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Burnout

kristinn.ghost.io

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Re: Burnout

#81

Post by objectified »

agentultra wrote: post #62

My theory is that "burnout" is a symptom of the endemic "hero" meme of our culture. Think about all the movies you've seen since the 1980s, the shows you've watched, the books you've read. Embedded in the majority of them is the simple idea that there's something special inside you that can set you apart from everyone else. It whispers seductively to that part of your brain that lies to you about how important you ar…

While reading your great comment, I was hoping you'd continue explaining where these desires and ambitions would come from, and why they can cause burnout. But yes, people will have to figure that out for themselves. I've found that the patterns you describe come very close to conversations I've been having with people about playing music (which I've been doing intensively for quite a while now):

I hear a lot of people "wanting to play guitar", or "wishing they could play like ". I often ask them whether they want to a) be seen as a great guitarist, or b) actually play guitar. There's a big difference between a and b. A revolves around the idea that you "are" something, and often, where others can see you as being something. B is about actually enjoying to play guitar, for no other reason than playing guitar. No recognition, no fame, no secondary intentions.

Everything you invest large amounts of time in should come from nothing but enjoying that thing you do in itself. But it's not easy. Motivations always get distorted by psychological influences (and that's what you meant by the last line of your comment, if I understood it correctly). There are many people who haven't received much validation or acceptance on a personal level while growing up, for instance. These people will keep reaching, but they'll never reach actual self acceptance. Burnout.

It's really important to confront yourself with issues that you can identify inside yourself, and keep (re)defining yourself. Not what you do, but who you are. What you do should be a consequence of who you are, not a reaction to personal shortcomings you're not looking in the eye directly.

I'm not a psychologist, this is just my take on things.

Re: Burnout

#82

Post by thewarrior »

petitev wrote: post #78
thewarrior wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your theory explains half the story , atleast in my case. Programming is getting increasingly competitive and so some of the anxiety is motivated by worries about my future job security. There has never been a better time to be born as a driven and prodigious individual. There are lots of young kids today leveraging technology produce music, code , draw and animate all through the power of the internet. Eg: Today I w…

I was one of those 12 year olds hanging out on usenet and slashdot about 15 years ago. I was exposed to technology, computational/mathematical language/jargon, the social pressures of continual growth and development, and so on, at a very young age, and it is most certainly a part of my core identity. I still burnt out. I was working on my PhD in computer security and it took me 2 years to recover from 8 years of str…

Thanks for sharing your story. I can understand what you're talking about. It isn't easy but eventually you just learn to accept it.

Re: Burnout

#83

Post by jtbigwoo »

jwmoz wrote: post #54

I got burnt out on a contract a few years ago, was a horrible feeling, continually tired and falling asleep, no enthusiasm for the role. Switched to a different contract and halved my commuting time and turned into a different person. Now when I finish work I'm out of here, no more coding or hacking at home, instead, I train at the gym or go out for food or more recently chill a lot.

I've discovered that a commute over 30 minutes, even to an interesting job, just destroys my ambition both at work and for an hour or two after work.

Re: Burnout

#84

Post by gauravpandey »

beebs93 wrote: post #43
goalieca wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I find that instead of reading about tech and trying little hobby things at home, I'm better off trying to fit that into my work somehow. Even a full 8 hours of programming 5 days in a row can be enough to mentally drain you if you're actually working the whole time.

Excellent point. If you find yourself at a job where they discourage programmers from reading tech blogs once in a while then RUN. FOR. YOUR. F KING. LIFE.

What if someone likes blogs to become entrepreneur more?

Re: Burnout

#85

Post by badman_ting »

quaffapint wrote: post #50

I've got a crappy dev job that I've been in for over a decade that only gets worse with less pay. I don't bring home enough money and have my family living paycheck to paycheck. I stress over it and keep trying side stuff to bring in more, which mostly fail. I'm working hard right now trying to get this next side project out the door in the next month. I'm in my 40s and no one in the area has raised their dev salarie…

Jesus, that is my absolute nightmare.

Re: Burnout

#86

Post by enjo »

tracker1 wrote: post #64
jshen wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you in a big city? All the devs I know make good money, and their salaries have been steadily rising for over a decade. Also, all the devs I know can get a new job in a week or so. Then I hear stories like yours and wonder what the difference is. Maybe location?

