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This holds a lot of truth. Look at your friends who are miserable in their jobs. Even when they move to a new job they remain miserable. At some point it become

This holds a lot of truth. Look at your friends who are miserable in their jobs. Even when they move to a new job they remain miserable. At some point it becomes clear that some people are just always miserable. Burnout is a natural result of their personality. For many, proper mental health treatment can reverse the tide and allow them to live happy lives while working.

brightball 5y ago
There’s a lot of wisdom here.
ryandvm 5y ago
As a habitual burnout, there is some truth to this. For me, the solution to wanting to quit whatever job I had after 2 or 3 years turned out to be starting my own consultancy. Controlled burns are sort of built-in to consulting since you end up with a new client every 8 months or so anyway.
groby_b 5y ago
And yet, many companies offer what amounts to an absolutely abusive environments, and it'd be nice if we could stop blaming people for the fact that their places of employment are disaster areas. If you need mental health treatment (that you otherwise wouldn't need) to do your job and not despair? There's a good chance there's something wrong with your job.
- someelephant 5y ago
  Yes, I know many companies are abusive and chaotic. Hopefully those workers are able to seek employment elsewhere even in other countries where workers have more respect if necessary.
JetAlone 5y ago
And sadly there are some people who can't effectively be treated because inside they don't actually want to get better. There is a very good chance that a person miserable at their job could forget about moving to a new job and just quit, have all their needs taken care of to a high standard of living, and still be completely miserable.
- tnzm 5y ago
  How much are we talking about? The chance I mean
  - JetAlone 5y ago
    You know that's a decent question. If I had the time to do some research I'd look at them and point you to a bunch of studies comparing reported levels of mental health among retirees and maybe ideally some insights on how people in the FIRE movement feel after accomplishing their goal and not working anymore. Then you could have the concrete statistics you seem to want. What I'd totally expect to find is that, even moreso than old people retiring and feeling a sense of meaninglessness, people who stop working while they're still in their prime working years will grow listless because we're meant to do more, we're meant to take on challenge, maybe even a sacrifice. That the same inner and outer factors that make us depressed at our jobs are actually just also making us depressed generally and reflect an inner pathology where we view ourselves as hopeless, inferior, lost or stuck. But the info really isn't coming to me at a glance, I don't have time to really do that research, and I don't think I'd be any happier if I did. Unless someone else with the free time and scientific literacy to peruse to a week-old post comes by and contributes the data with a decisive percent chance to this discussion, you either trust my intuition that there's a substantial but hard-to-nail down effect where we're miserable on account of more than our jobs and an unspecified "many" could have all our needs met but still be miserable because you feel what I'm talking about too, or you have your own intuition about the nature of our sense of well-being and work and want to question it. Given a quick glance at your post history you seem like a well-intentioned firebrand of a libertarian who gets downvoted a lot, and I can respect you for that. I 100% sincerely hope you and everyone else on here reading this has an absolutely fantastic day.
pseudalopex 5y ago
My friends have been miserable in their jobs when their jobs have been miserable.
elihu 5y ago
A lot of jobs are miserable; if someone moves to a new job and is also miserable there, I wouldn't assume that the fault lies with the person from a sample size of two. I agree though that for many people their situation could be improved by the assistance of a mental health professional. But that doesn't mean that their problems are all caused internally and aren't to some degree a product of their work environment.
- someelephant 5y ago
  I agree. There are two sides here. Managers with mental health issues (ego / lack of empathy) will make their subordinates miserable. This point also makes me wonder if habitual burnouts are poor at evaluating potential managers during the interview process and as a result end up burning out repeatedly.
  - elihu 5y ago
    Being not very good at evaluating potential managers could be part of it, but also people with less work experience or fewer in-demand skills can't always afford to be choosy about their employer.
BeetleB 5y ago
> Look at your friends who are miserable in their jobs. Even when they move to a new job they remain miserable. Quite the opposite for me. I was miserable in my first job. Not a single day where I wanted to go to work. After 4 years I quit and everyone told me that I need to change my attitude, and that all jobs are like this. They. Were. Completely. Wrong. I was very happy with my next job. My 3rd job sucked (for different reasons). I wasn't anywhere near burnout, but my first two jobs taught me one thing: Life is too short to stay at a job that sucked. I moved on to the 4th job which ended up being awesome. If you're miserable at your job, it may not be you - even if everyone around you thinks it is. This XKCD is very relevant: https://xkcd.com/1768/ https://xkcd.com/1768/

brightball 5y ago

There’s a lot of wisdom here.

