go down to part-time; I have been incredibly fortunate that my work place supported my decision to go down to 4 days a week, with the option to do 3 days for 3-6 months and keep my full pay - I was not expecting this.

davesque2• 5 years ago

While I agree with the title, the article itself is a fluff piece. It takes several paragraphs just to give hand wavy advice like, "Just remove barriers." It also feels like it can't possibly be true that people prefer flexible hours more than a four day work week as is claimed. This just feels like one startup guru trying to kid themself into thinking they can get away with avoiding substantive change and trying to justify their fee by dutifully parroting what they heard at the latest growth seminar.

karaterobot• 5 years ago

When I've been burned out or hated my job, I didn't take vacations, because the crushing realization that I'd have to return to work was almost worse than losing myself in the uninterrupted, repetitive, dead-eyed grind. While on vacation, I'd start thinking about the countdown to the end of the vacation.

Well, root out the real causes of burnout.

I'll offer the definition that's made most sense to me. I didn't come up with it, in fact some wise person here on HN stated it:

Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off.

You can work like a dog to release a feature, and if the feature does what it was meant to do, and you get recognized for your contribution, how hard you worked doesn't matter as much. You are energized, excited to be part of a great team, ready to move on to the next stunning victory.

On the other hand, if you work like a dog on a feature and it gets cut at the last minute, or its success is undermined by some VP's dumb idea, it sucks. If that happens over and over, without a win, you're burned out.

The solution is to get a win. Work on something that you can succeed on, and succeed at it, and get rewarded for it. Could be a big thing, but even a small thing is good enough. Sounds easy, but not always even possible in a badly-run organization.

rahimnathwani4• 5 years ago

"Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off."

Exactly.

Yet most people mistakenly attribute the feeling to other causes. OP quote what people think are the causes of their own burnout, and took those at face value.

When you're burnt out, you're probably not in a good state to determine the cause.

tinyhouse2• 5 years ago

Speak for yourself. Sorry for being blunt, but you clearly know very little about burnout (good for you). If people say that they are burned out because of a bad manager, believe them instead of saying they don't know what they are talking about.

There are many reasons for burnout. Working on things that don't pay off is just one of them.

8note• 5 years ago

I certainly get burned out from things that pay off, too

ketzo• 5 years ago

This really, really resonates with me. I've been trying to address my own feelings of burnout, and I think this is a big part of it.

Frankly, it's been a while since I had a win. I think I'm gonna try to set myself up for a small success, and see how that goes. Thanks for this.

josh2600• 5 years ago

Great post. An addendum: people still burnout even when the org is succeeding (shipping products, hitting liquidity, etc.).

jq-r• 5 years ago

Oh definitely. Worked in a large company with so much money they didn't know what to do with it. But the number of experienced people leaving weekly was staggering. People would just burn out. And the management didn't give two shits about that. I wonder when this mismanagement will catch up with them as they are still growing.

f69281c2• 5 years ago

You can work like a dog to release a feature, and if the feature does what it was meant to do, and you get recognized for your contribution, how hard you worked doesn't matter as much. You are energized, excited to be part of a great team, ready to move on to the next stunning victory.

Gross. All that overtime is systematically stamping all the things that are good for the soul out of life. I'm not going to cheer it on because a feature works.

sul_tasto3• 5 years ago

Striving and succeeding at a personal goal is good for the soul. Feeling a sense of purpose at work and in life is good for the soul.

agumonkey4• 5 years ago

Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off.

There's a lot to say about that.

Sometime contexts creates obligations that render reward impossible, you only get a stream of wrong imperatives and lack of benefits.

