Burnout | Hacker News Reader

Burnout

commoncog.com

105 pointsnsoonhui41 comments

This is a really good article on the subject. I like the 6 factor model.

It's really easy to see hours as the only real problem. But they really aren't. Another article I read talked about how people who are constantly ruminating about work but work about 40 hours are at a higher risk for health impacts than those working many more.

I know this personally; I'm currently on a leave of absence because I burned out. And no amount of 'boundaries' around work kept it out of my thoughts all the time.

It really was about the other factors in the six factor model. Values drifting. Loss of control. Worsening relationship with my lead and no real peers to work with.

It would have been very different, even with more work, if I felt like I was part of a team trying to solve problems, rather than trying to put out the latest needless fire my boss created.

Agree, hours have very little to do with burnout, unless your talking about the colloquial burnout which seems to be used as a synonym for fatigued or exhausted.

I've been a workaholic all my life, often working 80 - 100 hours a week for years on end, often in stressful situations. That didn't cause burnout or anything like it.

What ultimately got me was developing a quick but complex POC that became business critical seemingly overnight. Nothing worse than knowing that a hidden bug in something you coded over beers one night could cost 5000 people their jobs in a matter of hours, and having execs want you to move on to the next big idea instead of providing appropriate resources to carefully rewrite and thoroughly test. The depersonalisation such prolonged stress can cause is really hard to convey.

A discussion on burnout here[0] last year called burnout "a kind of unrequited love." I don't know that it's a perfect metaphor, but it's changed the way I approach my attitude and commitment to work. This article touches on that idea under "Prevent Ineffectiveness." The times I've felt most burnt out aren't always when I'm working the hardest, but when I'm working the hardest without getting enough in return. When working on a project I am passionate about or I control, I can work much harder without burnout creeping in.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28307721

My experience is the same. Working hard but always disappointing results. Powerless to instigate what I saw as solutions.

In reflection much of this was due to my agreeable personality and lack of experience. Pushing back is an important skill to learn.

> When working on a project I am passionate about or I control, I can work much harder without burnout creeping in.

For me it was the opposite. I found that comment about burnout as unrequited love after burning out badly this year. I realized that I had been giving my whole soul to this project, loving it like a child, only to recently realize that the company didn't feel the same way towards me.

I've been doing a lot better in the last month because I've been able to refocus my love and passion on my family and keep work where it belongs: a way to provide for my family, nothing more. I still get my work done, but I'm less emotionally invested, and I've been much healthier because of that.

That's a good clarification- passion is good for my own projects, not things run by anyone else. I recently had a similar thing at work, at it's rough. I'm trying to invest less in work as well. But if it's my own project, that no one else can cancel, that's where the passion comes in.

This is actually predicted by the COR developmental model presented in the article. The terminology might be a bit wonky, but the basic idea is that ‘loss’ produces a stress response. In other words, if you passionately pursue a project, only to have management kill the project a year or so later, you’re going to feel ‘loss’ (wonkily defined) and be at risk for burnout past a certain loss threshold.

6-12 months into any job I have had you see it is political, and as a developer you I am the pawn in the game.

The developer is default assumed naive regardless if decades of experience.

Mansplained, cut short, restricted freedom and the constant ticking of some clock that is measuring how fast you can pump out the puzzle solutions.

So I am over it. I avoid burnout by having a simple goal: to be paid every month by someone. I have lost the enthusiasm for the work. I do the work. But I don’t have ideas in the shower anymore.

There are just too few people-oriented leaders in the space and those that are are hamstring by the next level up anyway.

The good thing is it is continuously motivation to build a side business.

One thing that helps me is knowing that as the person actually building it I have the power/final say. You can say no to features or build the features you believe are more important. It’s the pms job to convince you that their priorities are worth it.

I like that power dynamic. Because developers tend to be more “eager to please”.

It really takes a mindset that the business owners trust and confide in technical people rather than seeing them as a paid service to be “karen-ed” (obviously in the modern, ultra polite, we are cool people kinda way) because “customer is right”.

I don't know the exact quote but it goes something like - there is no human issue that is not a political one.

> Marissa Mayer was a former CEO at Yahoo and Vice President at Google (where she was employee number 20). Her days at Google were extremely long, clocking over 130 hours a week. She said “it was a lot of hard work,” and that she pulled “an all-nighter every week.” Although she had to deal with this for her first five years at Google, she was careful to avoid burnout by “finding her rhythm”.

First: That's 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Is it even true? Second: I don't think I want to take advice from that person on how to avoid burnout.

If you were an executive you'd count the time you spent reading this article and writing this comment as work.

Watch some old Mythbusters clips on YouTube? That's sort of engineering, so that's work.

Get drunk with some peers? Work as well.

Went to the gym? That's work, your role is in front of people so you have to be fit. Shopping for new clothes and picking up dry cleaning also counts.

