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Ask HN: What's your spectacular burnout story?

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Re: Ask HN: What's your spectacular burnout story?

#51

Post by dnautics »

atdt wrote: post #7

I am in the midst of one. It has been about a year and a half, plus or minus, and it has taken a tremendous toll on my well-being. I find it especially difficult to deal with the mismatch between my sense of what I can do, which is calibrated to my former self, and what I can actually deliver. I desperately need to believe that what I am going through is a temporary perturbation, so I keep trying to "shake it off", a…

my sense of burnout (having been through it myself and watched closely about 10-12 people go through it) is that it's caused when there's a huge mismatch between an expected reward and a large amount of effort expended prior to the reward.

What was the event that caused you to burn out in the first place? It looks like you expected at least social (if not material) recognition for some herculean effort that you went through - it failed to arrive when you cliffed out, and you're not obtaining that due to the circumstances in the meantime?

If I'm right (I may not be). My suggestion would be to make sure you're on teams or a project where there is a direct relationship between effort and reward, or where you can work on small projects that don't come with a 'big payoff' but can rebuild your confidence that you can provide value to your org. You should also try to be under a manager that is good at recognizing (verbally if not anything else) your achievements.

If you don't think you can find that easily, take some time off and go drive for lyft. (Don't expect to make too much money off if it, so only plan to do it for a short bit). There's a direct relationship between effort and reward in that industry.

Re: Ask HN: What's your spectacular burnout story?

#52

Post by xaa »

Mz wrote: post #47
ben_jones wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think extreme apathy to the point of "throwing your life away" is extremely common and should be warned against. Whether its quitting your job, leaving a relationship, moving, large decisions are often not best made in emotional states or under extreme duress - though they are completely understandable. From personal experience the only advice I would beg people in similar situations to take is to reach out for hel…

I think the only warning you need to give people is that this needs to not be a bluff. You need to be fully prepared to accept the consequences. It needs to not be grandstanding, thinking that if you are willing to "throw your life away" it will somehow magically open doors and those consequences will go away, like you read on the internet that they did for someone else. I had a similar experience to the OP, not with…

Oh, yeah. Health issues. For me, it got to the point where every morning I would wake up and vomit. It got to be part of my morning routine to just get it over with before heading straight to work. Otherwise it might happen in the car.

I think the apathy that accompanies depression and burnout is your body's way of telling you: "your current set of goals and priorities is really, REALLY not working for me, and you need to change something". What leads to burnout is ignoring these increasingly desperate signals from your body and brain.

Re: Ask HN: What's your spectacular burnout story?

#53

Post by dlet »

I had just finished the writing exams after my two years of preparatory class (a specific program we have in France to join the best business and engineering schools). During the 2 weeks of exams, I was sleeping 3 hours a night on average.

When I woke up one morning, everything seemed really blurred. I could not precisely get where I was in the room and, when I tried to talk to my parents, they seemed really far away. I was also deeply tired and just wanted to sleep.

After 2 scary days like this, we went to a neurologist. He looked at me and asked my parents to leave the room. Looking at me, he told me: "I know you take hard drugs. Tell me anything about it so I can help you". I have never taken any drug. When he realized this, he did a lot of tests but found nothing. He just asked me to rest.

After 2 long weeks, I slowly got better and finally fully recovered. The neurologist told us it was probably some kind of burnout. It happened 2 other times few years after but it was less intense and I am now able to feel more precisely when I work too hard or sleep too little and that there are some risks.

Re: Ask HN: What's your spectacular burnout story?

#54

Post by sgt101 »

iforgotmypass wrote: post #43

Wanted to achieve lot in my life. And saw money as means to do that. Was ambitious, working hard. Left the job, founded company. Worked my ass off for 5 years. Failed. But earned enough so that for the last 2 years haven't been really working while trying to get my shit together (although soon the savings will run dry). Ruined my marriage with the only person I really cared about. Can't get any motivation to do anyth…

Hello,

I'm really sorry to hear that you have had such a tough time, hopefully this thread shows that many, many people have similar experiences and struggles. You are not alone.

