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Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A sabbatical sounds outrageously stressful to me. I'd immediately have significantly worse health insurance, I wouldn't be contributing to retirement, all the while I'd be draining away my safety net.

If you're a software engineer that has been working for 7+ years and don't have enough savings to survive 6 months off work or are so behind on retirement savings that this would seriously impact your future I think you should work seriously on getting your finances in order.

I'm on track with retirement and savings, but do you know what would put me immediately off track? an unpaid sabbatical with bad health insurance.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#262
post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 Start doing Callisthenics. 100 pushups, 100 pullups, 100 squats and 6 miles of run every day will help you immensely. Eliminate excuse's.

Doing this will make you strong enough to win any fight with just one punch, too

Side effects also include going bald, so consider carefully

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#263
post #67

I'm still pretty young so this might not apply, but I tried to skip university and make it as a freelancer. Worked out fine money wise, but got severe burn out working on a project that I shouldn't have taken on in the first place, but needed the money. I recovered fine, but it was pretty brutal. For a while I couldn't even look at code without getting nauseous and a having a splitting headache. I'm not exaggerating…

As a society we should figure out some sort of systemic work exchange program where people suffering from burnout can leave their career for 8 months to work in a brewery or be a fire watcher or herd goats or whatever until they figure out that, "damn, my old job wasn't so bad after all." Either that or they become a full time goat herder...

But, would you want the burned out brewers, fire watchers, or goat herders placed in your development team for 6 months at a time?

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#264

This advice is going to be hated by a lot of people but.. care less. You’re in an industry that values your skills and seems to always have demand. Whether or not that’s true in the future, it certainly is today , so the best thing you can do is put yourself first and worry less about work as a whole. Especially if it’s not your own company. Spend more time on you, on activities with friends and family, on hobbies. I…

I respectfully disagree. Ignoring a major part of your life, that sustains you and your family, might be a luxury for people that get burned out with $450k salaries and have $2M in savings.

Finding a good balance and pride in the 1/3rd of the life you spend, without being scornful is worth while. Build a good robust career, become an expert, have passion and perseverence, foster discpline; make a career that rewards you. The world isn't set up against you as people on HN and media would like you to believe; the world is amazing and there are plenty of things to do that can sustain you and your family.

Being apathetic or scornful of "work" is a terrible long term strategy.

Get a copy of Adam Savage's Every Hammer is a Tool: https://www.amazon.com/Every-Tools-Hammer-Life-What/dp/19821...

You'll find better advice than this depressing apathy on HN and places like r/antiwork.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#266
As a Lawyer, I see a lot of burnouts in startups.

The solution is often very similar.

First, take a medical leave.

Second, let time heal your wounds. Even if not visible, the suffering from depression can be worse than when it's physical. And it take way more time to heal.

Then, once they went through this process, most people leave their job and do something else or go somewhere else.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#267

This advice is going to be hated by a lot of people but.. care less. You’re in an industry that values your skills and seems to always have demand. Whether or not that’s true in the future, it certainly is today , so the best thing you can do is put yourself first and worry less about work as a whole. Especially if it’s not your own company. Spend more time on you, on activities with friends and family, on hobbies. I…

Yeah this is solid advice.

I'm on year 17 in the industry and year 5 of "care less" which has really turned into "care very little, if at all". I work for a FAANG and while I procrastinate like crazy (btw I have very bad ADHD, so factor that in), I still tend to complete my work on time or ahead of schedule. I do the bare minimum though and I don't give a damn about the job at all beyond that. I haven't put in an honest 40 hours in years. I try to cram all my real work into a 2-3 hour block of time each day. Somehow my managers are still very happy with my output and I still get offered promotions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My sole reason for working is to survive and provide for my family. I put most of my passion and energy into hobbies instead. All of this makes it so I don't dread work every day; it finally feels like I have equilibrium in my work-life balance now even though I still do on-call rotations and work for a massive company.

Funny thing is all of this started from me randomly finding an "e-book" called "The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to The Office" by Venkatesh Rao. It's a somewhat exaggerated take on things, but it got me to re-evaluate my career and life. Free to read: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#268
You've lost interest. It's ok - it happens (it happened to me).

Option 1: Pivot

You need to analyze what you still enjoy, if anything, and what areas you would like to pivot to and hopefully excel in.

Management is a clear option, but not everyone's cup of tea. Maybe you could utilise your analytical skills in a completely different area outside of software development? For example, I've recently moved from a developer role into the company's Learning and Development manager - it's a dream (especially because nobody in this area has an engineering mindset).

Take what you're good at, see where you can grow, add value and find joy and then put a plan in place to aim for that.

Option 2: Break

People take sabbaticals for a reason. Maybe a complete 6 month break is an option. Or if not now, then in a year's time. It depends on your financial and personal circumstances of course.

I burnt out playing piano in my youth (I was aiming for concert training at the time), took a two year break after university, couldn't listen to any Classical music during that time, then one day turned on the radio and fell in love with it again. Now it's my favourite hobby. Breaks help if circumstances permit it.

Option 3: Less is More

During the lockdowns, I started to burn-out in my role because I was not speaking to anyone in person anymore. So I made it a deliberate practice to meet and talk with people as much as possible. 5pm - laptop off, talk with my family, meet friends, go for a run, place soccer with the local club, anything to get away from work, switch off and talk to people. Just listening to their complaints somehow helped me deal better with mine.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, just wanted to mention that your path is pretty similar to mine. No college, jumped into gamedev to get out of high school, ended up burning out hard and doing nothing for a solid year after that job. I was playing Heroes of Newerth (a dota clone) all day every day. The game was super buggy, which annoyed me – I knew I could fix the bugs if I was given access to the code. Long story short, managed to get a job t…

Hey, thanks for the kind words. Really, I appreciate it a lot! Saying that others would not be impressed by my professional achievements doesn't mean that I'm not proud of my work. I have many valuable qualities, being a 10x Developer is not one of them. You're right, I am good enough to do whatever I want to. But I am very happy that post-burnout I want different things. Striving for a stable life with a healthy mix…

It’s not like that though. Some of the most impressive people I’ve met got where they are by having your mindset, not by being “a Carmack” (coding machine). I’d like to think I had some impact in the areas I focused on, and my output wasn’t much more than yours, in all likelihood. It was just focused, and I was in love with the programming part.

I think you’re selling yourself short. Don’t count yourself out as someone who can impact the areas you want to.

I’m glad your life is stable now — if you ever need some encouragement in the future, DM me! Always happy to.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone managed to find enjoyment in their work after burnout?

#270
post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A COO is an "officer-employee", distinct from a regular unqualified "employee."

So you are saying a COO is an officer-Donkey? :) But to go back to the parent post, what the COO said "If they weren't donkeys they'd be running their own business." Maybe some COOs run small businesses they started where they call the all shots. But most big company COOs have a lot of obligations and have a different carrot and stick for the C-Suite. And a lot of them didn't start the business where they became the…

The COO never said they weren't a donkey
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