I burned out three times in salaried jobs. Mostly due to chaotic leadership. Hard work isn't the problem. Chaos and bad leadership is the problem. Moved to contracting, and have been fine since.
Recovering from Burnout and Depression
71–80 of 266 posts
Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression
#72I was working for the software giant based in Seattle. I experienced all the emotions mentioned in this post. Lucky that you had an option to take a break for 6 months. I cannot quit my job and take a big break as my visa does not permit this but I did quit my job and spent a month looking for another job which was even more stressful. Currently, I am lucky that I work for a company which truly values employees. I am…
If you're on H1, and have the money to pull it off, you can take a break with an approved leave of absence[0]. When it's renewal time, you can add these dates in as time not spent on H1 if the time was spent outside the US.
I hope you get better soon!
[0]: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-taking-approved-l...
Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression
#73If any of you are suffering from depression, you should seriously try microdosing LSD.
While I'm sure there are a few causes of depression and contextual life events and personalities for which LSD might be useful, it's downright irresponsible to suggest that "if any reader" suffers from depression he should turn to narcotics.
Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression
#74I think a big factor in burnout is that most work is ultimately meaningless, or even morally wrong, and on a deep level, we're aware of that. Why is it so hard to make yourself work? Probably because you actually should be doing something else with your life. If someone paid you money to kick a dog, you'd feel a strong urge to do something else. That's because you shouldn't kick dogs. But when we feel the same urge t…
I'd love to hear your meaningless idea that you know will make you a millionaire.
Disrupt masturbation via the gig-economy model.
Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
random unconnected thought I'm working on a "may eventually make me money" thing and I do pretty much 100% of the work as far as technical aspect goes (coding) and I'm set to have 30% of this "thing"... 13 hours of coding today, I feel like I achieved nothing. And it's like there is no return, I didn't get paid "someday you'll make money maybe" and I'm not sure I like the idea itself. I don't know I keep asking mysel…
You achieved that jquery is not there anymore and that is us faster. That is quite a lot, objectively. It is gonna look that way after you get rest too. And yes, people tend to have naive ideas about what is possible and people like to give brag suggestions.
yeah I was amazed that async loading of scripts, how much of a difference that makes.
I'll just remember that for future projects and code structuring making things independent or defer/wait for parts to be present due to async loading.
the console internet throttling is a cool tool too with Google Chrome. To simulate poor network speed I have it set to 500Kbps with 300ms delay. That was the latency with our closest "data center" single-core vps hahaha. What a man can do with $4.00 and brute-force-idiocy to get things done.
Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression
#76If any of you are suffering from depression, you should seriously try microdosing LSD.
While I'm sure there are a few causes of depression and contextual life events and personalities for which LSD might be useful, it's downright irresponsible to suggest that "if any reader" suffers from depression he should turn to narcotics.
I'm not saying I have the study to show that LSD can help with any depression, but do you have any evidence that it only helps with certain kinds? (I know, burden of proof is on me)
The reason my advice isn't irresponsible is because microdosing LSD has no downsides. If it doesn't work, nothing breaks. Try something else then.
Depression is a real life-killer, and if 10 people tried my advice, and this worked for only 1 of them (although I think at least 5 would), then this advice has essentially saved 1 life, while not harming the others.
Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression
#77Hey everyone - thanks so much for reading! Burnout and depression is a topic that not enough of us talk about, even though that's often the best solution. If you know anyone struggling with burnout or depression, or you just enjoyed my article, I'd be forever grateful if you'd share it with them on Twitter or Facebook, to help spread the word. Thanks so much!
I've been in a state of burnout for a few years. Turns out that it's possible to just stop caring about anything. Kind of like how too-hot peppers make your mouth numb.
Thanks for writing, but I just don't care.
Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression
#78I think a big factor in burnout is that most work is ultimately meaningless, or even morally wrong, and on a deep level, we're aware of that. Why is it so hard to make yourself work? Probably because you actually should be doing something else with your life. If someone paid you money to kick a dog, you'd feel a strong urge to do something else. That's because you shouldn't kick dogs. But when we feel the same urge t…
Yeah, I think most people become highly motivated when the work they're assigned is actually meaningful and important. But most people don't get such work, so big surprise that people have "gotten" lazy...
Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression
#79If any of you are suffering from depression, you should seriously try microdosing LSD.
I would if I could get it, unless you live in CA and know people it isn't exactly easy to get.
Re: Recovering from Burnout and Depression
#80I think a big factor in burnout is that most work is ultimately meaningless, or even morally wrong, and on a deep level, we're aware of that. Why is it so hard to make yourself work? Probably because you actually should be doing something else with your life. If someone paid you money to kick a dog, you'd feel a strong urge to do something else. That's because you shouldn't kick dogs. But when we feel the same urge t…
I think this is more true than many would like to admit. Maybe 'most work' as meaningless isn't the way I would phrase it, but I know many including myself that are often creatively and technically challenged, work an average number of hours, but feel the mental stress of burnout purely because of the guilt and resentment of spending so much time on the specific job function, itself. To put it a little more abstract…
This is one of my big problems with the idea of money being so separated from actual good these days. It also creates huge wealth gaps, and I have no idea what could be done to re-align it. Basically, I believe that the concept of money as it exists today is deeply broken and should be aligned with something which benefits humans vs something which is required in small to moderate quantities to not suffer yet which people obsess over, collect, and seek to increase with an unrelenting fervor, despite any damage it does to society or individuals.