Sometimes people simply forget how to go for stuff they want. I lived a lot of my life conforming to others orders.. until nothing made sense emotionally. You forget what 'pay off' means for you. Very subtle, very hard. A lot of things in life are negotiating obligations and knowing how to recognize bad deals is key. Freedom is a rare asset :)

Kids have this well set, all they care about is their internal sense of reward.. they'll move relentlessly from rewards to rewards until they're chokeful of them. Social structures blur this into innane amounts of duties that often are invented by morons higher up.

math-dev• 5 years ago

Great, great post. Agree completely and wasn’t aware of this until you wrote it down.

shoo• 5 years ago

Jennifer Senior's excellent article on burnout, "Can’t Get No Satisfaction" [1], contains this gem of a quote, from psychotherapist & burned-out burnout researcher Prof Barry Farber:

[...] their level of caring couldn’t be sustained in the absence of results
Farber often calls burnout “the gap between expectation and reward,”

Also:

“My clients are perfectionists,” says Alden Cass, a therapist to both corporate attorneys and men on Wall Street. He’s young, about the age of a hungry broker, and he looks like the men he treats—strong features, dark teased hair, Turnbull & Asser striped shirt, nice watch. “They have very rigid ideals in terms of win-lose,” he continues. “Their expectations of success are through the roof, and when their reality doesn’t match up with their expectations, it leads to burnout—they leave no room for error or failure at all in their formula.”
Yet ask Cass why his clients are burning out, and his answer isn’t any different for a banker than it would be for a public-school teacher; there’s a gulf between what they expected from their jobs and what they got. “I can’t tell you,” he says, “how many people come into my office and ask, ‘How come I have this money and I can’t find happiness?’ ”
So what does he tell them? “That happiness equals reality divided by expectations.”

[1] https://nymag.com/news/features/24757/

m0zg2• 5 years ago

It's not even this for me, as much as it is feeling "trapped" in a situation. I like to keep my options open. When I feel trapped, I move on. "Rewards" can't keep me sane, and without sanity everything else loses meaning. Part of the reason why I got out of big tech: their MO is to keep you trapped, a compliant, good little cog wearing pretty, gold plated handcuffs. As an ex-Microsoft VP once told me: "it's a warm Gulag".

ignoramous• 5 years ago

So what does he tell them? "That happiness equals reality divided by expectations."

Reminds me of, "I asked for wealth and found it in being content with little" / Happiness is in being content.

طلبت الغنى فوجدته في الرضى باالقليل

js8• 5 years ago

“That happiness equals reality divided by expectations.”

I really like this way to put it. Lots of people, who talk about how our happiness is driven by our expectations, are politically on the right and emphasizing the idea of personal responsibility. But putting the reality into the numerator, we can also recognize that there might be systemic problems with the "reality" itself, for example social inequality or lack of inclusivity.

djhn• 5 years ago

I like this model, but shouldn't reality be replaced by a person's subjective perception of reality? Various states of delusion (intoxicated, in love, religious, depressed, manic) can modulate reality as experienced by the person.

giantg22• 5 years ago

"Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off."

I agree but would add "lack of hope" to that. I have no hope that my job/career will get better.

runawaybottle4• 5 years ago

I’ll add a small insidious realization of what stress is. It’s one thing to work hard and feel tired after working hard, the causality is natural. It’s when you feel fatigue before you even start the work. Why am I tired before I even begin? That to me it’s a dead giveaway something is wrong.

How do you solve that? We mythologized grit, the strength to overcome this preemptive fatigue. But even that, is fatiguing.

Life’s a sport no matter what they say. Whoever doesn’t get tired of it, wins.

muterad_murilax• 5 years ago

"Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off."

That's the most work-centric definition of burnout I have ever seen.

dnautics• 5 years ago

You can work hard at a hobby, not have it pay off, and get burned out on that, too.

Trasmatta• 5 years ago

because the crushing realization that I'd have to return to work was almost worse than losing myself in the uninterrupted, repetitive, dead-eyed grind

I feel this so much. The anxiety of not working while dreading it on the horizon is often worse than the work itself.

bcrosby95• 5 years ago

When you say working hard, what does that mean? Not checking HN every other hour? Or working more hours per week?

t0mbstone• 5 years ago

What about people who build tons of successful things and get win after win after win, but are still feeling burned out?

For me, a "win" would be accomplishing something and then getting to bask in the success and take a fucking break and do nothing for a year. Shoot, even being able to take a break for a month after busting my butt on a project for a year would be nice. But nope. You never really "finish" anything in software development. You just have an endless backlog of tickets in JIRA. If you get something done faster, you don't get any reward or payoff for doing so.

