Hacker News Reader

Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Also important to note – a lot of people correlate burnout strictly with overwork. You could be burned out due to overwork, sure, but you could also be burned out due to not having enough work. Or doing an average amount of work but not finding real meaning in it. Or another reason not directly related to work at all.

If you aren't 100% happy with your situation, and not getting out of bed every morning with a smile on your face, do your best to address it before things get really bad.

View on HN

Yes, this is called "boreout". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreout

TIL. Like, this is the majority of the jobs I've had in the last 20 years. A bit mind blowing that this concept has been written about and studied.

Do people really go to work with a smile on their face?

Yes!

I did for may years after my career change into the high end CAD world.

And more recently I am doing it again working with people I love on a startup (manufacturing related) I believe in.

Yes

I did it on my last job for a year at least. Good project, learning, good direction for the team, etc. (and of course "more important" things like a salary, friends, family, etc was all in balance).

It was not an easy job though, sometimes I was tired, exhausted by the end of the workday. But it felt like being tired after a good exercise session: feeling of accomplishment.

I left the job when the smile disappeared (non-technical reasons). Then I realized that the smile in question was a really important thing to me :-)

I think there's a difference between being 'content' and being 'happy', where happy would lead to a smile, and content is more of a general satisfaction that may not lead to a smile. I would argue that being content is the minimum here rather than necessarily having the smile (but certainly a smile is much stronger and more noticeable of a sign); and that there are many more people who are content going to work than those who go with a smile.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com