5 ms·

I never doubted it was real. But I never really understood what it meant until I was deeply depressed and couldn't get up from bed to go to work anymore. Ended

by dudus 5y ago

I never doubted it was real. But I never really understood what it meant until I was deeply depressed and couldn't get up from bed to go to work anymore. Ended up leaving my job at a FANG and taking a year long sabbatical before rejoining the workforce in a lower/less stressful position for a company not on tech. Sometimes it's still depressing to think o took such a hit in my career. Bit when I remember what I felt like at the end I have no doubt I made the right decision. It didn't really feel like a decision though. It felt like I was at my wits end. I gave everything and had nothing left. I don't blame the company or anyone I worked with. This was all buildup from pressure I put into myself. It's real, but it only really becomes real when it happens to you.

ryneandal 5y ago
Don't feel bad if your mental health is in a much better place now. You come first. No exceptions.
- ravedave5 5y ago
  Until you have children, then they come first.
  - seppin 5y ago
    This is why so many people delay or refuse to have kids. You cannot make such a decision to prioritize your mental health when they need support.
  - microtherion 5y ago
    That's not entirely wrong, but it's not quite correct either. When our first was born, the nurses at the maternity ward (about as pro-baby advocacy a bunch as one could imagine) advised us to "take care of yourselves so you can take care of the baby"; you're not doing your children any favors if you're driving yourself into a breakdown.
    - awesomeusername 5y ago
      Put your own oxygen mask on first
chapium 5y ago
I went through something similar a few years ago as well. I was able to get out of bed, but I could not focus on a single task for more than a few minutes. I'd frequently get neck pain and migraines late in the week as well. Management was unsympathetic, all they saw was productivity go down. Ultimately I quit and a few months later found myself in a similar job, but actually enjoying what I was doing under a different team/company. Burnout sucks.
- seniorThrowaway 5y ago
  I had almost the exact same experience with the neck pain and headaches. Also as others said in the thread, it doesn't feel like a decision when it comes time to leave, it feels like an inevitability. My situation was the contract I was on was won by a different prime, one who came in with an unstated but heavily implied by work and meeting load of lots of unpaid overtime. On a project that I had already done years of unpaid overtime on.
mitchbob 5y ago
I gave everything and had nothing left. That's it. Reminds me of the start of Allen Ginsberg's poem America, one of my all-time favorites: America I've given you all and now I'm nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. [1] [1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49305/america-56d22b41f119f https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49305/america-56d22b4...
- spicymaki 5y ago
  Wonderful poem. Thanks!
- folkhack 5y ago
  In the US we have a society where people walk around wearing suffering like a badge of honor. We worship work. I was brought up in a Midwest culture where "work ethic" was everything - if you worked hard enough, you would be successful. In contrast, if you were not successful it was because you didn't work hard enough. Then, I got into tech. I hear "war stories" from people about sleeping under their desk at their cubicles. I hear people tell jokes about how their career strains their marriage. I hear about people wasting their 20's working every hour they can for a FAANG to get ahead... It was like that whole "work ethic gets you ahead" culture from my childhood got turned up to 11. I'm meandering here but overall that poem reminded me of a blog post from long ago stating "Never Save Anything for the Swim Back. Ever." [1] which was introduced to me by a manager using it as justification to work a 60+ hour crunch week. I guess where I'm going here is these sort of idealizations of fiction where "work ethic trumps all" really clash with this poem. I feel like idealizations like this serve the interests of those who are capitalizing off of labor more than they do the general worker/person. [1] https://joshldavis.com/2013/08/31/never-save-anything-for-the-swim-back/ https://joshldavis.com/2013/08/31/never-save-anything-for-th...
ThrowawayP 5y ago
Having been in a similar situation, my sympathies; I've found it to be a very strange sensation. The burnt-out knows exactly what work tasks they need to do, they know that it's easily within their own capabilities, and they (at a conscious level at least) even desperately want to do the tasks to fulfill their professional obligations (or to simply continue getting paid). But the body just will not do it or forcing it to do so feels as strenuous as Olympic weightlifting such that one is exhausted at the end of the day not from being productive but from attempting to beat oneself into being productive. It's a very unhappy state to be in.
- mosburger 5y ago
  OMG you've nailed exactly what I've been feeling for the past six months or so. :/
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    Can you alternate gigs ? I found this to be a great fix (maybe transient though). Manual labour 4h, coding 4h. Aiming at drag free day.
    - visarga 5y ago
      I found it useful to start a private project, find something fancy and interesting to get lost in and spark the creative juices. In other words work less, play more.
      - agumonkey 5y ago
        I have this obsession that life should be about play. Make productive outputs playful. I think biology made us aim for this. Individually we optimize for lower energy use and in group it's the same we like when things flow, when everybody is in tune. In those cases it's like playing.. and usually it represents peak performance at the system level.
      - mosburger 5y ago
agumonkey 5y ago
Did you handle this alone or did you find some kind of burnout support group ? Restarting does feel super odd, a kind of lossless loss. I guess biology didn't like falls.
- dudus 5y ago
  I've been on antidepressants daily and doing therapy weekly. The meds and therapy have helped immensely.
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    I assume it's one on one therapy ? Take care
justsomeuser 5y ago
what kind of work do you do now?
- dudus 5y ago
  It's not too different than what I used to do before. I'm mostly a project manager for technical projects. Bit it's a different business so it feels fresh enough.
YouCanDoBetter 5y ago
>It didn't really feel like a decision though. It felt like I was at my wits end. I gave everything and had nothing left. I feel the same way at my FANG job. The spiral has been astounding. Most people I know at the same company already see therapists and take SSRIs. I know I could go down that path and force my body to adjust and perform as I need it, as if my body and mind are a horse that just needs the right kind of whip to get racing. It feels so much healthier and less stressful to leave and address my root cause (the isolation of wfh). Currently looking for a new in-office job outside of FANG in a more chill location, and planning on quitting in 3 weeks regardless of the outcome. I had a similar experience 7 years ago (also after a year of working remotely), and the freedom I felt after quitting was sweeter than any amount of money they could paid me.

