Surviving Burnout (2015)

https://lifeofaudrey.com/essays/surviving_burnout.html

by luu • 3 years ago

311 162 3 years ago

buggy6257• 3 years ago

A harrowing tale and I'm thankful the author made it through alright, but I have to fundamentally disagree with one possible takeaway from this:

Her solution to burnout was to _start her own business_?? I'm glad this worked out for her in the end, but holy shit this would be the literal last possible thing I (or I hope many others) would consider as a solution to burnout. That's a _fast track_ to burnout.

molsongolden• 3 years ago

Maybe. Starting a business does involve the classic “now you have all of your customers as bosses instead of just one boss” but it also unlocks much more autonomy and frees you from the loss of agency that the author felt in their corporate role.

theteapot• 3 years ago

Cool, I have zero bosses at my business!

blitz_skull• 3 years ago

Yeah, I’d say it depends on why you burn out. Some folks burn out from caring too much with too little input over the outcome. Maslow’s hierarchy and all that jazz would indicate starting a business might be a reasonable alternative.

I know for myself I’ve been in business for a couple of years with a full-time job and I love my business infinitely more than I could ever care about someone else’s. Once it grows to the point of sustaining my family, I’ll have “made it” by my own estimate.

But I do agree. It’s certainly not a cure-all, and largely depends on your personality and the unique reason you burned out.

zztop44• 3 years ago

Depends on the business. Some are definitely an extreme version of “caring about the results of our actions but having no meaningful control over those outcomes” but some are very different.

xyst• 3 years ago

this "harrowing tale" was written in 2015 with a 2013-2014 backdrop, so it was a much different landscape back then. Starting your own business was much easier back then (still hard af) but the VC money was flowing and anything in the mobile space was mooning.

Would be interesting to see if the author's opinion has changed today.

mongol• 3 years ago

To me it helped. Granted, I had some economic security beforehand but it helped a lot with my depressive mood.

mizzao• 3 years ago

Yep. Burnt out (at least) twice while building my own startup. This raised some alarm bells for me too.

But, maybe the author just needed a change of scene...

bruce5112• 3 years ago

> caring about the results of our actions but having no meaningful control over those outcomes

This really dies sum it up in a useful generic way. Ultimately the balance of this sentence will differ from context to context, but the equation ultimately has to balance.

Put another way, if you care a lot, but have no agency, then ultimately you will be frustrated.

If you care a lot, but have no resources, then again, you get frustrated.

Burnout is just the moment whe you stop fruitlessly caring. But you -want- to care (about something) so not-caring leads to depression.

Matching your care to resources available is a good start. Make sure you care about something that can be materially affected by your resources. Feeling under-resourced is a sign that those allocating the resources have different goals to you.

If your care exceeds your agency in resources product direction, code quality, then you can choose to care less, (find something else to care about), align your caring to match those who do have agency, or move on.

Starting your own business gives you agency, so you're free to allocate resources as you choose. However you still need to aquire those resources (which in turn can change what you care about.)

Starting and running your own business is enormously freeing - it gives you complete agency. But its also HARD. People don't pay you for what -you- care about, they pay you for what -they- care about. Its very hard to find customers who appreciate your priorities, and it's also hard to adjust your priorities (aka what you care -about-) to match theirs.

But if you get it right, it's amazing.

brailsafe4• 3 years ago

Very well-articulated. I finally felt like I was bouncing back when I just accepted not giving a fuck and doing the absolute minimum to fulfill whatever the goals seem to be of whoever's deciding on them.

Do they care about rendering performance? No? Well then I'm sure as hell not goimg to lose sleep over it, and if it seems actively harmful to customers *that I've met* then it's just a place to leave.

There's always a budget, there's always better quality, but if you're the one paying for it in time and energy, and you don't really have a stake in the outcome, the correct answer is "fuck it". Do not care about transactional work more than you need to within the scope that's set forth.

bruce5112• 3 years ago

As you move up the business ladder, or indeed start your own business, it's interesting to see how priorities evolve.

When you're a coder, the code matters. It can be frustrating to see resources allocated to say marketing.

When you are responsible for acquiring resources, then there's more to care about, more to balance. When to market. When to get new hardware.

Programmers care about code performance, code elegance, getting every pixel perfect, perfect design (for when we have s billion users). Business owners care about shipping, and getting paid. Without that the doors close.

As we grow older, as our position evolves, we have to care about more, but in some ways less deeply. There's more nuance, more compromise, more acceptance that it needs to be "good enough" - better than that even - but that perfection is an expensive goal either small returns.

I'm not arguing for mediocre, we all want the product to be better, and incrementally we move towards that. But that movement is in balance with all the other cares.

sledz2• 3 years ago

Yeah, i totally agree. The more years I have behind my belt as developer the less I care.

I do what I'm paid for. I do it to best of my abilities, but I don't care much.

