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> What I learned is that burning out isn’t just about work load, it’s about work load being greater than the motivation to do work. That's pretty profound, and

> What I learned is that burning out isn’t just about work load, it’s about work load being greater than the motivation to do work. That's pretty profound, and indeed I think it's not uncommon for people to get very burned out on very light workloads, as in OP, which OP has explained neatly.

dspillett 4y ago
I think this mis-characterises where the burn-out often comes from. If you have an outwardly light task with onerous implications (just feeling you are being dishonest, as in these examples, can easily be enough) or very stressful segments, you aren't just dealing with the stress during the hours you are officially clocked-on, you will be thinking about it throughout chunks of the rest of your day. It may even inhibit sleep to an extent. Time away from a stressful situation is often not stress free time. Unless of course you are one of those lucky people who can reliably switch these thoughts on and off at appropriate times, mentally shift responsibility ("not my job to keep that correct, guv'ner") without guilt, or lack the awareness for these issues to even present themselves at all. See "how do politicians and lobbyists sleep at night"!
- justinlloyd 4y ago
  > Unless of course you are one of those lucky people who can reliably switch these thoughts on and off at appropriate times I have no evidence or considrations one way or the other, but I wonder if people without an internal dialogue, without an inner voice, have less stress or anxiety because they never switch those thoughts on or off.
  - stavros 4y ago
    As someone like that, maybe? I'm much less stressed than other people I know, though work does sometimes piss me off, bleeding well into non-work time.
rib3ye 4y ago
In my experience this is a highly underrated statement. In my day job, I work with Roblox developers, all whom either dropped out or never went to college to be full-time Roblox devs. They are so motivated by being on the platform that they will happily spend 8+ hours a day re-creating MS Office products on Roblox for our clients.
- duxup 4y ago
  My son plays a lot and I watch. The creativity, whimsy, and fun is off the charts. I find it very appealing compared to the "outside" gaming world. I tell my son "Hey you know what if they had a game about bugs and you---" "Dad they have that." "But what if they--" "Yeah dad that's exactly how it plays."
  - rib3ye 4y ago
    I agree. Additionally, the velocity of development blows me away. I frequently ask them, "why Roblox?" and the answer is so obvious I feel dumb every time: Time investment to stand up a fully network-enabled multiplayer game with a "metaverse" UGC catalog, user account management, and "good enough" trust and safety is literally as fast as the dev can click "Create" and "Play".
- ZephyrBlu 4y ago
  Recreating Office products inside Roblox? Sounds interesting, but why?
  - rib3ye 4y ago
    Without divulging too much info about the client, they want us to create a tool for giving audio+slide presentations with their Roblox avatar. I know Roblox is known as a kid's gaming platform but from my observation of the API capabilities, they see themselves as a "metaverse operating system" and development stack.
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
I found that to be the case, with me. I was a manager, for a long time. Before that (and after), an engineer. In the early days of being a manager, I was able to also be an IC on most projects, and my work counted for a lot. However, my handlers did not approve of me "getting my hands dirty," and, quite often, explicitly interfered with efforts on my part, to be a technical contributor. The last couple of years absolutely sucked. My team was burning out, and I wanted to pitch in and help, but I wasn't allowed to. The startup we worked with, wanted me to. The work was interesting as hell (however, in the long run, it never worked out). It was pretty much exactly in my wheelhouse. Instead, I ended up sitting on my butt, trying to keep track of a chaotic situation, without imposing on my engineers, and waiting for stuff to happen. That was real burnout. I didn't want to go into the office, anymore. Eventually, my wish came true, and they disbanded my team, after that project went pear-shaped. Could I have made the difference? Almost certainly not, but I probably could have made a difference. Since leaving that company, I have been working pretty much seven days a week, often, from early morning, until hitting the sack. I have not felt even a tiny bit burned out.
nevinera 4y ago
I think it mischaracterizes burnout entirely. Burnout is an internal process, and not one that can be defined in terms of external causes - you burn out when you are persisting against stress for long periods. There are certainly many standard recurring situations that can reliably cause such stress, but none of them are universal. In OP's case, it sounds like he's fairly motivated by his value-add, and found the prospect of functional dishonesty a major stressor (I'd have the same reaction).
riedel 4y ago
You are partially mixing cause and symptoms. My burn out was totally erasing my motivation until I did not want to get up anymore. The cause was IMHO too much subconscious stress on multiple levels that kept my anxiety too high. But it is true that what follows is a downward spiral (which makes the statement true again: you however are unlikely to fix it by adding motivation)
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  Maybe there are different kinds of burnout. The reason that statement seemed profound to me is because I have had experiences where I was doing something that was easy, that didn't involve any unethical behavior in this case, but it just seemed useless to me. I didn't care about it, I didn't find the work rewarding at all. And it led to burnout, eventually. Eventually I couldn't manage to get any of the (formerly easy) work done. It was still easy work. I was just burned out from doing work I had no interest in doing, even though it was easy. It wasn't really about stress, the work was easy, there wasn't too much stress. You're right that my motivation dropped as I got burned out -- that's why I couldn't even accomplish the formerly easy task anymore. But I never really cared about it, which is I think why it led to burnout. If I had found the easy work really important and rewarding, I didn't think it would have led to burn out. Maybe "motivation" isn't the right word, or maybe motivation can mean a few things at a few levels...
hospitalJail 4y ago
"I believed I was invincible. If MIT couldn’t burn me out, nothing else ever could. It took roughly three months before BCG disproved my “burn-out proof” theory" I also wonder if this is a 'getting older' thing. When I was young, I had all the time to do anything. I had no money or opportunity, so when an opportunity came along I would go 100% into it. Now that I have money, education, and experience, I have nearly endless options. I try to do the ones that suck least and have good ROI.
trelane 4y ago
This relates with me deeply. I once was almost literally told to "work harder, not smarter." Fortunately for my sanity, I was able to leave that place soon thereafter. It's not that the work was hard, it was just kinda stupid.
hosh 4y ago
I agree it is profound. I think the key is whether the workload is meaningful or purposeful; motivation being a proxy for how meaningful the work is. That meaning is both intrinsic (something someone finds personally meaningful) and extrinsic (something that contributes meaningfully to a greater whole). You can still kill yourself on onerous yet meaningful work, but you'll also die fufilled and self-actualized.