I once finished my entire week's worth of planned work in two days and instead of being praised for it, I was chided for underestimating my sprint capacity. Did I get to take the rest of the week off? No! Of course not. I was expected to pull more tickets from the top of the backlog and just keep grinding.

jrs235• 5 years ago

A never ending backlog of work to be done. No rest. No jogging. Not even intervals/ladders (sprint a while, then jog a while and repeat). Just sprint. Sprint. Sprint. Until you burn out and collapse.

thrav• 5 years ago

I think your last paragraph is the key here. You “got the win” without actually getting the win. Instead of praise, reward, recognition — you got more work.

I think the point above is that the win needs to be material beyond your own recognition.

physicles2• 5 years ago

Are there companies that would let you take the rest of the week off in that situation? If so, shouldn’t they also make you work overtime to finish some work that you underestimated?

Isn’t the trick to just work at a sustainable pace, day in and day out, and celebrate the wins along the way?

All that said, in the last five years my longest holiday has been a week. The work really is endless.

watwut2• 5 years ago

Is that really surprising you could not just chill for rest of week?

Closi• 5 years ago

Completely agree with this - I was totally burned out with work because I kept getting and finishing projects and all that would happen is I would get more projects.

I was burned out but then my boss dragged me in a room and told me I was doing a great job, that they appreciated me and that they know I prefer to work in evenings but get there at 9am every day because that’s my contract, so they said I didn’t need to do that in the future and can arrive whenever I want because they know I work hard enough and will work the hours.

That conversation was enough to completely reset the burnout. No doubt it will come back, but a little appreciation goes a long way.

yumaikas• 5 years ago

The grind is eternal, so adjust your pace accordingly, IMO.

I do think that many orgs don't have any sense of pacing when it comes to software dev. So, don't set expectations too high for an org if they don't have PTO in place to compensate for hard work.

davesque2• 5 years ago

I think this could be exactly the correct definition of burnout. I'm sure a lot of us care about a lot of things in our lives... until we realize that no one else does.

aceazzameen• 5 years ago

This is me. I just quit my job this week to take time off because of burnout. It's exactly because I worked like a dog and haven't had a payoff in years. I want to make the best product/feature that I can. I want to give it my all. But I don't have control over the areas where things go wrong. Not having a win - and missing wins from my past - has led me to just take a break from it all.

emeraldd• 5 years ago

Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off.

You know, this might have something to do with why I gravitate towards doing "user" (really other devs since I tend to work on internal tools more than outside facing products) support type stuff. Devs trying to figure out why something isn't working are usually grateful when someone can help them get things working so they can do their job.

physicles2• 5 years ago

Yeah, I’ve routinely found work on internal tools to be the most satisfying. It’s rare to find product work where you’re directly in touch with users who care, and whose expectations you can routinely meet.

beebmam• 5 years ago

There's one job in the US that is currently experiencing extremely high rates of burnout.

ICU Nurses.

What can we learn about burnout from them in this current situation?

I don't think "Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off." applies for them in at all. They are constantly saving lives and constantly seeing the positive results of their actions.

My first guess is that there's just too much work for them in the regions where ICUs which are overburdened. Many ICUs have had to up their nurse-to-patient ratio above 1:2, often to 1:3 and in some places even 1:5 or 1:6. Moreover, many ICU nurses are forced into picking up extra shifts.

void_mint2• 5 years ago

I would argue that working really hard to keep people alive through covid while society continues to totally ignore and neglect precaution, thus causing further illness and death, is exactly fitting for "working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off".

Olreich• 5 years ago

The payoff for ICU nurses is a new critical patient right now. They don’t get to see the lives they save reunited with family or recovering at all. They just get a transfer to a lower level of care and a new patient in. They are also seeing a lot more deaths than usual. 10% mortality is in the ballpark normally. With COVID they are seeing 50% mortality. That’s a lot to deal with, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a major factor in burnout.

mym19902• 5 years ago

I will always marvel at nursing as a profession and nurses as human beings. My sister just became a nurse and I dated a nurse as well, and while it is a rewarding job, it is also incredibly taxing...no less in today's circumstances.