I care for my wife, my unborn child, my dog, myself. Seriously live is so much more than work and code.

I learned to balance myself. I need job for $ and that's it.

If I won lottery I would still code, just not as much (2 h/day) and only fun stuff. Work is usually borning.

PragmaticPulp• 3 years ago

The most burnout-inducing environments I’ve worked in have all had one thing in common: They had a person or class of people that had wormed their way into being in control of everything while being responsible for very little. This left the rest of us to be responsible for the consequences of their decisions while having little to no input on the things we were held accountable for.

The absolute worst company I worked for had this separation as a core philosophy. They had different managers for everything: Product managers to make all of the product decisions, UX managers to make all of the design decisions, project managers to decide when we’d do things and how to check in on our progress every few hours of every day, program managers who thought they were engineers who just didn’t write code, VPs who would choose all of your programming languages and frameworks for you, and on and on. These people would shuffle from meeting to meeting every day with a 2-hour company-paid lunch in the middle (which they ultimately got in trouble for) but wouldn’t ever do any of the work themselves. Meanwhile, if any engineer dared make a suggestion we’d get a long lecture about staying in our lanes. Then when projects were late/wrong/failed or just missed the mark about what the company needed, they would do long post mortems to assign blame to different engineers for doing it wrong. At best, they’d come up with vague statements about how “we failed as a team due to communication issues” or something.

It was the most demoralizing work environment. Every meeting was full of sad, dejected engineers. People would quit without having other jobs lined up because they just couldn’t take it any more.

scruple2• 3 years ago

Completely spot on from my personal experience. FWIW, I have seen this in every startup I've joined.

ornornor7• 3 years ago

This is pretty much everywhere I’ve worked at in my 10 years career so far.

I honestly don’t know what to do about it. It seems hopeless and I’ve been avoiding going back to work for the last 18 months. I also wonder if there is something wrong with me because everyone else seems to cope with it somehow and keep on working.

I’ve thought about starting my own business but it’s too much hard work which I don’t think I can pull off.

The idea of going back to employee work makes me feel like shit because I’ll end up in the same environment (since 99% of companies work this way) and I don’t want to go through yet another burnout.

Would love to hear about how others have overcome this.

cookieperson3• 3 years ago

You described the symptoms of psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists in a single sentence. Research these personality disorders. It will bring you peace and explain the majority of malfunctions in the world. Specifically look into the sociopath apathy empath triad.

steveBK1236• 3 years ago

Yeah my last place was like this, and all the non-engineers sucked at their jobs leaving engineers to pick up the slack on everything from project planning to sprint planning, to engaging with users, gathering requirements, prioritizing tasks, etc.

This despite having an entire product team who was making all sorts of insane non-product decisions (technologies, programming languages, binary storage formats, vendors to outsource to, etc).

The product team was somehow too busy to make it to any meetings with tech leads & devs, despite seemingly not talking to users either since we were left doing so. We'd have 10hrs/sprint of planning meetings, and our product guy would show up for 30 minutes of one meeting. Unbelievable stuff.

papito2• 3 years ago

Right - you want to be professional, you want to do the best that you can do, but you cannot care about your employer more than the employer cares about themselves. Sort of a mercenary attitude - which you always are.

This is really the practice of zen and detachment in work and life. Care, but not to the point where is starts to hurt you.

ElFitz4• 3 years ago

Burnout is just the moment whe you stop fruitlessly caring.

To me it was the moment I started breaking down in tears when getting to the subway station down my street, on my way to work. Every day.

The next time was when I could not speak about my job and the project I was working on without stammering and my mind going blank (and still couldn’t for months after quitting).

“Frustrated" and "stop to fruitlessly care" don’t feel like they even begin to describe that.

But you -want- to care (about something) so not-caring leads to depression.

Having also gone through a decade-long depression before that, I’d personally say these two are very different beasts. Both are quite unpleasant, and neither is viable, but each in it’s own way.

delusional3• 3 years ago

This might be asking too much on a public forum, but would you be able to describe what differentiates these two for you? Feel free to decline if it's too personal or you just don't feel like it.

rhizome312• 3 years ago

To me it was the moment I started breaking down in tears when getting to the subway station down my street, on my way to work. Every day.
The next time was when I could not speak about my job and the project I was working on without stammering and my mind going blank (and still couldn’t for months after quitting).

Thank you for writing this. I've been through these states recently and it helps to know other people had similar symptoms.

Aeolun3• 3 years ago

I think by the time you burst out in tears when traveling to work you’ve probably passed the point of burnout.

Not sure what else to call it, but the stage described above probably comes first.

hiAndrewQuinn• 3 years ago

The good old fashioned Job Resources / Job Demands 2x2 strikes again.

- Low resources * low demands = low motivation + average stress. You don't really give a shit about the job, but it's also not taking a lot out of you either.