Location has a lot to do with it... It also factors in heavily with cost of living differences, and quality of life for a single guy vs. a family. I'm in Phoenix, which has a lot of developer work, though most of it is fairly boring line of business stuff. Compared to say San Francisco, which has a little more developer work, but the pay is the same or not enough more for most positions I've looked at and the cost of…

WeWorkRemotely.com

Re: Burnout

#87

Post by michaeleloftis »

gamegoblin wrote: post #65
agentultra wrote: post #62

My theory is that "burnout" is a symptom of the endemic "hero" meme of our culture. Think about all the movies you've seen since the 1980s, the shows you've watched, the books you've read. Embedded in the majority of them is the simple idea that there's something special inside you that can set you apart from everyone else. It whispers seductively to that part of your brain that lies to you about how important you ar…

Hanging out on sites like this definitely doesn't help. In every thread it seems like there is someone who is a perfect expert on whatever being discussed. Need to diagnose a problem in a defunct modem using only an oscilloscope? Someone can. Strange behavior of the JVM? Oh, someone has implemented their own JVM on a 4kb machine as a hobby project. Then you get username delineation and there is this idea of some abst…

One of the things to keep in mind is that the guy who can implement the JVM, the girl who debugs modems, and the dude who has a PhD in theoretical physics, are (usually) all different people. Sites like this are good at surfacing the expert in threads, so that you spend time seeing people at their best. It looks like everyone is brilliant in everything, but in fact what is really happening is that many people are brilliant in their domain.

Re: Burnout

#88

Post by thewarrior »

michaeleloftis wrote: post #87
gamegoblin wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hanging out on sites like this definitely doesn't help. In every thread it seems like there is someone who is a perfect expert on whatever being discussed. Need to diagnose a problem in a defunct modem using only an oscilloscope? Someone can. Strange behavior of the JVM? Oh, someone has implemented their own JVM on a 4kb machine as a hobby project. Then you get username delineation and there is this idea of some abst…

One of the things to keep in mind is that the guy who can implement the JVM, the girl who debugs modems, and the dude who has a PhD in theoretical physics, are (usually) all different people. Sites like this are good at surfacing the expert in threads, so that you spend time seeing people at their best. It looks like everyone is brilliant in everything, but in fact what is really happening is that many people are bri…

If I could be atleast half as good as some of the people on here in even a single domain that'd be great ;-)

Re: Burnout

#89

Post by talmir »

dkhenry wrote: post #59

I am not happy doing nothing. I don't understand how you can be do content just "chilling". Now don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with recreation and spending time with your family, there isn't even anything wrong with doing nothing, if its for a purpose, but just wasting time because you can is a waste of time. You should be optimizing your time to get the most value out of it. Maybe I am just odd, but I wou…

Talk about taking every single word I wrote literally :) Thats ok.

I do regularly work on side projects. But being 100% productive 100% of the time, in my mind, is not healty. This is my personal opinion.

The assumption you make about your vocation being your passion and for me it being just to pay the bills could not be more wrong. I have been a coder all my life. It is my job now and will continue to be as well as my passion. I will continue improving and working on all kinds of things.

The difference is that I allow myself some breathing room to be a person, not just a machine, on a regular basis.

Re: Burnout

#90

Post by quaffapint »

jshen wrote: post #53
quaffapint wrote: post #50

I've got a crappy dev job that I've been in for over a decade that only gets worse with less pay. I don't bring home enough money and have my family living paycheck to paycheck. I stress over it and keep trying side stuff to bring in more, which mostly fail. I'm working hard right now trying to get this next side project out the door in the next month. I'm in my 40s and no one in the area has raised their dev salarie…

are you in a big city? All the devs I know make good money, and their salaries have been steadily rising for over a decade. Also, all the devs I know can get a new job in a week or so. Then I hear stories like yours and wonder what the difference is. Maybe location?

It is most certainly location dependent. I'm in a standard suburb in the mid-Atlantic region (it's pretty much all the same, just different cities). I would be destitute if we lived in San Francisco.

It's a very interesting, albeit depressing, time to be a dev around here. Jobs are plentiful - I get contacted by recruiters all the time. The difference is they are offering senior devs what they offered junior devs way back when. It doesn't seem to be language or such dependent, I'm seeing the same thing in all the big corporate level and startup level languages. I used to be able to move jobs and easily get more money, not since the downturn. I guess companies decided they don't need to pay us what they used to (which was still just national average) and are sticking with that.

We don't go on any big vacations, we don't go out to dinner, our cars are old, I have a pre-paid cell phone, and I'm typing this on my 8 year old home built computer. The point being, I know what I need my salary minimum to be, and I'm really below that minimum now all too often (ie, come saving for property taxes). If I was single, maybe I'd move somewhere, but it's not really an option now with the kids in a good school.

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