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Burnout is real – how to avoid it

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Re: Burnout is real – how to avoid it

#121

Post by taneq »

hysan wrote: post #47
taneq wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your company doesn't believe that burnout is an issue and ignores your "no's" It's up to you to ensure that your "no's" can't be ignored. Really what shy programmers need is confidence and healthy boundaries.

And if you're not a shy programmer who has shown schedules, estimates, timelines, and are also trying to prevent those you manage/mentor from being burntout? Or what if your direct manager actually agrees with you! But your combined arguments are being shot down for reasons of growth, culture, or they decide to change the metrics so when you do say no, your performance plummets and they now have more power in convers…

Quoting my father-in-law (who is a senior civil estimator with experience on countless multi-million-dollar projects):

"Do you want someone who will tell you want you want to hear? Or do you want someone who will tell you how much it's gonna cost?"

Re: Burnout is real – how to avoid it

#122

Post by juststeve »

dredmorbius wrote: post #86
vfc1 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think unions under some form are sorely needed for this profession, as well as a recognized ethics code, like it happens in professions like medicine or accounting. If we are going to be treated as factory workers, we should defend ourselves as factory workers by creating unions. Unfortunately, due to the volatility of tech skills and the overuse of one-month contracts, I don't see this happening anytime soon,…

More guilds than unions, but yes.

more guilds than builds?

Re: Burnout is real – how to avoid it

#124

Post by burnt_husk »

Disclosure: I used to work at Atlassian. I've been reading HN for years without an account but this one triggered me to comment.

I suffered burnout there. I had the misfortune of working as an "SRE" at Atlassian. The reality was you spent your days, nights, and weekends dealing with major incidents.

I do not know if it was a conscious strategy, but it would seem the approach taken to reduce organizational wide pager fatigue and burnout from out of hours work was to concentrate it on a few.

(My guess is that it was conscious, as that best explains why my cries for help whilst falling on seemingly sympathetic ears, yielded no changes.)

Re: Burnout is real – how to avoid it

#125

Post by isimluk »

mmcnl wrote: post #117
Balgair wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I'm in the middle of 3 projects right now using sprints as the base time unit. One project is in Sprint #17 this week. One is on Sprint #41 as of Wednesday. One is on Sprint #56 as of this Friday. On top of that, the weekly meeting is set at 4:30pm on Fridays in my time zone. The sprint planning meetings typically go 2 hours. Each project has a daily stand-up too, each lasting about 30-45 minutes. I get about 3…

This problem has nothing to do with Jira or agile, but with bad management.

No. Problem is with jira and agile.

Majority of managers will always be mediocre. But previously, managers without tool just let the developers do the job. Nowdays, mediocre managers have industry standard tool to make everyone life terrible and destroy the product by accumulating bad decisions founded on jira/agile metrics.

Also, jira and agile gives management ability to be extremely shorter oriented in their reasoning - that is major factor changing dynamic in the team.

Re: Burnout is real – how to avoid it

#126

Post by JulianMorrison »

ticmasta wrote: post #75
JulianMorrison wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're called "iterations" over here and it's probably precisely because of that implication. It was always an unfortunate term. A team that is doing agile right is not "sprinting", they are completing as much work as they can do at a long term sustainable pace.

>> A team that is doing agile right ... Oh, please stop with the "because you're doing it wrong" defense. Yes, I most likely am doing it wrong, I already know that. Is the fact the process allows the level of flexibility for me to screw up this bad a feature or a bug? I'd love the opportunity to practice Pedantic Agile but things like customers, coworkers and bosses keep getting in the way.

Pedanticness is beside the point here. You don't have to follow every ceremony to get the basic point of "you cannot sustain a pace that works your programmers like Victorian pit ponies".

Re: Burnout is real – how to avoid it

#127

Post by a10c »

isimluk wrote: post #125
mmcnl wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This problem has nothing to do with Jira or agile, but with bad management.

No. Problem is with jira and agile. Majority of managers will always be mediocre. But previously, managers without tool just let the developers do the job. Nowdays, mediocre managers have industry standard tool to make everyone life terrible and destroy the product by accumulating bad decisions founded on jira/agile metrics. Also, jira and agile gives management ability to be extremely shorter oriented in their reaso…

Again. The problem is with management.

Re: Burnout is real – how to avoid it

#128

Post by Balanceinfinity »

mikelyons wrote: post #82
Balanceinfinity wrote: post #60

Step 1: TAKE YOUR VACATION!! - every minute allowed, every year. If they won't give you a chance to recharge your batteries, look elsewhere.

And do what with it? For many of us burnout is tied to depression is tied to lack of a mate, hobby, social circle, life purpose. What outside of work is even worth doing? Seems like all I can think about outside of work is how badly I just want this all to be finished.

Impossible for me to say how to find meaning in your life. It's a path each of us is on. But you can't find that path in front of a monitor or at work. Turn it off and go for a walk. The Buddha said that the purpose in life is to find your purpose in life. You don't have to know what it is....you just have to look for it. Start searching (and not with Google). If you can't find anything else and can't bring yourself to plan something...take this cruise: https://www.celebritycruises.com/destinations/alaska-cruises
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