
Burnout - markchristian
https://johnnyrodgers.is/burnout
======
dawhizkid
I think there's two types of work-induced burnout. "White collar" burnout is
generally self-inflicted, and to me less about working oneself to exhaustion
and more about working any amount of hours on something that you
subconsciously believe is fundamentally misaligned with your core
principles/true self. My hypothesis on why this seems to be happening at
higher rates is because without a focus on raising a family and/or
participation in organized religion, our careers/workplace have become the
"things" that we now try to put all this meaning behind, and what was once
separated from our "life" (e.g. work/life balance) _has_ become our life, and
the psychological burden of being forced to be 100% emotionally
invested/devoted to our work has consequences.

"Blue collar" burnout, to me, is the archetypal fast food worker making
minimum wage working paycheck to paycheck, who not only has to deal with
financial insecurity that comes with the job but the physical (actual manual
"work") and psychological (rude customers) burdens that come with those types
of jobs.

~~~
westoncb
> more about working any amount of hours on something that you subconsciously
> believe is fundamentally misaligned with your core principles/true self.

That rings true to me. My speculation as to why: at the most general level,
our 'work' in life resembles a hierarchical optimization process--goals and
sub-goals (and so on) forming a structure defined by nested utility functions.

Our professional goals (and their day-to-day sub-goals), may be pretty
significant, but they're still subservient to more fundamental goals implied
by fundamental values.

I think burnout is working extensively on some sub-goal (that may be large
enough to appear as a top-level goal in itself), that is fundamentally
misaligned with some ancestor goal(s): working on it makes no progress or even
regression on more significant goals.

I think a common source of this misalignment for tech people of my generation
(I'm 33) is being taught as kids that we can do "anything we put our minds to"
and that fundamentally we should be aiming to "change the world". Then we grow
up and find ourselves faced with the practical reality of the large scale
professional world where not everyone gets to run things and the vast majority
of folks end up working on insignificant little corners of someone else's
probably anti-altruistic money making scheme--just consider the opposition
between the early-formed life goals/values and the day-to-day goals of your
typical tech worker.

(And perhaps what makes it extra bad is that contemporary perception of how
evil/exploitative etc. tech is, is quite high: our culture is steeped in the
likes of Black Mirror and other sources of tech paranoia [or maybe just tech
cautionaries--who knows].)

~~~
cityzen
What would you tell your kids today? I have 2 boys, 7 and 10, and I don't want
to lead them into the same trap. We are already dealing with the fear that the
schools put into kids about tests. The pressure on kids to be in "performance"
mode all the time is really disappointing to me.

~~~
alexashka
Tell them they can work at Starbucks and lead a happy life. If you genuinely
believe it, you won't have to tell your kids anything.

There is no pressure on kids, other than their idiot parents. School should be
seen as trivial and boring, because grades don't matter. Grades don't matter
because if you're not an idiot, you can flunk school and do well in life with
minimal effort. Just try many things to see what you like and then do it for
10 years.

If it's athletics, you can go work a physically demanding job that pays well.
If it's an intellectual pursuit, you'll be well suited for university and a
high paying job. If it's creative, the admiration you get for your art will
matter far more than living in a basement. If it's just being a nice, easy-
going, kind human being, quality relationships will matter more than living in
a basement.

Whichever way you go, you win, unless you have idiot parents who teach you to
be unhappy and insecure, like them.

------
didgeoridoo
My wife is a clinical psychologist focusing on the mental health impact of
high-pressure jobs. She had me build this “Burnout Calculator” based on a
self-evaluation protocol they use in their practice. Leaving it here in case
it’s helpful for anyone: [https://azimuthpsych.com/burnout-
calculator](https://azimuthpsych.com/burnout-calculator)

~~~
hellisothers
Assuming this is a relatively standardized protocol this is a great idea.
However, getting a score at the end and then the tag line “you’re fine but you
should contact us anyway to see if therapy could help” feels icky

~~~
didgeoridoo
If you actually feel fine, then of course therapy isn’t likely to do much for
you. The idea is if you’re feeling terrible enough to evaluate yourself, but
it turns out you likely aren’t suffering from burnout, that doesn’t mean you
shouldn’t look into therapy. Often people think they are suffering from
burnout, but it turns out they actually have underlying trauma, anxiety,
depression, etc. unrelated to work stress.

~~~
slips
Everyone, even healthy people, should attend therapy if able. There's a lot of
tricky ground to navigate as a person and you don't have to be experiencing
trauma to get help.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
> Everyone, even healthy people, should attend therapy if able.

