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I just don’t want to be busy anymore

• gregd 5y ago
  As a 54 year old Software Engineer, who has had a nice IT career for over 26 years, I'm spent. This is coming from someone who has always had a growth mindset and had a really hard time sitting still. I used to loathe naps and felt like I was missing out if I took one. Now, I take a one hour nap almost daily and I'm finding that after 1pm I'm basically fried (I start working around 7AM). I'm not sure what to do about it, if anything. If I could retire now, I would. I'm trying very hard to get my earnestness about learning new things back and I'm finding that my motivation has just tanked. I'm afraid this is a permanent state now.
  • paulcole 5y ago
    Just curious, but what’s your definition of “growth mindset”? I love being challenged, believe I can change to meet most challenges I face, and enjoy looking for opportunities to improve myself. This is how I’d understood the concept of “growth mindset” from Carole Dweck’s book Mindset. Maybe the difference for me is that none of these things are core components of my identity? It’s just a way of interacting with the world that I find interesting vs. something I feel compelled to go all-gas-no-brakes on all the time.
    • gregd 5y ago
      My definition of growth mindset is the same as yours. I don't identify with it so much as I think of it as my baseline. Does this mean my baseline has changed? Absolutely. It's still irksome because I too enjoyed looking for opportunities to improve myself or the methods I use to get things done. Now, I just don't give a fuck.
  • RobRivera 5y ago
    Have you ever taken a sabbatical?
    • gregd 5y ago
      An unpaid sabbatical just isn't in the cards for me at the moment.
  • bumby 5y ago
    I never really made the connection before listening to a recent podcast with an expert on serotonin and dopamine, but do you think this is a natural effect of declining dopamine? Online searching seems to indicate dopamine declines with age and is also responsible for taking risks and motivation for both short and long term goal attainment
    • gregd 5y ago
      This is highly likely and is worthy of much more research on my end. Thank you for reminding me of this!
    • bonniemuffin 5y ago
      Is there any action you can take based on this knowledge to change your outcome, or is it simply an unavoidable part of aging?
      • bumby 5y ago
        I don’t really know much on the topic honestly. There are the usual natural ways to increase dopamine like exercise, getting sunlight, and reducing obesity. There are supplements that supposedly help like vitamin D and magnesium. Then there are drugs that act as dopamine agonists. Where these all fall in terms of efficacy I have no idea.
  • mettamage 5y ago
    Typed on my phone. Six hours of work? Lie the other 2 and call it a day. Or, renegotiate a contract for 6 hours per day. Given how much productivity I presume you bring, I’d lie. I don’t feel bad about it since companies care too little (in general). If they care, then I would care. E.g. a 10x more productive engineer doesn’t get 10x the pay. I met one of these people, they lied. They worked 2 hours, shipped one hour of code in production, saved the other one to commit on a rainy day and still got employee of the year because they were by far the most productive. You could also become a freelancer, then you don’t have to lie. My point is: six hours of productive work should be enough.
    • gregd 5y ago
      Part of the problem is that I'm a Software Engineer as well as a Business Analyst and Project Manager. I'm also managing a dev team, so it's really difficult to only work 6 hours a day. Hell, I can't even do all my work in a 40 hour work week. Yes, I realize this isn't a me issue and I'm looking for other work. The problem is that I'm encountering a lot of ageism in this field too.
      • mettamage 5y ago
        I simply don’t finish work if I am spent. If I do, then I am worse the next week. I have the luxury of only needing to take care of myself. Ask to hire for help. The business case is: either you break down, and the company loses a valuable person, or they get extra hands and can resume business operations. And while you’re at it ask for a pay raise because you were likely underpaid. Ageism sucks. See if you can look younger or see if you can work at a company of a linkedin connection. I am just brainstorming, you know what might apply to you.
      • Gortal278 5y ago
        I'd probably be as wiped out of I had the responsibility of three roles. Have you considered finding something else?
      • abledon 5y ago
        have you thought about joining Government? pretty laid back there. Less pay, but if you are okay with that, its worth it if you value time > money
  • tenaciousDaniel 5y ago
    I feel that way now but I'm only 37. I knew it was a bit soon so I went to a doctor, and turns out my testosterone is at 250 (whereas at my age it should be over 1,000). No idea if that's something you've already explored, but felt it couldn't hurt to share.
    • codenesium 5y ago
      Same age. Same experience.
    • gregd 5y ago
      This is something I've entirely thought about and likely suffering from. That being said, I am trying some other remedies before I take Androgel or Androderm and they seem to be slightly helping.
    • hammock 5y ago
      >whereas at my age it should be over 1,000 Where did you get that reference range for a 37 year old? I'm not sure that was even true 30 years ago.
      • tenaciousDaniel 5y ago
        That's what my doctor told me. I'm sure there are differing opinions but meh whatever, I know it could be higher so that's good enough.
        • bumby 5y ago
          I just looked this up last week and I believe the reference said >950 or so put you in the 97.5 percentile of men 18-39. Found it: it’s actually 916 ng/dL https://www.healio.com/news/endocrinology/20170223/researchers-define-normal-ranges-for-testosterone-levels-in-young-men https://www.healio.com/news/endocrinology/20170223/researche...
    • tartoran 5y ago
      I started taking some Ashwaganda and experienced positive effects so far. Give it a try, maybe it works out for you as well
  • dangle1 5y ago
    It's so hard to reply without coming off as presumptuous and ignorant of your situation, so I apologize in advance. These kinds of feelings can of course be a sign of burnout that can get better with the suggestions in the article plus some significant time off that doesn't come with the penalty of having to make up for all the time off. On the other hand, maybe it's time to reexamine when you can retire. There are a lot of forums about this, my wife 'rescued' me from feeling like I needed to work to normal retirement age after reading a lot of Mr. Money Mustache, FWIW.
  • burnafter182 5y ago
    There's a weird fixation on productivity that gets drilled into our heads at a young age. It's beyond okay to not be running 100% all the time, regardless of what the paradigm espouses as value.
    • trts 5y ago
      The problem I see is that the delivery system has evolved in many companies / tech in general to be JIT, but for human resources. While at FAANG, I was at capacity every week. So a 'normal' week (which was actually quite rare), I expected to spend 35-45 hours in work + meetings. But 75% of those weeks, some urgent issue would come up. Then you have an extra 15-25 hours of attending to the urgency, falling behind 5-15 hours on planned work, and then you spend all evening thinking about how to solve the Very Urgent Problem. Even if you are good at compartmentalizing, you'll be confounded by redundant messages from middle managers asking you about the status of the Very Urgent Problem. Taking a break / vacation means twice as much work for 1-3 weeks before the vacation, and 1-3 weeks after, as you must prepare for coverage for while you are out of office, and then catch up on what happened while you were gone. Add in the death of a loved one, medical issue or even a string of minor problems and you're completely subjugate to external circumstances. This will lead to burnout, at a minimum. As a younger person, this kind of environment made me feel important and necessary. Later I began to realize this is the opposite of the truth. Important and necessary people have the power to set their own terms. I am not sure why things have evolved this way. I recently watched Koyaanisqatsi ('life out of balance') a film from the 80s about modernity and technology and found it as relevant as ever. However the busyness that used to be outwardly visible has now migrated into our minds and seems to be causing mass unhappiness and mental health issues.
      • burnafter182 5y ago
        I think it has to do with reifying things that hadn't ought to be rigid. A 0001 deadline is arbitrary, being one minute over is not really consequential from a logical perspective until you've negotiated and inked a contract that makes fees contingent on having X done prior to 0001, and once that contract is signed and made into company custom...
