
Why I Collapsed on the Job - williamstein
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-I-Collapsed-on-the-Job/242537
======
cyberferret
Burnout doesn't differentiate between gender, race, sexual orientation, social
status or the size of your bank account.

Much like when I was in flying training and we were subjected to the altitude
simulation pressure chamber so that we could each identify how we individually
experienced the onset of hypoxia, I think it is important that everyone
notates down the onset of burnout at home or at work.

For me, Stage 1 is when I start feeling myself getting irritable and snapping
at those close to me for no reason at all. S2 is when I start having trouble
sleeping, and get a really stiff neck leading to headaches. I've got to catch
it at that point otherwise if it moves to S3 - crippling headaches, inability
to focus on simple tasks or S4 - inability to even get out of a chair due to
the feeling of extreme fatigue, then the recovery process is SO much longer
and harder.

Keep a working journal, or better still, ask someone close to you that you can
trust to note any out of character behavioural changes and advise you of them
so that you can start to detect patterns and take action to mitigate.

~~~
Lxr
I agree you need to catch it early. I often wonder what the most time-
efficient form of mitigation is.

~~~
wsy
The most efficient mitigation is saying no to any additional obligation, and
most probably also to some current obligations you already had accepted.

Thinking about the issue in terms of time-efficiency will likely not help. It
takes as long as it takes until you are back in balance, and accepting that is
part of the remedy.

~~~
cyberferret
This is also an important factor. I know when I am experiencing burnout, the
feeling of anxiety and being overwhelmed is heightened. _Any_ extra task
thrown at me just snowballs those feelings until I become paralysed with
indecision.

It is important to 'shed the load' when you feel the onset of burnout. Don't
take on anything new - just focus on finishing what you have, and then take a
break or reward yourself accordingly before doing any more.

------
myspy
Employers, as well as state institutions need to look more at the health of
their employees. Even in Germany we have the problem that people at
universities work way too much.

People need to be told to stop and take a step back. Hard borders are a
necessity. No longer than 40 hours (better 35) per week for EVERYONE. Being it
doctors, university professors, steal workers, teachers, cleaning personal.

There are enough resources and money flowing through society to enable
everyone having work that pays to live and time to live itself. No need for
multiple jobs and getting torn apart to make a living.

We are not in the time of industrialization. This time is long gone and we
should be further than running people down and get a pair of new ones if they
are broken.

~~~
germinalphrase
As an American teacher who routinely works 50-60, the idea of only working
35/wk feels like a dream.

~~~
aianus
Why do you need to work 50-60 hours a week? I know my teachers in HS in
Ontario were only scheduled for 4 hours of instruction a day. Are American
teachers scheduled for more instruction?

How much do grading, lesson planning, and extracurriculars contribute to that
figure? 8 hours every working day seems kind of excessive; I graded well over
a hundred assignments a week in college as a TA in 10 hours flat.

It certainly seemed to me to be a very cushy job at the time but I'd love to
hear your perspective.

~~~
iak8god
Is this supposed to be some kind of joke, or do you really imagine that lesson
planning and grading alone for 4 daily hours of classroom instruction would
take less than an additional 4 hours?

~~~
aianus
Not the first time you do it, but by the third, fourth, year in a row, I
imagine you would be reusing the lesson plans, assignments, and tests.

I know for a fact that’s what my HS math teacher did because we got ahold of
the old tests and assignments a couple of times and they were almost
identical.

Side note: I’m making him sound like a lazy slacker but he was the best
teacher I’ve ever had in my life. He taught so much so well that I had perfect
grades and didn’t learn any new math in university for the first 6 months.

------
Thriptic
Wow the comments in here. This is not an article about the struggles of women
in academia, it's an article about the struggles of being a tenured professor
in general which are indeed hard. The primary problems are indeed what were
pointed out. Professors end up being saddled with a lot of unpaid work that
isn't research related: journal obligations, teaching, committees, operations,
HR etc. This isn't even getting into another enormous time sink which went
unmentioned, fundraising, which I've seen eat up substantial amounts of PI
time via grant writing, industry relations, attending conferences to try to
find money, contract negotiations etc.

Most experienced PIs never actually make it back into the lab once they get
tenure (assuming they are lab researchers), which is a real shame. It becomes
difficult to say no to all this stuff because thousands of people are fighting
tooth and nail over a tiny number of positions, and they get used to slaving
away with this kind of workload because it's what academia demands of you to
get a tenured position. Once you have it you just keep doing what you've been
doing.

------
grondilu
> But suddenly my body refused to heal from a simple infection, leading to
> inflammation that left me bedridden and unable to perform most of my duties
> for five long weeks.

I whish she had tell us more about this, more precisely about what exactly
convinced her the real cause was her burning out rather than an exceptionally
nasty infection.

Not that I doubt it was, but honestly it's what I'm most curious about.

~~~
bionsystems
Constant stress impacts negatively the immune system, you can look it up it's
quite well researched. Men sana in corpore sano :)

------
mosselman
The point the author seems to make by peppering the article with these
mentions of gender seems to be that burnouts in education are gender related.