- High resources * low demands = high motivation + low stress. The dream!

- High resources * high demands = high motivation + average stress. You've got a lot on your plate - but you also feel well equipped to take it all on. This is a really nice place to be, especially if you're hungry for professional growth.

- Low resources * high demands = Hell. People expect you do build everything from nothing, and nobody's giving you any help at all, and you're bottlenecked by weird insane corporate BS, and on and on and on.

Being at low resources, high demands for too long will lead to burnout. Full stop. If you're there, try to get out. If you're not there, try to stay out.

https://commoncog.com/g/burnout/#the-job-demands-resources-j...

misja1112• 3 years ago

High resources * low demands = high motivation + low stress. The dream!

I disagree with that. High resources * high demands is the dream for many people including myself. Low demands -> low motivation, at least for most people. Having a stress free job with low motivation for a long time can even lead to burnout!

digitalsushi• 3 years ago

Low resource, low demand = working the grill at a sleepy diner

High resource, low demands = working in a test kitchen

High resource, high demand = working Michelin star restaurant

Low resource, high demand = working at fast food

tpoacher• 3 years ago

I agree, except the "match your care to your resources" sounds like a bad recipe to me. I don't think it's possible to control how much you 'care' about something; only how much you act upon it.

It sounds a bit like saying "don't love the other person too much". You can try to be more measured in your displays of affection if you think it may scare the other person away, but you're either in love with someone or you're not; "how much" in love you get to be isn't really a conscious decision. And unreciprocated love can lead to relationship burnout in the same way.

So if deep down you care about something but try to consciously "match your care to available resources", it's probably going to lead to more burnout too, not less.

steveBK1236• 3 years ago

> caring about the results of our actions but having no meaningful control over those outcomes

This is basically the best summation of it, and when I notice my role becoming consumed with this, I know its time to leave or face burnout.

My most recent round of this I was a senior IC but put in charge of PMing 2 vendors that were starting work 3 days later, despite them having been in planning for 6+ months without my involvement or knowledge.

Both overly ambitious project I didn't plan, the lead on their side I already told my boss I knew previously & did NOT trust, with incompetent vendors I didn't pick, on an unrealistically short timeline that didn't make sense. Also the two vendors were supposed to coordinate on some integration piece, but didn't trust each other, and were not contractually obligated to coordinate, so of course they didn't.

Management couldn't decide if I was supposed to be helping make them successful with hands-on technical work & coordination, clearing blockers, or impartially measuring their success for the purposes of whether they deserved to be paid for each milestone. It of course ran 2x over the planned timeline, some of which they demanded we pay for, and a lot of which they did for free.. which meant the work was garbage.

In the end one vendor went bankrupt and the other we almost went to court with.

I ended up on this so long that I became strongly associated with its failure, and my senior IC role didn't really exist to go back to. My boss, and their boss, both got moved aside internally out of leadership roles around the time I quit.

I lingered filling other senior IC++/leader-- type roles for a year until I left. Probably the longest stretch I've gone of not really doing any coding, not really running a team, not doing something I enjoy, and not learning anything.. all at the same time.

psnehanshu• 3 years ago

Sounds very similar to the book: The Art of not giving a F*ck.

notimetorelax2• 3 years ago

Does anyone have an advice for those who stay employed by a megacorp? I’m on a vacation this week and have just realized that I was effectively in isolation outside of my work.

fatherzine• 3 years ago

Engage in regular social activities. Take beginner classes, to gain some confidence and build a small social group. Plenty of 4-8 weeks series to choose from. Then take higher level classes, too. Plenty online resources (meetup, fb groups, .org website) to get you going.

* Team sports. Soccer, volleyball, ultimate frisbee, basketball, etc. There is a pickup game somewhere in your city every day/week.

* Outdoors. Group hike, backpacking, cross-country skiing, sailing. E.g. mountaineers.org in PNW, surely there are similar orgs all over.

* Partner dance. You don't need a dedicated partner, events cater to singles too.

* f3nation.com / fianation.com The ultimate free outdoors workout, rain or shine. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/us/f3-workout-men-texas.h...

* Running group.

* Pick a church and go to Mass every Sunday morning. Hang around for coffee and Bible study too.

♡

kerkeslager3• 3 years ago

Most of these are good suggestions, but I'll say from my experience, doing too many things also creates a problem because you don't gain skill at any of the activities or spend enough time in one to create deeper connections with the people involved in it.

At one point in my life I was dabbling in like 30 different things and never really getting good at any of them or feeling connected with any of their local communities. I made a decision to narrow that down to rock climbing and guitar, and get really committed to those two things. The improvement in my quality of life just from that change was honestly pretty huge.

Of course you need to try a bunch of stuff to find out what you like, but once you find something you're really passionate about, it's okay, beneficial even, to limit how much you try other things so you can really delve into the activity and community you're passionate about.

bheadmaster4• 3 years ago

Here are some less mainstream social suggestions:

* Cult. People in cults are very supportive to other cult members.