  • fragmede 5y ago
    With all due respect, saying you're 54 isn't enough context. The past 18 months have been a lot. For everybody, in and out of tech. Knowing you've been in tech longer than most helps sell... what? that you're more deserving of being tired that the rest of us? (Not rowdy invalid, there is an official retirement age after all...) But shit, the new iPhone came out and all I could hear was how much I don't want to wait in line nor be made fun of for my phone having a button and being an olds. I'm really afraid this is a permanent state but I don't have as many years to fall back on. I have enough savings not to starve but the pandemic changed things and those savings aren't going to last forever! (Rapidly dwindling, some might say.) Hope yours lasts longer than mine!
    • gregd 5y ago
      What a bizarre takeaway from what I said. Saying I'm 54 and have had a 26+ year career in tech was MY context for feeling spent.
  • bshep 5y ago
    Im in a different field but I too have felt similarly. I would suggest a couple of things: - see a psychologist (not a psychiatrist, athough a psychiatrist may be step later on) - this should help you develop tools to make yourself better - dont take work home, stop when you are tired - i saw that you fulfill multiple roles, could some of that be delegated? are you being compensated for those roles or did they just pile on over time? maybe its time to talk to your boss about it… - take a real vacation, as in stay home and dont do anything - excersize, avoid alcohol/substances
  • ggm 5y ago
    My psychologist urged me to listen to my body. If you find you haven't got an 8 hour day in you, do what you can in less and stop pretending. Spend part of every day outside. Spend part of every week in the company of others. I too was very concerned about if I could "stop" and worried about my mojo and work ethic which went missing around 10 years ago. You learn to cope, and I read enough financial investment advice to realize I need less than I feared post work, but probably I won't entirely retire: moving to a different intensity of work is the goal probably. It helps to live in an economy with a public health service. Moving country in these times is hard, moving country also breaks social ties which are really important in older age but mid-50s you can make bridges to a new community. So, if you are in a place where health costs will be a major concern, think about international relocation. The longer you leave it the less likely it is to work.
  • bamboozled 5y ago
    I’m younger than you, had the same issue and solved it by working less and doing more outside. Lifting weights in the sun, mountain biking, golf, surfing. In understand this is a luxury not everyone can afford but what I do now is work from about 6-9am, go out during the day until about 3, work 4-6. Which if you add it up is still a solid 5 hour day. For whatever reason it just makes me more productive and sleep better at night. Before I did this I just felt like a slave to my computer, super tired all the time, depressed and lethargic. I had sleeping problems because I felt like I was missing out on “life” and for some reason I’d stay up late on Instagram, YouTube etc, maybe watching others live vicariously ? I felt dissatisfied. Knowledge work pays well but IMO it can come at a pretty high cost if you don’t prioritise your life. Edit: I read your reply on another post, I think you’re doing way too much at your job. It’s not manageable and it sounds like you’re burned out and likely failing at at least one of your duties making you feel down.
    • rubicon33 5y ago
      How did you manage this with your employer?
      • ddoolin 5y ago
        Work remotely and not be micromanaged is how I manage something similar. Mine might be even more extreme. Sometimes the second half of my biphasic work schedule may not occur until as late as 9 PM.
      • paulryanrogers 5y ago
        And SO and kids?
        • carlivar 5y ago
          People with these sort of ideal solutions rarely have kids. The parent article is better advice in that domain.
          • true_religion 5y ago
  • bbarnett 5y ago
    This is going to sound really stupid, but get bloodwork done for a vitamin deficiency. As one ages, nutrient absorption wanes. You often need more, to get the same as when younger. So even with an unchanging diet, you may have changed. Working out is the same, eg a 30 minute walk may require a 35 minutes, 40 minutes, for the same cardio benefit.
  • nickjj 5y ago
    > As a 54 year old Software Engineer, who has had a nice IT career for over 26 years, I'm spent. What did you feel like at 30, 40 and 47 for comparison? If it's different, what position / work did you do during those years vs what you do now? Software Engineer and IT is a pretty wide net.
  • mmastrac 5y ago
    Consider that COVID is part of it. I was enjoying myself at work until it hit and then my motivation and desire to learn new things plummeted. I decided to take a sabbatical to recharge and it took a few months before I could enjoy writing code again. I just didn't realize I was burnt out by the world in general.
    • listless 5y ago
      I feel this so much. But I can’t take a sabbatical - I have to pay bills. I basically work everyday and tell myself “just one more hour and then I’ll take off the rest of the day”. I do that every hour until I get as close to 5 as possible. I’ve been like this for over a year. This is my life. I try not to think about it.
      • mmastrac 5y ago
        Can you handle a few months off on savings? I realize I'm talking from a privileged position but it can make a real difference.
        • listless 5y ago
          I can, but my wife works so hard and she would be so angry if i burned through our savings. I wouldn’t blame her. Also my kids work so hard at school. If I stopped working, it would be a terrible example.
      • dredmorbius 5y ago
        A sabbatical now may stave off not being able to work for months or years later. Possibly sooner than you think. Another option is to dial back on committments and intensity, possibly with a reduction in income. It's no a full work cessation, but it is preserving sanity and intellectual capacity. If your finances are stretched now, start cutting. Deep, hard, and fast. If you've a partner, involve them in this discussion.
  • webdev777 5y ago
    I thought by the time you're 54 you could retire. I'm much younger and I could retire in a couple of years. What is your saving rate? - you can read more here https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ Your job starts at 7am? You could start later, like 10. Have your 2-3h lunch time. Finish at 6pm. Change jobs until you find a job like that. There are plenty, I can assure you.
    • syshum 5y ago
      >>I thought by the time you're 54 you could retire. I'm much younger and I could retire in a couple of years. What is your saving rate? That is not going to help him much now. Not everyone has or could have started saving early in life. Some did not due to ignorance, some did not due to life circumstances, some did but other life events could have taken that from them (i.e bad investments, divorce, medical issue, or 100's of other things). Just because you have the luck and privilege to be on the FIRE path does not mean everyone else is as lucky or choose that path. This person may have not planned to retire early and looking back now wished they had made that plan in the 20's. The road not taken an all that... >>Change jobs until you find a job like that. There are plenty, I can assure you. Again it would seem you are taking your anecdote and applying it globally. This is very region specific and I can assure you in my region there are exactly Zero jobs in IT that allow you to start at 10am, take a 2-3 hour lunch, and knock off an 6pm... I will not implicitly state those are not common, but I can not imagine a region where they are?
      • webdev777 5y ago
        I didn't say he should have retired, it's just my expectation for a software engineer to have the ability to retire by then. It's very likely he could retire but he just didn't realized. Maybe looking into it, it's not a bad idea. I worked on 3 continents, in more than 10 companies. No employer ever told me I'm coming in too late, my lunch time it's too long or I'm leaving too early (6pm).
        • syshum 5y ago
  • vimy 5y ago
    Like a couple of others have suggested, get a checkup at the doctor. This sounds more like an energy problem than a psychological one.
  • breput 5y ago
    I work with people in their 20s through 50s (I'm not quite as experienced as you, but I'm a solid Gen X, so getting there). I feel like this a common sentiment across all ages, which is honestly something new in the past two years. As an example - we had a very useful, functional internal developer tool written in Elm (the language, not the mail program). The original devs all quit and no one was interested in learning a new language, so the tool is being shut down and "all" (minus the useful parts) content is moving to a half-assed mix of Wiki, Atlassian tools, and honestly just falling through the cracks. I wasn't involved in the tool's development or depreciation, but just the fact that we have tons of interns and junior software devs around that couldn't be bothered or forced to learn a new language backs up your "I'm spent" motivation TED talk.
