Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'
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Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'
#2A bit of a tangent, but that phrase originally comes from a famous 1964 speech by civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer:
https://awpc.cattcenter.iastate.edu/2019/08/09/im-sick-and-t...
Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'
#3Yeah burnout sucks. I've been there and it can take a very long time to recover - it's devastating.
WHO classified it as an occupational phenomenon last year too: https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/97/9/19-020919/en/
It's certainly getting worse in the modern world of knowledge work, not better.
And shameless plug (I guess?) but in my mind fascinating research, we (Asana) surveyed 10K+ knowledge workers a few months ago around the state of work (to figure out where we spend our time at work and what stresses us out etc.):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kiue54hsni6o87x/DO%20NOT%20SEND%20...
Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'
#4I think the scariest thing about burn-out, is that not everyone is financially able to take the recommended time off to recover - what then?
I've certainly been close to being in this boat, had to take a job before I fully recovered, so took one I felt might be a bit lighter on the load and still give me some chance of recovery.
Pleased to report it has been mostly successful.
Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'
#5I think the scariest thing about burn-out, is that not everyone is financially able to take the recommended time off to recover - what then? I've certainly been close to being in this boat, had to take a job before I fully recovered, so took one I felt might be a bit lighter on the load and still give me some chance of recovery. Pleased to report it has been mostly successful.
what if the 'recommended time off to recover' is wrong? I believe that burnout comes from a missing a reward that is expected after protracted and intense labor, thereby training your brain that labor = bad. Maybe the right thing to do is to retrain your brain that labor = good, with primary stimuli. Making green dots appear is definitely one very effective way to get over burnout. I haven't had a major burnout incident in years, don't know if it's because I'm getting older and wiser, or if it's because I'm learning how to do little bits of work that are 1) guaranteed to succeed and 2) nearly guaranteed to reward me, at least in ways that matter to me, if not financially or socially (those are the types of reward you can't control and often lead to the hardest burnout).
Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'
#6I appreciate giving more visibility to burnout, since I suffered from it in the past, but is this piece an article or PR for this woman and some random app?
Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'
#7I appreciate giving more visibility to burnout, since I suffered from it in the past, but is this piece an article or PR for this woman and some random app?
> A serious mental-health crisis inspired her new app, designed to help people track their mental health in the same way they might track their diet, weight or workouts, and look for correlations in data between, for example, anxiety levels and sleep, or caffeine consumption and work stress.
Yes, it appears to be that.
Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'
#8This is a good article.
I’ve experienced burn out before in my previous career, but never experienced very bad symptoms like the lady in this article did.
Anecdotally, I believe burnout is more likely when you work on a job that only cares about profits, or is not fulfilling in some meaningful way. I personally couldn’t work at most of the software companies out there. Why would I want to work for some ad company, or some company that makes meaningless apps / programs that doesn’t benefit humanity?
Sure, on a knowledge scale, some of that might be rewarding for me. But I wouldn’t last more than six months in a company like that.
Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'
#9This is a good article. I’ve experienced burn out before in my previous career, but never experienced very bad symptoms like the lady in this article did. Anecdotally, I believe burnout is more likely when you work on a job that only cares about profits, or is not fulfilling in some meaningful way. I personally couldn’t work at most of the software companies out there. Why would I want to work for some ad company, or…
I recently quit my job at a web agency. Although some of the projects benefited people in some direct way, most it was all about optimising conversion rates and SEO stuff.
Really felt meaningless, so I quit.
Re: Burnout: 'Sick and tired of feeling sick and tired'
#10I think the scariest thing about burn-out, is that not everyone is financially able to take the recommended time off to recover - what then? I've certainly been close to being in this boat, had to take a job before I fully recovered, so took one I felt might be a bit lighter on the load and still give me some chance of recovery. Pleased to report it has been mostly successful.
It depends where you are, but a lot of people are struggling more because the very rich are using automation to eliminate jobs, take the extra money made for themselves and more easily move factories to other countries by chasing the cheapest workers. Also, consider that the decaying of the welfare state in many places has led to increasing homelessness, worsening medical conditions, shorter lives and more misery. Then there's ageism, where older workers worry constantly that they will be fired for being old and they worry that no one will hire them. And then there's the homeless, which in America as not all people know, there is a very loose patchwork of few services to help people who are permanently disabled or unemployed (but could work) to find housing, support and work. In America, if you're broke or working dead-end jobs/below livable wages: "sorry, it's your own fault."
Only a privileged few can take sabbaticals or work wherever/whenever they want.