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Balance, or the lack thereof, is one of the most common pain points for the juniors I've worked with. New college grads can really struggle with finding balanc

Balance, or the lack thereof, is one of the most common pain points for the juniors I've worked with. New college grads can really struggle with finding balance after transitioning out of college. The undergrad environment has well defined start and end points for each class and everyone gets the same or similar workloads, so it's possible to calibrate off of peers and consult with advisors or mentors who have gone through the same system. Not so with the working world, where there are always more objectives than time and you can't always look to peers to calibrate your progress. Ambitious juniors often see this and decide to go all-in, working as hard as possible on as much as possible for as long as possible. This leads to burnout in some, though not all, of the people who get swept away in it. We read so many articles about burnout and recovery from burnout that the topic of hard work evokes strong reactions online, as evidenced by this article and the comments section. However, as the author points out there are multiple sides to this story. Hard work isn't always bad, especially if you find yourself enjoying it and learning a lot. If I'm being totally honest, working hard in my early career paid off significantly down the road. Not necessarily in immediate dollars paid out by my employers at the time, but the network, reputation, and skillset I built along the way are extremely valuable to this day. I didn't even hate the hard work or long hours at the time, because I made a point to surround myself with peers I liked and work I enjoyed. I also made an effort to get plenty of exercise and social activity, which can't be neglected. In my opinion, too many online discussions around burnout are centered on the idea that work is inherently bad and something that should be minimized as much as possible. An understandable reaction from authors who might be burned out, but framing everything this way has an unintended side effect: It normalizes the idea that work is inherently bad, and that hating your work is natural. This mindset tends to trap people in jobs they hate at companies they dislike with peers they can't stand, all because they've been led to believe that this is the normal state of affairs. They focus too much on trying to tolerate it and manage their borderline burnout instead of trying to move their career in a direction where they can find a job they like. In my opinion, we need to stop framing this as a debate about whether work is good or work is bad, and start talking more about finding a healthy balance and working toward jobs we like. No job is going to be fun all of the time, but if you're hating every hour of work and counting down the hours to the end of the day every day then you're probably in a below average job.

lawrjone 5y ago
> New college grads can really struggle with finding balance after transitioning out of college > Ambitious juniors often see this and decide to go all-in The most common issue I see with dedicated juniors is when work is, by a large margin, the biggest thing in their life. When work is your thing, it only takes one thing to go badly at work for it to impact your happiness. Given how much can go wrong in a career that is entirely outside your control, no matter how good you may be you'll inevitably hit a bump, and that can be really painful. I was lucky in that when I started work, I always had a large piece of my life that was outside of it. At first this was rowing crew, eventually it turned into cycling and crossfit. Finding hobbies like this, where your results are almost entirely within your own power, I found to be a powerful hedge against negative factors at work. It takes a while to figure this out, though, and I don't blame anyone for whom this hasn't clicked or didn't quite work. > It normalizes the idea that work is inherently bad, and that hating your work is natural Yes! I have a real problem with this positioning, especially because I don't think a solution to not enjoying work is to suck it up and do a bit less- I'd love more people to aim for work that excites them, and gives them energy. > No job is going to be fun all of the time, but if you're hating every hour of work and counting down the hours to the end of the day every day then you're probably in a below average job. Absolutely true. When I first joined my current company, we were 35 people in size, now we're ~650. That growth means I've worked on so many different things, in several different environments. Sometimes it was great, other times it sucked. Sometimes it sucked even while it was great- finishing an infrastructure migration into Google Cloud was an awesome achievement, but after a 18 month migration, I was fairly exhausted. If you get the balance right, there's an amount of flexibility and distance you and afford with your work that helps you get through the difficult parts, and maximise what you get from the good.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > The most common issue I see with dedicated juniors is when work is, by a large margin, the biggest thing in their life. Great point. The transition from college to work is a shocking experience for many. Modern colleges are excellent at keeping people socialized, entertained, and surrounding them with activities to do and people to meet. Then they enter the working world and suddenly it's not so easy. They need to make an effort to socialize, meet new people, and schedule activities. They need to plan ahead to find something to do on the weekend and coordinate with others to find people to do it with. I think many of them gravitate toward work because they think it will fill the void left when they left the ultra-social college environment. It takes time and effort to re-learn how to add activities and friends to your life when they're not falling into your lap.

lawrjone 5y ago

> New college grads can really struggle with finding balance after transitioning out of college > Ambitious juniors often see this and decide to go all-in The most common issue I see with dedicated juniors is when work is, by a large margin, the biggest thing in their life. When work is your thing, it only takes one thing to go badly at work for it to impact your happiness. Given how much can go wrong in a career that is entirely outside your control, no matter how good you may be you'll inevitably hit a bump, and that can be really painful. I was lucky in that when I started work, I always had a large piece of my life that was outside of it. At first this was rowing crew, eventually it turned into cycling and crossfit. Finding hobbies like this, where your results are almost entirely within your own power, I found to be a powerful hedge against negative factors at work. It takes a while to figure this out, though, and I don't blame anyone for whom this hasn't clicked or didn't quite work. > It normalizes the idea that work is inherently bad, and that hating your work is natural Yes! I have a real problem with this positioning, especially because I don't think a solution to not enjoying work is to suck it up and do a bit less- I'd love more people to aim for work that excites them, and gives them energy. > No job is going to be fun all of the time, but if you're hating every hour of work and counting down the hours to the end of the day every day then you're probably in a below average job. Absolutely true. When I first joined my current company, we were 35 people in size, now we're ~650. That growth means I've worked on so many different things, in several different environments. Sometimes it was great, other times it sucked. Sometimes it sucked even while it was great- finishing an infrastructure migration into Google Cloud was an awesome achievement, but after a 18 month migration, I was fairly exhausted. If you get the balance right, there's an amount of flexibility and distance you and afford with your work that helps you get through the difficult parts, and maximise what you get from the good.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> The most common issue I see with dedicated juniors is when work is, by a large margin, the biggest thing in their life. Great point. The transition from college to work is a shocking experience for many. Modern colleges are excellent at keeping people socialized, entertained, and surrounding them with activities to do and people to meet. Then they enter the working world and suddenly it's not so easy. They need to make an effort to socialize, meet new people, and schedule activities. They need to plan ahead to find something to do on the weekend and coordinate with others to find people to do it with. I think many of them gravitate toward work because they think it will fill the void left when they left the ultra-social college environment. It takes time and effort to re-learn how to add activities and friends to your life when they're not falling into your lap.