    • wirrbel 5y ago
      I, too, am not excited to take over maintenance of someone else's pet project, whose quality I am not capable assessing (and the "fun of starting" gone). Coworker: We'll use Docker, Minikube dev setup,@#$%@.io and Unicorn-Lang, this will be awesomest! Me: Oh, have you considered boring tech? Coworker: ah, it's old, not how software is built today. Also coworker: leaves 1.5 years later with with us having to pick up the pieces.
  • dghughes 5y ago
    I'm 52 got laid off a pseudo-IT job went to a technical college, graduated, got entry level IT and after a year I feel burned out. I'm at the bottom rung of IT where even young people get burned out. Now each day is just a blur of anxiety. I used to love IT, school was a blast I loved programming, servers, networking, security, web design, troubleshooting, but help desk not so much at 52. I used to work evenings and nights at my old job now 9pm seems like 3am.
  • FpUser 5y ago
    I guess I am very lucky then. I am 60 and still very active in development. I develop my own products and I develop new products for clients in various industries. The range is very wide (firmware, low level soft, enterprise applications back and front end, equipment / process control, desktop productivity and entertainment software etc. etc). I do get tired every once in a while but since I am an independent company I can almost always take my time and recover. So far I did not loose any of that sense of excitement when starting on design of completely new project. I guess being ISV for the last 22 years helps greatly in this department. Also read a lot, play me some music on keyboard (insanely bad but who cares) and do fair bit of physical activity (cycling, hiking, swimming in the lakes and ocean. As a result I am very fit, have lots of energy and my brain is always itching to start something new. What I do not have is a ton of money but I am not doing too bad and would not trade my freedom for anything
  • cyberferret 5y ago
    I'm a 54 year old too, who has been cutting code since I was 18. Currently running my own startup which is doing well, but I find that the long years of long hours have sapped my energy levels quite drastically. I deliberately only work about 4 to 6 hours per day max, and delegate everything else to my team. I also take Wednesdays off entirely to spend as a 'date day' with my wife who also has doesn't have a work shift on Wednesdays, and I don't work on weekends any more. My working hours are broken up - I may do 2 or 3 hours in the morning when I wake up, but then I go off an indulge in my other passions such as music production etc. Then I may do a couple more hours in the afternoon when the rest of my remote team are coming online on the other side of the world, then I will take a break to cook dinner etc. and check in quickly before going to bed to ensure all tasks are on track. Like the comment poster above I also take regular naps in the afternoon to recharge my batteries. I also don't have more than 2 to 3 meetings per week, and I am VERY selective about who I meet with and for how long. I am totally focused on maximising every ounce of energy towards only things that will move my startup forward. Conversely, some of those meetings are actually spent mentoring other startup founders - I find that it really motivates me to 'give back' to the community a little after decades of receiving help and advice. An yes, I have been through actual burnout 4 times in my career. Each time gets worse, but I also now know to look for the signs - plus my family and colleagues also keep watch for early signs, which helps me mitigate the onset of bad habits and work patterns that may trigger it.
  • FpUser 5y ago
    >"I'm finding that after 1pm I'm basically fried (I start working around 7AM)." Sometimes I do the same - starting 6-7AM and by around noon I quit. I consider it quite normal and nothing to be ashamed of. Except some emergencies productive people (and I count myself as one) do not really shovel gravel 8 hours a day. No point in doing so.
  • notacoward 5y ago
    I'm 56, and a couple of years ago I was very much where you are. I was used to hard work (about a dozen startups over the years), I was used to learning and excelling and being recognized for it. Until I wasn't. To keep a long story short, I was able to retire and took advantage of it. I highly recommend that you take a good hard look at what it would take for you to get to retirement, and make a plan. It might require cutting back in some areas, but if you don't figure out how to do it then the universe will and it'll probably be worse. Your plan might involve "one last push" to build up savings, or it might involve a "wind down" at a less stressful kind of job that you can sustain for longer. That's up to you. One thing I will say is that I've known several people who tried the "learning new things" route as an antidote to burnout, and it backfired badly. They ended up being even more stressed, unable to perform at their accustomed level, younger colleagues being resentful, etc. Maybe it'll be different for you, but it seems to me that learning new things is best done on your own time - cutting back on work hours to make room if necessary. A sabbatical or a period of part-time work might seem like it's just dragging things out even more, but sometimes it's the right strategy if it keeps you from losing it altogether. Good luck.
  • LeafletOnDemand 5y ago
    Go to church
  • joelbluminator 5y ago
    Are you exercising? Lack of physical exercise is literally a killer.
  • flippinburgers 5y ago
    Younger than you by not much and spent. I have no idea how to recover from this.
  • emgo 5y ago
    The work that you're saying you do daily from 7am-1pm, do you feel satisfied about it at the end of the day? Does it create meaning for you on the grander scheme of things? (based on what your personal values are, and you personally find meaningful) If not, then it's probably time to switch employer, to one that has a product/mission that is aligned with a topic/field that would bring more meaning into your life. If that's not possible, you could try spending one less hour per day on that job you have, and invest that hour in something that creates meaning in your own terms.
  • louis___ 5y ago
    If you're open to try new approaches, meditating may help.
• MattGaiser 5y ago
  One of the things which quickly overwhelms me is just all the little stuff. Couple big ticket items? No problem. Long list of 5-20 minute items, or even worse, conversations of indefinite length? Exhausting.
  • volfied 5y ago
    I work for a big company (F500), and one thing that always bothers me is the out of nowhere Slack messages that are three paragraphs long, by someone I have never met within the company. If I start helping them right away, they are happy to keep me online for the next hour while my flow is gone, god knows where. I am trying to find the nicest way to say: "This should be an e-mail conversation, please send email.", but I wish I could somehow start an email draft that is saved and shows up in some to-do list somewhere.
    • lightbendover 5y ago
      Create an intake queue and direct them to that. Service it on a stated SLA that you decide. Do not respond directly to ad hoc requests (outside of perhaps company wide campaigns that you are in risk of missing).
      • xyzzy123 5y ago
        This is all incredibly difficult in a large company. The intake queues suck because _some_ teams respond to Service Now and some don't. Like, you'll have a pretty easy task which requires stuff from 3 teams, 1 you put in the ticket and they do it same day, the other sits there and never gets picked up, for the third you can't even figure out which team is supposed to do it let alone how you would contact them. So, the hunt begins, and this requires talking to actual humans. Sometimes there are 2 or more teams who could do your thing in different ways but none of them want to. This is made worse by some parts of the company on webex, some on slack, some only available on teams, some teams responsive to email and others not really etc. The only thing that makes the whole engine work is an informal network of people that trust each other who glue the whole thing together behind the scenes. The OP's problem is that large company communication is universally dysfunctional and the "glue" network between them and the people who need things from them is not strong enough. It helps to have a strong informal networker in the reporting chain. This is usually some kind of team lead and everyone accepts that their productivity will be destroyed because "everyone knows who they are" and contacts them out of the blue with their wacky requests. They should then prioritise and route appropriately. If leaders are not amenable or functional in this way they get routed around and "person you contact to get things done" increasingly diverges from formal leadership. IMHO, a keen eye for how the organisation actually functions, careful relationship management and knowing which levers and channels to use to get things done are the skills of a 10x person in enterprise.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• runawaybottle 5y ago
  Eddie Murphy’s joke about relationships boiling down to the other person asking ‘well what have you done for me lately’ is pretty much the gist of many careers. I’m pretty sure I shipped some impactful stuff this year, but lately, well - what have I done for the company lately? This can work in two ways. The first is you can be a victim of this and feel betrayed. The second is, you just have to realize another chance will come along where the thing you did most recently will be recognized. It’s like poker hands. Don’t think you suck because you got a bunch of bad hands in a row. Don’t bet on those hands, and don’t bluff. Just wait until you are ready, because those face cards and pocket aces are coming. Take it easy (and take that nap).