I feel like this is just a weaponized meme developed for the purpose of
marketing.

~~~
slips
Marketing what? Mental health? Everything isn't some shill post or /r9k/
nonsense. People do speak authentically.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Therapy. Therapy is a service, and one that in my experience is of dubious
value. It is difficult to look at a statement that is essentially "pay for
something you don't need" and not think of it as marketing.

------
pixelmonkey
This is good post on experiencing burnout (and avoiding it).

Written by an early programmer at Slack, and someone involved with their
recent desktop app rewrite project.

For me, "team marathon running" on software projects means only rarely
"sprinting".

As the author suggests, sacrificing sleep, body, and hours eventually catches
up with you. But, it's very easy to do and we've all been there. This is part
of the reason that medical residents are burnt out on medicine even though
they love medicine. It doesn't matter that you're doing what you love --
that's only the top little self actualization triangle of Maslow's
heirarchy/pyramid of needs. You need all the base components of Maslow's
heirarchy satisfied, too -- financial health, bodily health, emotional health.

------
blbfsh
I like the note in the end about his advice:

 _This advice doesn’t get you very far. In the abstract, it’s just more self-
help cliché. For me these are hard-won lessons, and it’s unlikely I would have
done anything differently if someone had told me this when I was 26 or 30._

I feel like the cause of burnout generally lies much deeper than not asking
for help or not putting health first. It's more about certain values embedded
in you from your past. Those values make you feel responsible for things you
aren't, and might make you push yourself. Which might also bring you good
things in life, but you have to wonder where those values came from and if
they are indeed true for you and helping you.

~~~
kd5bjo
“A soldier does not become a shrewd general merely by endorsing the strategic
principles of Clausewitz; he must also be competent to apply them.”

“Knowing how to apply maxims cannot be reduced to, or derived from, the
acceptance of those or any other maxims.”

— Ryle, Gilbert. _The Concept of Mind_ (1949)

I started reading this a couple of weeks ago after seeing it referenced in
Peter Naur’s “Programming as Theory Building”, and this point of his in
particular keeps coming up in all sorts of contexts: there’s a fundamental
difference between knowing _how something is done_ and knowing _how to do it_.
The former is what you get from any sort of how-to or advice article, but the
latter comes from experience. It’s unclear if there’s any internal transfer at
all between these two kinds of knowledge.

~~~
agumonkey
I hit that wall somehow hard. There's a very odd cognitive notion about 'know
how'. Even stupid simple obvious things, when you've never done them, good
chances you will feel weirdly stuck for tiny and absurd reasons.

~~~
lanstin
Which is why trying new stuff you don't know how to do and also to do stuff
you like but are bad at is so cognitively beneficial.

------
metalgearsolid
I think I'm burning out because my job is too easy. I _like_ working.
Satisfaction of completing a good job makes me happy. Is anyone else
experiencing burnout as a result of numbingly boring tasks rather than from
intense bursts of mentally challenging work? Am I conflating burnout with
something else like depression?

Writing up UI designed by a designer who doesn't understand my domain's
interface guidelines, reexplaining how my software works to the product person
during every product meeting, trudging along under leadership that doesn't
understand the costs of all the manual things I'm not being empowered to
automate and not having new features to show off every 2 weeks is what is
making me feel like I'm burnt out.

I've been at the opposite end of things. I've had to sprint through terminals
to catch flight after an incredibly slow deployment at a hotel like out of a
nail-biting Hollywood thriller. I've crunched through long days before
critical events, and then crunched even longer days to work through all the
issues we came across afterwards. But these things usually resulted in
satisfaction more than frustration.

My symptoms have been physical too. I've vomited before going into work at
least a dozen times. I had to start embracing it to get on with my day.
Thankfully this is no longer an issue for myself but I couldn't even tell you
what had changed to start preventing that.

~~~
Aaargh20318
> Is anyone else experiencing burnout as a result of numbingly boring tasks
> rather than from intense bursts of mentally challenging work?

For me it’s boring, meaningless and ill-defined tasks. Especially if you have
many of those assigned without clear priorities.

I actually like a good crisis at work. E.g. a major production system suddenly
going down. Suddenly, there is focus, interrupts go away, the desired result
is completely clear and you feel like doing something that matters.

On the other end of the spectrum, working on some meaningless feature (e.g.
adding some performance metrics to the system management decided could
possibly be useful as if they actually bothered to look at them) has me
completely exhausted at the end of the day.

~~~
fhy45678
>>>a major production system suddenly going down. Suddenly, there is focus,
interrupts go away

Do you want to do that everyday for next 20 years?

------
madaxe_again
The bit about ending up in hospital with an obstructed bowel from
diverticulitis? I call misdiagnosis - either on his part or mine.

