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Surviving Burnout (2015)

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Re: Surviving Burnout (2015)

#101

Post by lelanthran »

danparsonson wrote: post #17
solatic wrote: post #11

> Structural problems require structural solutions. Healthy organizations, healthy people. It's not the author's conclusion, but this is basically my fantasy ever since watching Billions with Wendy Rhoades's character. In that show, Wendy is a performance coach working for a hedge fund whose job is to emotionally pump up the people who work for the hedge fund. The hedge fund employs her because (leaving aside the soa…

> More companies should employ such coaches and schedule regular sessions for all their employees That honestly sounds dreadful to me, exactly the kind of management-driven nonsense that would make me more likely to quit. If you want your employees pumped up about work, focus on treating them well not hiring cheerleaders.

> If you want your employees pumped up about work, focus on treating them well not hiring cheerleaders.

How is the company supposed to know what "treating you well" means if they don't have people who try to figure out what that phrase means to each individual?

Different strokes for different folks, and all that. I'm not picking on you personally, but throughout this entire thread the sentiments I quoted above have been echoed by others.

Look at it a different way ...

A therapist on the payroll (not a cheerleader) will talk to individuals not groups, and in individual engagements will be able to figure out what "treating you well" actually means to that individual.

After all, you want to be treated well by (for example) having some leeway in adopting new tech, while the engineer next to you considers that an additional stress and for him that is "treating him badly". For him, treating him well might involve fewer hours.

Or more Pay.

Or more direct reports.

Or fewer direct reports.

Or company-funded conventions once a year.

Or fewer meetings.

Or more meetings.

Whatever activity the company did that you considered to be "treating you well", I can all but guarantee that one of your peers would consider it "treating me poorly".

Now, granted, I haven't seen the show mentioned, but I think a role along the lines of "wellness engagement and support" is probably a good idea for any company that actually wants to treat their workers well.

How else are they supposed to figure out what "well" means?

Re: Surviving Burnout (2015)

#102

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

> burnout happens when we become locked in a cycle of caring about the results of our actions but having no meaningful control over those outcomes.

I've never heard it put this way, but that really resonates.

Nowadays, I work harder and longer -for free- than I ever did, when paid.

I don't feel even slightly burned out. If I feel myself starting to get vexed with a problem, I take a break, watch some TV, play a video game, or just take a nap.

But I get more done, every day, than I ever have before. Much higher Quality, as well. I've already made two releases, this morning.

Re: Surviving Burnout (2015)

#103

Post by clnq »

ornornor wrote: post #38
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most burnout-inducing environments I’ve worked in have all had one thing in common: They had a person or class of people that had wormed their way into being in control of everything while being responsible for very little. This left the rest of us to be responsible for the consequences of their decisions while having little to no input on the things we were held accountable for. The absolute worst company I work…

This is pretty much everywhere I’ve worked at in my 10 years career so far. I honestly don’t know what to do about it. It seems hopeless and I’ve been avoiding going back to work for the last 18 months. I also wonder if there is something wrong with me because everyone else seems to cope with it somehow and keep on working. I’ve thought about starting my own business but it’s too much hard work which I don’t think I…

You probably discovered why many SWEs are leaving the industry and going into things like carpentry. It’s nice to have control over the outcome of one’s work. It feels more honest than being a cog in an uncoordinated corporate (and let’s not forget — often juvenile and political) machine.

Re: Surviving Burnout (2015)

#104

Post by Mezzie »

MrDresden wrote: post #68

I have recently progressed out of a burnout state, which started just before covid hit and continued until early this year. I was lucky enough to be able to take all of last year off from work to focus on my mental and physical health. It is probably dependant on people (and ofcourse their situation), but when I see someone talking about overcoming burnout by taking a month off I can't help wonder if they are dilutin…

I'm 10 months into 'walked out of 'good' professional WFH job to go work retail and vibe' and I'm just at the point where I want to do things again. My periodic attempts to force it never worked.

