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Tell HN: Burnout is bad to your brain, take care

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Re: Tell HN: Burnout is bad to your brain, take care

#141

Post by mverv »

burningChrome wrote: post #38

Early on in my career (I was a late bloomer and already in early 30's) as a developer, I got burnt out pretty bad twice. After the second time and teetering on a third, I knew I had to do something to change what I was doing and how I managed my work load. I just focused on getting MY stuff done and that was it. I stopped taking on other's people work. I stopped taking on more work once I got my stuff done. I would d…

Any words of encouragement to a 32 year old considering a career switch to software development? I have a CS undegrad and have been working in the industry, although in strategy roles and never as a developer.

Re: Tell HN: Burnout is bad to your brain, take care

#142

Post by TillE »

MathMonkeyMan wrote: post #96
patrickhogan1 wrote: post #20

Interestingly, while chronic sleep deprivation is harmful, studies show that a single night of sleep deprivation can have a rapid, temporary antidepressant effect in 40-60% of people with depression. I tried this after burning out on my third startup, and it helped me short-term when I needed it most. You can read more about the research Penn Medicine ( https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2017/septemb...…

A psychiatrist told me that sleep deprivation does have a proven anti-depressant effect, but that the side effects are very severe. Makes sense. He preferred the SSRIs. There is a moment, when I've been up all night and am engaging with the world, that I feel a lack of anxiety and a mental clarity. It's like I've finally "sobered up." I think it's my body telling me "we need to sleep, none of this shit matters." Slee…

Sleep deprivation is one of those last resort options that psychiatrists will consider if the normal treatments persistently fail. But yeah, do the normal stuff like SSRIs first.

Re: Tell HN: Burnout is bad to your brain, take care

#143

Post by rakejake »

paxys wrote: post #92

Also important to note – a lot of people correlate burnout strictly with overwork. You could be burned out due to overwork, sure, but you could also be burned out due to not having enough work . Or doing an average amount of work but not finding real meaning in it. Or another reason not directly related to work at all. If you aren't 100% happy with your situation, and not getting out of bed every morning with a smile…

Yes, this is called "boreout". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreout

Re: Tell HN: Burnout is bad to your brain, take care

#144

Post by ddingus »

Baeocystin wrote: post #64
kody wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really curious, how do you factor in time to learn ("up skill")? I'm a self taught dev with 2 young kids. I've always had a healthy approach to work, but now I'm feeling quite a lot of pressure to learn new things on my own time, whether to make sure I'm prepared for the interview circuit if I get laid off, or to patch my skills that are needed at work. I'm starting to feel burnout creep in, getting an hour of st…

You do it during work hours. Period. Your brain only has so many truly 'on' hours in a day, and it's already less than 8. Trying to burn even more in the pursuit of complex knowledge isn't just robbing Peter to pay Paul, it's eating the seed corn and wondering why your harvest failed. It's a scary thing to realize, and can be hard to stick with. But limits are real, and respecting them gets more work done in the long…

Very high value, lucid advice.

My experiences were similar, however I must add when your day job is not related to skill building activities, you may find your "on" time to be greater.

Still, be careful.

In my case, my day job was manufacturing and I was an effective prototype mechanic. Loved the work, hated the pay, so...

I used a percentage of my free time learning more computer related things.

When the time was right, I was ready to take the jump.

Landed nicely, and have no regrets.

Now, later in life I find the dynamics above are in play and we all ignore them at our peril.

Re: Tell HN: Burnout is bad to your brain, take care

#145

Post by giantg2 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #137
giantg2 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny enough, I just had my first LeetCode question ever... for an internal job posting. Wtf

That is dystopian level hilarious.

We normally do minor fizz buzz code screens internally. But that's just a small test to see how much of the tech you know, like if you were switching from say Python Lambdas to Angular front-end. And it's mostly to see about how you approach the problem.

But some of the internal postions do it differently. My favorite was a mock code review on a PR that had intentional flaws. Then you'd call put what was wrong and how to fix it - not just pure code but also requirements, tests, commit messages, etc.

LeetCode is different though. The rating and stuff. Even the interface... I still don't know what it's doing behind the scenes to run the code and feed inputs and what those inputs are. Believe it or not, this LeetCode interview wasn't my worst internal code screen. I once had one that HR said to bring my laptop and use any language I wanted. When I got there, the manager handed me a Mac (which I've never used), told me to use Angular to create a page with a table (hadn't used Angular at that point), and told me to do it in Webstorm (most teams were still using Eclipse at that time, so no experience here either). I managed to Google my way to a working table, but cut the interview short when he wanted me to style it. It's and internal posting. I clearly know the basics and got something working, even in the worst possible interview scenario where I didn't know the tools at all. Surely I can learn the rest (this was a midlevel posting, not even senior).