These struggles are universal for all teachers, not just women. Saying 'xyz is
hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in which men
should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it truly hard.

Saying no to people is hard for many people of both genders and regardless of
gender it is hard for couples to have children and both have a demanding
career, whatever the underlying cause. Taking care of children and the house
are not the only things that can cause stress outside of work and all of those
reasons are not gender bound.

This sexist approach is unfair to the men in education who can't say no, have
to take care of a family on their own, etc. Furthermore it signals to me that
all of the other information in the article should be taken with a grain of
salt just as an article on space exploration by a flat earther should be taken
with a grain of salt.

This subjective approach should not be rewarded here on HN or anywhere else.

~~~
annabellish
>xyz is hard in education, especially for women' creates an environment in
which men should just suck it up and 'stop whining' because women have it
truly hard.

It isn't a competition. Everyone's experiences are valid and correct. That
women, on average, face the problems of (profession) plus the problems of
being a woman in (profession). This doesn't mean that men don't have problems,
that their problems are somehow invalidated, or that they should "man up" and
take it - the idea that men should do so is actually a problem of _men_ in
(profession), because men also have their own set of problems.

That women generally, on average, face more and more significant issues does
not invalidate anybody and should not cause a competition to find who is most
disadvantaged. It should be one component of a rallying point by which
everyone's lives can be improved, men and women and everyone else.

~~~
mosselman
"It isn't a competition." and "...women generally, on average, face more and
more significant issues"?

Double standards aside, that is exactly my point. It isn't a competition and
it isn't fruitful to talk about gender when describing the struggles of people
in a profession unless those struggles are directly related to gender. Which
in this case they clearly aren't.

I think reducing every problem, in this case getting overworked, to gender
devalues the real discussion about gender inequality.

One real problem with people getting overworked is budget. More money for more
workers will make everybody's job easier. Another aspect is people's personal
lives in which they can face challenges that cause them stress and make it
hard to balance work and life. Solving things like this will make everybody's
lives better regardless of their age, race, gender, sexual preference, etc.

You also say: "women generally, on average, face more and more significant
issues" "men also have their own set of problems." "Everyone's experiences are
valid and correct." Again this is the 'men have problems but women have the
real problems' argument. "Everyone's experiences are valid and correct." some
are just more valid and correct.

~~~
annabellish
It _isn't_ a competition. There is no "more valid and correct", and I did not
suggest that there was - in fact, I directly stated the opposite multiple
times.

Just because a worse thing exists does not make something not bad. The world
is allowed to be made out of shades of grey.

~~~
mosselman
"The world is allowed to be made out of shades of grey."

I never said it isn't. I just don't see how voicing an opinion on who has it
worse or not in a discussion about a different subject can lead to anything
else than the polarisation of the discussion.

You can do whatever you want of course. I was just pointing out that I feel
that there is some underlying sexism in the article and that it should
probably be taken into account when determining its value.

------
gaius
Meanwhile in the third world
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-22/hungry-
ve...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-22/hungry-venezuelan-
workers-are-collapsing-so-is-the-oil-industry)

------
donquichotte
TLDR: It's an anectode of "an associate professor of education-policy studies"
at Penn State who suffered from burn-out.

I have no idea what we are supposed to take away from her story. Don't work
too hard and learn to say no, I guess. There is no clear narrative and the
article reeks of self pity (she does not get tired of mentioning that she's a
"twice an immigrant" and a woman).

EDIT: what bothers me about the article is that there is no root cause
analysis and no solution is offered.

Also, I am unsure the n-th order immigrant argument is valid. The very concept
of a second order immigrant seems bizarre to me. And if they exist, it remains
to be proven that k-th order immigrants have it strictly more difficult than
l-th order immigrants for all k>l.

~~~
chvid
Yeah. She writes as if this is unique to her profession, gender (?!) ... but
it is not. This sounds like any other burnout stories from so many fields.
Sure some fields are worse than others but academia is probably one of the
better ones.

~~~
monkeynotes
Let's not forget health workers. Doctors and nurses often work ridiculous
hours with unimaginable stress, literally life and death decisions every day.

I often consider myself to be very lucky to write JS for a living. I earn a
decent wage, work decent hours, have reasonably good employability and
portability of work, and if I make a mistake I can only kill the browser.

~~~
zolthrowaway
My girlfriend is a NP. She does make a good living, but the amount of stuff
she puts up with is something I could never put up with. I may be stressed
about a production emergency or a looming deadline, but for the most part I
work 8-4. She deals with long, changing hours and has told me stories that
have made me physically ill just from the description. I'm not sure how they
handle this. She's had to put up with this even before she got an actual job.
Clinical took a toll on her even before she graduated. The fact that LPNs and
RNs even go to work everyday with lower pay and crazy hours amazes me. My hat
goes off to the medical profession. Our system may be a mess but the doctors
and nurses are making a lot of sacrifices to keep people healthy and alive.

