Interesting subject. When WWII was over women in the UK and Europe who had lost their husbands often had to rebuild their homes, look after their children and had to put food on the table each day. All that after having lived/suffered through 6 years of war. However, none ever mentioned burnout except perhaps when referring to their homes...just saying
The Reality of Developer Burnout
71–80 of 191 posts
Re: The Reality of Developer Burnout
#72I speculate that burnout is more psychological than physical. Ultimately, I think it stems from the shame arising out of the realization that giving 110% instead of 70% at your job accomplishes little but making things harder for yourself. A software engineer doesn't get more money giving 110%, and if they work to finish something quicker they're just rewarded with more work. Often engineers (being human) will want t…
It is starts psychologically, but psychological problems can then turn into physical illnesses. A burnout can be stressful and slowly consume you life away with stress and anxiety until you hit rock bottom.
A million times this. Anything from ulcers, headaches, to heart attacks and even cancer can manifest if you are over-stressed and psychologically malnourished.
Getting enough or too little sleep is also huge so if you're reading this, make sure you get your (average of) 8 hours tonight. Think of it as a small way to unsure you live long enough to enjoy retirement.
Re: The Reality of Developer Burnout
#73> Not only that, but I found myself censoring my own private thought processes, in the silent comfort of my own home, because of the public opinion of people I follow on Twitter. I deleted my Twitter account because of this. I realized it was an empty echo chamber of inaction. If anything you say can be interpreted in a way that the hivemind can destroy you over, they will do it, even with incomplete information and…
It takes 10x the amount of energy to refute bs than to create it
It took me the same (1x) amount of energy to refute your comment as it did for you to create it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: The Reality of Developer Burnout
#74I solve developer burnout by playing videos games and paying for hookers. Alcohol only causes more depression.
Not sure "solve" is the right term there. ;)
Re: The Reality of Developer Burnout
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find myself doing the same thing with HN. Most of the time I love it, but it seems once in awhile the contrarians come out to play, and meaningful discussions drop to zero.
HN is full of contrarians. Say anything blunt, not rude but blunt, and you will get down-voted to oblivion. And not even that, say something in a polite way that people cannot discredit but still not like and you will get down-voted. I feel like you have to mold yourself to the hive mind if you want your stuff to be up-voted. Not sure if this is really how it is or if it is just me. On the other hand, a lot of times…
No, it isn't.
That may seem like a flippant joke, but I assure you that my intent is that it only be about 60% that. I am not gratuitously disagreeing here, as it is my sincere opinion that when people here argue for the opposite of what a parent post says, it is more often than not because they genuinely believe that it contains an error of fact or because they wish to express their own, different opinion on the matter.
As for up-votes and down-votes, that's a measure of popularity, not correctness. You can be right about everything and still be unpopular.
Re: The Reality of Developer Burnout
#76> Not only that, but I found myself censoring my own private thought processes, in the silent comfort of my own home, because of the public opinion of people I follow on Twitter. I deleted my Twitter account because of this. I realized it was an empty echo chamber of inaction. If anything you say can be interpreted in a way that the hivemind can destroy you over, they will do it, even with incomplete information and…
This is one of the reasons I will never get a personal Twitter unless it was for a project or other business. I've read too many times of a person harassed and suffered real-life consequences for a fairly innocuous comment. The rest of the posted article is excellent. Going to re-read it from time to time to see if I'm falling into the ruts described there.
I've stopped using my real name when posting online for this exact reason. Less worrying about getting harassed because you said something that might offend someone, or that someone might look up something you wrote in the past and use it against you in the future. There's a certain freedom in anonymity in not having to police your own thoughts all the time.
Of course, if you're trying to build an audience/brand then being anonymous might not be an option, but I've discovered I'd rather avoid such things and just work on my own stuff.
Re: The Reality of Developer Burnout
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I find myself doing the same thing with HN. Most of the time I love it, but it seems once in awhile the contrarians come out to play, and meaningful discussions drop to zero.
HN is full of contrarians. Say anything blunt, not rude but blunt, and you will get down-voted to oblivion. And not even that, say something in a polite way that people cannot discredit but still not like and you will get down-voted. I feel like you have to mold yourself to the hive mind if you want your stuff to be up-voted. Not sure if this is really how it is or if it is just me. On the other hand, a lot of times…
the easiest way to collect upvotes is effluvient praise for whichever silicon valley company is currently the "great golden hope".
the easiest way to collect downvotes is to contradict any of PG's implicit or explicit biases. the weight of mass down-voting seems to have improved since sama has taken over and PG is blogging less.
Re: The Reality of Developer Burnout
#78> It happens to everyone that writes code all day long More like "It happens to everyone." I know this is a developer-focused site, but this isn't a problem unique to people in software. An old joke, "Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody, and they meet at the bar."
You're actually making the issue worse by conflating burnout with simple... I guess laziness? In fact the whole reason why burnout is such a fascinating phenomenon is because it takes otherwise highly productivity people who do not hate their job and turns them into minimal-productivity people who do hate their jobs. That's nothing at all like you're describing.
So people who love their jobs can also burn out? I don't buy it.
Personally, I've never heard of or met anyone who loves their job and has burned out.
Have you?
Re: The Reality of Developer Burnout
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
It takes 10x the amount of energy to refute bs than to create it
It took me the same (1x) amount of energy to refute your comment as it did for you to create it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Here's my source, where's yours? ;-)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/294584001_The_unbea...
Re: The Reality of Developer Burnout
#80I've been burned out twice. The first and deeper of the two was right after I graduated years ago. It made the whole process of going straight into the workforce bittersweet, as I was mentally not ready to muster the energy to endure the rigors of professional development on-boarding for a new grad. I managed, but no where near at a potential I could of been. A brutal semester of final projects and endless nights had…
You know the one about entering the workforce hits home for me, I feel like this is about to happen to me, but I feel sort of powerless to stop it.
It's much easier to back away and recharge when you're close to the edge than after you've already fallen off. So you should try and stop falling off if you can. Take a real break after you graduate, if you can, it'll help. Otherwise consider if you can last a few months at a new gig, that ought to supply you with enough savings to take the same amount of time off if not more and then look for a new gig.
I was excited to start working properly after school, regardless of what I worked on, it would be something that mattered enough that I'd be paid for it instead of paying myself. I started interviewing mostly after graduation and while it was stressful (must find a job soon to pay bills, and start paying student loans) I landed one after not too long. I was fortunate that my start date wasn't until a month after acceptance so I was able to chill for that whole month and really unwind after the stress of years of school. Looking back I was telling people during interviews that I was basically available to start "immediately" (because I wanted more money immediately) but I really should have pushed for at least a few weeks lead time before starting in all cases instead of lucking into it.
I recently came back from a 2 week vacation of just chilling, it's lifted a lot of work stress that has been accumulating. But some times I've entertained myself with calculations about how long I could go financially if I quit tomorrow. I even did that at the start more for fun than stress relief, since suddenly every two weeks you're getting a paycheck that covers 3-6 months of expenses if you keep your college lifestyle. It doesn't take long to save up for a year of goofing off and then a couple months of runway to find a job after that.