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Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

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Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#31

Post by wahnfrieden »

londondev45 wrote: post #13
wahnfrieden wrote: post #9

I stopped working for other people

how? I want this

bootstrapped saas / apple ecosystem apps in niches i'm familiar with. mostly passive recurring revenue (most of my time spent goes into r&d, i chose architectures to minimize ongoing operational needs).

i bootstrapped to avoid "working for" investors. and on some projects where i'm working with others, we've formed anarchist coop-like structures to avoid hypocritically subjecting others to the hierarchies i escaped. we're all happier and more productive for it. i would like to help more people try this through repeatable playbook-like resources.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#33

Post by ravenstine »

mozman wrote: post #7
monk_e_boy wrote: post #4

A different job? Go travelling for a while? Travelling is a lot of fun and makes you realize that life is short and that you should make the most of it. I changed careers and found the change fun. I may go back to coding at some point, I kinda miss the that deep thinking it requires .... but I can do that in my spare time if I really need to. Or, if you need the money, just phone it in for a while.

I’m opening a local metal working business. Running both until I can get a decent income stream. Tech prospects look bleak, I think the party will be over in 10 or less years as engineers are viewed more as a cost vs value add.

> Tech prospects look bleak, I think the party will be over in 10 or less years as engineers are viewed more as a cost vs value add.

Seems realistic, though optimistic. I think the party will be over sooner than that, probably in the next 5 or so years, but we'll collectively be in denial about it for at least another 5 years following that.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#34

Post by Temporary_31337 »

londondev45 wrote: post #13
wahnfrieden wrote: post #9

I stopped working for other people

how? I want this

you always work for someone, but you can have multiple clients so you're not at the mercy of one. Even if you save up some money you have to think of ways to make it work - be it in rentals or owning a factory - you just serve different groups of people then.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#35

Post by bombcar »

ThrowAway1922A wrote: post #15
monk_e_boy wrote: post #4

A different job? Go travelling for a while? Travelling is a lot of fun and makes you realize that life is short and that you should make the most of it. I changed careers and found the change fun. I may go back to coding at some point, I kinda miss the that deep thinking it requires .... but I can do that in my spare time if I really need to. Or, if you need the money, just phone it in for a while.

I am actively applying to jobs, but of course that takes time. I actually had an offer signed, but the employer reneged on it last night which really, really sucks because it was exactly what I think I needed. In terms of career change, I'm not sure that's possible without moving. I live very rural, there's almost no jobs here that aren't retail. If I stay here I'm basically forced to continue remote dev work. I actu…

You mention you can survive 4-6 months with no salary and you're a remote dev right now - you can "soft move" and likely extend that runway.

I don't know your life situation, but it's possible you could travel to a city in your timezone and get a short-term rental of some sort and work from there as you investigate the city and its options. You could probably go a timezone or two away and still not need to actually make it obvious; of course swapping to the other side of the world would be more difficult.

Even if you chose to return you'll at least have more knowledge about the options.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#36

Post by jokethrowaway »

ThrowAway1922A wrote: post #17
omginternets wrote: post #11

>During my time off I've been poked and prodded by psychologists and they seem to think I have ADHD and that it was a large contributing factor to this, though I'm not completely sure I buy this explanation. I think you should give this idea more thought. The situation you find yourself in is not uncommon among high-functioning ADHD persons, and your life can truly get a whole lot better with a bit of therapy and med…

I mean if they want to try and medicate me I'm not going to say no at this point, regardless of my personal views on the diagnosis. I've reached a point where I don't think any additional harm would be caused by doing so. I'm going to find out in ~2 weeks at my next meeting whether they want to try medicine or not and I will just do whatever they tell me to do. I mean I'm not a psychologist, I'm paying them for their…

I'd think hard and long before taking medications (personally, I already have, and decided not to).

Psychologists have a tendency to overprescribe drugs and you have no idea how that will screw up who you are and what you think.

Even if you don't have to pay for those drugs thanks to some healtcare insurance (whether public or private), some money will still flow towards the maker of drugs and that means they have an interest in doctors overprescribing medicines.

Instead of drugs, why not try to change something else in your life? Change job, increase your autonomy, find another way to live?

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#37

Post by ThrowAway1922A »

Overtonwindow wrote: post #19

Rather than ADHD, have you considered severe anxiety? I had a serious problem of not being able to start and complete basic tasks because I was so filled with anxiety about, well everything, that I was self-defeating. What so you do instead of completing tasks? Is it just a wall preventing you from completing tasks, or do you get distracted by other things? I have ADHD and it’s been a lifelong struggle, however, as I…

Yes, it was the first thing considered and ruled out by the psychologist I've been seeing.

> What so you do instead of completing tasks? Is it just a wall preventing you from completing tasks, or do you get distracted by other things?

Majorly distracted. Put me in front of a boring task at work and I will immediately try to shift to something I find more interesting. It's always been a huge struggle to focus on my work tasks, but combined with "burnout" it's now just impossible.

I don't have imposter syndrome, I know that of my coworkers I am the most technically skilled. The problem is being the best technically doesn't matter when you can't deliver consistently.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#39

Post by Temporary_31337 »

ravenstine wrote: post #33
mozman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m opening a local metal working business. Running both until I can get a decent income stream. Tech prospects look bleak, I think the party will be over in 10 or less years as engineers are viewed more as a cost vs value add.

> Tech prospects look bleak, I think the party will be over in 10 or less years as engineers are viewed more as a cost vs value add. Seems realistic, though optimistic. I think the party will be over sooner than that, probably in the next 5 or so years, but we'll collectively be in denial about it for at least another 5 years following that.

You're both wrong, I hope ;) Tech jobs just seems to follow the usual hype cycle so IMO tech jobs will still be needed in the future but perhaps fewer of them. Tech jobs are also much harder than they used to be - when I started 'coding' HTML+CSS was considered high skill. Now you're expected to have serverless lambdas generating those pages and to configure a CDN and SSL and maybe talk to some backend Machine Learning APIs for a similar pay grade. So roles where you can still handle other people, and deliver, working technical solutions will still be very much in demand.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#40

Post by ramtatatam »

There was a time I was working in very toxic environment. Imagine situations like seeing manager shouting angrily at your coworker and you being unable to do anything about it. Or manager being passively aggressive towards you, making personal comments or treating you as his menial (bring-me-some-tea kind) without reason. And I was in worse situation than you as I could not leave at the time, had to line something up first. But once I left I literally felt the burden sliding off my back, best feeling ever.
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