Re: Surviving Burnout (2015)

#105

Post by Mezzie »

jimnotgym wrote: post #44
slagorfotrest wrote: post #39

Throwaway Ive been on leave from work due to severe burnout and even just reading this caused me to feel panic. It's this weird feeling where the back of my throat feels like it's closing, my head begins throbbing and my heart races. I know how seriously burnout can affect your life and I'm really glad the author found a way out. We need better options for dealing with burnout because having medical insurance tied to…

> because having medical insurance tied to work is obviously suboptimal. That is a solved problem in many countries. When the US grows up from its individual first, frontier moxie, pissing context it could have it too.

I somehow ended up as an American eligible for health insurance in the Medicare for All model (I'm covered and just pay a % of my income, but I can have whatever income I want), and it's shocking what this has done for my ability to not only plan, but to tell employers and prospective employers to pound sand.

One interesting thing about it is that it makes working for small businesses that can't afford good healthcare viable. It would really help jumpstart that part of the economy if we decoupled healthcare from employment.

Re: Surviving Burnout (2015)

#106

Post by etiam »

cookieperson wrote: post #78
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most burnout-inducing environments I’ve worked in have all had one thing in common: They had a person or class of people that had wormed their way into being in control of everything while being responsible for very little. This left the rest of us to be responsible for the consequences of their decisions while having little to no input on the things we were held accountable for. The absolute worst company I work…

You described the symptoms of psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists in a single sentence. Research these personality disorders. It will bring you peace and explain the majority of malfunctions in the world. Specifically look into the sociopath apathy empath triad.

Highly explanatory, certainly. And knowing about them is arguably much better than not knowing, but I'm not necessarily on board with "bring you peace".

I feel like I run into them a lot, and it's consistently awful handling it in practice, since they seem to delight in refining their skills at social and psychological manipulation, and they position themselves to use the mediocre herd as a weapon. Some methods of choice seem be:

* cheap, simple lies which take expensive, complex truths to sort out. Equivocating about descriptions used to challenge them.

* stand themselves next to someone/something highly regarded by the group and reframe attempts calling them on their nefariousness into an attack on that

* shameless and blatant denial of world descriptions where their behavior is anything but perfectly normal and justified. (As particularly prominently demonstrated by political leaders of certain major countries in recent years)

* introducing (or corrupting/extending existing) complex rule systems for purportedly noble reasons, then torture language or put forth extreme interpretations to find ways to claim their toxic bidding must be done, but 'It's not I who say that. That's the rules. We all have to obey the rules'. Particularly for justifying damage or conducting systemic coercion against their victims. (Harry Potter readers may wish to think of Dolores Umbridge, in this regard.)

I'm sure I'm missing several important ones too. If anyone has pointers on how to develop skills to reliably defeat these dangerous parasites, I'd love to know. Sadly I expect it's going to remain highly important skills for the foreseeable future.

Re: Surviving Burnout (2015)

#107

Post by Aeolun »

ElFitz wrote: post #70
bruce511 wrote: post #8

>> caring about the results of our actions but having no meaningful control over those outcomes This really dies sum it up in a useful generic way. Ultimately the balance of this sentence will differ from context to context, but the equation ultimately has to balance. Put another way, if you care a lot, but have no agency, then ultimately you will be frustrated. If you care a lot, but have no resources, then again, y…

> Burnout is just the moment whe you stop fruitlessly caring. To me it was the moment I started breaking down in tears when getting to the subway station down my street, on my way to work. Every day. The next time was when I could not speak about my job and the project I was working on without stammering and my mind going blank (and still couldn’t for months after quitting). “Frustrated" and "stop to fruitlessly care…

I think by the time you burst out in tears when traveling to work you’ve probably passed the point of burnout.

Not sure what else to call it, but the stage described above probably comes first.

Re: Surviving Burnout (2015)

#108

Post by Aeolun »

bheadmaster wrote: post #79
delusional wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be asking too much on a public forum, but would you be able to describe what differentiates these two for you? Feel free to decline if it's too personal or you just don't feel like it.

