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Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

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Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#21

Post by colechristensen »

x0x0 wrote: post #2

Random thoughts: It's nice to hear about a situation closer to most startup outcomes. When Matthew notes that someone sent him the acquisition terms and the founders made out well while line level / low level managers basically got nice severances, it's something everyone here should keep in mind. It's great if founders make out well as long as everyone else does too; it's when those outcomes diverge that it rankles.…

I think you may be over-attributing actions to malice instead of incompetence.

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#22

Post by woohoo7676 »

joslin01 wrote: post #12

I worked extremely hard at my last start-up to the point of being completely burnt out. I'm happy because it made me stronger, but I'll never forget being over and for about 4-5 months after, never looking at a computer. I didn't want anything to do with them for awhile, and pursued a vicious "I'm gonna go pro in golf" campaign (can't take the idealism/ambition out of a true entrepreneur). I'm really happy now, but I…

Do you have any tips for combating burnout that worked well for you? I'm starting to feel the signs of burnout (which probably means I'm actually in deeper than I think), and I'd like to try to head this off before it gets worse.

I know setting hard boundaries for work/non work and taking chunks of time for yourself is a good start, but would love to hear if you had any more advice? Thanks!

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#23

Post by veritas3241 »

I'd be curious to hear from employees who have worked for Elon Musk either at Tesla or SpaceX. I'm currently reading Ashlee Vance's book on Elon and the descriptions of the working conditions for Tesla and SpaceX employees sounds both exhilarating and completely exhausting.

Does working on something as truly world-changing as space travel or electric vehicles make up for the 80+ hour work weeks? Is it easier to work so hard when there's no doubt that what you're doing matters?

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#25

Post by danielweber »

I have never said to myself "I wish I had stuck around that company longer." I have often said "I should have left much sooner."

I'm sure there are some examples of someone leaving when lightning was about to strike and make all the insiders rich. Those instances are even more rare than start-up successes making employees rich.

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#26

Post by exelius »

ska wrote: post #18
exelius wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they want access to my personal equipment, they can get a subpoena. No way does any company get to examine my personal stuff without due process.

It really is as simple as that iff you never use your personal device for any business purpose. [update] This was unclear: I'm saying this relationship is simple if and only if you have not used your devices for business purposes. If you have, you need only hope that none of the clauses in your agreements (you did have a lawyer review these?) cover it.

Even if I used it for work purposes occasionally, they can go to court and prove that in the process of getting a subpoena and I'll happily comply.

Due process exists for a reason; if you let any company examine your personal devices/data outside of a court order, they can use it for any purpose they want. Subpoenas are limited in scope, and everything is documented.

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#27

Post by xhrpost »

What are people's thoughts/experiences with burnout happening without overtime? Over the past few years I've grown more and more bored at work. Even switching jobs from different ends of the spectrum didn't fix this. I can get myself into flow but it seems to take more and more will power as time goes on. Different tech challenges help, but it's nothing like my halcyon days of straight out of college. Of coming into work and just doing the job and enjoying it with no use of will power. I go home and then fight to do the "bare minimum", read, exercise, eat healthy, minimal home chores and decent sleep. I've wondered if having a home hobby would help but I have none. I feel like "burnout" describes where I'm at, but I have a hard time stating it as fact because I rarely work over 40hrs a week on the job. So, thoughts? Could I actually be in a burnout phase or is this something completely different?

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#28

Post by shostack »

xhrpost wrote: post #27

What are people's thoughts/experiences with burnout happening without overtime? Over the past few years I've grown more and more bored at work. Even switching jobs from different ends of the spectrum didn't fix this. I can get myself into flow but it seems to take more and more will power as time goes on. Different tech challenges help, but it's nothing like my halcyon days of straight out of college. Of coming into…

My current working theory on that is we always want what we don't have. For people who value their free time, rarely working over 40hrs a week is a dream. When they achieve that dream, suddenly they realize they want to be working less than that, and 40hrs becomes a drain and no longer the energizing freedom it may have been initially.

Just a theory.

Personally, I get bored with my current "life" from a given point in time, and need to radically change an aspect of it to add that excitement and focus back to it. Doesn't always go as planned though.

But as you get older, I find people in general get tired of the same bullshit that keeps popping up at job after job, and that almost never goes away.

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#29

Post by uxp100 »

veritas3241 wrote: post #23

I'd be curious to hear from employees who have worked for Elon Musk either at Tesla or SpaceX. I'm currently reading Ashlee Vance's book on Elon and the descriptions of the working conditions for Tesla and SpaceX employees sounds both exhilarating and completely exhausting. Does working on something as truly world-changing as space travel or electric vehicles make up for the 80+ hour work weeks? Is it easier to work…

as truly world-changing as [...] electric vehicles

EVs have been around for a long long time, commercially, and conversions. I'm glad tesla is doing what they are, but world-changing seems like a stretch to me.

Anecdotally, I've heard from employees that Tesla is having attrition issues, so apparently not. They've recently added a few minor perks to try and keep engineers.

Re: Regretting the Golden Handcuffs: Beware the Costs of Burnout

#30

Post by davidjairala »

xhrpost wrote: post #27

What are people's thoughts/experiences with burnout happening without overtime? Over the past few years I've grown more and more bored at work. Even switching jobs from different ends of the spectrum didn't fix this. I can get myself into flow but it seems to take more and more will power as time goes on. Different tech challenges help, but it's nothing like my halcyon days of straight out of college. Of coming into…

I personally find myself going through this with most aspects of my life. I have lulls at work where I'm less than 100% excited about the work at hand, and then after a while I'm back in top shape, but I now find it normal when the lulls occur.

It happens to me for most other hobbies as well. I enjoy working out a lot, but there are times where I just don't feel super excited about it, for like lets say a month or so, and I have to put in a lot of will-power to get to the gym. So I do basically what you do here as well, try different kind of workouts, etc., with varying results and that helps sometimes.

I think at the end of the day it's really hard to maintain that level of passion for something that you do day in day out. You just have to accept the downtime and know that it will pass in a bit. At least that's my take on it.

Edit: right after I posted I was reminded of a quote lifters use often: "motivation gets you in the gym, as it's fleeting, but discipline keeps you coming back". I think the same applies here, to some extent.

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