Burnout can come from many different directions though, but everyone has a limit at which no incentive provides enough benefit to outweigh the cost.

spaetzleesser2• 5 years ago

"I don't think "Burnout is caused by working hard at something for a long time and not having it pay off." applies for them in at all. They are constantly saving lives and constantly seeing the positive results of their actions.

That's not really a payoff after a while. I work at a medical device company. When I started I got a kick out of all the great patient stories. Even my girlfriend's life changed from suicidal to pretty good because of our device. But after a while never-ending the deadline pressure got to me and no amount of patient success was motivating anymore. I think it's the same in the ICU. After a while you get numb. Only off time and less pressure can reset your emotional gas tank.

matheusmoreira• 5 years ago

The payoff is the critical patient goes away and is replaced by a new one. More work for all involved. Never ending work. In my country, they say it's like wiping down ice. There's less water now but the ice doesn't ever stop melting.

jpswade• 5 years ago

Burnout is something that is discussed quite a lot, but people talk about it as working so hard that you fatigue.

When we're working on something we enjoy and find interesting, when we have a plan and a goal, we find that we have infinite energy.

Burnout on the other hand is when no matter how much you seem to work, it has no impact. You don't seem to be making any progress. Burnout is the loss of momentum.

“Improved productivity also helps drive better employee work/life balance and reduces burnout“ - The State of DevOps 2019.

According to the DORA research program, avoiding heavyweight change processes and creating an environment of continuous delivery go a long way to reducing burnout.

corobo• 5 years ago

The solution to burning out (not being able to work) is work?

What happens if that something doesn't succeed? You're just describing the day to day that caused the burnout haha

peoplefromibiza• 5 years ago

The solution is to get a win

My 28 days of paid vacation are my yearly win.

S_A_P• 5 years ago

I had a bad case of burnout 2 years ago. I think for me it wasn’t that I was overwhelmed or otherwise overworked. I was working a lot of hours, but that didn’t bother me either. What got under my skin was that I understood the systemic reasons for all the fires we were having to put out were never going to change. So the burnout was the feeling that I was unable to do anything but tread water.

agumonkey4• 5 years ago

very much this, powerlessness and also inability to discuss the problem honestly, or even be heard can be the real reason behind the pain

throw394024• 5 years ago

100% agree. It's about agency. Most companies I've worked at haven't strictly followed agile, and definitely haven't allowed devs much say in prioritizing bugs.

My current thought is product companies might have more of a vested interest in quality, but I'm not positive.

Does anyone have any suggestions here? The only thing I've seen is most people move into management, which I'm thinking is likely the only way out from the long hours and homework/almost constant self-study.

distances2• 5 years ago

Who prioritises your bugs then? For my teams we've almost always done bugfixes outside the sprint effort with developers' own initiative. We follow crash reports and prioritise ourselves with never even telling the PO we fixed something. Product owner is left with feature ownership and doesn't have to know about the day-to-day operations except for the metrics that have business impact.

adverbly• 5 years ago

Vacation is when I want to complete ambitious projects that are not work related. My vacations are exhausting but worthwhile. They are like parenting. They do nothing to help burnout unless I spend them on doing nothing. How does one avoid burnout? 4 day work week. Have a day off with no kids and no travel and no work. Forced recovery time. Like sleep.

ineedasername7• 5 years ago

I think vacations help mostly in the sense of "I just need to get through the next two months". That may help as a coping mechanism for burnout, but doesn't stop it.

And of course if you have a job that perpetuates cyclical or chronic burnout, going on vacation just means that you come back to work even more buried in things that went undone.

Or you sacrifice having a true vacation and still commit to working part of the time you're away.

trynewideas• 5 years ago

An extended leave did nothing but make burnout worse by coming back to the careful planning left behind to mitigate my absence being thrown out days in by a meddling manager from another team who saw the vacuum as an opportunity to take over the responsibilities permanently. Looking to exit.

nikolay• 5 years ago

This is not much different than the fact that oversleeping during the weekend does not help with the sleep deprivation during the past week... or weeks. One needs to rest. Every. Day.

philmcp• 5 years ago

I run https://4dayweek.io and during the time I spent researching companies, it blew my mind how awful the vacation policy is in some companies (especially the US)

i.e. 10 days vacation shouldn't be celebrated as a benefit.