Not the person you asked, but I have had experience with both depression and burnout. Depression, in my case, makes things meaningless in a "calmer" way - I can think about any activity, but it just feels meaningless, as if somebody was asking me to dig a hole then bury it back up. Like, why? What is the point? Burnout, on the other hand, had an avoidant element to it - when thinking about work, I start feeling helpl…

> The mind is just avoiding making any connections relevant to the work.

This part is insane. But it doesn’t only happen when burned out. It happens to me when I get asked to do something that I do not believe in. I say yes, because you know, my boss is asking me to do it. But when I actually start on it my brain just completely shuts down. Like, is it trying to prevent me from seeming efficient at things I absolutely hate?

Re: Surviving Burnout (2015)

#109

Post by kerkeslager »

slushh wrote: post #31
kerkeslager wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's companies that created this problem, and I'm skeptical that a company is going to be the solution to this problem.

Companies are an abstraction. The humans behind the company define the company. How else could burned out developers organize to create a space for recovery? *edit: to mention the elephant in the room: caring without control results in self-doubt. What does it mean for humans to be 'self'?

> How else could burned out developers organize to create a space for recovery?

There are thousands of ways to organize people, from TAZ's[1] to 12-step programs[2] to Kibbutzim[3].

A company as it's done in the modern US is an oligarchy in which leadership threatens the underlings with withholding the means of meeting their basic needs if they don't meet demands. It's fundamentally inherently stressful to be an underling in such an organization, because you don't have freedom or security.

Your can say, "what if we make the oligarchs kinder" but that's not a real option: if kind people are starting an organization from scratch they don't set themselves up as oligarchs. There is that company that came up on HN a few weeks back where everyone was paid the same, but they made no pretense that if that model becomes unsustainable they'll abandon it.

And sure, you can fundamentally change the structure to make it more equitable, but at that point it's different enough from a company in the normal sense of the word, that I don't think I'd call it a company, even if it technically files articles of incorporation.

[1] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/hakim-bey-t-a-z-the-...

[2] https://www.aa.org/sites/default/files/literature/smf-187_en...

[3] https://www.jewishagency.org/what-exactly-is-a-kibbutz/

Re: Surviving Burnout (2015)

#110

Post by steveBK123 »

bruce511 wrote: post #8

>> caring about the results of our actions but having no meaningful control over those outcomes This really dies sum it up in a useful generic way. Ultimately the balance of this sentence will differ from context to context, but the equation ultimately has to balance. Put another way, if you care a lot, but have no agency, then ultimately you will be frustrated. If you care a lot, but have no resources, then again, y…

>> caring about the results of our actions but having no meaningful control over those outcomes

This is basically the best summation of it, and when I notice my role becoming consumed with this, I know its time to leave or face burnout.

My most recent round of this I was a senior IC but put in charge of PMing 2 vendors that were starting work 3 days later, despite them having been in planning for 6+ months without my involvement or knowledge.

Both overly ambitious project I didn't plan, the lead on their side I already told my boss I knew previously & did NOT trust, with incompetent vendors I didn't pick, on an unrealistically short timeline that didn't make sense. Also the two vendors were supposed to coordinate on some integration piece, but didn't trust each other, and were not contractually obligated to coordinate, so of course they didn't.

Management couldn't decide if I was supposed to be helping make them successful with hands-on technical work & coordination, clearing blockers, or impartially measuring their success for the purposes of whether they deserved to be paid for each milestone. It of course ran 2x over the planned timeline, some of which they demanded we pay for, and a lot of which they did for free.. which meant the work was garbage.

In the end one vendor went bankrupt and the other we almost went to court with.

I ended up on this so long that I became strongly associated with its failure, and my senior IC role didn't really exist to go back to. My boss, and their boss, both got moved aside internally out of leadership roles around the time I quit.

I lingered filling other senior IC++/leader-- type roles for a year until I left. Probably the longest stretch I've gone of not really doing any coding, not really running a team, not doing something I enjoy, and not learning anything.. all at the same time.

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