11 ms·

Burnout from an Organizational Perspective

198 points by rustoo 5y ago

cratermoon 5y ago
The pickles/vinegar analogy is vivid. Certainly when I have been burnt out it's fair to say I was well-pickled.
w0mbat 5y ago
The article actually doesn’t tell the true horror of the situation which is this: Companies burn out employees and then deal with the consequences by firing them or bullying them into quitting. Employees lie about how their last job ended and limp into the next one, using the unemployment gap to recover as best they can.
- fsociety 5y ago
  +1 so true. Even companies with good intentions can tend to lead employees to burnout.
- bradleyjg 5y ago
  Companies that use the: recruit a lot of people, burn out most, rinse and repeat strategy are fairly easy to identify. As an employee you should have your eyes open about this but it’s not necessarily the case that they should be avoided at all costs. Properly used, time at one of these companies can change the trajectory of your career. Depending on where you are in life that can be worth it. Having a time boxed plan makes it more likely you can survive the experience with your health and sanity intact.
  - StandardFuture 5y ago
    But, we as a community should get better at calling these companies out publicly. Especially if they show up in a comment on the monthly hiring post. Don't let your fellow engineers get burnt. More community cooperation in this regard would go a long way.
    - Retric 5y ago
      You don’t need to go public, companies that relying on burning people out simply deserve zero respect from their employees. Remember as critical as everything seems it’s no longer your problem once you move on. Sure, moving on to your next job might seem to be leaving them in a lurch, but lack of redundancy isn’t your problem. PS: The best thing you can do for your teammates in that situation is convince them to find a better job.
    - xf1cf 5y ago
      Cancel culture doesn't have to be used for everything (and IMO should not be used for _anything_). Mob justice won't fix the company, and if the company is big enough (perhaps some SV companies who shall not be named), it won't have any real effect. Burnout is often an acceptable "work hazard" for the CV reputation gained. A good parallel to this is finance where burnout is practically built into the program. Medicine also crosses my mind when thinking of fields where burning yourself out could, counter-intuitively, be considered highly beneficial as a long term play. Outlets for this already exist in the form of Glassdoor but much like every other review service once it reaches scales the usefulness of the reviews falls precipitously. You also open yourself up to libel claims. Assuming your canceling actually works I would not be surprised if the company spent significant effort to take you to court and financially ruin you. Even more so if the accusations aren't entirely true (perhaps it's just one division and not the entire company). Instead, it's probably more useful to _train_ people to notice these things and ascertain the risks. Burnout can often be worth it if the net-gain-after-burnout improves your prospects to advance in your field, confers a pedigree, or any other number of small things. Returning to the finance example this is certainly why people risk it. At the end of the day, in the US at least, a little over half of the states in the union are right-to-work. This is the safety valve for companies who deliberately churn employees - just leave. Ideally after you've already lined up a new gig in your field.
  - lordnacho 5y ago
    Easy to identify? What are the signs, save for things you could only be told by a friend on the inside?
    - bradleyjg 5y ago
      High turnover, especially if there’s a big peak at 2-3 years of experience. For mid-career professionals, you should be able to tell this from your second or third degree network on LinkedIn or similar. For students, you should be suspicious of any company that’s hiring a lot of fresh grads unless they are gigantic (in which case, consult the alumni whisper network).
      - zikduruqe 5y ago
        Cerner in KC is like that. Grab all the college grads, burn them to death for 3 to 4 years, cull the herd. https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/cerner-layoffs-part-of-reorganization-spokesperson-says https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/cerner-layoffs-part-of-... Here is example of the culture: https://www.bizcominthenews.com/files/cerner-1.pdf https://www.bizcominthenews.com/files/cerner-1.pdf
        mistrial9 5y ago
        that would be from then-CEO Neal Patterson, from Wikipedia : Patterson is infamous for an email[7] scolding managers for not coming to work before 8 am and leaving before 5 pm, now a prominent example used when discussing email netiquette. On the day that the email was posted to Yahoo!, the company's market cap fell by over 22%[8] from a high of US$1.5 billion.[9] [7] "BBC News - AMERICAS - Boss's e-mail bites back". BBC. Archived from the original on February 8, 2009. [8] .. [9] Flynn, Nancy; Kahn, Randolph (2003). E-mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-mail and Digital Communication. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. p. 45. ISBN 9780814471883. netiquette. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Patterson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Patterson
      - xf1cf 5y ago
