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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

#131

Post by lostdog »

bird_monster wrote: post #57

I've wanted to write about my (only; last) experience as a manager for a long time, as I think it's a pretty textbook definition of the trap that is getting burnt out by a shitty job. My mood worsened because I felt like I was failing all the time. Being in a shitty mood and feeling deeply ashamed made the quality of my work (meaning: the way I treated my team and stakeholders) worse. It was this terrible loop of fai…

It seems like the key to surviving is to grab the "I care about this" knob and turn it all the way down to as close to zero as possible.

When I look back at times I was burnt out, I wish I had cared even less than I did. Every part of the result would have been better. I would have felt better, and by avoiding the failure loop even my work would have been better.

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

#132

Post by XorNot »

layoric wrote: post #116
oriel wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This happened to me multiple times across multiple jobs. The first time, I was laid off with severance--a small mercy. The second time, I was run into the ground repeatedly as I tried to manage it. That time, I was dropkicked by my manager far over the line, and exited myself. This last job, I left the moment I felt it happening. My struggle now is to not make it a reflex, and a huge amount of my personal and life wo…

With you as well, will be avoiding the washing machine for at least 2 months over this Christmas/New year (and very lucky I can afford to) hoping that I can find my motivation again.

Oh hey this is me as well.

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

#133

Post by DangitBobby »

hansvm wrote: post #61
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…

Counterpoint: If driving a fancy car is your highest priority then most places in the developed world you can skimp in other places (family, time off, apartment size, etc) and save for a few years to pay cash for one if you haven't drawn a particularly short stick in life. A brand new GT-R costs something like 5-10yrs savings for a slightly-above-full-time pizza delivery driver who avoids most other luxuries.

I would label this as "missing the point" instead of "counterpoint".

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

#134

Post by DangitBobby »

echelon wrote: post #25

I just want a no-pay sabbatical. Three months, total reset of energy levels. We should all have that option. I would take a lot less money (-$50k or more) if I got to take a quarter off every year. Four day work weeks would be another compelling alternative. Two days a week are not enough time to get chores done. There's no time for relaxing. If I ever create a company, I'd love to offer these options.

I would love to work for a company where I can take a significant pay cut to work 30 or even 35 hours in a typical work week.

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

#135

Post by titanomachy »

XorNot wrote: post #132
layoric wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With you as well, will be avoiding the washing machine for at least 2 months over this Christmas/New year (and very lucky I can afford to) hoping that I can find my motivation again.

Oh hey this is me as well.

Maybe we should start a club.

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

#136

Post by rconti »

IggleSniggle wrote: post #60
nitrogen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm paraphrasing a story whose origin I can't remember at the moment, but basically if you have 6 hours to chop down a very large tree, you should spend 5 of those hours sharpening your axe.

I'm suddenly feeling a little better about all the time I spend investigating better/different ways to approach technical problems, even when I know that I can't apply them to the problem that is immediately in front of me. I mean, obviously at some point you need to cut down the tree, and sometimes you're just carving down your ax without making it any sharper, but still.

When I was reading about 'dog' command-line DNS resolver here yesterday, I was thinking "who on earth has time to constantly investigate, install dependencies for, install, test, maintain, remember to use, etc, all these whiz-bang utilities I see posted here all the time?"

Maybe I'm stuck in first gear :)

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

#137

Post by titanomachy »

DangitBobby wrote: post #134
echelon wrote: post #25

I just want a no-pay sabbatical. Three months, total reset of energy levels. We should all have that option. I would take a lot less money (-$50k or more) if I got to take a quarter off every year. Four day work weeks would be another compelling alternative. Two days a week are not enough time to get chores done. There's no time for relaxing. If I ever create a company, I'd love to offer these options.

I would love to work for a company where I can take a significant pay cut to work 30 or even 35 hours in a typical work week.

I've heard (from reliable sources) that Google has the option to work 60% or 80% time (with a corresponding cut to pay). Presumably you need a record of solid performance and your manager needs to be on board.

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

#138

Post by el_dev_hell »

I found this to be the case in my own life. Once I hit burnout (which I can easily pinpoint in retrospect but couldn't see in the moment), work stress started accelerating.

Tangentially related, I can't believe how much a role can contribute to burnout. When I was going through my own journey of burnout, I thought it was all a "me" problem (I often quoted the saying: "wherever I go, there I'll be" as an excuse to stay and "work" on myself).

I wish I could go back in time and slap myself. Once I left the role that was killing me (long hour, no appreciation, shit product -- the usual), I was at least 80% happier and was able to recover from my battle with burnout.

tl;dr: burnout sucks. If you're in a shit job, leave. It might help you heal (maybe rapidly).

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

#139

Post by titanomachy »

UseStrict wrote: post #30
rychco wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Myself and most of my millennial peers feel this way exactly. Some are still hopeful that they'll own a home & raise a large family like their parents and grandparents did, but the rest of us aren't so sure.

Millennial peer, I feel like it's been a treadmill, forever running but no progress. Living in first in Ottawa then Toronto, I watched affordability of housing slip from attainable in 3-5 years after graduating to virtually impossible without being extremely house poor. That's excluding the crazy high cost of living in general, and the feeling like employers are working to crush an ever-increasing amount of time out…

Toronto is a grind. The work culture is punishing and affordability sucks. Not all cities are like that. Montreal and Vancouver are both better in some ways. Vancouver is still wildly unaffordable (especially if buying a house is important to you) but the lifestyle is much nicer and more conducive to mental health than Toronto's.

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

#140

Post by hansvm »

DangitBobby wrote: post #133
hansvm wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: If driving a fancy car is your highest priority then most places in the developed world you can skimp in other places (family, time off, apartment size, etc) and save for a few years to pay cash for one if you haven't drawn a particularly short stick in life. A brand new GT-R costs something like 5-10yrs savings for a slightly-above-full-time pizza delivery driver who avoids most other luxuries.

I would label this as "missing the point" instead of "counterpoint".

Choosing to engage with the entire comment isn't necessary for a critical discussion on HN is it? They could've picked any example of an unattainable luxury (or better yet some notion of _easily_ affording such luxuries) they liked, but instead they picked an example that's so far within the realm of possibility that there are subcultures dedicated to it, and there seems to be general agreement that it's a good example to parrot back to others. It might be a workable or relatable point of comparison, but that doesn't mean we can't analyze it and try to do better.
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