  • draw_down 5y ago
    There’s another- I don’t think you have to feel betrayed and victimized to simply tire of that dynamic and lose interest in it. It’s a big world and there’s more to life than making software for corporations.
• alexfromapex 5y ago
  I feel this so much, baby on the way same exact sentiments
  • itronitron 5y ago
    My two cents... if your inbound baby is your first then a lot of your prior concerns will naturally disappear. If it's not your first then that won't surprise you. Time to be selfish with your time and start distancing yourself from any colleagues that are a time suck. In my humble opinion, the author is either delusional or spinning a yarn when they say they have solicited advice from colleagues. No co-worker is going to give you advice that doesn't serve their own interests first.
    • ineedasername 5y ago
      No co-worker is going to give you advice that doesn't serve their own interests first. I strongly disagree. Plenty of people are self serving, but friendship and mentorship is possible in the workplace. This says a lot more about the places and people that you have worked with than something universal. Alternatively, if this is a mindset that you bring to interactions with co-workers, you might just be getting it reflected back to you.
      • itronitron 5y ago
        >> This says a lot more about the places and people that you have worked with than something universal. I guess I've had a bad run of it then.
    • PragmaticPulp 5y ago
      > No co-worker is going to give you advice that doesn't serve their own interests first. This just isn’t true, unless you’ve managed to find a supremely hostile workplace. I’m always shocked at how cynical some HN comments can be about coworkers. I’ve had my fair share of bad coworkers over the years, but I’ve also found numerous wonderful friends and built lasting relationships with many people. This idea that all coworkers are inherently out to get you is bizarre.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• lightbendover 5y ago
  I am absolutely terrified of clicking the “apply” button for a pre-offered internal transfer at my current company. I’m miserable, more miserable than I ever thought I could be, but if I step back I quickly realize that I have the job I always wanted and one that other people would kill for and have it on lock down to the point that I could put in 10 hours a week and still be heralded as a great leader. I just don’t care about anything I work on or anyone I work with after a major release a couple months ago that bookmarked nearly everything I wanted to accomplish in this role. I seriously doubt this will make me happy — more hours, less prestige, new unknowns, sunk accomplishments - but I am well past my “fuck it” point like so many others I talk to.
  • ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago
    If I had to guess, you work at Amazon?
    • PenguinCoder 5y ago
      Or maybe Facebook.
• adventured 5y ago
  > At first I tried to stay in denial, flooding myself with positive affirmations in an attempt to manifest mental calmness. > “No way I’m burned out. Look at all the women that are actually suffering. Who am I but a privileged white chic taking up space.” That's self abuse, mentally tearing yourself down, that is not positive affirmation. Trying to take an objective stock of your context is reasonable, however comparing yourself to those less fortunate is not a positive affirmation.
• lr4444lr 5y ago
  It's very hard to disentangle how much of this is pressure from your workplace vs. your internalized sense of obligation about work intensity. Parenthood does change a lot of things. But at the end of the day, tech isn't slinging drinks at a bar, or fixing cars, or even like other intense white collar jobs where the stock market closing bell or potential sales target companies office hours put hard time limits on things and let you better compartmentalize your life. It's got elements of research science, art, and construction - ideas percolate over time, experiments need to be run, and structures fail or become unsuitable and need reworking. I used to think with the right methodologies these could all be controlled and that only "dysfunctional" companies didn't do so, but lately I'm concluding that the "busyness" of a software eng. or adjacent jobs in tech just comes with the territory. Yes, some companies are distinctly good or bad at managing the worst of it, but looking at the bigger picture, getting upper middle class salaries in a hot market for talent, to sit in a temperature controlled clean environment and use your brain to solve problems is not a bad trade off for being expected to do amazing things routinely. I think we have a pretty good tradeoff.
  • fksadfji12 5y ago
    This is why I loved converting to a contractor. Completely flips the dynamic. Instead of an employer/boss relationship - I now view them as a customer/client. My decision making and priorities are to better MY business - not theirs. Etc.
  • dexwiz 5y ago
    Less like cogs, more like ants. Not a perfect motion, a squirming mass.
• fxtentacle 5y ago
  "To keep reading this story, get the free app or log in." Apparently, what you have to say isn't important. Or else you would have chosen a blogging platform that isn't hostile to readers.
  • eyeball 5y ago
    "we want to know who you are before we let you read" so f'ing annoying. god I miss the early internet.
    • m12k 5y ago
      Incognito mode defeats this
  • hannyaharamita 5y ago
    YMMV, but on Android in Chrome app, long press and "open in incognito tab" made it readable for me. Also, seems poster is not OP. In a side note, I would love it if HN links were color-coded or otherwise marked as free, closed-garden, soft paywall, or paywall.
    • everybodyknows 5y ago
      Hmm, on Safari I get: "You have 2 free member-only stories left this month."
• jwond 5y ago
  > “No way I’m burned out. Look at all the women that are actually suffering. Who am I but a privileged white chic taking up space.” It’s sad that so many white people have been conditioned to think this way.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • mberning 5y ago
    It’s a mental illness. Imagine somebody saying “I’m just a lowly brown person” or whatever. It’s crazy to think about.
    • xboxnolifes 5y ago
      It's not a mental illness. It's a strategically placed line to fend off a specific crowd that will call you out for complaining about something when you are in a perceived privileged position.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  • CapmCrackaWaka 5y ago
    I feel that throwing in little quipits like that are an easy way to keep the discussion about your article as non-political as possible. It seems counter-intuitive, but if someone comes along and actually brings up the race issue, and it isn’t mentioned in the article, it’ll start a spiral of political/racial arguments that distract from the original article. These little remarks deflect most of it.
    • machinelabo 5y ago
      I guess the problem is that the author has brought it up in the article. Race has no place in this article and yet it's there.
• dccoolgai 5y ago
  "Adulthood in the modern age is just telling yourself 'next week won't be so bad'. Over and over. Until you die"
  • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    Other than adulthood being postponed about a decade how is that any different than it was was at any other time in history?
    • ketanmaheshwari 5y ago
      Do not know about the history but I think things were rather slow in my previous generation. Work started and ended at the work place.
    • danjac 5y ago
      It wasn't. Marx talked of "alienation" over 150 years ago.
• leppr 5y ago
  https://archive.ph/bJCvG https://archive.ph/bJCvG
• jcun4128 5y ago
  I'm chasing that FIRE
• mmaunder 5y ago
  I think it’s pretty clear we have an epidemic of burnout on our hands. I think it’s a new phenomenon. And I think immersive online experiences are the underlying cause. I’ve lived much of my life for the past 30 years in virtual spaces of one form or another, from MUDs to IRC to MMORPGs to early and then fully evolved social media. As commercial virtual space showed up, I noticed the engagement hooks and potential for addiction massively increased. As that happened, for my own mental health, I have distanced myself. I’ve left most social media, don’t play multi user games and have ramped up my real world social interaction. If you work hard and have pressing responsibilities, spending the little free time that you have on commercial addictive online pastimes will, in my opinion, guarantee your implosion. Find spaces to be in during the little free time that you have that don’t make someone else wealthy. Then take it a step further, and find things to do that are good for you.
