I’ve mostly let go of those feelings though. My conclusion after working outside of tech and rebuilding my life is that I just didn’t have the constitution to play the corporate game. More power to those who can though.
I do similar work in my day job and consulting. I'm very fresh and optimistic during consulting hours, but dread going into the office. I'm genuinely burnt out and just don't give a flying fuck anymore, I don't sleep, and I've been more sick in the last month than ever in my life.
The only difference is that one comes with politics and one doesn't.
Totally agree. It’s not the stress of doing something new and just trying to figure it all out that’s stressful. That’s actually fun. It’s the arbitrary adjusting of priorities and putting tasks in hold to start some harebrained idea that ultimately gets tossed or proves to not work out that becomes tiresome. Then shit rolls down hill and people want to know why the paused project isn’t completed and assigns blame to the dev rather than piss poor management.
No. I’m not bitter
General pattern is that certain people in the level(s) above you are fighting for influence to impress the levels above, and critically, are willing to use the levels below in order to achieve their personal goals (organizational goals are secondary, at best). Unless leadership is unusually adept at punishing the first signs of this behavior, it quickly becomes pathological. Every level gets infected, and before long your org has all of the backstabbing drama one might associate with an imperial court. In times of growth it's painful enough, but in times of limited resources, it's pure bloodsport.
There are people who can effectively detect and push back on the behavior, but they seem to be rare, and even more rarely make it into positions of influence. My theory is that it's so exhausting to be sensitive to the drama that you can only make it to the top if you combine it with a big dose of sociopathy. You also see it a lot at startups, because the founders are typically young, arrogant and have no experience managing anyone. By the time they realize they've hired a toxic exec layer, it's too late.
You know, from all the talk about agile one would think people would remember the one central value from the manifesto that gave the name for the thing...
My company has fixed date releases with architecture proposals before a feature and predefined requirements for the whole release, but no no it's scrum because we have useless meetings every 2 weeks. I just don't understand why they care so much about pretending we're doing agile.
It's not primarily about expending too much energy, but rather about expending energy in a way that appears futile relative to an ambitious standard set for oneself.
Just my personal observation, but dovetails well with the learned helplessness theory of depression.
I used to get burnt out at work all the time, but that really hasn't been the case for the last 5 years. The biggest difference is that I'm I'm in charge now. When I say something is going to take X amount of time or that we have to do things in a certain way, management doesn't argue with me anymore. They just accept that is the way it is, because I'm the one in charge of this area of work.
I haven't changed. I still take too long to finish ostensibly "simple" things because I've nerd-sniped myself [0] into over-engineering things. What has changed is my relationship to the management class. They see me as one of them, now, and that confers a level of respect that is, frankly, enraging when you consider the lack of it in the obverse situation. But, I can make things my way and I can protect my team and that's enough.
And a lot of management bravado is from fear and ignorance of how the work is actually done and their ego gets in the way of curiosity.
So then there is a good chance you are not in favor when promoted in to their circle because they can feel threatened.
Now, 40% of my time is alone in isolation, working at home. Collaboration and design work happen in documents at best and not in social conversation like it used it.
All of this is making work a chore, "for me". Instead of work being an opportunity to hang out with people I like it's just a list of things to do alone.
If you know you were getting all your social needs met at work, and now you don't, the companies that have moved back to the office should be a godsend for you. So why don't you just change jobs?
You will get hurt and you will be tossed aside with great prejudice.
I found it uncomfortable.
I thought it was a nice bit of irony. At work there's so much play-acting but all in a serious tone.