Have you tried reaching out to any organisations that might be able to help you? In the UK The Samaritans are on 116123 (https://www.samaritans.org/)

Re: Ask HN: What's your spectacular burnout story?

#55

Post by ZephyrP »

dnautics wrote: post #34

A buddy of mine was working in the lab of the scientist who "invented" unnatural amino acid technology (rumblings about how it was taken from the postdoc in the lab across the hall). That was the sexy project de jour of the lab; but my buddy was working on a less sexy project - catalytic antibodies. This is where you take the concept that antibodies can be adapted to fit any molecular shape and try to make it fit som…

I get the feeling that this is a really cool story but it's hard to see how any of these events relate to one another.

So your buddy PI slogs through a series of bad 'investigations', and is finally asked to do some work he initially enjoys but later procrastinates on. Wait though! It's all set because, surprise surprise, the as-yet-unmentioned baddie was faking the results all along!

I get the feeling that your last paragraph is supposed to be a stunning wrap up, but after some reflection I've concluded this is only because of the preexisting motif that everything after "and it turned out.." is a galactic burn.

Re: Ask HN: What's your spectacular burnout story?

#56

Post by 0xbear »

amelius wrote: post #41
bonniemuffin wrote: post #9

About a month before my dissertation defense, I had already accepted a postdoc offer across the country, put in notice on my apartment, signed a new lease and arranged my cross-country move, but I had an absolutely impossible amount of work left on the list of things my dissertation committee claimed I needed to do before I could graduate, and my experiments just weren't working. It was clear that the work was imposs…

Whenever I feel a burnout coming, I'm going into max-sleeping mode: I then sleep 10 hours or more each day. It seems to help.

Solid advice. That's what I do as well.

Re: Ask HN: What's your spectacular burnout story?

#57

Post by user68858788 »

Grew up poor and depressed, decided to take risks because suicide is always an option. Took on $150k of loans to move out of the Midwest to an art college. Instructors couldn't help, I dropped out and taught myself programming. Flash games, then websites, then an internship. I lied about still being in college. Five years of frugality, study, and weekly depressive episodes before I got my first real job. I burned out quick, the smallest pressure would have me stuck in a depression so deep that I couldn't form thoughts.

My burnout is continuing into year four. Working at a big name company for a year now and haven't written a single line of code. I feel so apart from the team I'm on. Still have periods where I can't think, but now nobody notices when I don't come in, sometimes for weeks at a time. The big salary doesn't count for much when loan payments and city rent take the majority. Haven't seen my family in three years, missed both my grandparents' funerals.

I still think it was the right decision to leave the Midwest, but I wish it didn't take so much sacrifice.

Re: Ask HN: What's your spectacular burnout story?

#58

Post by [deleted] »

atdt wrote: post #7

I am in the midst of one. It has been about a year and a half, plus or minus, and it has taken a tremendous toll on my well-being. I find it especially difficult to deal with the mismatch between my sense of what I can do, which is calibrated to my former self, and what I can actually deliver. I desperately need to believe that what I am going through is a temporary perturbation, so I keep trying to "shake it off", a…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What's your spectacular burnout story?

#59

Post by sctb »

fweespeech wrote: post #33
gxespino wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should definitely invest in learning how to communicate with others also.

Nah. I don't need to care about the reactions of strangers on the internet. If you act like someone who needs to be called out, I'll call you out. I genuinely don't care. Lol.

Nobody needs to be “called out” on Hackers News. We're here for civil, substantive discussion, and we ask users not to post if they're not going to contribute to that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Ask HN: What's your spectacular burnout story?

#60

Post by adamzerner »

AnonyBrah wrote: post #28

Quit my first job (software engineer) after 5 months. I was burned out, not only from the work, but from spending my entire life following orders - from school to the workplace. So I quit my job after 5 months despite the fact that that's considered sacrilege, with maybe $13k in my bank account. I spent the next 3 months pursuing nothing but my hobby at the time (music production). The first month was possibly the be…

Do you enjoy coding when you do it for fun outside of work? If so, what about doing freelance work where you either work by yourself, or with people you actually enjoy working with?
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