* Black metal band. Blast beats, tremolo picking, shrieking vocals, pick your poison.

* Cult black metal band. Best of both worlds.

* Mongolian throat singing group.

* Artistic burping club.

* Discord server with guys wearing knee long socks and speaking with voice modulators.

* Trap house. Nothing solves a burnout faster than a psychonautical trip!

* Bird watching club. See what them birds are up to.

scottydog51834• 3 years ago

Switch teams or leave? I left my faang a few weeks ago and I'm glad I did (though I realize not everyone has this luxury). Can't say everything is figured out but I don't have to interact with my former manager or feel anger when leaders promise they care about slowing down but then assign more work. In terms of isolation, if you're in SF and looking for a friend, happy to grab coffee and talk about something that isn't tech.

RHSman2• 3 years ago

Take the week to be curious about life.

avnfish2• 3 years ago

Megacorps can be made to work for you (albeit with a certain set of tradeoffs):

* milk the wellness benefits as much as possible - including any therapy cover

* look at leave of absence / sick leave (larger corps are better able to accommodate)

* transfer to a better team

* adjust your hours downwards either explicitly or tacitly

Megacorps aren't great at the whole empowerment and outcome control thing, but you can at least use the benefits to recover and then maybe move to something more meaningful

notimetorelax2• 3 years ago

Thanks, yeah I’m looking for ways to stay in the corp but keep it healthy. There are plenty of colleagues who lead heathy lives, so it’s definitely possible.

steveBK1236• 3 years ago

Yeah I've been at smaller firms for last 10 years, but the first half of my career was at 100K+ employee firms. My wife has mostly stayed at such large firms.

High performers underestimate how long you can get away with BS at a megacorp. Quarters to even years is the correct answer.

Guy on my team who we took on from the "layoffs list" of his old team. We were forced to hire from this list before hiring externally. Lasted about 2 years with us & then comes to me one day "Hey I'm gonna get laid off, I don't know when but it's been discussed with HR.. oh anyway I thought it would have happened last year". Suddenly it clicked why his work product had been diminishing by the month with us. It still took them a few months to go through with it. So the guy spent 3-4 years in the firm in the process of trying to / being laid off.

We had another guy who we inherited from a wound-down project, basically didn't count against our budget for the year. His choice was to join our team or be fired. Anyway just weeks into it, he called me one day and said "I have a thing with my family, I can't tell you what it is but I'll be gone for a month". I asked him if he talked to HR and he said yes. I called HR and they asked ME what I wanted to do... I was ~25 years old and this dude in his 40s had a family thing.. sure whatever.

Anyway, as you can imagine he basically disappeared and only touched base on the phone to say he need another month, over&over, etc. I punted it up to HR & my manager. He basically just disappeared for the rest of the year (~6 months) until new years layoffs season..

solatic2• 3 years ago

Structural problems require structural solutions. Healthy organizations, healthy people.

It's not the author's conclusion, but this is basically my fantasy ever since watching Billions with Wendy Rhoades's character. In that show, Wendy is a performance coach working for a hedge fund whose job is to emotionally pump up the people who work for the hedge fund. The hedge fund employs her because (leaving aside the soap opera dynamics for a second) it recognizes that emotional support is both (a) necessary for fully realizing the potential of their knowledge workers (b) not something that every employee is naturally gifted at providing, neither at work for their colleagues nor in their personal lives.

More companies should employ such coaches and schedule regular sessions for all their employees. If everything's great, then great. If not, it's definitely cheaper than employee churn.

jimsimmons• 3 years ago

Cynical take is that the company is performing psy-ops on its own employees. Having a psychologist as a performance coach at your workplace is kinda f-ed up if you think about the ways things can go wrong

dilyevsky3• 3 years ago

Well they did hire more “traditional” coach in later season and worked about as well as I experienced irl

dilyevsky3• 3 years ago

More companies should employ such coaches and schedule regular sessions for all their employees. If everything's great, then great. If not, it's definitely cheaper than employee churn.

Actually a few companies i know do that for their executive staff just not rank and file employees like in the show. Also if we’re talking about engineers beyond very early stage imo it would have very limited utility for the company

yunohn2• 3 years ago

imo it would have very limited utility for the company

Could you expand on this?

npc789• 3 years ago

The idea that encouraging your engineers in some way — whether through this particular method or not — would have limited utility is absurd. It goes to show how poorly and inaccurately they are often regarded, and it’s no surprise to see it in another weekly 100-comment burnout HN thread.