Vacation isn't everything though; there have been some studies which show the positive effect of a vacation quickly disappears when work resumes.

What we really need (imo) is a shorter, more focused work week (with less fluff + meetings) i.e. a 4 day work week

verve_rat3• 5 years ago

Coming from a country where 4 weeks plus 11 (soon to be 12) public holidays is the legal minimum I really don't understand the US system.

nickjj2• 5 years ago

When you say 4 weeks, do you mean 20 days off because there's typically 5 work days in a week or do you mean 30 days?

blendo• 5 years ago

At my last job I took a 20% cut in pay to get a 4 day workweek. Every Thursday evening became “Yay! Three day weekend!”

emdubbelyou• 5 years ago

I was thinking of various 80% flexible working models and there are some great set ups.

4 on, 3 off is usual

But if you break it up to two week cycles you get: 4 on, 2 off, 4 on, 4 off 4 on, 1 off, 4 on, 5 off

And even wilder if you do three week cycles: 6 on, 2 off, 6 on, 7 off

Imagine a full week off every third week! Of course, this likely is not very realistic because it would not line up with collaborators well.

quickthrower2• 5 years ago

I’ve been suffering from chronic fatigue which is different but I wonder if there are similarities.

To adjust I have dropped many responsibilities at work, halved my hours to 19 and practice pacing I.e scheduled rest, consistent level of activity day to day.

This has helped a lot.

While not everyone can go part time I wonder if scheduled breaks of even 5 minutes each hour (with no exercise, screen time or chat) would be beneficial to most people.

The other side I feel is companies keep inventing initiatives, kpis, okrs, goals and pushing that down the chain. Dumping more and more onto people and companies evolve from “cool” to “overly bureaucratic” over time.

The most stress is when you need to do X to get the job done but !X to meet some other master, maybe a beloved process. (Looking at you, scrum!)

It’s more stressful if when you try to negotiate out of this you are met with dogma. I tend to leave such work but I’ve seen it enough that it’s a pattern common between companies.

Apparently many companies think they have mastered creative process and people management and everyone else is wrong ;-).

dnndev• 5 years ago

I think it depends how long the vacation? A month long vacation for me always helps when I find myself becoming overly negative.

Edit* Should add, a lot has to do with your attitude. Some things won’t change and fighting then just makes you look like a jerk in the office. Either come to peace with it or find another job. Of course after you have reasonably done what you think you can to make a difference.

Many jobs are brainless 9to5 collect a paycheck do bare minimum and this is ok for a lot of people, they find creativity and joy elsewhere.

bitwize• 5 years ago

Get rid of your Scrum/SAFe sausage grinder, and quit thinking that adding more metrics and KPIs to an already panopticon-ish corporate environment is going to solve your productivity problems. Only then will you be able to address burnout and disgruntlement among your rank and file.

The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems etc.

nwmcsween• 5 years ago

Burnout for me was too much responsibility. I would cope with the workload stress better over time due to efficency but the responsibility stress is still there and the more efficient you are the more responsibility you take on due to productivity.

bluedino• 5 years ago

I hate vacation.

Stressful travel, no real downtime, spending money like there's no tomorrow.

rnoorda• 5 years ago

I've come to separate travel and vacation in my plans. They are rarely the same for me- I travel when I want to see new things, visit people, explore, etc. Vacation is largely reading, working on relaxing hobbies, or spending unstructured time with friends/family.

I enjoy both, but can understand hating the stress of traveling and spending money.

throw0821374• 5 years ago

Does preventing burn out come down to being paid (in cash/RSU's/etc) for the productive output of others ? If you are the one generating productive surplus for others, doesn't it become hard to justify the longer it goes on.

I do not understand how people can write in their resume that they helped their company generate $100 million revenue per year, while being paid < 1 million per year and not feel like they were taken for a ride.

Vacation isn’t the answer to employee burnout

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