How do you know youre getting burnt out at work?
Used to think of burn out as a weakling thing, but i have to admit the job doesnt channel the same energy as before. Its become stale, and is starting to feel like a drag. How does burnout present, and what can i do to get things back under control?
I just had a meeting with HR. So for context, the past year or so has been kinda rough at work with anxiety, depression, and ADHD meds that no longer seem to work quite as well as they had been for the previous 20 years. So when stress got the better of me, I made some stupid mistakes, and made a snarky comment or two on Teams. I’ve actually been feeling burned out off and on for several years, but I do still get some satisfaction from coding, even after 13 years at the same company with glowing performance reviews. Anyway, today I was given a choice: Take a severance package and leave, or stay with a performance improvement plan. Honestly not sure what I want. I feel like all I needed was was some time to recover from a particularly stressful project. I could’ve been fine. But instead I get an ultimatum and two fucking days to decide. I’ve saved a decent amount of money over the years, so it might not be the worst thing for me to cash out and let someone else deal with the bullshit I’d be leaving behind. I would love to work part time and focus on my game dev project(s). On the other hand, health insurance is fucking expensive, and I’m going to miss being able to donate “a few thousand dollars” to my church’s food pantry without needing to worry about myself at all.
You stop caring to argue your point.
Someone does a big presentation.
Back of your head: “Well that’s obviously a terrible idea for X, Y, and Z reasons.”
You keep quiet and let it blow up instead of trying to fix the process as it’s being implemented.
(Checks box)
It seems like complaining out in the open is like reaching out for help because you dont know how to change the circumstance, rather than out of malice. Never thought of it that way before.
I’ve been thinking about this for a long while. I like to use the analogy of RAM because I’m a nerd.
When I was younger I felt like I had 32GB. I couldn’t even fully load it, I was into so many things I’d stuff it full and still be running at half capacity.
As I got older, more processes began to run long. Taxes, relationships, the tedium upkeep of life. Then work takes a big bite. You have the space so you run it. 24GB, 24/7. And they run it hard.
But then it gets burnt out. It’s just … fried. You can’t load things into it anymore, they don’t hold. Your memory or attention or energy or some combination of all three fail and the task fails. You had 4x8 but now you’re running on 1x8. For everything. The life tasks build and then there’s more: all the services, the nags, the endless notifications on endless apps, a million group chats buzzing by and the ever growing fascism.
But it’s not RAM. You can’t just go to the store and buy new stuff and replace it. You can’t just take a week off and relax and expect that it’ll start working again. It’s … unclear what will make it work again. Is it just broken now, forever???
You try to load stuff into it anyways, because you have to. Hobbies you used to enjoy. But the memory is still no good so it gets corrupted. That thing you used to enjoy now feels like an obligation and trying to engage with it feels like the memory of touching a hot stove. It slips away. And the entire social group you built around that interest? That slips away, too. It’s all too hot to touch, you don’t have the room and it feels bad: it’s tiring and draining and too much for you anymore.
I used to think burnout was a check engine light. I’d notice it go on, I’d recognize it happened, then I’d get to the shop and fix it. It took me years to figure out what was wrong and I still don’t know what to do about it. And the work just isn’t designed to let you deal with this stuff.
OK, I apologize. That first post was overly negative so allow me to offer some real hope and advice. (I was sitting in the middle of class when I typed that up and needed to get it off my chest. I moved to a new country and started uni again, which is maybe not the best way to deal with burnout. It’s helped in some ways but hurt in others. That’s my problems though, a story for another time.)
Let’s go back to the fire metaphor for burnout, I think it’s more apt. Not necessarily through any fault of your own, that fire is burnt out now. Someone careless came along and doused it in gasoline until it flared up and dissipated. That first fire was built out of the kindling of you, not intentional but incidental over a lifetime as you slowly piled things onto it. This new fire you need to build is going to have to be more intentional. You’re going to have to pay attention, put thought and care into it. That’s going to take practice and possibly several failures first until you get the hang of it, don’t give up.