Re: Tell HN: Burnout is bad to your brain, take care

#146

Post by quern »

batshit_beaver wrote: post #102
swatcoder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you and the GP, but I suspect all three of us have pursued a balanced and satisfying career instead of the one with top of market compensation. Some of the folks here don't see alternative options when FAANG compensation is some integer multiple of what the rest of the industry has been supporting for the last 40+ years, and I don't entirely blame them for that. I'm not surprised when some later find themsel…

As someone currently in the process of trying to move from a cushy, interesting startup job to a soulless FAANG for that compensation multiple, the ONLY reason I'm doing it is because I have a young kid now. I wish there was another way, but it is genuinely impossible to provide a comfortable level of family life on a startup salary, unless your partner is also in tech and is ok with not being a stay at home parent.

I did the same for the same reason , but I moved from a soulless FAANG to a high frequency trading company. This is another integer multiple.

To my pleasant surprise, the HFT is more rewarding (not just in comp) than the FAANG was. At least for now, or that's what I keep telling myself.

Re: Tell HN: Burnout is bad to your brain, take care

#147

Post by ddingus »

cm2012 wrote: post #123
paxys wrote: post #92

Also important to note – a lot of people correlate burnout strictly with overwork. You could be burned out due to overwork, sure, but you could also be burned out due to not having enough work . Or doing an average amount of work but not finding real meaning in it. Or another reason not directly related to work at all. If you aren't 100% happy with your situation, and not getting out of bed every morning with a smile…

Do people really go to work with a smile on their face?

Yes!

I did for may years after my career change into the high end CAD world.

And more recently I am doing it again working with people I love on a startup (manufacturing related) I believe in.

Re: Tell HN: Burnout is bad to your brain, take care

#148

Post by rlabrecque »

8Z7FpV6eDp wrote: post #122

WFH and the general state of tech burned me (and continues to burn me) out big time. I am extremely over Zoom meetings multiple times per day, every day, and what-feels-like-constant Slack interruptions. I usually love meetings, too! Tech consulting is what I love doing, but all of the small consultancies are getting hoovered up by the big 4 or WITCH firms, and all of the big firms make you wear business casual and h…

Yeahhh; I feel this. I'm in the office 4-5 days a week again; and the rare days where most of my day ends up being in-office only interactions are great. The quick catchups in the hallway; not either forced catchups that always happen at the wrong time for someone, or never catching up. Socializing while going out for lunch; not doing lunch alone, and then having to make time for socializing when I need to be working. Those days are waay better than zoom meeting hell days OR WFH on no-meeting days. Commuting is new to me since Covid and that sucks but those days remind me what work could be like so I put up with it. :/

Re: Tell HN: Burnout is bad to your brain, take care

#149

Post by ddingus »

siamese_puff wrote: post #90
blueyes wrote: post #12

I got super burned out working in startups for about 8 years. didn't realize it on the inside. now that i'm out, i look back and realize i was in a constant state of stress and anxiety. i got my sleep back, started exercising, started doing ice plunge/sauna, cut stress, limited exposure to stupid messaging streams like slack. it's a new world. i had to remake myself chemically in tiny steps and it took about two soli…

While working?

My guess is nope. That is very difficult to do, unless one works with people willing to make an investment to heal one of their own.

That is out there. But it is rare.

Re: Tell HN: Burnout is bad to your brain, take care

#150

Post by sadcherry »

batshit_beaver wrote: post #102
swatcoder wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you and the GP, but I suspect all three of us have pursued a balanced and satisfying career instead of the one with top of market compensation. Some of the folks here don't see alternative options when FAANG compensation is some integer multiple of what the rest of the industry has been supporting for the last 40+ years, and I don't entirely blame them for that. I'm not surprised when some later find themsel…

As someone currently in the process of trying to move from a cushy, interesting startup job to a soulless FAANG for that compensation multiple, the ONLY reason I'm doing it is because I have a young kid now. I wish there was another way, but it is genuinely impossible to provide a comfortable level of family life on a startup salary, unless your partner is also in tech and is ok with not being a stay at home parent.

> I wish there was another way, but it is genuinely impossible to provide a comfortable level of family life

It's all a matter of perspective, isn't it? It's basically the top 1% speaking. And you can't tell me that the other 99% have miserable lives.

> unless your partner is also in tech and is ok with not being a stay at home parent.

Stay at home parent is a choice, and a pretty expensive one. One does not have to choose that and can still live a comfortable life. Many women (and let's face it, we're unlikely discussing the man staying at home for the next 7-15 years, eh?) even prefer not to interrupt and/or basically end their careers because of parenthood.

Americans often look to Europe, claiming that these things are so much easier there, which might be true, but at least as much is it a matter of personal choice as well.

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