  • mabub24 5y ago
    I think there is another angle to this, which is that the distinctions between "being at work" and "clocking out" have, for many people who work online all day (and especially for many new to WFH people these past 2 years), faded and faded until now people feel like they are permanently on-call, permanently at the whim of their employer's/manager's/colleague's demands. A solution, in addition to interacting with real people in person more, is to push back hard and rigidly control when and how your work makes contact with the rest of your life. Personally, I'm a zero contact after work hours kind of guy. When my end-of day hits, I will not answer a single thing that is work related. My colleagues have learned to accept it and the world has not ended or the company failed. People are hired and paid accordingly to respond to off hours emergencies. I am not one of those people. Obviously, people will have different roles and relationships with their work, so this type of thing won't work for everyone. But the key is more that you take matters into your own hands and that your interactions with your work become the result of a decision you make.
    • gitanovic 5y ago
      I am also this kind of person (0 contact outside work), and I also want to add that I had to (strongly) push back when I was contacted on my private phone while on vacation. I literally had to tell my colleagues RTFM and don't bother me on my time off. World kept spinning
• PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  I have a friend who once told me that they can only work for about 4 hours a day. When I challenged them that this seemed like a very priviledged position to be able to take, they insisted that it was actually true for pretty much anyone, it's just that as a society, as an economy, as a series of employer/employee relationships, we pretend that it's not. What they meant of course was not whether they could be "at the job(site)" for more than 4 hours a day, but that you could only really do actual (productive) work for 4 hours a day. The rest, so my friend claimed, is almost always filler. My friend also claimed that they believed this was true almost regardless of the type of work you did. Even people doing physical labor don't actually "work hard" for much more than 4 hours - you need breaks (lots of little ones, or maybe a few long ones). I still don't know if they're right about this. Personally, I've always preferred the maxim about "work long, hard or smart: pick 2". Either way, I know that across society, not just in IT related fields, we do not honor these ideas about work in any meaningful way.
  • syshum 5y ago
    Depends on how you classify "productive" in a 40-50hr work week I would say 50-60% is productive actual work (i.e writing a program, or doing the actual task you are paid to do), 10-15% is administrative (making task list, organizing your work, reporting about your work, etc) 10-15% is meetings about your work, 10-15% is socialization with co-workers, unofficial breaks, informal meetings, etc. So if you do not count the other time as "productive" which I could and would challenge then that 4hr number holds true.
    • PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      I don't know really. Several years ago, I got to visit Groupon HQ in Chicago (yes, really! :). I'm an 2nd generation computer person - I started using them in very late 70s and working professionally with them in the middle of the 80s, and even though I was a part of the .com boom, I've been away from that sort of world for decades. Wandering around that place for several hours my main though was "wow, how does anyone ever actually get any work done in this environment, which seems to be designed to encourage people to spend their whole day engaging with other people".
• Waterluvian 5y ago
  Not to suggest this covers everyone or fixes everything, but I think anyone who feels uncomfortable about being completely offline and unreachable outside standard hours really needs to explore that deeply. I think there’s a % of people who are convinced that they must do it for job preservation. And I think a far smaller % of them are actually right. I worried about this a lot. Then it got to the point of being so burned out that I was ready to quit. So I realised I had an opportunity to experiment: delete all work stuff from phone, HARD exit at 5pm (I will hang up on slack conversations), and never work outside core hours. It worked beautifully and I just feel frustrated I didn’t realize this years ago.
• fixingproblems 5y ago
  I say this all the time - programming as a job is not a sustainable life. The fact is that sitting in front of a computer doing mental gymnastics is not in any way something humans are able to cope with over any period of time. People will say "it's just the managers", "it's because you aren't working on interesting things", etc, but it is none of those things. I have worked on interesting projects, been my own boss, etc, and nothing changes. In ancient times, you would perform physical activities that you often enjoyed to some degree, at least to the extent that they made you feel good at the end of the day and ready to rest. Most of the time, work and play were indistinguishable. Evolution makes it so that we enjoy the things we are supposed to do. Animals play hunt when they are younger (or even when they are older) because it is fun and that is how their genes make them get good at things they need to do. Their job is hunting for food, and they like doing it. The further away your job is from your natural tendencies, the worse it gets. Sitting in front of a computer programming and doing other things is about as far away as you can get. Sure, we might like solving problems, etc, but not as a job 9-5 every day. There are the people who say "stop complaining, you sit in an air-conditioned office! You don't have to toil away in a physical labour job", but that is just completely wrong. Sure, some physical labour jobs will mess up your body, but there is nothing healthy about sitting in air-conditioning staring at a computer. I used to work in a physical labour job when I was younger. I had to quit because they were making sure nobody would get full-time steady work. The difference in my mental and physical state going from outdoors physical (but not extreme, body breaking stuff) to office work was extremely noticeable.
  • thewarrior 5y ago
    This comment resonates with me but I’ve read on HN from people who’ve done physical labor that an office job is still much more preferable. Also what you said applies to any office job and not just programming. Physical labor maybe something that we enjoy but say running a farm requires insane amounts of it day in day out.
    • TradeThrowAway3 5y ago
      My career has looked like tech startup (fullstack programming) -> finance sales -> B2B tech sales -> unskilled labor -> skilled labor (HVAC/Electrician/Plumbing, etc. for OPSEC reasons, won't specify) Skilled physical labor is where its at. Unskilled labor is basically a few steps removed from being a slave. 10 hour days (many times 11-12) at bottom-barrel wages, working as fast as you can (because corporate tracks efficiency. Yes, it's actually quantified! HAHA), and getting injured no matter what. It's mind-numbing. I hated it. Now I've been doing a skilled trade, and I feel rejuvenated from being burnt out of white collar/office shit. Get to work around 6-7am, leave around 2-6pm (depending on workload. Usually it's around 3. However, this is with paid overtime. Once you start making the big bucks, your overtime becomes obscene). If you work for a small shop/family-like environment it's very laid back. You develop the stamina needed in about 6-8 weeks, and after that you get very fast at everything physical you do. There's a lot of learning involved (especially keeping up with your state's local building code), but once you know the code and how to use the tools, you basically don't need to relearn the latest way to build something, or spend weeks trying to wrap your head around a tool, or hours late at night wracking your brain trying to decipher shitty mandocs and undocumented APIs, or troubleshooting/debugging while simultaneously wanting to blow your brains out. Everything is simple to learn, troubleshoot, and wrap your head around; it's all in the physical world. Fuck office jobs. Fuck unskilled labor work. Being a farmer is almost like being a glorified landscaper. Nonetheless, I don't see myself doing this forever, so I'm working on a side business so I can break out of the labor class, and join my fellow capital-owning brothers.
• ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Burnout, I feel, has more to do with how motivated and satisfied we are with our vocation, than whether or not we are “busy.” As many company owners will tell you, they have no problem with a crazy busy life, because they are so motivated and fulfilled by their work. For me, I was an engineering manager for 25 years. It was actually long periods of ennui, interrupted by short tornadoes of insanity and stress. Frankly, I enjoyed the insanity and stress, more than the sitting around, waiting to be useful. I hated it so much, that I tasked myself with a great deal of extracurricular work; just to avoid going nuts (some would say it was not avoided successfully). Nowadays, I’m basically “retired.” Except I’m not. I work harder, every day (like, 7 days a week), than I did while I was getting paid. I feel more relaxed than ever.