dspillett 4y ago

I think this mis-characterises where the burn-out often comes from. If you have an outwardly light task with onerous implications (just feeling you are being dishonest, as in these examples, can easily be enough) or very stressful segments, you aren't just dealing with the stress during the hours you are officially clocked-on, you will be thinking about it throughout chunks of the rest of your day. It may even inhibit sleep to an extent. Time away from a stressful situation is often not stress free time. Unless of course you are one of those lucky people who can reliably switch these thoughts on and off at appropriate times, mentally shift responsibility ("not my job to keep that correct, guv'ner") without guilt, or lack the awareness for these issues to even present themselves at all. See "how do politicians and lobbyists sleep at night"!

justinlloyd 4y ago
> Unless of course you are one of those lucky people who can reliably switch these thoughts on and off at appropriate times I have no evidence or considrations one way or the other, but I wonder if people without an internal dialogue, without an inner voice, have less stress or anxiety because they never switch those thoughts on or off.
- stavros 4y ago
  As someone like that, maybe? I'm much less stressed than other people I know, though work does sometimes piss me off, bleeding well into non-work time.

rib3ye 4y ago

In my experience this is a highly underrated statement. In my day job, I work with Roblox developers, all whom either dropped out or never went to college to be full-time Roblox devs. They are so motivated by being on the platform that they will happily spend 8+ hours a day re-creating MS Office products on Roblox for our clients.

duxup 4y ago
My son plays a lot and I watch. The creativity, whimsy, and fun is off the charts. I find it very appealing compared to the "outside" gaming world. I tell my son "Hey you know what if they had a game about bugs and you---" "Dad they have that." "But what if they--" "Yeah dad that's exactly how it plays."
- rib3ye 4y ago
  I agree. Additionally, the velocity of development blows me away. I frequently ask them, "why Roblox?" and the answer is so obvious I feel dumb every time: Time investment to stand up a fully network-enabled multiplayer game with a "metaverse" UGC catalog, user account management, and "good enough" trust and safety is literally as fast as the dev can click "Create" and "Play".
ZephyrBlu 4y ago
Recreating Office products inside Roblox? Sounds interesting, but why?
- rib3ye 4y ago
  Without divulging too much info about the client, they want us to create a tool for giving audio+slide presentations with their Roblox avatar. I know Roblox is known as a kid's gaming platform but from my observation of the API capabilities, they see themselves as a "metaverse operating system" and development stack.

