Burning Out
polymerist.substack.com
polymerist.substack.com
Time away only helps if burnout is project related (not existential). Switching teams/companies only helps until you find the same situation has arisen in a separate company or context. The problem wasn't them: it was you.
The cure? Figure out what actually matters to you, and learn to treat everything that's not that as a means to that end and no more.
This is far easier said than done. Therapy works wonders. Perhaps even psychedelics. The point is to try new things and be active in your own decisions. The burnout is your brain telling you that whatever it is you're currently doing isn't a sustainable solution for happiness.
(Armchair psychologist here says the author needs to start his own lab. Again: easier said than done.)
I saw this sentence and my amygdala went into overdrive...
> The burnout is your brain telling you that whatever it is you're currently doing isn't a sustainable solution for happiness.
... and now it went to an idle state again.
Well, yeah. Although sometimes just by not being in the same position - completely different social structure even if the job description is identical - can be enough to address the underlying problem. If the problem is something intrinsic to the job then you are right, changing companies won't help at all.
This resonates with the published research on Burnout (mostly Maslach): she argues that the causes of burnout are best understood as mismatch between expectations and workplace reality. E.g. customer support firefighting can be tolerable if you don't expect yourself to be spending time on strategic thinkiing.
However, when burnout has happened, change of perspective / removing causes just won't do (those are preventative solutions). When you've burnt out, it's time for rest.
In a state of severe motivational crisis (true burnout, not the yuppie-flu decline-of-interest that is often given this name), people aren't thinking clearly and are not equipped to do that. At that point, you're in survival mode and you're barely passing at that. Fencing with existential dragons is not going to help.
People burn out for a variety of reasons but--again, if we're talking about true burnout--the cause is usually not just stress but distress: a subtype of stress that is relentless, purposeless, acutely dysphoric, and often imposed by external forces. The problem is that sometimes those external forces are wholly imagined (delusions and hypervigilance brought on by nervous exhaustion) and sometimes they are real and malevolent (such as in the case of the need to work to survive, which is imposed on us by an upper class we lack the organizational capability to remove from power and eliminate) and the burning-out person is never well-equipped to sort out which is the case.
That's one hell of a parenthetical.
Therapist: Have you considered breathing exercises?
cs137: Yes, but I've found that the only long-term solution is to truck the managerial class to the killing fields.
I'm not saying you're wrong, mind.
They've left the world worse off than it was 50 years ago, and they're destroying the planet--and all for nothing, too. The corporate system has to be scrapped before it's too late.
If your work is making you miserable, many of you can literally just stop and reassess your situation. Quit your job, spend the summer fishing and becoming a regular at your local pub. Go to Mexico for a month. The worst thing that can come from a break like that is that you have to explain the gap in your work history in one of best sellers' markets for engineering talent in recent memory.
And the potential upside is that you are able to evaluate your priorities and plot a new course forward that doesn't make you feel trapped or depressed. Maybe it isn't in engineering.
I have many friends who would kill for the opportunity to get off their treadmill and develop themselves and fix things about their career, life situation etc, but they can't because they would literally become destitute. If you're in engineering you very likely have a privilege that a shrinking minority of USians in particular have. Use it.
My vote is for the industry itself that’s driving burnout; not any specific job. One can only go through so many cycles of everyone reinventing the same wheel and having to relearn all one’s skills before just getting completely tired of the uselessness of it all.
Another framework. Another platform. Another language. Many with no real reason to exist other than it just happened to catch on and became the trendy thing.
You can love and be good at technology, and just get exhausted from the useless churn.
I'm currently taking my own advice and fucking off for the summer, about to start a 3000 mile mountain bike tour in a couple weeks. I don't know whether I'll return to engineering. There are infinite ways of living a human life on this planet and I intend to explore some more of them before deciding that an engineering career is really the one that will make me happy.
I think it expresses a hope that finding something new that can engage your interest and energy will make the "joe job" frustrations a little easier to bear perhaps. There's probably other ways to meet that goal, but I dunno if it'll help. Depends on the victim.
Could also shed your worldly possessions and go walkabout for a while. At least it'll give you a different perspective.