  • over_bridge 5y ago
    > As many company owners will tell you, they have no problem with a crazy busy life, because they are so motivated and fulfilled by their work. I feel like this is the obvious missing link between people like Elon Musk advocating 80-100 hour weeks and the rest of us. I only work 40 hours because I have stuff I actually care about to squeeze into the evenings. If I don't fit in my passion projects and family, then I might as well be an empty husk, not a person. Completely different story when your main job is also your passion project which you own and derive great fame and fortune from. What else is he going to do? Take a break to work on something he cares about less in the evenings? I can work like a machine as well when I'm personally invested in the outcome and I'll 100% burnout if asked to give the same effort when I'm not.
• sillysaurusx 5y ago
  One thing that helped me is not to care so much about my employer's goals. It's almost heretical. But once you embrace this mindset, it does wonders. Or at least, it has for me so far. I think a lot of us want to be proud of the work we do, and we feel that if we slack off, then we shouldn't be proud. But it's the other way around. I think the slackers have it right. You're probably not going to get rich from working a day job. You're replaceable, and if you left your job tomorrow then you'll soon be forgotten. This is true for the majority of software engineers. In that context, why do so many of us take on so many unnecessary responsibilities? It's tempting to say "Well, my employer assigned them." But how often do you tell them no, or try to present a different approach that just so happens not to involve you? I know someone who is a chronic yes person. They will almost never say no, and they're pretty stressed day to day because of it. Whenever I point out that they're taking on too much, they say that they disagree and that it's their career. That's true, but they won't get rich from that career, so I don't understand why they care so much about it. Just remember to say 'no' for yourself from time to time. You often don't need to take on as many responsibilities as you have.
  • Lammy 5y ago
    > In that context, why do so many of us take on so many unnecessary responsibilities? Honestly I think it’s a wonderful reflection of humans’ innate empathy and drive to help each other, the Stanford Prison Experiment shown to be junk science over and over and over. We humans are unfortunately exploited by humanoid entities (corporations) who turn humans’ one truly-limited resource (attention) into something that’s also non-human. Everybody has heard the idiom that “time = money”, but have you ever stopped to think how fucked up it sounds when you apply the transitive property of equality to get “money = time”?
  • snarf21 5y ago
    Well said. It is frustrating with the "everything is an emergency" mindset at some companies. I far along in my career that I just let it slide off but others aren't. We had a potential customer that was definitely going to sign a contract on Monday so another engineer spent all weekend getting a new rack mount computer all set up. That was four weeks ago and no one has heard anything from them. The bosses think they they are helping to keep everyone motivated and moving forward but they don't get how bad it is for morale. Everything can't be most important.
• scrapcode 5y ago
  I am in my early thirties and have been a hobby developer since I was about twelve. I've always wanted to write code as a daily job, but that idea fades further and further as I settle into how little I actually have to do in my current position for pretty good pay. The idea of "legacy" and the "craft" certainly poke at me often. I am able to develop software for myself that automate much of my job, allow me time to spend with my young family, and maintain my home. I sometimes wish I had the title, and had something I could point at and tell my son "Dad helped build that," one day, as my father did when we would pass a new sub-division of homes that he helped build. However knowing how much drive it takes to stay on top of the newest stack, etc, almost makes me want to strive to stay where I'm at: 40 hours and no more, relaxed, working from home, being with family, with the same salary I would have as a mid to senior dev... life certainly isn't always about the easy decisions.
• jugg1es 5y ago
  My problem with the word 'burnout' is that it denotes some kind of final state. I'm sure I've had periods of burnout but it doesn't last more than a day or two. I had a third kid 4 months ago and my company is transitioning from a small to medium-sized company. I am the tech lead/architect on our company's flagship software and I am constantly struggling with the skill sets of my friendly but incompetent members of my support teams. We are also trying to move 14-15 customers from single-tenancy to a brand new multi-tenant platform that uses a totally new stack at the same time we are transitioning all our processes. It's INSANE. PS: Writing this comment was really helpful for organizing my thoughts for the meetings I have this week. Hopefully I can communicate more effectively to leadership about what is happening. Thanks hackernews.
  • unclekev 5y ago
    > My problem with the word 'burnout' is that it denotes some kind of final state. I'm sure I've had periods of burnout but it doesn't last more than a day or two. I hope it's not a final state. I got burnt out hardcore a few years ago after giving 18 hour days, 7 days a week for 3 years without a break. When I left, I took 6 months off to try and recharge, except by the end of the 6 months i developed a fear/anxiety/hate of anything technology related, and fell apart physically and mentally. It's like the mental and physical consequences of working that schedule didn't catch up with me until I stopped. So I took another 6 months, seeing a professional who prescribed a few things to help. So after 1 year of not working, I'm back in technology. But I still hate it every day. I've lost all passion for anything technology related. I wish I had skills in another area other than technology so I could change careers, but I'd be starting at the bottom which isn't necessary a problem but I'm the primary breadwinner in the family so money becomes the problem. I'm not sure what I'm getting at, I think for me right now burnout does indeed feel like a 'final state'. I hope one day I can get back to the point where it only lasts for a few days at a time.
  • ThrowawayP 5y ago
    > "My problem with the word 'burnout' is that it denotes some kind of final state." It can be. Failing to heed the warning signs can result in a variety of long term medical issues, both physical and mental.
• jerf 5y ago
  "If I’m honest, I’ve been running on fumes for a while. But there were enough milestones along the way to keep chasing that next moment of reprieve. The vacation. The promotion. The vaccine. The remodel.... But then the fumes ran out. And a bunch of life things hit at once, and I couldn’t see any reprieve in my horizon." By no means do I mean to criticize the author for writing this. I only want to encourage everyone else to take this lesson seriously. I've banged this drum before on HN but it can take quite a bit more banging: Take burnout seriously. Take the initial signs of burnout seriously. If you're vaguely nervous about the possibility that you're burning out, take it seriously. Don't shy away from it. Take this to heart: If you're sort of starting to burn out, and you acknowledge it, there are steps you can take to prevent it from ever happening! There's every reason to acknowledge it to yourself. It is ignoring it that may cause the bad outcome. I can speak only for myself in that when I have sensed burnout coming on, I take time off. Sometimes with little notice, because I notice I need it. I get my projects changed. I evaluate my life goals before it's a problem. And I've never really suffered a real burn out yet here at 42, even through some bad times. While I've not had to do this myself, I also strongly encourage extreme self honesty. It's sad to study for some years and then be in a career for longer only to discover it's not the career for you, but it's less sad that staying there. Do you want to be in the brewery business? Do you want to become a carpenter? Be honest. (Though I do also offer just a bit of warning that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence; do take that into account, too.)
• SickOfRaking 5y ago
  I can think of a few reasons for not caring after all these decades. . It's both sad and funny to see things you helped design become obsolete, selling for mils on the dollar or end up in a recycling heap. . Careers often are all about designing the same thing over and over. Even products that appear different to the user often have similar logical plumbing. . Tech really does change over time and you don't care about the new. (for example) I could give a rip about anything involving the internet but that's where all the money flows.
