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Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

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Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#11

Post by marsrover »

dirtybirdnj wrote: post #7

Its like being a cat trapped in the washing machine on spin cycle. The only hope for escape is a power failure and mercy of someone who is aware you are inside. Stuck in a job completely burned out, there is nothing worse than the realization of the futility in any struggle to either escape or improve. The knowledge that your output has dropped, the feeling that it's your fault combined with nobody interested in help…

Looking back on a previous job, I can now see that I was either becoming burned out or was burned out. This is a very apt analogy.

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#13

Post by TheDong »

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #2

Been in this case a couple jobs; both MSP jobs naturally. When you're burnt out you just don't see it. In both of my previous jobs the burnout also had a boss who was consistently micromanaging and saying you aren't working hard enough. This is one of the weaknesses of government. A fundamental law that governments should have is that your employer cannot harm your health. Even in mental cases like burnout, the emplo…

> This is one of the weaknesses of government. A fundamental law that governments should have is that your employer cannot harm your health

I think there's a better way to deal with this. Rather than legislate that certain abuses of health aren't okay, let's instead make it so people aren't stuck working jobs if they don't think it's worth it. Right now, the main reason workplaces can abuse employees so much is that employees can't quit, or else they'd starve on the street.

If we had a livable universal basic income, that would allow anyone to, at any time, decide if their job's extra income + the meaning it gave them was worth the stress and other issues.

We already have good evidence that this wouldn't result in no one working since, well, quite a few of the people born wealthy enough to never need to work do work anyway.

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#14

Post by kaybe »

sleepysysadmin wrote: post #2

Been in this case a couple jobs; both MSP jobs naturally. When you're burnt out you just don't see it. In both of my previous jobs the burnout also had a boss who was consistently micromanaging and saying you aren't working hard enough. This is one of the weaknesses of government. A fundamental law that governments should have is that your employer cannot harm your health. Even in mental cases like burnout, the emplo…

> A fundamental law that governments should have is that your employer cannot harm your health.

A small note: Germany does have a law like this. (I cannot find anything about it in English though.)

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#15

Post by fakedang »

motohagiography wrote: post #5

Clicked for me recently that working hard is like driving in first gear. Necessary initially, but if you don't shift up into higher gears, you're probably not doing it right, and not getting as far as fast as you probably should. If I'm tired, it's necessarily because I'm mismanaging my work and time, and that's a signal it's time to step back and figure out what's wrong. Some people are really good at that initial t…

> Nobody ever looks at a person driving a ferrari and thinks, "wow, they must have washed a lot of dishes to afford that car," and yet we still think "if I just wash these dishes hard enough I'll drive a ferrari one day."

I'm saving this quote to tell people this later on.

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#16

Post by sleepysysadmin »

kaybe wrote: post #14
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #2

Been in this case a couple jobs; both MSP jobs naturally. When you're burnt out you just don't see it. In both of my previous jobs the burnout also had a boss who was consistently micromanaging and saying you aren't working hard enough. This is one of the weaknesses of government. A fundamental law that governments should have is that your employer cannot harm your health. Even in mental cases like burnout, the emplo…

> A fundamental law that governments should have is that your employer cannot harm your health. A small note: Germany does have a law like this. (I cannot find anything about it in English though.) https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

>A small note: Germany does have a law like this. (I cannot find anything about it in English though.)

The more I know about Germany's government the more I like about it.

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#17

Post by ciceryadam »

amelius wrote: post #8
dirtybirdnj wrote: post #7

Its like being a cat trapped in the washing machine on spin cycle. The only hope for escape is a power failure and mercy of someone who is aware you are inside. Stuck in a job completely burned out, there is nothing worse than the realization of the futility in any struggle to either escape or improve. The knowledge that your output has dropped, the feeling that it's your fault combined with nobody interested in help…

Sleep as long as you can.

In one of my jobs I ended up in a position where at the end of it I hated going to work. So I stayed up late, so the dreaded work would still be a sleep away. So I was getting more and more upset about my position, fueled not just by being between a rock and a hard place, but also by this voluntary sleep deprivation. Human mind is weird, well, at least mine is.

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#18

Post by outworlder »

motohagiography wrote: post #5

Clicked for me recently that working hard is like driving in first gear. Necessary initially, but if you don't shift up into higher gears, you're probably not doing it right, and not getting as far as fast as you probably should. If I'm tired, it's necessarily because I'm mismanaging my work and time, and that's a signal it's time to step back and figure out what's wrong. Some people are really good at that initial t…

> If I'm tired, it's necessarily because I'm mismanaging my work and time

Is it though? What if you are (always) on call? What if you get a message from your boss late evening asking for stuff for early morning? What if you have late night meetings or very early morning meetings (and what if both are present)? What if coworkers from other timezones are messaging you outside work hours (if you even have defined work hours) with 'urgent' requests?

Often, the time mismanagement is external.

Re: Burnout can exacerbate work stress, further promoting a vicious circle

#19

Post by eeZah7Ux »

TheDong wrote: post #13
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #2

Been in this case a couple jobs; both MSP jobs naturally. When you're burnt out you just don't see it. In both of my previous jobs the burnout also had a boss who was consistently micromanaging and saying you aren't working hard enough. This is one of the weaknesses of government. A fundamental law that governments should have is that your employer cannot harm your health. Even in mental cases like burnout, the emplo…

> This is one of the weaknesses of government. A fundamental law that governments should have is that your employer cannot harm your health I think there's a better way to deal with this. Rather than legislate that certain abuses of health aren't okay, let's instead make it so people aren't stuck working jobs if they don't think it's worth it. Right now, the main reason workplaces can abuse employees so much is that…

> Rather than

Why not both?

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