That meeting you attended while commuting in your car that you barely listened to? You guessed it, work.

With podcasts the modern executive can work even while taking a nap.

I'm with you on that. I call bullshit on the 130 hour weeks, for who knows how long. 18 hours a day?!?

I've know people that have done 100 hour weeks, and they were a mess. Only did it a couple of times before they stopped.

Sounds like someone wants to create a mythical story about themselves. Also, from the article. Step 3 just oozes "I'm dominante and I'm the boss, but I will throw you a bone. I mean, c'mon, this stuff just sounds made up:

"Step 3. Grant employees one must-have freedom. When Mayer suspects an employee might burn out, she asks them to find their rhythm. They've come back with, "I need to be home for Tuesday night dinners," or "I need to be on time for my daughter's soccer games." She grants those needs — no exceptions. "You can't have everything you want," Mayer cautions. "But you can have the things that really matter to you. That empowers you to work really hard for a long period of time on something that you're passionate about."

Agreed. That kind of attitude would honestly be kind of pathetic and sad if it didn't also impact other peoples lives. Anyone who thinks they're "granting" time to anyone isn't someone I want to listen to.

Why would anyone take business advice from the person that tanked one (or two if you include Tumblr) of the most well-known brands.

I always assume these things involve picking a peak period, rounding up, rolling in surrounding time (train commute while going through emails, reviewing reports on the couch, etc) and then allowing people to think that was a consistent average. e.g., it was more like 124 hours one week and the rest was 80-100ish. A workload stat doesn't survive in an article unless it's outrageously high or four-hour-work-week low, and even the latter is a redefinition and fabrication too.

I can get by on 5 hours/night sleep and have passages in any given year spending the bulk of a day at the computer, eating at the desk, etc. I enjoy the occasional all-nighter and find them memorable. So I think 18 hours/day of some sort of work isn't difficult for someone if they cope with less than average sleep, treat work as a hobby, have financial incentives or deadlines, etc. For months on end and always at peak productivity, probably not.

Agree, I would love to shadow someone who claims they regularly (and productively) work 90-100+ hr weeks of focused, mentally-taxing labor aka System 2 thinking. Otherwise all of us easily "work" 100-112/wk if we simply limit our downtime and count any sort of order/structure-producing tasks as work.

Finance bros like to whine about their hours but I struggle with the notion that updating an Excel model and/or plowing through market research is mentally taxing beyond the volume of reps. The best tales I've really heard of sustained & taxing performance comes from the the SOF branches of the military, medicine, or game development.

I've only ever met one genuine short sleeper so far who thrived on 3-4/night and was not a caffeine-riddled jack-in-the-box - he had superior physical performance as a gym trainer and there was plenty of evidence he worked the long hours, but his job was not as mentally demanding.

> 18 hours a day, 7 days a week

pure BS from a BS-artist.

Burnout is your body trying to save itself because your conscious brain is killing it.

The solution is not to rest and then resume consuming toxins but to eliminate the toxicity.

In order to do that, you must identify what is killing you.

could you expand a bit more on this? I'm a bit confused. First you're saying the conscious brain is killing your body and burnout is the body's attempt at trying to save itself. Then you seem to imply that it's an external toxin being consumed and you have to consciously identify it and stop consuming it?

I interpreted toxin and toxicity as a metaphor for whatever you were doing that was burning you out.

Yes. Toxicity was meant figuratively. Another way to put it is…

Burnout is your subconscious mind highjacking your body bc whatever you’re putting your efforts into isn’t worth it at a baser needs level.

Stress can have many causes, but at the root of it, stress is mediated by the brain. The brain tells the body to be on high alert, it does this by mediating hormonal responses.

Stress is good in certain situations: if you are being chased by a lion your body doesn't need to worry about hunger, your blood needs to go into your muscles, etc. These are typical signs of the stress response: loss of appetite, libido, tense muscles, loss of sleep. There are a group of molecules that are extremely important in putting your body in stress mode, these are cortisols.

Your brain is capable of putting your body in stress mode at any point, in fact, if you measure cortisol levels on people who are struggling with depression in most cases you see very elevated levels of this hormone. It's literally your brain telling your body they are in danger.

Now, if you are working so much you become stressed then your body will suffer and eventually your body will not be capable of dealing with being on "high alert" for so long that it will quite literally shut down. That is burn out, if your work is making you stressed then your work is becoming poison. If you stop drinking poison then your mind will go back to a normal functioning state and the stress will go down.

It's also useful to note that stress in the brain also in some cases increases neural activity which increases oxygen needs by the brain as well as electrolyte needs by the brain. The increase in oxygen usage increases strain on the heart and can indirectly cause heart disease/heart attack. The increased consumption of electrolytes if not carefully managed can cause strokes. Especially in that latter case, burnout that results in a stroke is a very literal burnout, the brain has electrically burnt too hot/bright and the resulting damage is very real and very scary.