Specifically having a therapist or a coach around is not a big concern, but if your company considers you and your performance important, you will be encouraged to develop yourself and develop your network in the company one way or the other. Whether this happens is the quickest way to determine if you are considered an NPC or not. For example, if travel between offices is common in your company, but you don’t travel and are just thrown in on projects with random people around the world, then you know it’s you. Main characters meet up, plan, improve, guide, imagine, act, change; NPCs more or less do what they’re told. If you rarely hear a word of encouragement or feedback about what you’re doing, it’s probably because nobody cares — or they think they could replace you in a week — and you should calibrate how much you care accordingly.

danparsonson3• 3 years ago

More companies should employ such coaches and schedule regular sessions for all their employees

That honestly sounds dreadful to me, exactly the kind of management-driven nonsense that would make me more likely to quit.

If you want your employees pumped up about work, focus on treating them well not hiring cheerleaders.

koonsolo• 3 years ago

100%!

"Our development process sucks, we need X to fix Y!", "Sorry, no can do. But don't worry, I'll plan a session with our company cheerleader"

XorNot• 3 years ago

This is how I feel about my current scrum master.

Ever morning we look at the burn down chart. Every morning he tries to tell people to "just see if we can close a ticket because it would be good for the chart".

I've submitted feedback pointing out how negatively useful this little ritual is (because if the task was actually done we'd close the ticket, it's not not being closed just because).

lelanthran• 3 years ago

If you want your employees pumped up about work, focus on treating them well not hiring cheerleaders.

How is the company supposed to know what "treating you well" means if they don't have people who try to figure out what that phrase means to each individual?

Different strokes for different folks, and all that. I'm not picking on you personally, but throughout this entire thread the sentiments I quoted above have been echoed by others.

Look at it a different way ...

A therapist on the payroll (not a cheerleader) will talk to individuals not groups, and in individual engagements will be able to figure out what "treating you well" actually means to that individual.

After all, you want to be treated well by (for example) having some leeway in adopting new tech, while the engineer next to you considers that an additional stress and for him that is "treating him badly". For him, treating him well might involve fewer hours.

Or more Pay.

Or more direct reports.

Or fewer direct reports.

Or company-funded conventions once a year.

Or fewer meetings.

Or more meetings.

Whatever activity the company did that you considered to be "treating you well", I can all but guarantee that one of your peers would consider it "treating me poorly".

Now, granted, I haven't seen the show mentioned, but I think a role along the lines of "wellness engagement and support" is probably a good idea for any company that actually wants to treat their workers well.

How else are they supposed to figure out what "well" means?

Falkon13132• 3 years ago

More companies should employ such coaches and schedule regular sessions for all their employees.

Yet another fluff meeting that detracts from getting stuff done, adds pressure to deadlines, and is just supposed to make us feel good like a 'pizza party'? To try to encourage us to ignore our families and stay up late working for the company's gain?

I haven't seen the show, but I'm a little cynical of the premise.

I once worked for a company that hired consultants for something like that, and mostly it just increased the already high turnover and burnout level. Maybe there were good intentions, but in practice it just added pressure, fuel to the fire.

PaulRobinson• 3 years ago

The character portrayed is a trained therapist. Not a consultant, not a lifestyle coach (most of whom have little formal training and are there because they don’t know what else to do with their lives), but somebody who is there to figure out what you need to work through emotionally to succeed in your role.

I have a private therapist who deals with my personal, and sometimes work, issues. It has been a major contributor to me avoiding burnout through 4 of the roughest years in my career.

I don’t consider therapy to be fluff, and I’d see an employer investing in it as a good sign, not a “pizza party” type event.

My employer does try to invest in mental health awareness but it’s limited to discounts on meditation apps and internal docs on structuring your work a little better.

ornornor7• 3 years ago

I had a more cynical understanding of her role. The hedge fund employs her to influence the workers to fulfill the company’s goals. Preferably while aligning these goals with the worker’s health/own goals but that’s not the priority.

Watching this show I kept thinking that I would never ever ever go to see the psychiatrist/psychologist who’s on my employer’s payroll… and I often wonder how these traders who are so smart can’t see the massive conflict of interest or potential for a “play” (as they call them in the show) on themselves from the information gathered.

charlie0• 3 years ago

This is a really good idea, but all the negative comments in this thread proves the point that receiving help for mental health has a negative stigma associated with it.

When we can't solve a technical problem, we often talk to others to unblock ourselves. This is 100% the exact same thing with emotional/mental problems. You need to talk to someone to help "unblock" you as well and allow you to go back to your full productivity.

Having said that, this coach definitely needs some sort of professional license. Having "Life Coach" on the resume isn't going to cut it.

slushh3• 3 years ago

Why isn't there a known company with a healthy structure that is the place of recovery for burned out developers?

'we can build it together' - why is that not happening?

Structural problems require structural solutions. Healthy organizations, healthy people.
How can any of us get better if we can’t afford to extract ourselves from the environment that caused the harm?
When you’re finally in recovery, you’ll start to be able to see what an environment that doesn’t do that to you looks like. Then we can build it together.

kerkeslager3• 3 years ago

It's companies that created this problem, and I'm skeptical that a company is going to be the solution to this problem.

slushh3• 3 years ago

Companies are an abstraction. The humans behind the company define the company.

