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First hand experience. As a founder it's terrifying to let people know that you are experiencing debilitating levels of burnout, anxiety and moderate depression

First hand experience. As a founder it's terrifying to let people know that you are experiencing debilitating levels of burnout, anxiety and moderate depression that prevent you from being effective at your job. There are days when you're just sitting there staring at your screen for 10 hours hoping nobody can tell you're checked out. You put on a smile, try to follow the usual routine as a robot, and secretly go to your therapist to try to fix it before someone catches on. I was lucky therapy got me out of it, or at least mostly smoothed it out, in under 6 months.

maxxxxx 9y ago
As a founder you could also set a positive example and say "I can't get anything done today" and take a break. Fixed working hours are one of the biggest problems in a profession like software engineering. On some days you just can't get anything done. It would be better to just take the day off and come back fresh the next day instead of sitting around and pretending that you are working.
- lloeki 9y ago
  Aaaand... over here we just received formal notice (very informally worded) that mandates us to work for certain durations and be present at specified times, and required to log this by any means we see fit, full log being due to management each month. This kind of attitude just sends the wrong message, devaluates everyone's work by subsuming it to mere tallies, and just outright crosses everyone, obliterating trust and turning it into a culture of fear. Turns out quite a bunch of us aren't efficient at all before 10AM because that's how our circadian rhythm is, yet it's viewed as laziness to come mere five minutes late as we're supposed to show up at least an hour earlier, preferably two. Net result, actual work is hardly done during this forced downtime, and reluctantly so afterwards. Everyone is just pretending to comply in order to bridge the impedance mismatch. As a result, everyone gets increasingly tired fighting their natural rhythm, and slowly growing bitter with each day passing as we witness ourselves wasting everyone's time. Software development and engineering is a highly mental, creative process. We are not laying bricks 8 hours a day, we have to find and build new solutions to new problems, one by one. This process cannot be shifted, sliced, rearranged at will because it's not mindless, numbing, robot work.
  - w0rd-driven 9y ago
    This entire post echoes my feelings precisely. My circadian rhythm makes getting ready before 10am a problem, much less making it to the office. I'm currently employed at a place that is relatively completely opposite of requiring a log to be submitted to management. Even so, there is still passive-aggressive chats about being to work on time and the total number of hours per week. Whenever I make myself feel shitty for having a rough time making it into the office I have to remind myself that this isn't a factory position where working 30 more minutes means I produce 5 more widgets. Every single day is a unique work experience where I may work well beyond the time I should leave or I'm hit with all manner of distraction that makes it rough to accomplish anything other than surfing HN. Having (project) management types that have a similar work experience likely should produce a little more empathy than I feel is conveyed by my peers. I have to assume that being primarily driven by meetings and time-delimited tasks makes it difficult to see my perspective, even if there is some venturing into the nebulous side of things.
- TuringNYC 9y ago
  I hope we can differentiate between mental blocks and illness, but if you are in the former category, try switching to different classes of tasks. If you are in the "illness" category, ignore this comment all-together. I do have days where I cant get code done, but luckily there are other things that work well on those days -- like catching up on research paper queues or audit/accounting/cleaning. Accounting/cleaning has a strangely and remedial quality, there is something soothing about getting things to balance perfectly and into order.
intheletter1 9y ago
Uhg, I am in that exact situation right now. I've done the therapy thing in the past, didn't help. Meds in the past seemed to help but hard to isolate them as THE factor that helped me out of a rut. So now I feel out of options. I am so burned out. So much on my plate, so much work to do, and literally not one neuron fires to get me going. My memory and mental function, at an all time low. I gotta believe this just goes away, otherwise I lose my job for sure.
- inetknght 9y ago
  Ya'll are lucky that you can afford therapy. There are many who cannot and whose insurance won't pay for it.
  - AlphaWeaver 9y ago
    I believe that lack of access to mental health care is one of the fundamental problems with modern society.
    - inetknght 9y ago
      I would absolutely concur.
- posixplz 9y ago
  Have you tried various types of therapy or different therapists? In my experience, in order for therapy to be effective, I need to form a kind of trusting relationship or bond with the therapist. There are _many_ different techniques employed in modern therapy; trying different things to find out what works for you is key.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- vorpalhex 9y ago
  Ask for a sabbatical. Take a month (or better yet, three). It will benefit both you and the company. Discuss options here, and whether or not it's paid (or paid partially). It's a hard ask and a really hard conversation to start, but it sounds like you need the time.