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

I found that to be the case, with me. I was a manager, for a long time. Before that (and after), an engineer. In the early days of being a manager, I was able to also be an IC on most projects, and my work counted for a lot. However, my handlers did not approve of me "getting my hands dirty," and, quite often, explicitly interfered with efforts on my part, to be a technical contributor. The last couple of years absolutely sucked. My team was burning out, and I wanted to pitch in and help, but I wasn't allowed to. The startup we worked with, wanted me to. The work was interesting as hell (however, in the long run, it never worked out). It was pretty much exactly in my wheelhouse. Instead, I ended up sitting on my butt, trying to keep track of a chaotic situation, without imposing on my engineers, and waiting for stuff to happen. That was real burnout. I didn't want to go into the office, anymore. Eventually, my wish came true, and they disbanded my team, after that project went pear-shaped. Could I have made the difference? Almost certainly not, but I probably could have made a difference. Since leaving that company, I have been working pretty much seven days a week, often, from early morning, until hitting the sack. I have not felt even a tiny bit burned out.

nevinera 4y ago

I think it mischaracterizes burnout entirely. Burnout is an internal process, and not one that can be defined in terms of external causes - you burn out when you are persisting against stress for long periods. There are certainly many standard recurring situations that can reliably cause such stress, but none of them are universal. In OP's case, it sounds like he's fairly motivated by his value-add, and found the prospect of functional dishonesty a major stressor (I'd have the same reaction).

riedel 4y ago

You are partially mixing cause and symptoms. My burn out was totally erasing my motivation until I did not want to get up anymore. The cause was IMHO too much subconscious stress on multiple levels that kept my anxiety too high. But it is true that what follows is a downward spiral (which makes the statement true again: you however are unlikely to fix it by adding motivation)

jrochkind1 4y ago
Maybe there are different kinds of burnout. The reason that statement seemed profound to me is because I have had experiences where I was doing something that was easy, that didn't involve any unethical behavior in this case, but it just seemed useless to me. I didn't care about it, I didn't find the work rewarding at all. And it led to burnout, eventually. Eventually I couldn't manage to get any of the (formerly easy) work done. It was still easy work. I was just burned out from doing work I had no interest in doing, even though it was easy. It wasn't really about stress, the work was easy, there wasn't too much stress. You're right that my motivation dropped as I got burned out -- that's why I couldn't even accomplish the formerly easy task anymore. But I never really cared about it, which is I think why it led to burnout. If I had found the easy work really important and rewarding, I didn't think it would have led to burn out. Maybe "motivation" isn't the right word, or maybe motivation can mean a few things at a few levels...

hospitalJail 4y ago

"I believed I was invincible. If MIT couldn’t burn me out, nothing else ever could. It took roughly three months before BCG disproved my “burn-out proof” theory" I also wonder if this is a 'getting older' thing. When I was young, I had all the time to do anything. I had no money or opportunity, so when an opportunity came along I would go 100% into it. Now that I have money, education, and experience, I have nearly endless options. I try to do the ones that suck least and have good ROI.

trelane 4y ago

This relates with me deeply. I once was almost literally told to "work harder, not smarter." Fortunately for my sanity, I was able to leave that place soon thereafter. It's not that the work was hard, it was just kinda stupid.

hosh 4y ago

I agree it is profound. I think the key is whether the workload is meaningful or purposeful; motivation being a proxy for how meaningful the work is. That meaning is both intrinsic (something someone finds personally meaningful) and extrinsic (something that contributes meaningfully to a greater whole). You can still kill yourself on onerous yet meaningful work, but you'll also die fufilled and self-actualized.