How else could burned out developers organize to create a space for recovery?

*edit: to mention the elephant in the room: caring without control results in self-doubt. What does it mean for humans to be 'self'?

AstixAndBelix• 3 years ago

Because companies earn money by producing goods or providing services, but those goods and services are required by burned out people.

Let's say your company can build and ship a product in 2 years and none of the workers end up crunching. What if every single client is not in the position to wait 2 years (because they are themselves crunching) so they go with the company that builds it in 6 months?

jimnotgym5• 3 years ago

I guess that presupposes that pushing your staff into burnout is a way to get things done quickly. I haven't found that to be the case.

jimnotgym5• 3 years ago

This might be really unpopular for hn...

Maybe it is because being a good manager is hard. Maybe running an effective organisation is hard. Maybe being in your 20s and having a bunch of VC money doesn't translate to being able to do the above?

Being a good manager takes time and a willingness to be emotionally aware. It also requires mentoring.

On the other hand, if a bunch of burnt out engineers with capital want to pop me an email why don't we start something?

dasil0033• 3 years ago

I think this comment is spot on. Another thing I’ll add: building something successful enough to be sustainable is incredibly difficult, especially when market value for SWEs is established by a few winner-take-all disruptions that panned out in the internet and smart phone transitions of the past two decades.

The saccharine platitudes and subtle gaslighting of the corporate world is really just a thin veneer designed to allow employees to get some work done without having to think too deeply about the brutality of globalized capitalism.

cookieperson3• 3 years ago

There are lots of bosses. But very very few leaders. One requires skill, the other requires politics.

surfsvammel• 3 years ago

I suffered burn out about 15 years ago. If you would have asked me back then, if I was feeling stress or was nearing burn out, I would have said no, not a chance. I was feeling great. If you however would have me take one of those self assessment tests, it would show all the red flags.

I guess what I am trying to say is this: don’t necessarily trust your own assessment of the situation. Keep your eyes out for the warning signals.

stevezsa8• 3 years ago

How was your recovery from burnout?

When I see someone who seems stressed or overworked... I try to remind them that recovering might be easier before they get fully overwhelmed.

marcosdumay2• 3 years ago

Well, I can say without the hypothetical. A while ago, when I had the problem, it took me a while to accept the results of the self-assessment tests, and I only really believed on them after treatment.

mock-possum• 3 years ago

I keep reading about what burnout is, and what to do about it, and it’s striking how carried different people’s experiences with it, and what they think causes it, and what they’re doing about it, and whether that’s working or not.

simonhfrost• 3 years ago

IMO because at its core, it's more about the absence of feeling and emotion rather than the excess of something. It's hard to identify and quantify

slagorfotrest2• 3 years ago

Throwaway

Ive been on leave from work due to severe burnout and even just reading this caused me to feel panic. It's this weird feeling where the back of my throat feels like it's closing, my head begins throbbing and my heart races. I know how seriously burnout can affect your life and I'm really glad the author found a way out. We need better options for dealing with burnout because having medical insurance tied to work is obviously suboptimal.

jimnotgym5• 3 years ago

because having medical insurance tied to work is obviously suboptimal.

That is a solved problem in many countries.

When the US grows up from its individual first, frontier moxie, pissing context it could have it too.

GrigoriyMikh• 3 years ago

That is a solved problem in many countries.

No, it's not. Especially for cases, when the worker is a migrant from another country. I spent 3+ years of my life working in the country, paying huge taxes and huge healthcare insurance fee(which depends on your salary). And now i'm on the verge when i either work or leave to my home country(with a lots of problems). Despite contributing hugely to this country.

Concepts of countries and borders in itself is unfair to majority of people, who happened to be born in shitholes. Yet westerners just love to exploit these people to death, holding the carrot on the stick in front of their weary faces.

drdec2• 3 years ago

When the US grows up from its individual first, frontier moxie, pissing context it could have it too.

IMHO, this is not what is wrong with the system in the US. The problem is that the consumer of healthcare is doubly removed from the price.

First by the insurance company using the doctors. Second by one's workplace paying for the insurance. Is it any wonder that prices keep going up under such a scheme?

Mezzie2• 3 years ago

I somehow ended up as an American eligible for health insurance in the Medicare for All model (I'm covered and just pay a % of my income, but I can have whatever income I want), and it's shocking what this has done for my ability to not only plan, but to tell employers and prospective employers to pound sand.

One interesting thing about it is that it makes working for small businesses that can't afford good healthcare viable. It would really help jumpstart that part of the economy if we decoupled healthcare from employment.

gedy• 3 years ago

Can certainly be triggered by work or burnout, but this sounds like anxiety and panic attacks. Take care of yourself, as have had this happen even when work wasn't that stressful.

slagorfotrest2• 3 years ago

I'm getting professional help, thanks for your concern. The cost of that help is what made me realize one of the downside of employer sponsored health insurance

reddoormat• 3 years ago

Throwaway account.

