Used to think of burn out as a weakling thing, but i have to admit the job doesnt channel the same energy as before. Its become stale, and is starting to feel like a drag. How does burnout present, and what can i do to get things back under control?
you start losing energy because your attention and effort are being thrown around in too many directions, you don’t have enough time to do it all and any feedback mechanisms come to nothing
you’re locked in a frustration/stress spiral and your body and mind will eventually give up or crash
oh and you should have time to rest - at work
when you feel like no matter what you do, it’s not enough
when you don’t care to do better than necessary
when you think negatively about work when you’re not at work
when you stop going outside your own scope of work and start letting shit fall apart because somebody else didn’t do their job or nobody knew whose job it was, and you could have avoided the situation by pointing it out ahead of time
I’ve had a few serious burnouts and anhedonia is a big tell. When I start to lose joy in pretty much everything I know I’ve hit a wall. Someone else in here talked about a sense of dread when you think about work, that’s a clear sign for me too. Exhaustion is common.
I work at a scale-up. It’s a very busy season, and I’m a bit irreplaceable for a critical part of our business. I was close to hitting the wall at the end of last week after three weeks of non-stop getting hit up late at night, and also woken up at night. When putting the kid to bed on Friday I still had three things to wrap up before I could disconnect for the weekend. I slept all Saturday.
I’ve done startups for 16 years and I’ve fallen into the trap of being a hero before. This time I’m building a team that can work without me. This week my #1 is taking over being on-call after a few months of being on the job. I’ve got my notifications off, and he’s the only one I’d pick up the phone for. We’re gonna start looking for a #2 shortly and once he/she is on-boarded we’ll be smooth sailing with only being a hero every third week.
I usually manage to disconnect by just writing down what needs doing the next day. When the wall approaches, you just can’t disconnect enough to rest. You’ll wake up second-guessing if you did that one thing already or not.
You take more time off than you want to. When I began my current job, I was on for 5 days a week. And I ran with that ball for a good year and a half. But, I started to use PTO/PPTO like nobody’s business and I even took hits on my points. I keep skirting at 4.5 points because it’s just not fun and rewarding to do what I do anymore.
When I keep coming in and having to correct people’s mistakes, on top of what I’m assigned to do and how I’m to be someone’s crutch when they aren’t pushing themselves. It’s demoralizing. I haven’t even begun to talk about how many times I’d be complimented for what I do, only for management to turn around and backhand me the moment we have 1 on 1 conversations over concerns about performance. Quick to praise, but quicker to break you down.
How do you get out of it, especially when it’s seasonal. I’m having the hardest time disconnecting, even on vacation.
If you dread Sundays because the next day is Monday. If you find yourself thinking “getting sick for a few days would not be so bad…”. If you just stare at the screen and can no longer focus on the task at hand. If you struggle to fall asleep because you keep thinking about work, and not in a “working through a difficult problem” way. Struggling to wake up in the morning, and when you do, not feeling well-rested. Excessive drinking. Your mind taking you to dark places. Feeling like you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders and if you drop out, things go to shit.
I’m gonna go request Tuesday off right now, fuck this shit.
I feel like another job would just make it worse. I’m so tired, and am a barely functional human these days.
Not saying it’s wrong but there are a lot of mental issues that do exactly this. (firsthand experience)
I’ve been doing most of those since I was in primary school.
My customer changed my on site role and i found myself working on non-designated days to be more productive, due to the role now requiring endless meetings. It sucks and, while i have control about how many days i work a week, my need to fulfill ‘obligation’ sees me trying to make up for the lost time, i.e. lose control over work boundaries.
As a South Australian government salaried employee, that’s basically everyone in my Department
I don’t think I had fully realized how burnt out I really felt until it was too late.
This sounds more like general stress and anxiety rather than “burn out” as I understand it.
I’d disagree, as all the above center on the job. Burnout is causing general stress/anxiety, which are its key indicators.
I’m burning out at work and this is what I noticed is different
Workload: On normal work days my mental state is completely zen. I can enjoy my morning and work through issues in a leisured and still productive pace
I’m burned out now and it feels like I have to juggle dozens of tasks. Be in 8 meetings a day each of which have people demanding answers to issues I have not yet looked at. Every moment of the day I can’t wait until I can go home and just lay down
Recovery:
On normal workdays I have the mental energy to do OT if needed, I could probably do 6 hours of OT (I’ve never done this) and still feel fine the next day
Now that I’m burned out it feels like every weekend is just a small buffer until the churn resumes, I never recover from last week’s work efforts
Irritability/Patience:
On normal work days I’m the guy that picks up new critical issues because I want them fixed, or I’m involved because I don’t get anxious or scared whereas my coworkers might get scared about dealing with high priority and quick resolution issues
Nowadays I’m immediately frustrated that the company could not triage the issue accordingly and everything is “high priority” and yet when we fix things we don’t see resolution from the issuer’s end until weeks after it’s fixed
I don’t know if these answers help you but for me it’s very much about my mental headspace and how Zen/cluttered it feels
This illustrates pretty much what im going through. Its like people complain about everything, yet refuse to make changes that will make everyones life easier. Only because i developed the systems, all the resolution falls on my shoulders. That the boom in data centers led to unprecedented sales has not helped.
For me the irritability and lack of empathy was a big sign I was fully burnt out. I had no stress tolerance.
When you wake up and the first sense you have is dread about having to go do whatever you do. It’s when you can’t imagine doing it anymore or it hurts to consider it.
Are some people just burnt-out starting from day one ?
Yes. Some people are burned out on life before even graduating high school and that feeling never goes away.
You stop caring to argue your point.
Someone does a big presentation.
Back of your head: “Well that’s obviously a terrible idea for X, Y, and Z reasons.”
You keep quiet and let it blow up instead of trying to fix the process as it’s being implemented.
This is my default without burnout.
This. My technical skills have not been replicated across the enterprise, so the weight of expectation is substantial. Not for lack of trying to transfer knowledge on my part, mind you. But there is a gulf between myself and the people around me.
I’m having a manic breakdown lmao
One red flag for me us too much multitasking. If I have too many things I am working on and none of them are getting completed eventually switching between tasks becomes so disruptive I cease to make any progress on anything. I fight this with focus and prioritization: find the things that are most important and focus on them until closure.
Just going to add that burnout is not a weakling thing. Sometimes you’re forced to work with idiots that makes baboons hyperintelligent by comparison. That can drain anyone.
Sorry, not implying it was at all. But i was one of those young able punks at one time, so when people mentioned it in the past, id just pfft it off.
I skimmed this and read baboons as balloons by mistake but honestly I like both.
Imagine your boss comes and fires you. Do you feel that as something bad or as a relief? If is the later, it’s burnout.
Oh yeah, I’m up there now. If my manager disagrees with my performance and thinks I’m not doing enough for the store despite me breaking my ass for them for years. I’d consider that sweet release. I wouldn’t even care how behind on bills I’d get or anything. Long as I’m out of that damn environment.
OP: what you describe, sounds more like a bore-out than a burn-out to me. The result is the same though. Been there.
