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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

#71

Post by joesmo »

norea-armozel wrote: post #56
beachstartup wrote: post #6

> because tech is a small town and I shouldn’t burn any bridges to anyone out there listening - it's not. technology is a huge, huge, huge, huge established industry. think about it - what does "tech" even mean? it's an umbrella term for 4 or 5 classifications that all kind of bleed into each other - including finance. in addition, every non-tech company has a shitload of tech in it. gee whiz. it's almost as if techn…

I think it's more that the startup scene in SV is much smaller than say working from some random company throughout the United States or the world at large. I can see that reputation and being known by name could be a reality in startups for sure. Outside of that? I would be completely floored if anyone knew me just from the random jobs I've had across multiple industries that write software for internal/external use…

Even the startup scene in SV/SF is so huge, this is not a problem unless you do something notorious / egregious (like crash and burn your Ferrari into the CEO's office) and even then, people will forget in a few months. Totally agree that is such bullshit advice.

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

#72

Post by reinhardt »

anhedonisticguy wrote: post #64
CardenB wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I wish people would stop consulting various buzzwords and tech ideals and, instead, suggest OP see a therapist. This sounds like depression to me.

I would caution against calling it depression, which is a set of symptoms classified as a disease and really can only be evaluated by a professional. However, I recently went through a period of anhedonia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhedonia ), which may be what OP is experiencing. Things that I found that worked: exercise for pleasure (riding my bike!). Connecting with people (one-on-one -- i'd always been part…

Are you me? Though mine lasts for several (many) years and other than exercise (gym 4-5 days/week) I haven't found a something that works or anything resembling a life purpose.

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

#73

Post by 6d0debc071 »

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…

Are you taking 'me time'? When did you last have a decent holiday where you did no programming, turned all your work-related email and phones off, and did something else that you enjoyed and found fulfilling?

It needn't be a home hobby, it might be reading, it might be an activity-club that you enjoy, it might be volunteering - but I've found that I need things outside of work, even work I enjoy, or life's pretty cruddy.

Similarly the stresses of work can really build up, even if the work's quite interesting. There's no amount of money I could be paid to work in a continual six month lump again. That's the sort of thing where you take a holiday and spend the first few days of it just decompressing; eating icecream, sleeping, and reading or watching TV or the like.

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

#74

Post by x0x0 »

spydum wrote: post #39
protomyth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"However, the search of personal devices after you've conducted business seems legitimate to me" So, the founder calls your personal cellphone on the weekend and asks a couple of business questions. You come in on Monday and they lawyer points to the clause in your contract. I'm pretty sure reasonable goes out the window. Intent and the words you signed need to match or you can get seriously hosed.

I see your point here. A principled person might refuse to answer the phone, or call back from the business phone, but that is fairly impractical I would admit. My only point here was it seems reasonable for the employer to ask for the world. If it's really worth getting spun up, perhaps you could find out if there is a better version of this boiler plate which respects your privacy. For what it's worth, at my own em…

Using your personal im for work business is a world away from

1 - incidental use of your cellphone for work, even things such as securing work email via 2fa; 2 - using your phone to answer work email via remotely revokable gmail access; 3 - using your personal laptop to answer work email, again via gmail

none of 1-3 mean an employer should get the rights to view my personal email which is also on my phone, or to look inside my phone at all

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

#75

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

jostmey wrote: post #55
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 wonder if tech by and large has lost its focus on important things - curing disease, going to the moon, and all the other impossible goals. Instead, the industry focuses on social networks, business software, ect. Maybe burnout would not be such a problem if there were a true cause to line up behind. It's easy to stop caring about something when its not really worth caring about.

I spent almost two decades writing software that saved peoples' lives. Trust me: after a while, everything becomes "just a job."

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

#76

Post by CardenB »

anhedonisticguy wrote: post #64
CardenB wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I wish people would stop consulting various buzzwords and tech ideals and, instead, suggest OP see a therapist. This sounds like depression to me.

I would caution against calling it depression, which is a set of symptoms classified as a disease and really can only be evaluated by a professional. However, I recently went through a period of anhedonia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anhedonia ), which may be what OP is experiencing. Things that I found that worked: exercise for pleasure (riding my bike!). Connecting with people (one-on-one -- i'd always been part…

I wasn't advising anyone to self diagnose. In fact the opposite. It sounds like depression. See a therapist!

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

#77

Post by lutorm »

rogeryu wrote: post #41
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…

You say you sleep decently. Do you really get enough sleep? Recently I've had the chance to work from home for a longer period - more than a month - and during that time slept longer and better and it made me realise that I really was tired, seriously tired. That's me of course, not you. If work is boring, and different kind of jobs don't help, find something besides work: go running, go dancing, go do a theatre cour…

I want to second what you say about sleep. These days I get plenty of it, and the first thing I notice if I get a night or two of insufficient sleep is a lack of motivation, closely followed by a noticeable drop in cognitive performance.

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

#78

Post by loopdoend »

saalweachter wrote: post #57
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…

Would you describe your problem as a lack of fulfillment ? Personally, I find my day job technically challenging, fun, and often rewarding, but I don't really find it fulfilling in some deep meaningful sense. I feel useful but not meaningful. It took me a while to realize that this was the problem I was having -- and that just switching from software engineering job to software engineering job wasn't going to change…

I think you have hit the nail on the head. I have a successful (very successful, bootstrapped) startup which basically enables marketers to optimize their ad spend and I dont think I realized that this would become my life.

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

#79

Post by jmount »

brightball wrote: post #50

This deserves every ounce of attention that it can get and I definitely know the feeling. I worked about as hard as I could for a little over a year to save a 15 year old company from going under. I was the only developer/infrastructure person because we couldn't hire anybody else since it looked like a sinking ship. I worked 24/7 (with a wife and 2 kids) on this beastly mix of 10 year old Perl and very inexperienced…

I've always said no matter how tough you think you are: never try to do something to somebody that they can't explain to their spouse/partner.

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

#80

Post by Squarel »

xacaxulu wrote: post #49

I remember trying to describe burnout to my step-mom who is French. I kept trying to figure out how to say it in French and she joked that they don't have much of a phrase for it; the just say "le burnout" which I find rather telling. It seems like such an american problem that so many articles like these have to be written.

Would that be because there is less of a culture of presenteeism, and more vacation days, and more time off when sick?
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