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Comment by MontyCarloHall | Hacker News Reader

It really rubs me the wrong way that someone claims to be "burnt out" from a job that probably requires an average of an hour or two a day of non-taxing work. I'd love to see Jason say with a straight face that he's "burnt out" to a minimum wage worker who works 12+ hours days, 7 days a week, or even to your average office drone who spends 8 hours a day pushing TPS reports without any breaks in a soulless cubicle. It just seems really tone deaf and privileged, especially given how much Jason has loved to post about issues regarding privilege as of late.

It's on the level of someone saying they're "malnourished" because they had to give up a daily diet of Michelin Star-level restaurant food.

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I really feel like you're reading too much into the term "burned out". You can get sick of doing anything and lose the spark. I've never managed to do anything consistently for half as long as he's run his blog. It's kind of amazing to me he lasted this long.

I just get the sense that his interest in it is waning, and he doesn't want to just "check the box" every day. It's his right. Just because some people live in terrible conditions, doesn't mean he can't be sick of his job.

I'm curious, would it have bothered you as much if he'd just said: "I'm sick of this blog and I'm quitting it?" because that's basically what he did, except he promised to come back (I wonder if he'll regret that promise in six months).

I agree with everything you wrote. This is the crux of my annoyance:

>I'm curious, would it have bothered you as much if he'd just said: "I'm sick of this blog and I'm quitting it?" because that's basically what he did, except he promised to come back (I wonder if he'll regret that promise in six months).

Yes, this is exactly how he should have phrased it. "Burnt out" is a very strong term that refers to a state of extreme mental anguish induced by an unreasonable and inescapable level of overwork. It feels insulting and sneeringly privileged coming from someone whose job is to surf the internet for a few hours a day and sometimes post about it.

It is as if someone unironically described themselves as "severely clinically depressed" after their favorite sports team lost a game, or someone in the top 1% sincerely calling themselves "impoverished" after a slight cut to their yearly bonus (or the recent bloodbath in the stock market).

I think burnout is unique to an individual, and can simply be bought on by prolonged working on something (anything) that doesn't deliver the results you expect.

If the blog poster expected to be happy, or to have riches for example, and neither occurred at the level they expect (especially now 24 years in) burn out occurs.

Is it possible that running a blog is not as easy as you think?

While I see where you are coming from, that's your definition of "burnt out", but it is not the only valid one, and many obviously don't require the condition to be as extreme as you do for the term to be valid.

I don't know anything about Jason, so I can't make an informed call on whether I think he is overly exaggerating things by using the term.

I do think there is at least a version of "burnt out" that just means you are really tired, because you have put a lot of effort into something for a long period of time, to the point that you are questioning whether it is worth it to you to continue doing it.

However, yeah, some people probably say "I'm so burnt out on 'X'" because they've spent over a half hour on it, and it still isn't done. That doesn't qualify, in my opinion.

You sound burned out.

> Yes, this is exactly how he should have phrased it. "Burnt out" is a very strong term that refers to a state of extreme mental anguish induced by an unreasonable and inescapable level of overwork.

If that's the crux of your objection, we can put this to bed. From Wikipedia:

> According to the World Health Organization (WHO), occupational burnout is a syndrome resulting from chronic work-related stress, with symptoms characterized by "feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and reduced professional efficacy".

So, it's the amount of stress over time, not amount of work per day. He says he's sick of following the news every day to write about it on his blog. I can see how reading the news every day, even when you don't want to, can be stressful. Even if I didn't, the point is that he does.

And I would like to see that minimum wage worker in America say they're "burnt out" to third-world country workers. You would think the old "think about the starving children in Africa" retort would die out by now... Just because things can be worse doesn't mean things aren't bad. Making things better, not worse, should always be the goal.

On the same note suicidal or depressed people can similarly be called privileged, spoiled, or what have you, but that would seriously be tone-deaf.

I got the same feeling.

Wish I had the luxury to tell my boss , hey I'm burnt out, be back in 6 months or so.

The term used to be ennui in this case - but burnout makes you sound more like you’re “one of us” I guess.

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