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Ask HN: What to Do After Burnout?

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Re: Ask HN: What to Do After Burnout?

#11

Post by fullshark »

I'm currently just trying to hang on, I transferred to a less stressful role internally. I also realized because I'm susceptible to burnout I can't push myself and give myself a ridiculous mortgage. I need to keep my cost of living low cause I might just quit and try to never work again.

It's been a band-aid solution, ultimately I think my problem is I don't want to work for these tech companies, almost all of which seem to be user-hostile with incompetent management just squeezing their employees and jockeying for credit whenever something actually valuable is produced. Burnout is my brain telling myself that, not any unique condition. But alas...I have life responsibilities.

Re: Ask HN: What to Do After Burnout?

#12

Post by svilen_dobrev »

Might be like car sliding on ice.. Leave it going as it wants to without you adding further unknowns... Observe carefuly.. decide what to do..

Lots of similar threads here, here my take on a recent one.. "drastic-change-for-a-while": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37905149

have fun (pun intended.. find it somewhere first)

Re: Ask HN: What to Do After Burnout?

#13

Post by jihadjihad »

It's always a group of questions I queue up when interviewing--trying to suss out what the culture is like with respect to work/life balance. I don't want to work on weekends, I don't want to work at night. Sometimes things come up, but it needs to be exceedingly rare.

By making that a must-have item, even more than target salary--you only have one life, one family--I've been able to avoid a lot of burnout in the last few years. But early on in my career, I didn't give that the respect it deserves, and I paid for it.

Re: Ask HN: What to Do After Burnout?

#14

Post by Haul4ss »

> Getting a different job in a startup or an agency sounds like the last thing I want right now. From what I’ve heard big tech is not all that much different, and a non-tech programming job sounds like it’d be boring/horrible in a different way.

Here's the thing. Every job is a job. Even "doing what you love" comes with days when you really don't feel like doing it. There is no perfect job that will contain all the things you like about work and none of the things you don't like about work.

Furthermore, you will never ever get the first years of your kid(s) life back. You should be present for those years. Being burnt out and hating your job does not leave you the mental bandwidth to be present.

Taking a less glamorous job to make space in your life for other pursuits is not bad. Even if it's just for little while to reset. And have some perspective: you can enjoy some aspects of a job without enjoying all aspects. Pick what is most important for you and optimize for that. And the most important aspect is not fixed; it will change depending on your season in life.

I don't think I've ever been actually burnt out, but I have experienced the gamut of job satisfaction. You break out of it through self-reflection and understanding what you actually like and dislike about a job, and what really matters to you in life and how to build around that.

Re: Ask HN: What to Do After Burnout?

#17

Post by bachmeier »

> a non-tech programming job sounds like it’d be boring/horrible in a different way

The people working in certain sectors make it sound like any job in another sector is going to be unacceptable. Have you talked with people currently working those other jobs to find out what it's actually like?

I have a picture of a truck driving over a cliff as I read your post. You're saying you're burned out, but you're also saying you're not open to doing anything different.

Re: Ask HN: What to Do After Burnout?

#18

Post by hotpotamus »

seagullriffic wrote: post #5

Burnout is a thing which should be taken more seriously by more people. Go on holiday. At least two months. The first week you'll think you're still at work. The second week you might have some time to collect your thoughts, and plan. Then beyond that you might hopefully have the headspace to catch up on chores and life admin. Month two is for enjoying yourself and your family. Do the above first. Not addressing your…

> Go on holiday. At least two months.

If the OP is US based, then this may pose an issue as I'm not aware of any employer that would allow this, and presumably his family's livelihood and health insurance is dependent on his employment. A lot of that is an assumption, but quite a common situation.

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