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Are you suffering from burn-out?

jacquesmattheij.com

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Re: Are you suffering from burn-out?

#21

Post by DanielBMarkham »

jacquesm wrote: post #14
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #8

I my early 20s, after getting out of the service, I worked as an assistant manager at a fast-foot restaurant in the evenings while I did college during the day. It was a full load of credits, and the food place I was working was very busy too, so it made for a long, hard slog. One day I was talking to another of the assistant managers. I asked him about burn-out. Do you ever feel like you might be burning out? "Not m…

I'm still trying to figure out if the 'fast foot' restaurant was a mistake or a pun in relation to life being a marathon ;) That's an excellent point though, and if life is a marathon then being burnt out is probably best compared to having to sit out a part of the race because you can't run any more. I'm all for tackling all kinds of stuff, sometimes more than what you can naturally expect a person to do, as long as…

I'm still trying to figure out if the 'fast foot' restaurant was a mistake or a pun in relation to life being a marathon ;)

Hey I was up until 2am coding and got back up at 8. When I get the coding Pon Farr on my mornings get a little hazy :)

This actually relates to your article. For the last month or so, I have been trying "banker's hours" coding -- 9-5 and taking time for everything else. It was great.

But something funny happened: I stopped making progress. Sure, I would make a little bit at a time, but nothing like what I used to do.

I finally figured it out a couple of days ago. For some reason, unless my body and mind is convinced I am serious about driving through to solve a problem, I get very little traction. But if it's 11pm and I'm getting ready to go to bed but realize I can code it better and then go act on it, things work out. Unlike working for a BigCorp, working for yourself involves a gut check.

A lot of problems are like hills -- tough on the front side but easy on the back side. If you only go 1/4 way up the hill, you just slide back down overnight. But if you go balls-in and stay with it until you make it, suddenly it becomes easier.

Perhaps one must suffer for their art.

At least that's my experience, for what it's worth.

Re: Are you suffering from burn-out?

#22

Post by mrtron »

jacquesm wrote: post #20
jpdbaugh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did working manual labor help you figure things out? I am seriously considering working a job such as the one you described part time to pay the bills after school while I try to build a freelancing business.

Absolutely, I think it kept - and keeps - me sane. Physical stuff is great in that it keeps your body in shape and at the end of a day you can literally touch the result, you can see it, it is solid. Virtual work is much less satisfying in that sense, you could be programming the stars from heaven but if it is business logic internal to some application you'll be happy if some maintenance programmer sees it 10 years…

I think one of the biggest benefits of physical work is that you can more easily turn it completely off.

You have to be in your garage to be woodworking for example. You can't be on the couch with your wife pretending to watch a movie with her.

Perhaps we can also see the quality of work more easily from physical work too.

Re: Are you suffering from burn-out?

#23

Post by jonsen »

Yes, I am suffering from burn-out. And I can tell you, it •is• suffering. You wouldn't want it happening to you.

It started to manifest itself in 2002. I worked too much, had too much responsibility. I went into a decline and 2005 it all went awry because of change in circumstances I didn't have the resources to cope with. I was wise enough to quit my job, but it was too late. Anything I tried after that wouldn't succeed.

It's a condition where it's hard to reflect on yourself. To see your personal condition. And accepting it, even less. I couldn't.

One day I stumbled upon a stress test and took it. Bang! Almost full score. Then I took notice of myself, started analyzing my condition, and realized, "I'm a burn-out. God dammit".

That was 2007. I've been laying low, really low, since then. Living off my pension. Recently I realized I was better off again. I could read book again. I even felt an urge to start some coding again. I took a stress test again. Much lower score, great!. But right there was also a test for depression ... I took it. Bang! Almost full score. "Now I'm depressed. God dammit".

That was shocking. But I have this strange feeling, that depression is much easier to deal with. I'm growing in my capabilities. I can learn again. I believe I'll become reasonably functioning again. Only time will tell. And time it will take. I can wait. I want my life back.

I could give you details quite similar to SMrF's comment. Read that, and take care.

Re: Are you suffering from burn-out?

#24

Post by jacquesm »

mrtron wrote: post #22
jacquesm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, I think it kept - and keeps - me sane. Physical stuff is great in that it keeps your body in shape and at the end of a day you can literally touch the result, you can see it, it is solid. Virtual work is much less satisfying in that sense, you could be programming the stars from heaven but if it is business logic internal to some application you'll be happy if some maintenance programmer sees it 10 years…

I think one of the biggest benefits of physical work is that you can more easily turn it completely off. You have to be in your garage to be woodworking for example. You can't be on the couch with your wife pretending to watch a movie with her. Perhaps we can also see the quality of work more easily from physical work too.

That's so true. Especially for debugging, that's something I can't ever fully quit until it is done and the bug is squashed. I might as well stay awake until a bug is taken care of once I know about it because I'll just keep on fretting about it and mentally reviewing the code trying to figure out what is going wrong.