Also a comment on this:
> If your worst case scenario is getting laid off then you aren’t being imaginative enough
The worst case scenario is killing myself, is that imaginative enough?
But I also lack imagination because, minus the chemistry part, it happened to someone close to me and it suck...
I'm coming out of a very long period of deep burnout. My breaking point was getting to a point where my burnout caused insomnia, which caused a feedback loop with even more burnout and even more insomnia.
If I hadn't been on a visa I would have quit as soon as I started getting the first symptoms of serious insomnia, and I'd recommend anyone in the same situation who's able to quit to do it. Burnout becomes harder and harder to solve as it becomes worse.
You should try to make this not the case.
Be extremely valuable but a bit unpredictable.
Moderate your lifestyle so you can afford to have options.
I suppose that given enough time in the same role, one would naturally get so comfortable that they can perform their job more or less on autopilot. Combine that with regular raises and I could see how they might be perceived as an expensive employee who doesn't put forth much effort relative to their peers. That would certainly make me worried about being targeted for layoffs. Is that the kind of logic the author is referring to?
Not really. It's sort of like a bell curve. If you have just recently joined you should be expected to be one of the first let out. The idea being that you aren't there long enough to be difficult to replace.
If you have been at a company for a long time, chances are that you have raised in ranks and received corresponding pay raises. Cutting off your position means a more sizable chunk of the budget can be freed (and replaced with less expensive individuals).
The ones in the middle are generally ok-ish. At least, the individual contributors. Middle managers tend to be replaced without a second thought. Senior leadership are more likely to survive, although sometimes they suddenly finding themselves 'pursuing other opportunities' or 'going into a sabbatical' or even 'spending more time with family'.
No-one is irreplaceable. If you are, unless you are in a handful of key positions, then the company has done something wrong.
Actual 'job security' comes from making key decision makers aware of your perceived value, so that they can remove your name from lists. Assuming that they aren't in those lists to begin with. Note that I say 'perceived value' not 'actual value'. You need to be viewed as important and more trouble to replace than it's worth, no matter how true that may be from a purely objective standpoint.
System X is terminated. You are redundant. You are let go.
Your routine of waking every day and going to work, of getting paid every two weeks and spending that pay, is gone.
Instead, have an important hand in many projects. Don't just be tied to X, also do Y and Z and some of G and L. Have so many projects your own boss isn't sure what all you do, just that you do a lot and what you do is important and scary.
Be unpredictable. If you were to be forcibly transferred to a new division, they should be afraid you might leave. If they tried to cut your pay or demand more hours, they should be afraid of that. Fear and unpredictability are often the same thing.
If you were to be terminated tomorrow, you should be in a place where you may go nap on a beach for six months or write a book poorly or take up meditating. The threat of losing your job should sound like a nice relief and not a threat. This requires controlling your money and your money not controlling you - golden handcuffs are real if you let them be.
People on HN are constantly striving to meet metrics, when they should strive to be the ones measured to set them.
No amount of money will ever make you happy if you are forever in the former category.
I'm perfectly happy to live my life outside of work. We can't all be boss babes and we shouldn't all need to be.
Maybe it’s better not to play that game at all.
Maybe it’s totally fine for people to just do their job to earn some money to sustain oneself and focus on other topics that they like.
Seems that’s the way society has been going.
Maybe people in pain have more trouble making good decisions because nuance is harder to appreciate?
Here in Pittsburgh we had the city policy prop up their own candidate, who switched from the Democrats to the Republicans, to run against our new mayor (the first person of color to lead the city since it's founding).
I would advise against "becoming the abuser" in the strongest possible, if not for moral reasons, but because one day someone more skilled than you may show up to teach you a lesson and primary you pals.
I think burning out is normal these days, particularly with the pressure to grow and keep up with an ever changing tech stack.
I'm a big advocate for giving yourself a break because I've seen when you do, there's a refreshing moment that sparks innovation and efficiency. Ebb and flow
Why?
Oh wow. As if the two were mutually exclusive.
You _will fade away_ if you burn out. You won't be able to do anything meaningful, by definition. And it can last for quite a while, sometimes enough to ruin one's career.