        This is highly sector dependent. I've worked at startups for almost my entire career and a big peak of leaving engineers at 2-3 years wouldn't even cause me any concern. In the 10 years in industry I've worked I'd argue the average engineer leaves around the 5 year mark. This typically coincides with a failed seed round or reaching a terminal title (senior, staff, etc) and not being able to go further. The fresh grads case is a good point. The one company I left fairly quickly was almost entirely powered by intern/junior labor. Seniors left quickly due to a combination of bad management, low advancement opportunities, and constantly having to re-train people. This, I think, is worth looking out for.
  - hinkley 5y ago
    I was working at such a place when the 2008 recession happened. That was brutal. I still have health issues from that experience. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Your plans to get out quick may run into economic epicycles and then your clever plan ain’t so clever.
    - 0x4a42 5y ago
      I had a similar experience at the same time.
    - ardit33 5y ago
      Yup.... for me it was Amazon. And I was in H-1B back then, so I just put it up with it for a while, until the economy improved. The company had such a weird culture. It was pretty stressful. The most insidious thing they did was delay the green card application as much as they could, and just drag things out on purpose. Since I am Albanian/European, I could get it faster as my country is not on the per country cap that Indian and Chinese applicants are. They knew it, as they kept dragging out the first stages of the applications on everything. It was mental abuse. By 2011, the economy was recovering, and I did switch, but I had to redo all the green card application stuff again.
      - mavelikara 5y ago
        Not many realize this, but having the green card process drag out long has a detrimental effect on the whole job market, not just for the specific immigrant.
        ardit33 5y ago
        Yes, It creates serfs/indentured servitude. Both the H1B visa and GC application should belong to the worker/applicant, with conditions (as long as they are employed with the given salary, pay taxes, etc...). The employee should just be able to do the process themselves, and handle it the papers with their own lawyer. It is clear that the H1B is setup to maximize the benefits to large corps, and not necessary the american economy/people.
  - w0mbat 5y ago
    Easy to indentify because it's all of them. Not everyone burns out at every company and some people really do switch for a better opportunity, but burnout is very common and is everywhere.
  - eyelidlessness 5y ago
    This is tricky. I don’t necessarily disagree, but evaluating these things can be more difficult for some people. For me, it’s very easy for me to get attached because I care about some combination of the problem and the team. I’ve had some major wins improving things in those cases, but I’ve also had some major losses. And it’s very difficult for me to recognize burnout symptoms until they’re severe enough to require extensive recovery time. Sure, the idea of timeboxing could be useful, but I could also just let that slide given my motivation to improve things. In the end, it’s not worth it to me anymore to put myself in that situation.
  - AlexCoventry 5y ago
    > Companies that use the: recruit a lot of people, burn out most, rinse and repeat strategy are fairly easy to identify. How?
  - georgeecollins 5y ago
    There is a lot of reporting about companies in two areas I am familiar with: video games and entertainment. Both industries are aware that there are a lot of young people really desperate to break into them. Not all companies take advantage of that, but many do. Some game companies that have only really young workers below senior management and explain this by saying older people don't get what they are doing. They say it quietly, and indirectly because it opens them up to discrimination lawsuits. But what it really means is experienced people aren't putting up with something about the company.. the hours, the management, something. And unfortunately this does not really seem to be an impediment to their success.
  - lugged 5y ago
    I suspect Netflix is one of these companies. I'd love to work there but I struggle to justify the burnout that will result i'm not 20 anymore.
  - toomanybeersies 5y ago
    Maybe I'm strange, but the idea of starting a new job with the intention of quitting doesn't sit right with me. To me, that would be like getting married with the intention of getting a divorce. I know that realistically, I'm probably going to find a different job at some point, but it's always been a natural progression and not a planned movement.
    - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
      So every job acceptance has to be accompanied by a lifetime commitment? That sounds even stranger.
      - toomanybeersies 5y ago
        Maybe marriage wasn't a good simile... I've never started a job thinking "I'm going to work here for X years, and then quit (for Y reason)". I've also never started a job expecting to work there for the rest of my career, although I would be happy if it was a good job and I did. I might end up quitting my current job after a year or two, I might be here 10 years, maybe I'll leave in a casket. I don't have a set date for when I'll quit. My father has had the same job for over 40 years. He's had different roles (originally a telecommunications rigger, now a network engineer) and worked for different companies (buyouts etc.), but he's never actually had to apply for a new job. He's enjoyed his work and had a good career. I guess there's not many jobs like that these days though.