ryandvm 5y ago

As a habitual burnout, there is some truth to this. For me, the solution to wanting to quit whatever job I had after 2 or 3 years turned out to be starting my own consultancy. Controlled burns are sort of built-in to consulting since you end up with a new client every 8 months or so anyway.

groby_b 5y ago

And yet, many companies offer what amounts to an absolutely abusive environments, and it'd be nice if we could stop blaming people for the fact that their places of employment are disaster areas. If you need mental health treatment (that you otherwise wouldn't need) to do your job and not despair? There's a good chance there's something wrong with your job.

someelephant 5y ago
Yes, I know many companies are abusive and chaotic. Hopefully those workers are able to seek employment elsewhere even in other countries where workers have more respect if necessary.

JetAlone 5y ago

And sadly there are some people who can't effectively be treated because inside they don't actually want to get better. There is a very good chance that a person miserable at their job could forget about moving to a new job and just quit, have all their needs taken care of to a high standard of living, and still be completely miserable.

tnzm 5y ago
How much are we talking about? The chance I mean
- JetAlone 5y ago
  You know that's a decent question. If I had the time to do some research I'd look at them and point you to a bunch of studies comparing reported levels of mental health among retirees and maybe ideally some insights on how people in the FIRE movement feel after accomplishing their goal and not working anymore. Then you could have the concrete statistics you seem to want. What I'd totally expect to find is that, even moreso than old people retiring and feeling a sense of meaninglessness, people who stop working while they're still in their prime working years will grow listless because we're meant to do more, we're meant to take on challenge, maybe even a sacrifice. That the same inner and outer factors that make us depressed at our jobs are actually just also making us depressed generally and reflect an inner pathology where we view ourselves as hopeless, inferior, lost or stuck. But the info really isn't coming to me at a glance, I don't have time to really do that research, and I don't think I'd be any happier if I did. Unless someone else with the free time and scientific literacy to peruse to a week-old post comes by and contributes the data with a decisive percent chance to this discussion, you either trust my intuition that there's a substantial but hard-to-nail down effect where we're miserable on account of more than our jobs and an unspecified "many" could have all our needs met but still be miserable because you feel what I'm talking about too, or you have your own intuition about the nature of our sense of well-being and work and want to question it. Given a quick glance at your post history you seem like a well-intentioned firebrand of a libertarian who gets downvoted a lot, and I can respect you for that. I 100% sincerely hope you and everyone else on here reading this has an absolutely fantastic day.

pseudalopex 5y ago

My friends have been miserable in their jobs when their jobs have been miserable.

elihu 5y ago

A lot of jobs are miserable; if someone moves to a new job and is also miserable there, I wouldn't assume that the fault lies with the person from a sample size of two. I agree though that for many people their situation could be improved by the assistance of a mental health professional. But that doesn't mean that their problems are all caused internally and aren't to some degree a product of their work environment.

someelephant 5y ago
I agree. There are two sides here. Managers with mental health issues (ego / lack of empathy) will make their subordinates miserable. This point also makes me wonder if habitual burnouts are poor at evaluating potential managers during the interview process and as a result end up burning out repeatedly.
- elihu 5y ago
  Being not very good at evaluating potential managers could be part of it, but also people with less work experience or fewer in-demand skills can't always afford to be choosy about their employer.

BeetleB 5y ago

> Look at your friends who are miserable in their jobs. Even when they move to a new job they remain miserable. Quite the opposite for me. I was miserable in my first job. Not a single day where I wanted to go to work. After 4 years I quit and everyone told me that I need to change my attitude, and that all jobs are like this. They. Were. Completely. Wrong. I was very happy with my next job. My 3rd job sucked (for different reasons). I wasn't anywhere near burnout, but my first two jobs taught me one thing: Life is too short to stay at a job that sucked. I moved on to the 4th job which ended up being awesome. If you're miserable at your job, it may not be you - even if everyone around you thinks it is. This XKCD is very relevant: https://xkcd.com/1768/ https://xkcd.com/1768/