I had an uncannily similar experience, except in my case it was about a week a
month (sometimes much more, sometimes less) that I lost to the vomiting, the
nausea, the delirium, the totally immobile bowel. In my case, the stress went
on for years, and years, utterly relentlessly, day and night, incessantly, and
so did the gut attacks. I’d get angry when people mentioned they’d slept
badly, because at least they’d _got_ to sleep. I’d spend a sleepless week
shivering and roasting and dripping sweat and reeling with nausea, unable to
make words or thoughts, then finally suddenly recover, and the moment I was
capable of any movement or coherent thought, I’d be writing apologetic emails
and heading back to the office, where I’d get a barrage of abuse from both
clients and cofounder for my absence.

After multiple hospitalisations they’d decided I had everything from
diverticulitis to gallstones to salmonella to a brainstem injury. They took my
gallbladder out, did exploratory surgery, every endoscopy you care to name. It
kept happening, nothing worked.

Then, I quit my business. Two months later, I had my last “attack”, as I’d
come to call them, and it’s now been three years.

So... I wonder if the author had diverticulitis, or was having the same
violent physiological reaction to stress that I had apparently developed.

------
jacknews
Is this really burnout, or just overheating?

To me burnout is more the psychological state of "why am I even doing this
anymore?", loss of enthusiasm, perhaps even some degree of despondency and
hopelessness about the future, etc.

This seems more like just temporary over-exertion, under-
nutrition/exercise/etc, which can be fixed with a lazy holiday, safe in the
knowledge that all those Slack shares are vesting.

~~~
coffeefirst
Two things surprised me about burnout:

1\. It has physical symptoms.

2\. It doesn't go away when you stop.

Vacation is good. But two weeks after my vacation I had a rough couple of
days, nothing that I couldn't handle before, and I was right back where I
started.

I've come to think of it like a mental equivalent of a torn muscle. Recovery
takes time—probably far more time than I expect, and if you overexert it, even
a little, you'll do a lot more damage a lot faster than you did the first time
around.

~~~
singron
Sometimes vacation makes it worse because it makes you realize just how much
your job makes you unhappy.

------
geggam
This was the hardest one for me and caused me a burnout a couple times,
especially when working remote from home.

 _Separate your work and personal life. This was a major change for me. I’ve
always identified very closely with my work. I’m learning to separate my sense
of self-worth and purpose from my professional self._

~~~
twbarber
How did you manage to separate it? I've been remote 2 years now, and I'm just
now starting to become aware of how big of a problem this is.

~~~
geggam
Filled my calendar with things like gym and family time outside of working
hours. Set my calendar to reject double booked meetings / events automatically
was the first step

After that it depends on the reactions you get from that.

------
agoodthrowaway
I had my first major career failure this year and lost a very good job. I was
able to land another good job quickly but I’ve been full of doubt and am
seriously lacking in confidence ever since. I can’t sleep and have anxiety.
The new job has significantly more responsibility and in many ways the
pressure that the author describes in rewriting Slack is very similar to what
I’m going through. Every time I have a setback at work I am afraid of losing
my job. I finally recognized this as burnout and am trying to come back from
it but it’s a slow process. I’m trying to exercise more and get enough sleep
but the sleep part is still not working all that well.

------
situational87
There is some incredibly obnoxious script on this page that won't let you
resize the text. First time I've seen that.

I often feel like the web couldn't possibly get any worse, and every day it
finds a new way to surprise me and get worse.

~~~
christilut
There is some horrible javascript that calculates what the font size should be
based on the height of the browser. A large screen gets a huge font and if you
zoom out then the resize event triggers which keeps the font the same size.

Might be one of the worst things I've seen on the web so far

------
voidhorse
I hope someone will (or has?) conducted a historical and geographical analysis
of the concept of “burnout”. I’m curious about where precisely it emerges
(hypothesis, predominantly America) and when (hypothesis, the 21st century).

It’s a peculiar concept in that it seems to capture the idea that we’ve
reached a stage in human development in which _we shouldn’t really have to
work that much, but do so anyway_. It a sort of paradoxical situation in which
we’ve eliminated the conditions which necessitated or fostered overwork with
material ends (must produce xyz units of consumable goods, food etc) for
overwork with largely frivolous ends (the sustainment of online systems which
don’t actually create any material value—only abstract or cultural value—not
true in every case, of course) enter the “burnout” concept—the big boss no
longer needs to forcibly push his workers to the edge, they’ll do it for him
through some odd sense of pride or ridiculous notions of performance which are
enforced not through punishment but through the allocation of “benefits” like
respect, small bonuses, etc etc. —the workplace “culture” (though the social
dynamics which emerge at workplaces are not worthy of the name) is an
effective system for ensuring people overextend themselves.

