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Comment by Ancalagon | Hacker News Reader

This is what bothered me so much about my last job. Thank you for saying it so succintly

I think it's one of the prime causes of burnout. Feeling like you have no real control over things, but having immense responsibility anyway. Fighting learned helplessness with an internal taskmaster.

It's not good for the psyche.

The prime cause of burnout is not saying “no” to being pushed to work extra hours.

You do that by being able to communicate about the trade offs between the holy trinity of projects - on time, on budget and meets requirements.

I disagree with this. You can burn out when working less than 40 hours. You can not burn out when working way more than 40. It has a lot more to do with other factors, it's just that those factors will burn you out even quicker if you're working too many hours.

I'm incredibly burnt out currently, and I'm consistently at under 40 hours at my job.

In that case you probably see your job as more than just a paycheck. I go to work for one reason - to exchange my labor for money. The company gets all of my skills and experience during work hours. But when off of work. I’m off of work

If either of us at anytime decides that the labor for money transaction is no longer needed. I get another job.

I've started to think the solution to burnout is to just up and quit your job wherever anyone tries to force you to do anything without a good explanation.

This is obviously not something everyone can do, but if you can, maybe it's worth it.

Well, make them fire you, so that you get severance. And keep a papertrail documenting how you were told over and over to do things that made no sense to the company’s bottom line.

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