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  I can attest to this from experience. What’s shocking is that I’ve even seen such a company deliberately ignore my mitigation requests, only to fulfill them in my wake when I gave notice. And it’s not as if my work wasn’t valued, I had just been given a rather significant raise a couple months earlier. As far as I could tell, they were happy to throw money at extracting every bit of value out of me until I was completely empty.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  I wonder just how prevalent the pattern of a perpetually burnt-put employee shuffling to job to job like this is. I imagine that some of them simply need a year off away from the world or a lucky break with a good employer to get back into peak form. However, my suspicion is that the majority of them are simply not cut out for the field but insist on staying in because they believe, correctly or not, that it’s the only kind of job that can give worthwhile pay. (Edit to add) It’s also why I roll my eyes so hard at most of the standard suite of job interview questions. When there is a known and obvious correct answer, all it does is filter out candidates who are too honest to lie, too stupid to know you’re supposed to lie, and candidates who cannot confidently sell a lie.
  - dheera 5y ago
    > simply need a year off away from the world It's actually really hard (mentally) to do this if you don't already have a shitton of savings in the bank that you're not worried about paying rent, and aren't worried about getting a new job. For a lot of people it's harder than it sounds. But yes, gap years would be amazing. Another thing I wish was more encouraged is part-time work. Working for a year at maybe 20 hours a week would probably pay all living expenses while you have plenty of space and time to recover and time to spend in the wilderness or beach or whatever strikes your fancy. Everyone seems to want to shovel you in as a full-time employee, and part-time seems to be looked down upon more than it should as a transition and recovery tool.
    - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
      Part-time employment should also be a key to any discussion on preventing mass unemployment due to automation. Rather than have high-paid salary jobs for the few and UBI for everyone else, normalize part-time work and keep keep more people actively engaged in the economy.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - ipaddr 5y ago
dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago
Having gone through two of these (one shorter and the recent one much larger), I think the best thing anyone can do for themselves is make a "break glass in case of burnout" plan where they save up margin during the good times so that when the famine hits part of the stress isn't the painted-in-corner feeling of "I need a break but have no margin to take one" Ultimately the answer is always simple and involves protracted rest - deload, de-stress as much as possible, and recover. 6 months preferred, but 12 months for major crisis' is nice to have in your back pocket.
- instance 5y ago
  A very good point. Having the freedom to quit at any time without completely jeopardizing one's finances is liberating.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I was talking with a friend about this the other week. Fairly close to retirement, I gather financially comfortable, and they like where they are but they're also in sort of an unusual position and have been through a couple of organizational changes. I was struck when they told me they felt really liberated because they could honestly tell managers when various shuffling was going on that, if it made more sense for them to go somewhere else, they were perfectly cool with that.
- hawk_ 5y ago
  somehow that's judged by paper pushers, bean counters and hr. how do you answer questions on gaps in your CV?
  - tomjakubowski 5y ago
    You were working as an independent consultant.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I'm not even sure you need to pretend you were working. Especially mid-career, taking 6 to 12 months off to consider your options, do some learning, etc. isn't something I would think twice about as an employer.
mkl95 5y ago
The bus factor has a lot to do with this imo. Every startup I have worked for lets middle managers hold a ton of information and power. Middle managers at companies with a high turnover rate tend not to trust engineers too much if at all, and startups usually have high turnover rates. This results in toxic relationships between engineers and managers. It's hard to get motivated at work when someone is -virtually or literally- looking over your shoulder all the time, second guessing everything you do, and delaying processes by withholding technical knowledge. In some cases, this ultimately results in what I call the "empty desk syndrome". This is when you visit your new employer's offices, and most desks are empty because a wave of employees just left or was fired. The cycle repeats indefinitely, with you becoming part of the next wave.
philmcp 5y ago
The best way to deal with burn out is to start offering a 4 day week imo. I recently launched https://4dayweek.io https://4dayweek.io to help normalise this - Software jobs with a better work / life balance
- flatline 5y ago
  I find that about a 30-35 hour work week is ideal for me. I have kids, a house, a social life, juggling all of that is challenging and working straight 8-10 hour days just leaves everything else to fall out in the mix. Even though I didn’t like working from home all day every day, the pandemic added some slack to the 40 hour work week. I wish I could get that slack back while being in the office, because I do believe there is a productivity multiplier to being in person.
- imhoguy 5y ago