I work at an early stage startup which I joined on the day one about two years ago. I don’t want to get into too much details but couple months ago we did a pivot, threw away most of the old product and now pretending the new offering is complete (it is the opposite).

I was onboard with the new vision for the company but couple months ago I started noticing something isn’t right. I felt anxious, tired, frustrated yet I desperately wanted myself to be that cliche enthusiastic startup dude. I’m no longer in my early 20s (experienced burnout before as well as two major depression episodes) so started reflecting and looking into the causes. The pivot and the product debt it caused made me do an incredible amount of production debugging and interrupted ad-hoc work for customers we tried to impress. It got so bad I rarely remember the things I worked on the day before. Meanwhile, the product scope keeps expanding and we haven’t even nailed the basics.

Then SVB happened and my guess is that leadership started receiving more heat from the investors. Shit rolls downhill so now CTO only wants to hear about solutions, not problems.

I’ve had it. I gave all energy and skills I had to this company. Now I’m just hitting my head against the wall. I need a break and possibly a new employer. Burnout comes in all shapes and sizes because we are all different. I escape into physical activities and cooking, but mostly try to distance myself emotionally from work.

I wish the best of luck to all of you who are going through a difficult time. Wish me luck as well.

papito2• 3 years ago

My advice - save walk-away money when you are young. It's incredibly satisfying to slam the door and walk away from an abusive work environment full of incompetents. We take a lot of abuse in our 20s because we are still learning what a functional and what a dysfunctional work place is. You can learn a ton from both, but at some point, once you realize what work should be, give yourself the ability to move, or you will be locked in a cycle of misery.

regulation_d3• 3 years ago

I've been in a similar situation. My advice is to make sure you budget in recovery time. I've had burnout that took 2 weeks to recover from, and I've have burnout that took 2 months to recover from. Just make sure you don't take on more "burnout debt" than you'll be able to repay before having to start your next thing.

karthie• 3 years ago

thanks is the right article i need to read now for my current phase towards burn out. Sorry for the rant , From my early days had developed a code in myself "do not care about employer, but care about your work". Recent days the second part of my code "care about your work" am questioning this greatly.Although i strive to provide the highest quality of work output the ranks above me replaces the work with something comfortable which they prefer, after i move on to another parts. This really frustrate me ,also questions my code "care about your work". The part in blog "care about the results of our actions but with no control over outcomes" helped me , if i do not have control over the outcome is not a point to stress about it.I should focus on work rather than the outcome from my work.

pvsukale3• 3 years ago

I am in my mid 20s. I have been burned out in the past. One thing I want to reiterate on is you should be able to afford a sabbatical when it is desperately needed. A few months at least without all of your finances going down.

If this is not the case with you, it is best in interest to take out some money and put towards that. That sabbatical gives you some breathing space for you in life. It is worth saving some money and avoiding some luxury expenses.

MrDresden2• 3 years ago

I have recently progressed out of a burnout state, which started just before covid hit and continued until early this year.

I was lucky enough to be able to take all of last year off from work to focus on my mental and physical health.

It is probably dependant on people (and ofcourse their situation), but when I see someone talking about overcoming burnout by taking a month off I can't help wonder if they are diluting themselves into believing that everything is now fine, or if it was truly burnout to begin with.

If possible, make sure you give yourself enough time to deal with burnout. There is no shame in needing to take extended time away. Your health is more important than a career.

yxhuvud• 3 years ago

Yeah. I'd classify a month as vacation. I was out of commission for three quarters when it happened to me and I'm not certain that was enough.

avnfish2• 3 years ago

My timelines are basically the same as yours, which is reassuring because often articles talk about timelines that are measured in months rather than years

comprev• 3 years ago

Unfortunately money doesn't grow on trees and working in high paying industries - like tech - can warp your sense of reality.

The vast majority of people cannot afford to take such extended period of time off simply due to financial barriers.

Wondering if people are _actually_ burnt out simply because they have access to much less money than you is a rather arrogant viewpoint. Poor people get sick too.

MrDresden2• 3 years ago

I agree with everything you wrote.

However you misunderstood where I was coming from. I point out I was lucky enough to be able to take time off to focus on my health, and hint that that is sadly not something everyone can do.

I was able to do this not because of being employed in a high paying tech job, but because of strong union negotiated benefits.

I live in a European country with a sane perspective on work life balance and a strong social safety net.

I will also add that what was written questioned the public statements of individuals that write about dealing with burnout in a single month, not that the very probable situation where individuals have burnout and only have the ability to take a single month off exist.