That sort of mental occupation does not happen with physical work at all.

Re: Are you suffering from burn-out?

#25

Post by SMrF »

jonsen wrote: post #23

Yes, I am suffering from burn-out. And I can tell you, it •is• suffering. You wouldn't want it happening to you. It started to manifest itself in 2002. I worked too much, had too much responsibility. I went into a decline and 2005 it all went awry because of change in circumstances I didn't have the resources to cope with. I was wise enough to quit my job, but it was too late. Anything I tried after that wouldn't suc…

Please do make sure you are getting help.

My personal path to recovery involved a complete redo of my entire life. I quit my job, moved to a new city. I took an entire month off and did nothing but stuff that was fun, (mainly programming :-) My new job is a boring corporate coder type job that requires very little of my attention. I also started dieting, quit smoking and took up running.

You can get better! It just takes time. Please be patient with yourself.

Believe it or not, even after everything that happened to me, I very nearly did it again! I began spending all of my spare time working on my side project, (my goal here is to eventually own my own company/startup). But at least this time when I started getting anxiety I realized, "wait a minute, I think I know why this is happening..." :-)

Re: Are you suffering from burn-out?

#26

Post by mechanical_fish »

fierarul wrote: post #15
jacquesm wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An abstract is a reduction, I tried to write this with some context so that it becomes easier to figure out if this is something that you might be flirting with or not, to make it live. As a person that has come pretty close to burning out (not quite ready to admit that I did) I figure I can sketch the situations a bit clearer than if you've never experienced this first hand. I know we just had a burn-out discussion…

The problem with your blog post is that it doesn't show your voice at all! I couldn't tell that you were pretty close to burning out nor did you mention anything that seemed to be part of your own experience. You start the blog with some introduction, you put a link to Wikipedia and then you re-list the Wikipedia phases. So, I'm not dismissing your time spent writing this and I'm pretty sure it helps, but there are p…

This is HN. Writing stuff here is like writing it in two-foot high letters on a prominent wall in NYC, except more public, more accountable, and far more permanent.

So, rather than beg for more, I thank jacquesm for being willing to share as much as he already has.

Yes, his sharing is mostly in the form of ambiguous subtext. That's okay. I can read hints and I enjoy ambiguity.

Here's a general piece of valuable advice: If you want people to tell you what their life lessons really are, meet them offline, perhaps in a bar or coffeeshop. Keep all recording devices off. Promise not to blog what they tell you without permission, and/or until one or both of you are dead. Keep that promise.

Meta-advice: Make a habit of meeting people in coffeeshops. Though it has many advantages, the Google-enabled internet is a lousy medium for heart-to-heart honesty.

Re: Are you suffering from burn-out?

#27

Post by jonsen »

SMrF wrote: post #25
jonsen wrote: post #23

Yes, I am suffering from burn-out. And I can tell you, it •is• suffering. You wouldn't want it happening to you. It started to manifest itself in 2002. I worked too much, had too much responsibility. I went into a decline and 2005 it all went awry because of change in circumstances I didn't have the resources to cope with. I was wise enough to quit my job, but it was too late. Anything I tried after that wouldn't suc…

Please do make sure you are getting help. My personal path to recovery involved a complete redo of my entire life. I quit my job, moved to a new city. I took an entire month off and did nothing but stuff that was fun, (mainly programming :-) My new job is a boring corporate coder type job that requires very little of my attention. I also started dieting, quit smoking and took up running. You can get better! It just t…

Thank you. I'm reasonably confident in my progress. The hardest part is realising, that you may never be able do again, what you once did. I think I'm there now.

Re: Are you suffering from burn-out?

#28

Post by SMrF »

jonsen wrote: post #27
SMrF wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do make sure you are getting help. My personal path to recovery involved a complete redo of my entire life. I quit my job, moved to a new city. I took an entire month off and did nothing but stuff that was fun, (mainly programming :-) My new job is a boring corporate coder type job that requires very little of my attention. I also started dieting, quit smoking and took up running. You can get better! It just t…

Thank you. I'm reasonably confident in my progress. The hardest part is realising, that you may never be able do again, what you once did. I think I'm there now.

I look at it as a battle scar, or a really cool limp or something. I've been there, done that, and now I know my own limits better than almost anyone else. To me it's an advantage. I also admit to worrying I wouldn't be able to accomplish what I have in the past, but you know what? I simply don't want to ever, ever do that again...so what did I lose exactly?

Re: Are you suffering from burn-out?

#29

Post by thisduck »

SMrF wrote: post #12

I wrote about my experience with burnout on a HN comment earlier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1508844 I really, really, really want people to avoid what I went through, so it thought I'd share some gory details. I clearly went through every phase of burnout jacquesm mentions. A compulsion to prove oneself: This was my entire purpose in life. I worked for a consulting firm with an 'up or out' culture, and this…

That's good insight.

Still, it's okay to cry.

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