  I would take 50% paycut to get 3 day week, but it is quite hard with constantly evolving SaaS devops. Moreover teams and dev work are micromanaged these days so much with n-th incarnation of "Agile" and Slack 24/7 presence that it is nearly impossible to get a week of autonomy and hyperfocused deep cave work. I know communication is important, but frequent interruption and progress reporting is killing my productivity and creativity. I feel like drone gluing mudballs to bring some success to daily sprint standup confessional. Anyway, I'm looking around for greener pastures.
  - Jcampuzano2 5y ago
    I feel this. I feel even less autonomy with the advent of slack and always on communication tools, and it has hurt my productivity. And then when I try to say I'm going heads down to get things done I'll get pinged anyway with claims of a manufactured "emergency". We don't write medical software and hell we haven't even released yet, there is no such thing as an emergency! I work in consulting so the usual excuse is always, "But a client demo" which in my head just means management setting poor expectations.
    - imhoguy 5y ago
xupybd 5y ago
I'd really like to develop better abilities to identify and prevent burn out my self. I thought I was just too dumb to keep up. Too lazy to keep focused. It wasn't that, constant quotes that didn't land, unhappy clients and extreme hours that resulted in unhappy management due to the project being over due. Hard work over a long time with nothing but negative feedback left me so drained I was very unproductive, embarrassingly so. I thought I'd never be a good developer but a change in jobs instantly changed that. Long hours, harder work but loads of positive feedback. All of a sudden I could focus all day, learn quicker and get so much work done. I thought I had more self control but it turns out I require certain things from my environment to perform.
- bigwavedave 5y ago
  This really resonates with me. When I was just starting out, I was assigned a mentor- a senior dev who refused to pair with me, who would ghost me for days at a time, always promising that "even though he was busy now, he'd get in touch with me this afternoon" and then vanish until I'd ping him after stand up the next day, where he would make the same promise. All the while, I'd try hard to learn the codebase and fix bugs without help (fairly difficult for a brand new, fresh out of college grad) but without help from my assigned mentor, all I got was shame and derision in stand ups for not producing enough and for "being afraid to ask for help" (no one really believed that such an amazing senior dev would refuse to give me the time of day). This convinced me I was stupid, that I couldn't be a good developer, and that I should go back to QA. Burned out and dejected, I gave my manager a heads up, put in for a transfer to another team as a QE, and tried to deal with the heart-crushing reality that I was too stupid to learn something new and that I needed to go back to what I was at least marginally acceptable at. Turns out, my request to change teams was approved but my request to change positions was denied and they kept me as a junior dev. But this time, my team actually responded to me. I found a senior dev who not only didn't mind answering questions, but he actively got excited when I'd reach out for help because in his eyes, I wasn't a nuisance, I was proactive. And it was infectious. All of a sudden, instead of dreading going to work or getting a ticket assigned to me, I got excited! I learned more in just a week with that new mentor than I had in three months with my old team. I never became a 10x rockstar code god, but I learned to love my job and found out a lot about myself. I didn't realize it before all this, but apparently I'm the kind of person who needs something from my team too.
systemvoltage 5y ago
What is burnout? More importantly, what is not burnout but just hard work and challenge? Why just software engineering? Until we have a clear definition, the discussion is almost meaningless.
- wampwampwhat 5y ago
  The article being discussed here makes no mention of software development at all, and clearly defines exactly what burnout is and how it differs from depression, anxiety, and compassion fatigue. Give it a read, it could prove to be insightful
- rawgabbit 5y ago
  “Extensive research by the military on sustainable performance in stressful conditions teaches that leaders should become champions of health, rather than taskmasters that drive teams and organizations to burnout.” Burnout is where the organization treats its employees as disposable to be used and thrown away. Tech companies in the USA are notorious for this. They literally push their employees into resigning and replace them with more throwaway employees.
ik22kkKK3i 5y ago
Better write an article "Burnout From an Geographical Perspective" In the western Europe, software developers are making so little money, they are literally "working for food". There is no other place on planet with a worse TECH-JOB-SALARY-TO-AVERAGE-SALARY ratio. And, unlike other poorly paid jobs in the western Europe, as a software engineer you will not have a nice weekend that you can spend with your friends and family. You will learn the next upcoming framework... No wonder the tech industry in Europe is dead.
- ik22kkKK3i 5y ago
  Also check those numbers: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Germany&country2=United+States&city1=Munich&city2=San+Francisco%2C+CA&tracking=getDispatchComparison https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... Apartment price in Munich (Germany) is the same as in San Francisco. However, in SF you will make 3-10 times more money (as developer)...
  - baby 5y ago
    Where did you get that? > Rent Prices in San Francisco, CA are 129.25% higher than in Munich Resta