~~~
javiramos
I recently read a book (Behemoth [0]) about the history of the 'factory' and I
can tell you that burnout is omnipresent throughout the entire narrative.
Particularly, the 18th century textile mills were a brutal and oppressive
place to work. Burnout, financial ruin and pressure, and worker unhappiness
were persistent elements of the book. To this day, we still have manufacturing
settings that heavily rely in oppressive and abusive labor practices.

I think that what is "new" is burnout in the context of the office and
knowledge work.

[0] [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/14/behemoth-
joshu...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/mar/14/behemoth-joshua-
freeman-history-factory-review)

------
ezekg
Burnout fucking sucks. I thought I went through it once in the past (and maybe
I did), but when compared to how I feel now it was nowhere near as bad. I
recently tried a few things: 1) nootropic supplements, which have helped a bit
to an extent; and 2) take a week long tech-free vacation to the mountains, but
when I came back my state didn't really change.

I think my burnout is due to feeling utterly unchallenged at work. The work
I've been doing feels way below my pay grade. I'm also attempting to grow my
own SaaS business and growth is very slow (3 years in, at $4k MRR), which
makes that "light at the end of the tunnel" of going full-time on my business
seem unreachable at times. I also have a 5 month old, so I'd also factor that
into the lower-bound of my stress level (but I do feel like she helps me slog
through hard days more than anything).

I'm starting to be more open about my mental health with family/friends, and I
feel like I'm in a rut and not sure how to get out of it. I wish I could take
a sabbatical.

------
world32
> I design and build technology in Vancouver. I spend most of my time working
> on Slack, a paradigm-shifting tool for team communication. In my work I
> strive for usefulness, beauty, and positive impact on the lives of others.

From this chap's tag line on his home page it seems like he still identifies
strongly with his work and over emphasises the importance of it.

------
kirstenbirgit
Something I think that has helped me avoid burnout is to stop at 16.00 (or
whenever your regular working day ends) and leave work, physically and
mentally.

On the weekends, I don't think about work ever (unless something happens to
the system and I'm on-call, which very rarely happens. I realise I'm lucky in
this regard.)

I just can't work more than 6-7 hours on a given day. Working more won't make
me more productive, on the other hand I'll waste more time on reddit since I
can't stay focused and I can "catch up" my pre-noon procrastination later.

A part of this, of course, is to insist on not working outside work hours from
the beginning of joining a company. In doing so, your colleagues will learn to
know not to disturb you outside of work unless it's really necessary.

I feel like that's the mistake the author of this article is committing: not
doing anything else than work. Everyone needs time off to recoup no matter
what business they're in.

------
b_tterc_p
I have never been burned out, but I think I would have been. I did a couple
stints at various places (non dev work) where I was pretty excited to continue
working and get higher in the org. Fortunately for me they were co-ops which
ended and allowed me to see that, retrospectively, they kind of sucked, were
not especially fruitful career tracks, and would have ground me down after a
year or so. It’s really hard to check yourself while engaged and working on
something.

------
gepiti
Caretaker burnout anyone? Nobody talks about it but this is the hardest of
all. You can turn the back on a career but not to your loved ones.

------
eccbits
Slack spends a lot of time promoting itself as a “work hard, them go home”
culture. Do others fimd tat to be true? If so, why would burnout be a risk for
someone at Slack?

------
codeisawesome
Great advice if you’re already a millionaire.

~~~
almost_usual
Not sure what being a millionaire has to do with avoiding burn out. There are
plenty of wealthy people who still burn out. If you’re burning yourself out
solely for “getting rich” you should probably buy lotto tickets instead.

~~~
Aaargh20318
If you are rich you’re burning out by choice. Having to go through something
like long workdays because you want to is a completely different experience
than doing so because you have to.

I never understood why people keep working once they have accumulated enough
to not have to work anymore.

~~~
almost_usual
The wealthiest people I know work 6-7 days a week. It’s no coincidence they’re
rich. The money is nice but that’s not their motivation.

------
Kenji
That was a great read. I think the most important thing is letting go when
stressful problems become a danger to your health. Just think "I'm not that
important in the grand scheme of things" and take a few steps away from the
problem (obviously that's not always possible, but it's more often possible
than people think). What will happen is the following:

\- Maybe you're right, and things go on nicely without you

\- Maybe things go not so well, so your coworkers have to learn redundancy and
that they cannot pile all the problems on one person

\- Often, you come back from your break (be it going home early, or taking a
few days off, etc.) refreshed and you look at the problem from a new
perspective. Potential emotions like anger and impatience have worn off,
enabling you to act calmly and rationally.