Mezzie2• 3 years ago

I'm 10 months into 'walked out of 'good' professional WFH job to go work retail and vibe' and I'm just at the point where I want to do things again. My periodic attempts to force it never worked.

lannisterstark• 3 years ago

I've been burnt out since Christmas. It has been five months. It was so bad that I started seeing a counselor purely because of my job.

The only good portion of my job is that the work is extremely light (healthcare and govt contracting) so I get a lot of time to myself.

Most of my good team and mentors have left in the past year and teh new execs are micromanaging fkers who'd rather have Mandatory fun meetings and have our cameras on during morning 0800 scrums because why not? "It builds teamwork!"

...I've resigned myself to looking for another job at this point.

throw888777• 3 years ago

Here's my advice based on my personal experience with burnout. It's all easier said than done, I'm afraid.

1) People are part of the problem. You solve problems for customers with technical solutions, but your solutions should take into account people in the company. e.g. "how do I solve problem X with a manager that won't listen?" Other people are not a mysterious outside factor, they are a piece of the puzzle that needs to be put together.

2) Ignore your reputation. Do not base your self-worth on the opinion of others. You want to do good work, of course, but often your idea of good work is not what is wanted by the company. They want features, not pretty code. They are often too short-sighted to see the problems they are creating for themselves with this attitude. You must come to accept this.

3) You don't own your work. You must be mercenary. You are paid for your skills but the output is not yours. You will naturally have a sense of ownership over the the work you do. You will want to protect it because your sense of self-worth is linked to the quality of your work. Sever this link.

4) You don't own the company's problems. You must be mercenary. Companies are dysfunctional. They will be short-sighted. They will make mistakes you have seen a thousand times before and the end will be completely predictable. Give your advice, watch it get ignored, get paid, and move on.

5) Find something more important to care about than some stupid tech product. P.S. It's not going to make the world a better place. Quite the opposite if you look at previous evidence.

regulation_d3• 3 years ago

I'm sure most of us have worked for shit companies that have taken advantage of us. In those cases, I think your points can be helpful.

But I'd also suggest that it's possible to find companies that align with your values, both around work/life balance and around the way the work gets done. That's certainly a skill that I've had to work to develop. And I've had some major misses along the way. But it's probably also the most important skill I've developed.

Owning your company's problems, at least a subset of them, is that fastest (only?) way to move up in a company. If you want to climb the ladder at all, you'll have to own some problems. The key is to do that for a company that recognizes and rewards that ownership. And as soon as they don't, then you become the merc and find a new thing.

ornornor7• 3 years ago

But I'd also suggest that it's possible to find companies that align with your values, both around work/life balance and around the way the work gets done.

How? I keep reading this in similar discussions, but I haven’t found practical advice on how to actually do that. And I can’t trust myself because I keep joining shitty companies on that front one after another.

chriscjcj• 3 years ago

I find this cartoon on the topic to be depressingly on point:

https://i.imgur.com/lemmJRS.jpg

binbag• 3 years ago

Thanks for the post. On reading it I couldn't help but wonder if burnout might follow you to running your own company. From personal experience, it can be intensely bad for mental health after the initial excitement turns into endless hard grind to survive, grow, keep the support of investors, etc.

ChrisMarshallNY• 3 years ago

burnout happens when we become locked in a cycle of caring about the results of our actions but having no meaningful control over those outcomes.

I've never heard it put this way, but that really resonates.

Nowadays, I work harder and longer -for free- than I ever did, when paid.

I don't feel even slightly burned out. If I feel myself starting to get vexed with a problem, I take a break, watch some TV, play a video game, or just take a nap.

But I get more done, every day, than I ever have before. Much higher Quality, as well. I've already made two releases, this morning.

throwaway98797• 3 years ago

try hate as antidote to burnout

hate leads to anger

anger leads to violence

critical step

turn violent impulses into physical activity (like running, lifting, combat sports)

just a thought

gavi• 3 years ago

Audrey's experience with burnout is unfortunately all too common in the tech industry. It's important to recognize that burnout is a structural issue, built on individualism and meritocracy. As Audrey suggests, structural problems require structural solutions. Healthy organizations can lead to healthier individuals. Support and recovery funds should be available to those affected by burnout. It's time for the tech industry to prioritize the well-being of its employees and work towards creating an environment that doesn't lead to burnout.

mrleinad• 3 years ago

> creating space to recover from burnout in one area of my life, while coasting in others, then rotating until I finally had the mental and emotional space to plan my full escape

This has been my experience as well. But I started through an easier path, by working out and improving my health.

ouid• 3 years ago

I dont think this is the correct characterization of burnout. Maybe burnout occurs on the conditions listed, but not all burnout is caused by it.

Burnout is just when you run out of burn. It's like getting sleepy. You run out of the thing keeping you from being sleepy. You gotta get more stuff to burn if you wanna burn it.

Surviving Burnout (2015)

Related Stories