3 ms·

When you go to a regional Burning Man event, or a very long and intense festival of some kind, with someone you know and care about, it's not uncommon for that

When you go to a regional Burning Man event, or a very long and intense festival of some kind, with someone you know and care about, it's not uncommon for that relationship to unravel and break down by the end of the festival. At the beginning of 2021, I noticed that I wanted to break up with myself. I had become a shitty version of myself and I didn't want to keep seeing me. But I'm.... Me. What the hell went wrong? What changed? By working from home, most every moment might be focused on work, purely because... I now literally lived inside my workplace. The work laptop's always there. Slack is on the phone. The same places I might relax, I also now work at. My attire has meshed. And most of the time, if I wasn't specifically doing something non-worky, I was still in work mode. I thought a lot about work problems. And without humans in front of me to talk to, I took work stuff more personally. I also stopped going to the gym, my former "stress relief / therapy", because I did not find it safe. And when I did want to relax, usually it was with food; and, hey, might as well have a glass of wine to relax too. Maybe a movie. Whoops, was that three glasses? Is it time for bed already? The reasons for the Playa breakups and Pandemic Burnout are surprisingly similar. They both come down to a radical, intense change of routine for an extended period of time. You become a new person living a chaotic life. Surprise: not everyone adapts well to that! But another funny thing about both breakups: they tend to magnify the tiny annoying details of your life that you got by with before. Burning out can be a good thing if you can identify the parts of your life that just weren't working and change things for the better. But mostly you need to remember to forgive yourself and let go of what doesn't bring you joy. We have long lives, but there's no reward at the end of life for putting up with crap.

worik 5y ago
I work from home. Six hours a day four days a week. It gets into my dreams sometimes but otherwise I am strict on the hours. Why does working from home mean working more, for so many?
- ornornor 5y ago
  And also, no one needs to have their work slack and email on their personal phone. Why would you do that to yourself??
  - 0xbadcafebee 5y ago
    Partly for when I'm on-call and don't want to carry around two phones. But mostly just because it was convenient... I can be more "free" / mobile / not at my desk, if I can answer from wherever I am. But it does seem to be more unhealthy than helpful.

worik 5y ago

I work from home. Six hours a day four days a week. It gets into my dreams sometimes but otherwise I am strict on the hours. Why does working from home mean working more, for so many?

ornornor 5y ago
And also, no one needs to have their work slack and email on their personal phone. Why would you do that to yourself??
- 0xbadcafebee 5y ago
  Partly for when I'm on-call and don't want to carry around two phones. But mostly just because it was convenient... I can be more "free" / mobile / not at my desk, if I can answer from wherever I am. But it does seem to be more unhealthy than helpful.