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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?

#341

Post by smcl »

celestialcheese wrote: post #330
bjourne wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give some details on where you saw this "work 5 hours a week" thing? I have never seen anything like that in my career. I have seen incompetent colleagues who worked hard but produced less than 5 hours of useful work per week though.

I found out through a friend they had started a new job, and instead of turning in notice, they just rode it out for a few months taking multiple paychecks. Look around on r/overemployed on reddit for a lot more examples of the mindset that does this type of thing.

I'd take what you read on subreddits like this with a pinch of salt. A lot of people like to embellish or flat-out lie to either fit in, sound cool or to provoke a reaction (see "am I the asshole").

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

#342

Post by sagaro »

I worked at a startup for many years. I used to work even during weekends and hardly had any work life balance. The work was very interesting and there was so much to do and so much to learn and grow. I was also rewarded for my contributions. But by 202, I felt burnt out. For the last five years I had hardly any social life and all I did was just think about work. I decided to take a break. Quit the startup in good terms. Got a small piece of farmland and did farming for 1.5 years. Relaxed a lot. Enjoyed my life. Got the farm to a level where I am no longer required to work there everyday. Have a couple of farm hands who take care of it. have automated most things and have an app that tells me the situation at the farm. have gotten contracts to sell the produce.

Now I am back at the same startup in the same role after a 1.5 year break. I always enjoyed the work, just was burnt out. And this farm project helped take my mind of that work.

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

#343

Post by Volrath89 »

Version467 wrote: post #48

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…

> For a while I couldn't even look at code without getting nauseous and a having a splitting headache. I'm not exaggerating here, it was like I had lost the ability to comprehend code at all.

I thought I was starting to experience burnout this year, but I've never had physical symptons like yours. Before that happened, did you note something particular? I don't think it came out of the blue

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

#345

Post by machiaweliczny »

I switched to more relaxed role both times I felt burn out.

I suggest to you just coast by for a while and focus on health. Go to gym, swimming, sauna, walk in the morning, squash, yoga, dance, mtb, play social pc/board games etc. Best of it’s something active and social.

I am very ambitious by nature and have to resist attempting too big steps and actively care about my health/balance.

I really encourage physical movement to manage stress and have healthy energy levels then some social hobby.

EDIT: you may need this https://youtu.be/YHxwY3Fz2gU

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

#346

Post by RudySchockaert »

Having been out for 9 months because of burnout, I think I can add at least my pov on it. My burnout was not caused because of the amount of hours I worked per week (60~80 were no exception) but rather some other factors. Being perfectionist being the easiest to identity and to work on, was one of them but surely not the only one. Issues with management (within other departments I depended on) and overloaded (often almost useless) administration were certainly important as well. Medical issues (with my wife) were not the most important factor, but was rather the one factor that pushed me over the edge. All of these factors together made it at some point even impossible for me to even read my e-mail (even my personal one).

I am working again for almost 2 years now, but I dare to say my burnout is not yet over, but ather under control. I have a very good manager and he teamed me with a coworker that acts as a buffer between me and the other departments. I have daily meetings with my co-worker and let him decide when solutions I develop are 'good enough', even if I see plenty room of imporovement. I work 95% of my time from home, but I have a seperate working room. Closing the door of that room means end of the working day for me. This really works.

From my first week out I have been visiting a psychiatrist and have been practicing yoga. 2 activities I would recommend everyone, even to those not (yet) in a burnout. The psy sessions really helped a lot, not only to identify what were the real causes of my burnout, but also working towards a solution for each of them.

I can really say, I do enjoy my work again, although it will never be the same as it once was. Even now I make progress every week, little things I wasn't able to do anymore are coming back bit by bit.

I see lot's of 'care less' advices. I'd like to adjust this a little: Only care when you're in control of it, and even then try to balance.

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

#347

Post by rnem »

I've been where you are at. I'm an SRE. Last job I had, we were migrating our apps to the cloud. We were ill-prepared and encountered many issues along the way. This migration was over the course of 2 years. In that time I was on call 24/7. Literally, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. There were days I would work from 8 am until it was dark outside, and then get called at 3am the following morning because something was down. It was a huge drain not only on me, but on my relationship with my wife. She saw what the job was doing to me, and it caused a lot of stress in our relationship.

I have since quit that job, and have been at my current company for the past year. When I started at this company, in the beginning, I still felt the burnout from my last job. And then I stopped caring, and all of that burnout feeling went away.

At this company I'm at now, I'm still an SRE. We are severely understaffed, working on containerizing our apps and deploying to Kubernetes, and management continually puts unrealistic timelines on our OKRs. There is too much work and not enough people. So I no longer care. I no longer care about longevity at a company. I put in my 40 hours a week, and I clock out and spend time with my family and doing things I enjoy. Life is too short to care so much about a company that would likely not think twice about laying me off/firing me if the situation deemed appropriate.

tldr; try not caring as much and see how liberating it feels.

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

#348

Post by bsenftner »

bsenftner wrote: post #275
wnolens wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you consider yourself a victim? Holding the titles of director and principal means you used your position to reinforce this pattern, no?

I generally work in small teams, where I look out and mentor those I work with, rather than work them into the ground as I was.

You could say I consider myself a "Protecting Veteran".

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

#350

Post by wackycat »

Yes, I was a burnt out software engineer in the defense industry and I found really meaningful work with a non profit that got me so excited. And I started my new job after a two week break and I was still burnt out. That sucked because I thought the break and the excitement for meaningful work would cure my burnout. I stayed with the job, kept working, albeit not at the pace I wanted due to the burnout and anxiety. I had been seeing a good therapist for years but just couldn't get out of the funk. What finally helped me was surprisingly acupuncture. I went for computer neck and it released a bunch of tension I was needlessly carrying, the physical result of trauma and anxiety. I am not saying acupuncture will necessarily work for you; rather, I think that seeing if there are underlying causes you can address rather than just changing your work situation seemed to yield more results. Good luck and I hope you find happiness!
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