by dudus 5y ago

ryneandal 5y ago

Don't feel bad if your mental health is in a much better place now. You come first. No exceptions.

ravedave5 5y ago
Until you have children, then they come first.
- seppin 5y ago
  This is why so many people delay or refuse to have kids. You cannot make such a decision to prioritize your mental health when they need support.
- microtherion 5y ago
  That's not entirely wrong, but it's not quite correct either. When our first was born, the nurses at the maternity ward (about as pro-baby advocacy a bunch as one could imagine) advised us to "take care of yourselves so you can take care of the baby"; you're not doing your children any favors if you're driving yourself into a breakdown.
  - awesomeusername 5y ago
    Put your own oxygen mask on first

chapium 5y ago

I went through something similar a few years ago as well. I was able to get out of bed, but I could not focus on a single task for more than a few minutes. I'd frequently get neck pain and migraines late in the week as well. Management was unsympathetic, all they saw was productivity go down. Ultimately I quit and a few months later found myself in a similar job, but actually enjoying what I was doing under a different team/company. Burnout sucks.

seniorThrowaway 5y ago
I had almost the exact same experience with the neck pain and headaches. Also as others said in the thread, it doesn't feel like a decision when it comes time to leave, it feels like an inevitability. My situation was the contract I was on was won by a different prime, one who came in with an unstated but heavily implied by work and meeting load of lots of unpaid overtime. On a project that I had already done years of unpaid overtime on.

mitchbob 5y ago

I gave everything and had nothing left. That's it. Reminds me of the start of Allen Ginsberg's poem America, one of my all-time favorites: America I've given you all and now I'm nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. [1] [1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49305/america-56d22b41f119f https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49305/america-56d22b4...

spicymaki 5y ago
Wonderful poem. Thanks!
folkhack 5y ago
In the US we have a society where people walk around wearing suffering like a badge of honor. We worship work. I was brought up in a Midwest culture where "work ethic" was everything - if you worked hard enough, you would be successful. In contrast, if you were not successful it was because you didn't work hard enough. Then, I got into tech. I hear "war stories" from people about sleeping under their desk at their cubicles. I hear people tell jokes about how their career strains their marriage. I hear about people wasting their 20's working every hour they can for a FAANG to get ahead... It was like that whole "work ethic gets you ahead" culture from my childhood got turned up to 11. I'm meandering here but overall that poem reminded me of a blog post from long ago stating "Never Save Anything for the Swim Back. Ever." [1] which was introduced to me by a manager using it as justification to work a 60+ hour crunch week. I guess where I'm going here is these sort of idealizations of fiction where "work ethic trumps all" really clash with this poem. I feel like idealizations like this serve the interests of those who are capitalizing off of labor more than they do the general worker/person. [1] https://joshldavis.com/2013/08/31/never-save-anything-for-the-swim-back/ https://joshldavis.com/2013/08/31/never-save-anything-for-th...

ThrowawayP 5y ago

Having been in a similar situation, my sympathies; I've found it to be a very strange sensation. The burnt-out knows exactly what work tasks they need to do, they know that it's easily within their own capabilities, and they (at a conscious level at least) even desperately want to do the tasks to fulfill their professional obligations (or to simply continue getting paid). But the body just will not do it or forcing it to do so feels as strenuous as Olympic weightlifting such that one is exhausted at the end of the day not from being productive but from attempting to beat oneself into being productive. It's a very unhappy state to be in.

mosburger 5y ago
OMG you've nailed exactly what I've been feeling for the past six months or so. :/
- agumonkey 5y ago
  Can you alternate gigs ? I found this to be a great fix (maybe transient though). Manual labour 4h, coding 4h. Aiming at drag free day.
  - visarga 5y ago
    I found it useful to start a private project, find something fancy and interesting to get lost in and spark the creative juices. In other words work less, play more.
    - agumonkey 5y ago
      I have this obsession that life should be about play. Make productive outputs playful. I think biology made us aim for this. Individually we optimize for lower energy use and in group it's the same we like when things flow, when everybody is in tune. In those cases it's like playing.. and usually it represents peak performance at the system level.
    - mosburger 5y ago

agumonkey 5y ago

Did you handle this alone or did you find some kind of burnout support group ? Restarting does feel super odd, a kind of lossless loss. I guess biology didn't like falls.

dudus 5y ago
I've been on antidepressants daily and doing therapy weekly. The meds and therapy have helped immensely.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  I assume it's one on one therapy ? Take care

justsomeuser 5y ago

what kind of work do you do now?

dudus 5y ago
It's not too different than what I used to do before. I'm mostly a project manager for technical projects. Bit it's a different business so it feels fresh enough.

YouCanDoBetter 5y ago

>It didn't really feel like a decision though. It felt like I was at my wits end. I gave everything and had nothing left. I feel the same way at my FANG job. The spiral has been astounding. Most people I know at the same company already see therapists and take SSRIs. I know I could go down that path and force my body to adjust and perform as I need it, as if my body and mind are a horse that just needs the right kind of whip to get racing. It feels so much healthier and less stressful to leave and address my root cause (the isolation of wfh). Currently looking for a new in-office job outside of FANG in a more chill location, and planning on quitting in 3 weeks regardless of the outcome. I had a similar experience 7 years ago (also after a year of working remotely), and the freedom I felt after quitting was sweeter than any amount of money they could paid me.