198 points by rustoo 5y ago

The pickles/vinegar analogy is vivid. Certainly when I have been burnt out it's fair to say I was well-pickled.

The article actually doesn’t tell the true horror of the situation which is this: Companies burn out employees and then deal with the consequences by firing them or bullying them into quitting. Employees lie about how their last job ended and limp into the next one, using the unemployment gap to recover as best they can.

fsociety 5y ago
+1 so true. Even companies with good intentions can tend to lead employees to burnout.
bradleyjg 5y ago
Companies that use the: recruit a lot of people, burn out most, rinse and repeat strategy are fairly easy to identify. As an employee you should have your eyes open about this but it’s not necessarily the case that they should be avoided at all costs. Properly used, time at one of these companies can change the trajectory of your career. Depending on where you are in life that can be worth it. Having a time boxed plan makes it more likely you can survive the experience with your health and sanity intact.
- StandardFuture 5y ago
  But, we as a community should get better at calling these companies out publicly. Especially if they show up in a comment on the monthly hiring post. Don't let your fellow engineers get burnt. More community cooperation in this regard would go a long way.
  - Retric 5y ago
    You don’t need to go public, companies that relying on burning people out simply deserve zero respect from their employees. Remember as critical as everything seems it’s no longer your problem once you move on. Sure, moving on to your next job might seem to be leaving them in a lurch, but lack of redundancy isn’t your problem. PS: The best thing you can do for your teammates in that situation is convince them to find a better job.
  - xf1cf 5y ago
    Cancel culture doesn't have to be used for everything (and IMO should not be used for _anything_). Mob justice won't fix the company, and if the company is big enough (perhaps some SV companies who shall not be named), it won't have any real effect. Burnout is often an acceptable "work hazard" for the CV reputation gained. A good parallel to this is finance where burnout is practically built into the program. Medicine also crosses my mind when thinking of fields where burning yourself out could, counter-intuitively, be considered highly beneficial as a long term play. Outlets for this already exist in the form of Glassdoor but much like every other review service once it reaches scales the usefulness of the reviews falls precipitously. You also open yourself up to libel claims. Assuming your canceling actually works I would not be surprised if the company spent significant effort to take you to court and financially ruin you. Even more so if the accusations aren't entirely true (perhaps it's just one division and not the entire company). Instead, it's probably more useful to _train_ people to notice these things and ascertain the risks. Burnout can often be worth it if the net-gain-after-burnout improves your prospects to advance in your field, confers a pedigree, or any other number of small things. Returning to the finance example this is certainly why people risk it. At the end of the day, in the US at least, a little over half of the states in the union are right-to-work. This is the safety valve for companies who deliberately churn employees - just leave. Ideally after you've already lined up a new gig in your field.
- lordnacho 5y ago
  Easy to identify? What are the signs, save for things you could only be told by a friend on the inside?
  - bradleyjg 5y ago
    High turnover, especially if there’s a big peak at 2-3 years of experience. For mid-career professionals, you should be able to tell this from your second or third degree network on LinkedIn or similar. For students, you should be suspicious of any company that’s hiring a lot of fresh grads unless they are gigantic (in which case, consult the alumni whisper network).
    - zikduruqe 5y ago
      Cerner in KC is like that. Grab all the college grads, burn them to death for 3 to 4 years, cull the herd. https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/cerner-layoffs-part-of-reorganization-spokesperson-says https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/cerner-layoffs-part-of-... Here is example of the culture: https://www.bizcominthenews.com/files/cerner-1.pdf https://www.bizcominthenews.com/files/cerner-1.pdf
      - mistrial9 5y ago
        that would be from then-CEO Neal Patterson, from Wikipedia : Patterson is infamous for an email[7] scolding managers for not coming to work before 8 am and leaving before 5 pm, now a prominent example used when discussing email netiquette. On the day that the email was posted to Yahoo!, the company's market cap fell by over 22%[8] from a high of US$1.5 billion.[9] [7] "BBC News - AMERICAS - Boss's e-mail bites back". BBC. Archived from the original on February 8, 2009. [8] .. [9] Flynn, Nancy; Kahn, Randolph (2003). E-mail Rules: A Business Guide to Managing Policies, Security, and Legal Issues for E-mail and Digital Communication. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. p. 45. ISBN 9780814471883. netiquette. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Patterson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Patterson
    - xf1cf 5y ago
      This is highly sector dependent. I've worked at startups for almost my entire career and a big peak of leaving engineers at 2-3 years wouldn't even cause me any concern. In the 10 years in industry I've worked I'd argue the average engineer leaves around the 5 year mark. This typically coincides with a failed seed round or reaching a terminal title (senior, staff, etc) and not being able to go further. The fresh grads case is a good point. The one company I left fairly quickly was almost entirely powered by intern/junior labor. Seniors left quickly due to a combination of bad management, low advancement opportunities, and constantly having to re-train people. This, I think, is worth looking out for.
- hinkley 5y ago
  I was working at such a place when the 2008 recession happened. That was brutal. I still have health issues from that experience. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Your plans to get out quick may run into economic epicycles and then your clever plan ain’t so clever.
  - 0x4a42 5y ago
    I had a similar experience at the same time.
  - ardit33 5y ago