I’m really curious about the history of the concept of burnout (does it emerge only in the 21st. century? can we trace its origins back to other notions?) and the geographical distribution of the concept (is it only something that happens to Americans?)

To me, it feels like another classic American response to what is ultimately a systems problem: you’re experiencing burnout? that’s too bad! don’t change the system, it’s your problem after all. Just fix your own burnout.

The same move was pulled re: climate change, where several parties tried to put the onus on individual consumers rather than the massive systems that were actually the root cause of the persistent problems.

So yes, if the system doesn’t change and we continue to be ok with exploitative capitalism and the “always on nature” of networked existence, burnout will forever be with us.

Give Bartleby, the Scrivener a read sometime and it'll probably ring a few bells. That's Herman Melville so mid 19th century.

Try this: Write down (yes write down) what is important to you in life. The things that make you happy. Only write down what actually makes you happy. Being rich for example isn’t it. Money is an important tool but not a goal in itself. However it might be that being wealthy will enable you to do more of X which makes you happy. So write down X not “being wealthy/rich”.

When you are done, use this as your “life strategy”. Ask what you need to change in life to better follow your life strategy. When anything brings you down, ask if it in anyway impact your life strategy. If not then realise that it isn’t important and carry on.

I did this myself years ago and it was a life changer. It gave me clear guidance and clarity to make decisions in life and to properly filter out things that aren’t important to me.

You’re only here once, why not make it as interesting as possible? As long as it’s moral, ethical, in-the-lines, be maximally weird? Idk it doesn’t work out most acutely but when it does it’s zesty.

Any tips on recovering from this in relationships/dating?

Yes ! If it's about trust issue, then no way to recover. If it's not about trust, then just go travelling and sharing. Sharing is the key here.

I've seen in my experience that it's possible to rebuild trust, maybe not easy but possible. When I find that I start to distrust someone or we both distrust each other, sometimes I will try to open up even more about how I'm feeling, especially about sadness or shame or some more vulnerable things. And then I try to think about how they might be feeling on a much deeper level. While I can't control whether the other person starts to trust me more, these two steps often help me trust them a lot more.

But maybe this is what you meant by sharing. Also yes I love traveling for giving space to reflect.

I didn't fully read the article, so maybe something I there talks about this or the ineffectiveness of this, however, what I find the most helpful is simple: tell the truth about how you are actually feeling.

I think so much of burnout and resentment/cynicism in general but especially in romantic situations is paying more attention to what the other person is feeling than how we are feeling. And that in many micro conflicts, we don't say how we're feeling, such as saying yes to someone when we want to say no, agreeing when we want to disagree, and more.

If you give more specifics on the situation, I'd love to give more suggestions on what has worked for me. If not, I understand and I'll stick with being more honest with myself and others about how I'm feeling has helped me a lot.

Roll the dice and hope you find a good therapist in your area who clicks with your style

Breakup/Divorce

From the article:

  The only thing that works is to remove yourself from the environment that is causing burnout, and then taking the time off to recover. The good news is that recovery is guaranteed.

Ideally you have some heat sink/oscillation analogy instead of just replacing damaged parts every time. A lot of families were strained during lockdown as they were all forced to sit together 24/7.

Well, it says remove yourself from the environment.

I did hit a point when dating where I asked my gf to leave me alone for a bit. She didn't take it well, but sometimes you have to do it. Often one person needs it more than the other.

In marriage, both of you need a little me time. Every now and then, my wife goes to the movies alone, while I play with the kids at the playground. This is especially likely when someone takes the share of work, especially homemakers. If you're doing the same work 7 days/week, you're bound to get burnt out.

I sympathise, but why 7? Obviously not all roles can be exchanged, being in parental leave, I found switching some of the roles for 2 days can be relieving.

Because not all roles can be exchanged. Some of it is bad delegation, some of it is just the kids insisting that a certain parent do it, and sometimes it's just biology (breastfeeding).

Also something along the lines of dad cooking pizza, pasta, and oats, while mom cooks the real food. Generally, they want the real food every day.

Removing yourself from the problem environment remains important. IME, in relationships, there can be different levels of this, all of which are important. E.g., as a parent:

- Breaking out of the regular environment with the whole family (e.g., family vacations or “staycations”)

- Breaking out of the regular environment as a couple (date nights, etc.)

- Breaking out of the regular environment individually.

“Engagement with the external social environment/self-care balance” is important, even in contexts where the more catchy name “work/life balance” isn't the right description.

While unwinding, destressing, etc. is a big part of the value of breaks, part of it is getting so e time/distance to reflect/assess and diagnose things that aren't working, individually and collectively, and collaborate on fixes.

I've written about how to quantify burnout - https://leadership.garden/quantifying-burnout/

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