Ask HN: Is burnout possible after only a year? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is burnout possible after only a year?

3 pointsWFHRenaissance3 comments

I've worked as an SRE/DevOps engineer for 3ish years now. In my previous role, the company was smaller and there was a healthy on-call rotation that respected my psychological safety... but the job was boring.

I moved to a company that I'm a lot more interested in, but, my WLB is... not balanced.

I am always on-call for issues, and I have a lot of coworkers who aren't eager to assist, so a lot of things fall onto my plate. It's overwhelming, but I do usually manage to get things done. That being said, lately I've been feeling... burnt out? I am not even sure what burn out feels like, but I feel like I do not have energy or focus to tackle tasks like I used to. I used to be a machine, but nowadays I always feel bogged down.

I guess my question is... is this burnout? OR do I just need to find another role? Or am I having some other issue? Looking for some veterans to opine and maybe make an inference about my situation.

I had a boss that screamed at the engineers on a daily basis and demanded that we work 14 hour days, 7 days per week.

Needless to say, I "burned out" after maybe 3 weeks. Within 2 months, 8 of the 10 engineers left the company (including myself).

What's shitty about the term "burnout" is that it often blames employees for reacting to normal stressors like human beings. Based on your post, it sounds like you're giving your company your best efforts and they're squandering your energy.

I think you should start actively applying to other jobs before you lose the motivation to leave.

> I have a lot of coworkers who aren't eager to assist

Hard to stay engaged when you aren't being recognized and feel like you're on your own.

It's not in the cards that you will be made manager to change things or have your pay doubled to compensate for the environment you're currently in, so I suggest you do look for a different place. The interesting company isn't worth it if your mental health suffers. That recognition thing I mentioned? The way toxic environments work, as soon as you burn out enough that you can't do your job anymore, they just chuck you out the door and replace you with someone else. They don't care about you. You need to care about yourself.

The reward for finishing your work is usually more work. You need to set some boundaries/not "always be on-call" for issues. If you are always on-call your nervous-system can never relax because every phone call is a threat to normal recovery.

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