    Yup.... for me it was Amazon. And I was in H-1B back then, so I just put it up with it for a while, until the economy improved. The company had such a weird culture. It was pretty stressful. The most insidious thing they did was delay the green card application as much as they could, and just drag things out on purpose. Since I am Albanian/European, I could get it faster as my country is not on the per country cap that Indian and Chinese applicants are. They knew it, as they kept dragging out the first stages of the applications on everything. It was mental abuse. By 2011, the economy was recovering, and I did switch, but I had to redo all the green card application stuff again.
    - mavelikara 5y ago
      Not many realize this, but having the green card process drag out long has a detrimental effect on the whole job market, not just for the specific immigrant.
      - ardit33 5y ago
        Yes, It creates serfs/indentured servitude. Both the H1B visa and GC application should belong to the worker/applicant, with conditions (as long as they are employed with the given salary, pay taxes, etc...). The employee should just be able to do the process themselves, and handle it the papers with their own lawyer. It is clear that the H1B is setup to maximize the benefits to large corps, and not necessary the american economy/people.
- w0mbat 5y ago
  Easy to indentify because it's all of them. Not everyone burns out at every company and some people really do switch for a better opportunity, but burnout is very common and is everywhere.
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  This is tricky. I don’t necessarily disagree, but evaluating these things can be more difficult for some people. For me, it’s very easy for me to get attached because I care about some combination of the problem and the team. I’ve had some major wins improving things in those cases, but I’ve also had some major losses. And it’s very difficult for me to recognize burnout symptoms until they’re severe enough to require extensive recovery time. Sure, the idea of timeboxing could be useful, but I could also just let that slide given my motivation to improve things. In the end, it’s not worth it to me anymore to put myself in that situation.
- AlexCoventry 5y ago
  > Companies that use the: recruit a lot of people, burn out most, rinse and repeat strategy are fairly easy to identify. How?
- georgeecollins 5y ago
  There is a lot of reporting about companies in two areas I am familiar with: video games and entertainment. Both industries are aware that there are a lot of young people really desperate to break into them. Not all companies take advantage of that, but many do. Some game companies that have only really young workers below senior management and explain this by saying older people don't get what they are doing. They say it quietly, and indirectly because it opens them up to discrimination lawsuits. But what it really means is experienced people aren't putting up with something about the company.. the hours, the management, something. And unfortunately this does not really seem to be an impediment to their success.
- lugged 5y ago
  I suspect Netflix is one of these companies. I'd love to work there but I struggle to justify the burnout that will result i'm not 20 anymore.
- toomanybeersies 5y ago
  Maybe I'm strange, but the idea of starting a new job with the intention of quitting doesn't sit right with me. To me, that would be like getting married with the intention of getting a divorce. I know that realistically, I'm probably going to find a different job at some point, but it's always been a natural progression and not a planned movement.
  - JoeAltmaier 5y ago
    So every job acceptance has to be accompanied by a lifetime commitment? That sounds even stranger.
    - toomanybeersies 5y ago
      Maybe marriage wasn't a good simile... I've never started a job thinking "I'm going to work here for X years, and then quit (for Y reason)". I've also never started a job expecting to work there for the rest of my career, although I would be happy if it was a good job and I did. I might end up quitting my current job after a year or two, I might be here 10 years, maybe I'll leave in a casket. I don't have a set date for when I'll quit. My father has had the same job for over 40 years. He's had different roles (originally a telecommunications rigger, now a network engineer) and worked for different companies (buyouts etc.), but he's never actually had to apply for a new job. He's enjoyed his work and had a good career. I guess there's not many jobs like that these days though.
eyelidlessness 5y ago
I can attest to this from experience. What’s shocking is that I’ve even seen such a company deliberately ignore my mitigation requests, only to fulfill them in my wake when I gave notice. And it’s not as if my work wasn’t valued, I had just been given a rather significant raise a couple months earlier. As far as I could tell, they were happy to throw money at extracting every bit of value out of me until I was completely empty.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
I wonder just how prevalent the pattern of a perpetually burnt-put employee shuffling to job to job like this is. I imagine that some of them simply need a year off away from the world or a lucky break with a good employer to get back into peak form. However, my suspicion is that the majority of them are simply not cut out for the field but insist on staying in because they believe, correctly or not, that it’s the only kind of job that can give worthwhile pay. (Edit to add) It’s also why I roll my eyes so hard at most of the standard suite of job interview questions. When there is a known and obvious correct answer, all it does is filter out candidates who are too honest to lie, too stupid to know you’re supposed to lie, and candidates who cannot confidently sell a lie.
- dheera 5y ago
  > simply need a year off away from the world It's actually really hard (mentally) to do this if you don't already have a shitton of savings in the bank that you're not worried about paying rent, and aren't worried about getting a new job. For a lot of people it's harder than it sounds. But yes, gap years would be amazing. Another thing I wish was more encouraged is part-time work. Working for a year at maybe 20 hours a week would probably pay all living expenses while you have plenty of space and time to recover and time to spend in the wilderness or beach or whatever strikes your fancy. Everyone seems to want to shovel you in as a full-time employee, and part-time seems to be looked down upon more than it should as a transition and recovery tool.
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    Part-time employment should also be a key to any discussion on preventing mass unemployment due to automation. Rather than have high-paid salary jobs for the few and UBI for everyone else, normalize part-time work and keep keep more people actively engaged in the economy.
    - deleted 5y ago
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- ipaddr 5y ago

dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago

Having gone through two of these (one shorter and the recent one much larger), I think the best thing anyone can do for themselves is make a "break glass in case of burnout" plan where they save up margin during the good times so that when the famine hits part of the stress isn't the painted-in-corner feeling of "I need a break but have no margin to take one" Ultimately the answer is always simple and involves protracted rest - deload, de-stress as much as possible, and recover. 6 months preferred, but 12 months for major crisis' is nice to have in your back pocket.

instance 5y ago
A very good point. Having the freedom to quit at any time without completely jeopardizing one's finances is liberating.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I was talking with a friend about this the other week. Fairly close to retirement, I gather financially comfortable, and they like where they are but they're also in sort of an unusual position and have been through a couple of organizational changes. I was struck when they told me they felt really liberated because they could honestly tell managers when various shuffling was going on that, if it made more sense for them to go somewhere else, they were perfectly cool with that.
hawk_ 5y ago
somehow that's judged by paper pushers, bean counters and hr. how do you answer questions on gaps in your CV?
- tomjakubowski 5y ago
  You were working as an independent consultant.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I'm not even sure you need to pretend you were working. Especially mid-career, taking 6 to 12 months off to consider your options, do some learning, etc. isn't something I would think twice about as an employer.

mkl95 5y ago

The bus factor has a lot to do with this imo. Every startup I have worked for lets middle managers hold a ton of information and power. Middle managers at companies with a high turnover rate tend not to trust engineers too much if at all, and startups usually have high turnover rates. This results in toxic relationships between engineers and managers. It's hard to get motivated at work when someone is -virtually or literally- looking over your shoulder all the time, second guessing everything you do, and delaying processes by withholding technical knowledge. In some cases, this ultimately results in what I call the "empty desk syndrome". This is when you visit your new employer's offices, and most desks are empty because a wave of employees just left or was fired. The cycle repeats indefinitely, with you becoming part of the next wave.

philmcp 5y ago

The best way to deal with burn out is to start offering a 4 day week imo. I recently launched https://4dayweek.io https://4dayweek.io to help normalise this - Software jobs with a better work / life balance