This new fire won’t be the same. Not in composition or how it burns; that’s just life. It’s OK if you need to take some time to mourn that, I think it’s only natural. But just like a forest fire sweeping through it leaves fertile ground for new things to grow again. Time and patience which sucks because it runs counter to a lot of what we’re dealing with, but just know it as a fact.
For something concrete to begin with, focus on your self and your interests. It’s hard to sit down and focus on just reading a book when you feel like there are so many dozens of other things you need to tend to, but just take that time for yourself. Speaking personally, if you’re anything like me you got some part of yourself wrapped up in that job/career even though you didn’t want to, even though you didn’t ever see yourself as that kind of person. You need to fill that back in with yourself and if that takes the form of books, or comics, or movies, or videogames, or bike rides or whatever silly thing it is that makes you happy, you just need to do it. Trust me, this is important.
Keep going, you got this.
“burn out” in the common vernacular is a nebulous, poorly defined condition.
If you’re unhappy “in” your work, then it doesn’t really matter what you call it.
The solution is always going to involve less of that work - whether that’s a holiday, a change in jobs, or a reduction in hours. You can’t just memorise a mnemonic or start walking the dog.
How does burnout present
How much do you despise your boss?
Or upper management/company policies? Are you even afraid of them? Be honest to yourself (you really don’t need to tell me)
In my experience, the boss plays a major role in triggering burnouts. Not recognizing your own fears is also a part of it.
I’m burning out at work and this is what I noticed is different
Workload: On normal work days my mental state is completely zen, I can. enjoy my morning and work through issues in a leisured and still productive pace
I’m burned out now and it feels like I have to juggle dozens of tasks. Be in 8 meetings a day each of which have people demanding answers to issues I have not yet looked at. Every moment of the day I can’t wait until I can go home and just lay down
Recovery:
On normal workdays I have the mental energy to do OT if needed, I could probably do 6 hours of OT (I’ve never done this) and still feel fine the next day
Now that I’m burned out it feels like every weekend is just a small buffer until the churn resumes, I never recover from last week’s work efforts
Irritability/Patience:
On normal work days in the guy that picks up new critical issues because I want them fixed, or I’m involved because I don’t get anxious or scared whereas my coworkers might get scared about dealing with high priority and quick resolution issues
Nowadays I’m immediately frustrated that the company could not triage the issue accordingly and everything is “high priority” and yet when we fix things we don’t see resolution from the issuer’s end until weeks after it’s fixed
I don’t know if these answers help you but for me it’s very much about my mental headspace and how Zen/cluttered it feels
when you feel like no matter what you do, it’s not enough
when you don’t care to do better than necessary
when you think negatively about work when you’re not at work
when you stop going outside your own scope of work and start letting shit fall apart because somebody else didn’t do their job or nobody knew whose job it was, and you could have avoided the situation by pointing it out ahead of time
I work at a scale-up. It’s a very busy season, and I’m a bit irreplaceable for a critical part of our business. I was close to hitting the wall at the end of last week after three weeks of non-stop getting hit up late at night, and also woken up at night. When putting the kid to bed on Friday I still had three things to wrap up before I could disconnect for the weekend. I slept all Saturday.
I’ve done startups for 16 years and I’ve fallen into the trap of being a hero before. This time I’m building a team that can work without me. This week my #1 is taking over being on-call after a few months of being on the job. I’ve got my notifications off, and he’s the only one I’d pick up the phone for. We’re gonna start looking for a #2 shortly and once he/she is on-boarded we’ll be smooth sailing with only being a hero every third week.
I usually manage to disconnect by just writing down what needs doing the next day. When the wall approaches, you just can’t disconnect enough to rest. You’ll wake up second-guessing if you did that one thing already or not.
you start losing energy because your attention and effort are being thrown around in too many directions, you don’t have enough time to do it all and any feedback mechanisms come to nothing
you’re locked in a frustration/stress spiral and your body and mind will eventually give up or crash
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