maxxxxx 9y ago

As a founder you could also set a positive example and say "I can't get anything done today" and take a break. Fixed working hours are one of the biggest problems in a profession like software engineering. On some days you just can't get anything done. It would be better to just take the day off and come back fresh the next day instead of sitting around and pretending that you are working.

lloeki 9y ago
Aaaand... over here we just received formal notice (very informally worded) that mandates us to work for certain durations and be present at specified times, and required to log this by any means we see fit, full log being due to management each month. This kind of attitude just sends the wrong message, devaluates everyone's work by subsuming it to mere tallies, and just outright crosses everyone, obliterating trust and turning it into a culture of fear. Turns out quite a bunch of us aren't efficient at all before 10AM because that's how our circadian rhythm is, yet it's viewed as laziness to come mere five minutes late as we're supposed to show up at least an hour earlier, preferably two. Net result, actual work is hardly done during this forced downtime, and reluctantly so afterwards. Everyone is just pretending to comply in order to bridge the impedance mismatch. As a result, everyone gets increasingly tired fighting their natural rhythm, and slowly growing bitter with each day passing as we witness ourselves wasting everyone's time. Software development and engineering is a highly mental, creative process. We are not laying bricks 8 hours a day, we have to find and build new solutions to new problems, one by one. This process cannot be shifted, sliced, rearranged at will because it's not mindless, numbing, robot work.
- w0rd-driven 9y ago
  This entire post echoes my feelings precisely. My circadian rhythm makes getting ready before 10am a problem, much less making it to the office. I'm currently employed at a place that is relatively completely opposite of requiring a log to be submitted to management. Even so, there is still passive-aggressive chats about being to work on time and the total number of hours per week. Whenever I make myself feel shitty for having a rough time making it into the office I have to remind myself that this isn't a factory position where working 30 more minutes means I produce 5 more widgets. Every single day is a unique work experience where I may work well beyond the time I should leave or I'm hit with all manner of distraction that makes it rough to accomplish anything other than surfing HN. Having (project) management types that have a similar work experience likely should produce a little more empathy than I feel is conveyed by my peers. I have to assume that being primarily driven by meetings and time-delimited tasks makes it difficult to see my perspective, even if there is some venturing into the nebulous side of things.
TuringNYC 9y ago
I hope we can differentiate between mental blocks and illness, but if you are in the former category, try switching to different classes of tasks. If you are in the "illness" category, ignore this comment all-together. I do have days where I cant get code done, but luckily there are other things that work well on those days -- like catching up on research paper queues or audit/accounting/cleaning. Accounting/cleaning has a strangely and remedial quality, there is something soothing about getting things to balance perfectly and into order.

intheletter1 9y ago

Uhg, I am in that exact situation right now. I've done the therapy thing in the past, didn't help. Meds in the past seemed to help but hard to isolate them as THE factor that helped me out of a rut. So now I feel out of options. I am so burned out. So much on my plate, so much work to do, and literally not one neuron fires to get me going. My memory and mental function, at an all time low. I gotta believe this just goes away, otherwise I lose my job for sure.

inetknght 9y ago
Ya'll are lucky that you can afford therapy. There are many who cannot and whose insurance won't pay for it.
- AlphaWeaver 9y ago
  I believe that lack of access to mental health care is one of the fundamental problems with modern society.
  - inetknght 9y ago
    I would absolutely concur.
posixplz 9y ago
Have you tried various types of therapy or different therapists? In my experience, in order for therapy to be effective, I need to form a kind of trusting relationship or bond with the therapist. There are _many_ different techniques employed in modern therapy; trying different things to find out what works for you is key.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
vorpalhex 9y ago
Ask for a sabbatical. Take a month (or better yet, three). It will benefit both you and the company. Discuss options here, and whether or not it's paid (or paid partially). It's a hard ask and a really hard conversation to start, but it sounds like you need the time.