• efitz 5y ago
  I wonder if there are any HR types monitoring this thread. If so, I wonder what they will bring back to the companies that they work for. I voluntarily participate in an employment contract. I like what I do and am good at it. I could work harder but I work what I consider a “fair” amount. Many weeks that is less than 40 hours of my time but sometimes it’s more - if there is an emergency or a crunch time for a reasonable goal, esp if the goal date is not arbitrary. I really don’t like the idea expressed in some threads here that “I should stop caring about my employer’s goals”. If you don’t care about their goals, then the ethical decision is to quit. They’re not asking you to compromise your principles; they’re offering to pay you in exchange for supporting their goals. I think a lot of the ideas on this topic are a little bit muddled. If your employer sets unreasonable goals then you’re not doing you or them a favor by trying to meet (much less actually meeting) those goals. If they try unreasonable shit and it works then they will keep on doing unreasonable shit until it bites them, and make everyone miserable in the process. But not killing myself to meet the unreasonable goal my manager agreed to is not the same as just slacking off all the time. I’m a professional and consider myself ethical and I don’t see a huge ethical difference between stealing and accepting pay for work I didn’t do.
  • bmicraft 5y ago
    > If you don’t care about their goals, then the ethical decision is to quit. So people who just don't care much about anything (that they could realistically do in a job) should just not have a job at all?
  • Pelic4n 5y ago
    >If you don’t care about their goals, then the ethical decision is to quit. What if I don't suscribe to your "ethics"? Sure, if you own the company I'm employed at, you can fire me. But you can't force your arbitrary ethical standard on anyone else in any other case. >they’re offering to pay you in exchange for supporting their goals. They're offering to buy my work in order to support their goals. Not making me care. I have my own goals and I only care about those. There is no benefits at all for me to care about their goals aside from feeling good about being a good worker bee who cares about the hive if I drank the yuppie corporate kool-aid (I didn't). Both the company and me have to make sure that our work agreement satisfy both their goals and mine, or someone is gonna be unhappy. There is a power imbalance in that relationship due to supply and demand of both work and workers, and I'm thankful I'm a skilled professional in that regard. >I’m a professional and consider myself ethical and I don’t see a huge ethical difference between stealing and accepting pay for work I didn’t do. Do you uphold the same ethical standard from the company you work for? In a market economy, the incentive of the company is to pay you as little as possible for your work. If they're able to buy your work for less and they don't do it, they will get run over by the competition who will get the edge. Is that unethical? Ethics and morals are not based in anything concrete and are made to domesticate you. If someone is explaining to you what is good or evil or just, they're trying to make you behave in a certain way to their benefits. Companies that wants "team players" and people "having a personal investment in their work" want complacent workers that will do more for less.
• tmaly 5y ago
  >1st: I figured out what I wanted and wrote them down so I’m not lost again I think this is one of the hardest things to figure out in life. I think it is one of the major philosophical questions. I wish I could say I knew the answer, but I am still trying to find an answer.
• franciscop 5y ago
  What is with Medium limiting these articles for logged in users but allowing us to read them in incognito mode? It's like they want to make the experience worse if you are logged in.
• chmod600 5y ago
  One way to define "busy" is that your time has a high opportunity cost. You could get ahead on the project, which seems to be worth a lot. And it makes you feel bad about playing a board game with your kid or going shoe shopping with your wife. Tactically, working on the project always seems like a win. But strategically, it's not. You need to do those "boring" things that make up some of the best aspects of life, and help you build deeper relationships. If you need to work to put food on the table, then work. Your family will feel you around because your contributions are meaningful, and you can still build great relationships. But if you are just working to get a bigger house or a new car, then it's not really the same thing.
• bsharitt 5y ago
  I've been fairly lucky that for about 2/3 of my career I've worked in environments that have generally been pretty laid back. Though I did do a short stint just shy of a couple months at company that had just awful culture where everything was a crisis and it was always crunch time and 12+ hour days were the expected norm. I didn't stick around because of that(and also the job was quite different that what was discussed in the interview), and I don't know how or why people put up with that on a normal basis. Maybe if you were the founder or a very early employee with significant equity, but not just for a salary. But even with my generally laid back workload at my job, I think the culture of the tech industry does seep in a bit and I feel like I need to be doing more. So I start side projects or go learn programming languages or some new tool, which aren't bad things in of themselves until they start to feel like an obligation and start sucking the vitality out of your life. I've started to keep those in check a bit better, mostly by keeping a further distance from the tech world by no longer following tech people on Twitter and drastically cutting back my time on sites like this one(I'm only here now because I finished watching a movie and it's tad early for bed, but to close to pick back up the book I was reading). I almost want to say that the solution might be do tech work outside the tech industry, but I also spent a few years at mortgage company and with some defense contractors, and those are just soul sucking in different ways. Basically my cure has been to find hobbies and interests far away from anything related to my job.
• tibiahurried 5y ago
  > You're probably not going to get rich from working a day job. Does not apply to tech
• ChuckMcM 5y ago
  All good advice. I distinctly remember they day I changed. I was talking to my wife and telling her how I thought Sun should give more vacation, she pointed out that I had come back from the office at lunch time and that is was Christmas Eve which was a company holiday. So many things went "Click!" all at the same time. From that point on I made it a priority to be home by 6PM so that we could have dinner with the family at 6:30. No more late nights, no more stressing about being the first guy to leave the office. Instead I was going to have a relationship with my kids and share in the adventures of their childhood. It did affect my career, nobody who wanted to get to VP level ever went home on time AFAICT. But it gave me focus in that I knew I was going to roll out of the office between 5:30 and 5:45 so my deadlines were set accordingly. I did log in some evenings after the kids had gone to bed but it wasn't the "usual" thing. And the wife and I spread out the vacation so that every month we had a 3 day weekend (either from holidays or by using a vacation day.) It made things much more tolerable.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • patatino 5y ago
    When I was 16, I realized for the first time that there are working dads who cannot eat with their kids. My dad was able to come home every day. For me, it was just normal. I work from home, and I have an hour before work in the morning with my kids, can eat lunch with them, and log out at 5 pm sharp.
• blobbers 5y ago
  Can confirm. Left my job in the software industry with no plans to return. Everyone asks how my break is going and I say “fine”, but I’m retired at 40. The idea of being back at work in some 9-5 or 8-6 where my brain is still trying to solve the problems of the day as I lie in bed are over. Certainly a lot of parents can sympathize with the itch of “if I can get the kids to sleep I can get a few more hours in”. No more of that. I can finally be present. I’m done competing with smart people who have no kids, and an industry that expects workaholics.
  • ornornor 5y ago
    I envy you. I love programming but I hate doing it for a living. The minute I can afford it, I’ll quit and never go back.
    • nicbou 5y ago
      When I stopped doing it for a living, I started enjoying programming again. Now I build dumb things for my own pleasure, and it's great.
      • ornornor 5y ago
        Unfortunately, I don’t have any other skills that could earn me anywhere near as much as software. What do you do for money now?
        • nicbou 5y ago
          I run a website that helps people settle in Germany. It doesn't need to pay as much as software dev, so long as I can enjoy a more peaceful lifestyle.
• mastazi 5y ago
  Could someone share a non-walled link please? EDIT: incognito tab works, hope it helps in case anyone is having issues.