flatline 5y ago
I find that about a 30-35 hour work week is ideal for me. I have kids, a house, a social life, juggling all of that is challenging and working straight 8-10 hour days just leaves everything else to fall out in the mix. Even though I didn’t like working from home all day every day, the pandemic added some slack to the 40 hour work week. I wish I could get that slack back while being in the office, because I do believe there is a productivity multiplier to being in person.
imhoguy 5y ago
I would take 50% paycut to get 3 day week, but it is quite hard with constantly evolving SaaS devops. Moreover teams and dev work are micromanaged these days so much with n-th incarnation of "Agile" and Slack 24/7 presence that it is nearly impossible to get a week of autonomy and hyperfocused deep cave work. I know communication is important, but frequent interruption and progress reporting is killing my productivity and creativity. I feel like drone gluing mudballs to bring some success to daily sprint standup confessional. Anyway, I'm looking around for greener pastures.
- Jcampuzano2 5y ago
  I feel this. I feel even less autonomy with the advent of slack and always on communication tools, and it has hurt my productivity. And then when I try to say I'm going heads down to get things done I'll get pinged anyway with claims of a manufactured "emergency". We don't write medical software and hell we haven't even released yet, there is no such thing as an emergency! I work in consulting so the usual excuse is always, "But a client demo" which in my head just means management setting poor expectations.
  - imhoguy 5y ago

xupybd 5y ago

I'd really like to develop better abilities to identify and prevent burn out my self. I thought I was just too dumb to keep up. Too lazy to keep focused. It wasn't that, constant quotes that didn't land, unhappy clients and extreme hours that resulted in unhappy management due to the project being over due. Hard work over a long time with nothing but negative feedback left me so drained I was very unproductive, embarrassingly so. I thought I'd never be a good developer but a change in jobs instantly changed that. Long hours, harder work but loads of positive feedback. All of a sudden I could focus all day, learn quicker and get so much work done. I thought I had more self control but it turns out I require certain things from my environment to perform.

bigwavedave 5y ago
This really resonates with me. When I was just starting out, I was assigned a mentor- a senior dev who refused to pair with me, who would ghost me for days at a time, always promising that "even though he was busy now, he'd get in touch with me this afternoon" and then vanish until I'd ping him after stand up the next day, where he would make the same promise. All the while, I'd try hard to learn the codebase and fix bugs without help (fairly difficult for a brand new, fresh out of college grad) but without help from my assigned mentor, all I got was shame and derision in stand ups for not producing enough and for "being afraid to ask for help" (no one really believed that such an amazing senior dev would refuse to give me the time of day). This convinced me I was stupid, that I couldn't be a good developer, and that I should go back to QA. Burned out and dejected, I gave my manager a heads up, put in for a transfer to another team as a QE, and tried to deal with the heart-crushing reality that I was too stupid to learn something new and that I needed to go back to what I was at least marginally acceptable at. Turns out, my request to change teams was approved but my request to change positions was denied and they kept me as a junior dev. But this time, my team actually responded to me. I found a senior dev who not only didn't mind answering questions, but he actively got excited when I'd reach out for help because in his eyes, I wasn't a nuisance, I was proactive. And it was infectious. All of a sudden, instead of dreading going to work or getting a ticket assigned to me, I got excited! I learned more in just a week with that new mentor than I had in three months with my old team. I never became a 10x rockstar code god, but I learned to love my job and found out a lot about myself. I didn't realize it before all this, but apparently I'm the kind of person who needs something from my team too.

systemvoltage 5y ago

What is burnout? More importantly, what is not burnout but just hard work and challenge? Why just software engineering? Until we have a clear definition, the discussion is almost meaningless.

wampwampwhat 5y ago
The article being discussed here makes no mention of software development at all, and clearly defines exactly what burnout is and how it differs from depression, anxiety, and compassion fatigue. Give it a read, it could prove to be insightful
rawgabbit 5y ago
“Extensive research by the military on sustainable performance in stressful conditions teaches that leaders should become champions of health, rather than taskmasters that drive teams and organizations to burnout.” Burnout is where the organization treats its employees as disposable to be used and thrown away. Tech companies in the USA are notorious for this. They literally push their employees into resigning and replace them with more throwaway employees.

ik22kkKK3i 5y ago

Better write an article "Burnout From an Geographical Perspective" In the western Europe, software developers are making so little money, they are literally "working for food". There is no other place on planet with a worse TECH-JOB-SALARY-TO-AVERAGE-SALARY ratio. And, unlike other poorly paid jobs in the western Europe, as a software engineer you will not have a nice weekend that you can spend with your friends and family. You will learn the next upcoming framework... No wonder the tech industry in Europe is dead.

ik22kkKK3i 5y ago
Also check those numbers: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Germany&country2=United+States&city1=Munich&city2=San+Francisco%2C+CA&tracking=getDispatchComparison https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?cou... Apartment price in Munich (Germany) is the same as in San Francisco. However, in SF you will make 3-10 times more money (as developer)...
- baby 5y ago
  Where did you get that? > Rent Prices in San Francisco, CA are 129.25% higher than in Munich Resta