Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Burnout Is Real

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 239 posts

Re: Burnout Is Real

#171

Post by panax »

rpmisms wrote: post #87
NikolaNovak wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreeing with some of the comments here: I feel like I'm stuck in my current high paying job; we have a mortgage, nice car, lots of "stuff". Through conversations with therapist and my spouse I've been slowly realizing how much this stuff owns me, rather than me owning stuff. I never have time to play with my synths or flight-sim setup or even photography anymore. The only time I'm truly relaxed is when we go somewhe…

I feel that. My wife and I have a rule: if our expenses go over what we could make working in fast food, we sell some stuff.

That is a great perspective and sounds like Ben Graham's concept of margin of safety in chapter 20 of the Intelligent Investor. Apply that to your investments and find businesses that have a margin of safety and have considerably more earning power than the going rate of debt and you will do well.

Re: Burnout Is Real

#172

Post by hatware »

I find it strange that burnout is always framed in this way. I look at it as one's subconscious getting sick of waiting around for you to grow, building internal resentment. It looks different for everyone after that point but I think that is what drives the burnout we're used to seeing in tech.

Re: Burnout Is Real

#173

Post by swader999 »

laurentdc wrote: post #91

Manual work is underrated. Especially the kind of work where you can see an immediate end result from your efforts. I worked in a kitchen for two years and I can tell you slicing food is way more satisfying than coding frontend.

There's a log home building place that just started near where I live. I still have my tools from when I did it as a kid. Very tempting.

Re: Burnout Is Real

#174

Post by rpmisms »

willhslade wrote: post #158
rpmisms wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I'm in WNY right now, planning to move to Knoxville or Memphis this year. Not super frugal in general, but I save about half my paycheck, wife invests most of hers. We have a house, two cars (only one of them is "nice"), and no kids. We own a house in the suburbs, bought it almost a year ago and have been fixing it up since. Renting is pound-for-pound far more expensive than owning. We couldn't find an apartmen…

> Renting is pound-for-pound far more expensive than owning. Come to Toronto and say that to my face. I'm going to laugh, and laugh, and...

I'm speaking as an American. Owning also lets you build equity and get it back someday.

Re: Burnout Is Real

#175

Post by me_me_me »

itsbits wrote: post #111
me_me_me wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cooking, baking, wood carving, writing a novel, lockpicking, maybe DIY (learn some plumbing, electician, tiling skills), glass blowing, drawing/painting, instrument... Get basic idea of entry level requirements, spend 20-50 hours practising move on if you don't like it by then. Pick something out of any profession and go at it. I am kind a thinking about shoe making or sawing/clothes making.

To be frank I was always trying to find something within computer. Like animations, illustrator paints which I realized not helping much. Yea I need to find something which does not have lot of computer.

I recommend something that you create something tangible.

You get sense of accomplishment - I made this - feeling. U don't have share it or be good, just creating a thing - your thing - feels good.

Re: Burnout Is Real

#176

Post by granshaw »

BuckRogers wrote: post #154
ThrowawayP wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been in a similar situation, my sympathies; I've found it to be a very strange sensation. The burnt-out knows exactly what work tasks they need to do, they know that it's easily within their own capabilities, and they (at a conscious level at least) even desperately want to do the tasks to fulfill their professional obligations (or to simply continue getting paid). But the body just will not do it or forcing i…

That's an interesting way to put it. Throughout 2020 I felt that way. I just could not force myself to work, and I've been in the workforce a while (I'm 39 and had a job non-stop since I was 12). I know how important it is to maintain income. I was thrown into a new position where I didn't know how to do the work, so I was trying to figure everything out with a new platform, and I was mostly isolated without any help…

> make a rich man richer

While true, this can be a very self-defeating way of thinking about it. The reality is that we are paid quite well, and it takes an entity with lots of resources to be willing to take on the risk of a fulltime hire like us.

It's not easy to build a business that gets to that stage; believe me, I tried. So on the whole "working for the man" is a very rational choice, your end of the deal isn't too bad in the big picture, and you shouldn't feel bad about it.

Re: Burnout Is Real

#177

Post by bondolo »

I once cried in a meeting because someone on another team reused a bit flag in a struct for a different purpose than I had intended. Luckily this was the day before a three week vacation, my first in several years. Thankfully it was in the time before cell phones and ubiquitous email so it was a real vacation. The vacation didn't "fix" me but it did give me enough time to see that I was broken and needed to make changes.

The lesson for me was to never put in a day, week, … or year of work that I couldn't sustain because being able to get through the next day, week, …, year might be even more important than the current one. This was especially true as my startup started to grow. The first year had been stressful with just two of us working flat out, but once we got a payroll, yikes the pressure was multiplied. There are circumstances where a do-or-die effort is required but usually sustainability is much more important.

Re: Burnout Is Real

#178

Post by tolbish »

gfe8ygighjb7 wrote: post #133
culopatin wrote: post #120

I don’t know how to frame this well and I apologize in advance. But I think this idea of “oh wow burnout is real I’m so woke” is a privileged person problem. I don’t mean that burnout is a first world problem, but that this “Burnout is real” is. I struggle to put my head in a place where I can be amazed that burnout is real and that I have to warn others of this “thing” as if it’s not part of millions of people’s liv…

I have worked in retail, dealt with some of the rudest people. Sometimes, I still get angry about it. But my job satisfaction was certainly higher back then. At the end of day, I was tired but I didn't had to think of work anymore. Sure I met some assholes, but I also met some great people, some are still my friends. Other jobs I had were tutoring, security guard, IT helpdesk. All these jobs had higher satisfaction a…

Go back to retail?

Re: Burnout Is Real

#179

Post by seniorThrowaway »

woudsma wrote: post #73
x3ro wrote: post #63

Only tangentially related, but one of the best decision I've taken in the last years was to only work four days a week. Not sure how realistic this is in the US as a dev, but in Germany it's been fairly easy (third job where I'm doing this now) and it's made me 1) more motivated 2) less stressed, and on top (I think) I'm essentially as productive as I'd be working full-time :)

Same here. I currently work four days a week, I'm off every Wednesday. This one day in between to recharge really helps me 'survive' the week. On any given workday I can always look forward to just working one more day until I have some time for myself. Often I simply sleep a lot, or spend some time in the sun whenever possible.

Most people in the US who work 4 day weeks or 9 out of 10 always go for the long weekend by doing it friday or monday but I'm with you, Wednesday has always appealed to me as the day to take off if doing 4 day weeks. It's the cumulative effect of 5 days in a row that makes me so tired.

Re: Burnout Is Real

#180

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

tluyben2 wrote: post #59
iamben wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't they be lucrative? Fire up SEMRush or something similar, find a niche around NBA or Star Wars that's partially attainable, spend some time building a website in that niche that covers your interests. Monetise the traffic. That said, it's kind of nice to have interests that don't become 'work'.

>That said, it's kind of nice to have interests that don't become 'work'. Many people, including myself, do/have felt guilt over doing things too much that don't make money. Where that comes from or how that works, not sure, but I have met many people who had that. And wanted their hobbies to make money in order not to feel guilty about doing them.

> Many people, including myself, do/have felt guilt over doing things too much that don't make money. Where that comes from or how that works, not sure, but I have met many people who had that. And wanted their hobbies to make money in order not to feel guilty about doing them.

I don't feel a shred of guilt. I am the most introverted person ever but even one year of staying at home broke me... started buying exercise equipment and got into drones so I lost weight and lost stress while flying my little drone.

I make plenty of goddamn money.

Post reply on HN