• cupcake-unicorn 5y ago
  https://www.stophavingkids.org/ https://www.stophavingkids.org/
• Daegalus 5y ago
  I am only 32, but I luckily (maybe cause I am slightly on the spectrum and approached things in a super logical way) found out that I only actually work 3-4 hours a day, and the rest was meetings/lunch/cooler chat. So I stopped caring about those extra hours, and refused to go to meetings where I wasn't needed or didn't need to be meetings. I made sure I did all my work in 5-6 hours daily. I am good at what I do, but I never signed up for extra, I never stayed late. Sure I am on-call, and I have had a share of 3 am pager alerts, but those are far and few between. I have always had very little burnout if any. I don't work on as many side projects lately, but I am keeping sane. I work 10-4, sometimes a little later. and I don't feel sorry about it. I get my stuff done, I get more done than most others, maybe less than some of the all-stars, but I know I am not underperforming, and thats fine. I love what I do as a programmer, I plan to do it for many years, but I will never sacrifice my work-life balance for any company. Especially with my first child on the way. I think because of this, I get more done, and seem to do more than the others, when in reality, I am doing a bit less, or at least waste less time.
• yonig 5y ago
  Seems many people here relate to work burnout in general. How many others like myself are burnt out from the constant learning from work? This in comparison to what you’re doing with the tools you’ve already learned. Still 5ish years into my career and get drained
• locallost 5y ago
  Ever since I got my first job over 10 years ago I've wondered why there is still an 8 hour work day, at least in this profession. If you're a highly intelligent, capable person, and you're working on something cutting edge that consumes you, and you want to sleep under your desk to get it done -- then sure, go ahead. But the vast majority of people don't do that. So 6 hours with a lunch break included seems fine to me, maybe even too much. Just ban social media, news or whatever. Look at Youtube videos on your own time, post on HN on your own time. Come to work fresh, leave fresh, and I think people will be more productive in the long run.
• jmfldn 5y ago
  I agree with a lot of this. I like my job, I don't want to be cynically detached from it, but it IS just a job. So much of this so-called hustle culture is a product of us all internalising the values of our exploitative economic system. Left as we are increasingly alone in the marketplace, we feel the need to run faster or get left behind. It's just a job, other things are more important unless you're one of the very rare few who are doing mission critical work, saving lives or looking after people. Work hard enough but sensibly, keep a balance. I promise you that on your deathbed you won't be wishing that you worked even harder.
• quickthrower2 5y ago
  Once you realise it’s the same old thing. Yes I could get a rust job maybe or whatever, but it’ll be sprints, managers, something not working try to logically figure out, estimates, user stories, etc. it’s just very sameish! The dope hits get less and it’s more of a nuisance to earn money. And companies tend to become more bean county with time so you need to hop to keep it reasonable and more engineering focused not kpi hoop backflips.
• jeffrallen 5y ago
  She sounds cool, and like she's got her head on straight. Good on her. I also reduced my availability, it is not so much career suicide as "career murder". You look at your career as it is laid out before you, you say, "yeah, no... no thanks". You weed it and you grow something different in it's place. In a large and healthy team, when you slow down, others who are ready and willing step up. They are going to need mentoring. If you can turn your reduced availability into a new crop of future leaders, your boss is going to thank you for the service. (Well, it also helped that I noticed what was happening and told my boss to thank me!) The are lots of places along the line where my experience could have gone differently, for the worse. But it didn't, and I hope the author is as lucky as I was.
• timwaagh 5y ago
  The one thing I don't understand is this mentality of self sacrifice that to me seems core to all this. 'who am I but a privileged white chic taking up space', to me, says all. You are never a privileged space taker. You're all you have and there rest of the world is in a way far less important than you.
• newshorts 5y ago
  In my 20s / early 30s I worked an insane amount of hours. I got a ton of skills and progressed quickly. After having two kids, I’ve slowed down a lot, but I believe i can still have just as much impact. I focus my time now, I have hard conversations, I say no to the majority of the things I would have said yes to. It’s definitely more challenging, but I’m able to keep up by growing in new ways, so keep your head up, you can have a life and get things done. You have to simplify, that’s the hard part.
• jhoechtl 5y ago
  Medium is such a PITA
• benpeng2021 5y ago
  I don't sacrifice my health or family life for money or any prideful work. Thus, I set my boundary to avoid burnout.
• maryness 5y ago
  It's your life; you do you. You only live once. Try to recuperate and find things that deal with your burnout slowly. Be a hands-on parent to your children if you love to. After all, you can only decide for yourself.
• dmontero 5y ago
  We are too often caught up in the inertia of our life, telling ourselves lies like 'the future will be better', 'just a little more', 'what are they gonna think about me if...', 'this salary raise is very important'. Once you step out and remind yourself your time in this world is limited, a list of priorities will start to take shape, based on the following questions: 1. which cause is worth it for you to spend your effort and money? 2. which activities bring you pleasure and joy? 3. which are the reasonable sacrifices to fullfill 1 and 2? There is no universal answer to those questions but everything starts with slowing down, gaining perspective and diving in
• test1235 5y ago
  https://archive.is/bJCvG https://archive.is/bJCvG
• czottmann 5y ago
  Archived/de-medium'd: https://archive.ph/bJCvG https://archive.ph/bJCvG
• VonBlue 5y ago
  “I make lifestyle choices that do not involve a screen outside of work hours.” This is my line for the past 13 years to apologetically explain why I do not write code in my personal time. Why do people still rely on this as an indicator of passion, or dedication, or competence? It is also my line to explain why I do not have work Slack or work email on my phone. Even with all these safeguards in place, I still managed to have a crazy burnout from a project. Migraines and hypertension that eventually landed me in the ER and necessitated a month away from work to recover. This taught me that working a normal 40-45 hour week is not enough. Active self-care is necessary outside of those hours. Tl;dr: Working less is not enough. What we do when we don’t work also matters.
• WealthVsSurvive 5y ago
  It's called depression, not burnout. It's an evolutionary response to factors in your life that lead you towards thanatos and away from eros, allowing you the super-power of obsessive negative thought and absolute joylessness (anhedonia), so you may bide your time and fight them with the abandon of one who no longer cares about their own safety. Some choose to call it a genetic disease. I like to think of it as a valid, genetic structure that happens to have some rough edges and expresses itself too readily.
  • mmmmmbop 5y ago
    Do you have more background on this? What's the best way to approach a feeling like this, in your experience.
  • Valakas_ 5y ago
    No. You're looking at things from superficial perspective. The only single reason we're all in this rate race is gene competition. Remove gene competition, suddenly there is not more need for constant growth, for economic growth, for countries to overwhelm other countries. For groups to fight other groups. The real reason why we haven't dialed back on 40 working hours per week is that the first country that does it will lose an edge against the others. In the long run it means that country loses power. Maybe the other countries will then "override" it or control it. The people of said powerless country will face the fear of being at the mercy of the ones that continued on a race to growth. Our whole society is nothing but at the mercy of our genes still competing with each other. That's all there is to what we're doing. All of this is still instinct-driven. And 99% of us are blind to that.
  • throw_this_one 5y ago
    Well put.
• globular-toast 5y ago
  Another day, another woman realising that the career they've been told to pursue isn't what it's cracked up to be. These are getting pretty common now. > And I for one, no longer want to sprint in this rat race. Great, but you'll have to downgrade your lifestyle. No more road trips around Europe [0], for example. I notice that is distinctly missing from the article. Leaving the rat race doesn't just mean you stop running, it means you stop running in the same direction as everyone else. [0] https://elenasalaks.medium.com/20-tips-for-a-successful-road-trip-during-a-pandemic-4d4f5f323fda https://elenasalaks.medium.com/20-tips-for-a-successful-road...