51–60 of 92 posts
My first true burnout came working at a "lifer" job, enterprise engineering for an organization everyone has heard of. It was good for a long time. Then a new manager and a change in organizational direction came at about the same time. What should have been a very fun new project instead became miserable. But I was a "lifer", and wasn't going to leave. Eventually, I got fired, and it felt like someone had cut my cha…
My first true burnout came working at a "lifer" job, enterprise engineering for an organization everyone has heard of. It was good for a long time. Then a new manager and a change in organizational direction came at about the same time. What should have been a very fun new project instead became miserable. But I was a "lifer", and wasn't going to leave. Eventually, I got fired, and it felt like someone had cut my cha…
Can you expand on what you're doing now?
It's really targeted at larger applications built operated by multiple subteams and specialists. Large systems suffer from interaction-driven failures - Component A changes, and Component B breaks. For example, a db schema change can break applications that rely on the schema. But if the databases are maintained by a separate team of DBAs, coordinating and communicating change and dependencies is difficult, and debugging them is even worse. Being able to see changes that can affect your own domain from other domains outside your scope can make solving system failures a lot simpler and faster.
I took several months off last year to work on this, and built an alpha version. It worked, but mostly taught me what needs to be done to build a beta and head for production. Alas, I had to go back to dayjobbing for a while, so it's slow going again. :( But it'll get there.
> After spending a few weeks away from work catching up with movies, I started feeling better. Once I got my thoughts back, I decided to quit. By that time I didn’t like my job at all, I couldn’t imagine going back not even for a day. If I knew it was a burnout at that time, and if I got help in time, I might have been still at the bank working as a branch manager :) This is one of those interesting "stay vs leave" s…
It is very interesting. I recently had burnout get so deep that I couldn't hide it anymore and had to react, I asked for a week off because I was burnt out. Got given that weak off, 3 days in was fired. 1.5 years 10+ hour days, 7 days a week with only 2 days off after my daughter was born.
I don't mean to be a jerk or anything, but a burnout is something you better not blog about or write about on facebook or speak about in any way that can be traced back to your real name, if you ever want to find another job again. Potential employers will google the names of applicants before an interview, and if the first thing that comes up is your name and photo on a story about your first job burnout, you're goi…
No, no, a thousand times no. Not talking about things like this, keeping it secret, or (as you just did) encouraging a social prohibition on hiding this information is what leads to a burnout culture. It's the same social taboo that prevents people from talking about their suicidal tendencies, even if talking about it can lead to help. And in a weaker sense, it's similar to the taboo in many private companies in the…
True. But that's the interesting part. The incentive for the individual is to hide it despite the fact that at the society level the hiding it is what (in part) causes it.
Why is this called 'My first burnout', are you planning on having another one?
Burnout is going to happen unless you are in an awesome job that you will never leave. I think most people hope to change jobs every 2-3 years anyway.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Happened to me a couple months ago. Fainted on my desk, had to go to the hospital by ambulance. Almost 8 weeks at home. Don't wait for it to happen.
> Don't wait for it to happen. Sounds so much like what's happening to me here, yet how to distinguish between the "real thing" and confirmation bias?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fainted at your desk, what caused that? Lack of sleep? Not eating?
Yes, that's right. Lack of sleep, poor eating. All mixed up with a lot of overnight work during a chaotic migration project. The day before that happened I had a sign that I should have taken seriously. I arrived at home, opened the front door, and felt on the floor. I had no strength at all in my legs. I started to cry without any apparent reason. Could not control myself and that never happened to me before.
> After spending a few weeks away from work catching up with movies, I started feeling better. Once I got my thoughts back, I decided to quit. By that time I didn’t like my job at all, I couldn’t imagine going back not even for a day. If I knew it was a burnout at that time, and if I got help in time, I might have been still at the bank working as a branch manager :) This is one of those interesting "stay vs leave" s…
It is very interesting. I recently had burnout get so deep that I couldn't hide it anymore and had to react, I asked for a week off because I was burnt out. Got given that weak off, 3 days in was fired. 1.5 years 10+ hour days, 7 days a week with only 2 days off after my daughter was born.
Why did you do that? (not an accusation, genuinely curious)
I don't mean to be a jerk or anything, but a burnout is something you better not blog about or write about on facebook or speak about in any way that can be traced back to your real name, if you ever want to find another job again. Potential employers will google the names of applicants before an interview, and if the first thing that comes up is your name and photo on a story about your first job burnout, you're goi…
No, no, a thousand times no. Not talking about things like this, keeping it secret, or (as you just did) encouraging a social prohibition on hiding this information is what leads to a burnout culture. It's the same social taboo that prevents people from talking about their suicidal tendencies, even if talking about it can lead to help. And in a weaker sense, it's similar to the taboo in many private companies in the…
Previously, I'd worked quite closely with my team leader, and he'd mentored me, as well as defending me when the inevitable little mistakes come up. He also gave me the freedom to get my work done in the way that suited me best - he had a very hands off approach, provided I got the work done and on time. My new team leader was the complete opposite, and micro-managed everything, to the point of three stand-up meetings a day to discuss progress on tasks, which he might re-prioritise at any time. It was a complete nightmare, and my productivity plummeted. It took me 9 months to go from loving working at the company, and doing extra work outside of hours pro bono simply because I liked helping my boss, to completely loathing work, and leaving the company.
A good manager can make the world of difference in job satisfaction, and definitely stopped me from burning out despite actually doing more work under my previous manager.