5 ms·

I’ve always thought burnout is the same thing as learned helplessness, which is a pretty well studied phenomenon in psychology. It doesn’t seem mysterious to me

by choxi 4y ago

I’ve always thought burnout is the same thing as learned helplessness, which is a pretty well studied phenomenon in psychology. It doesn’t seem mysterious to me that if you repeatedly do a task that is unrewarding for long enough, you no longer want to do it. Then the COVID burnout can be explained by a large scale reduction in the rewards that typically keep people going.

Trasmatta 4y ago
Related to this: one thing I saw somebody here say one time is that responsibility without authority is a key to burnout. Having the responsibility to complete a large amount of work without the authority to make the decisions needed for that work can be incredibly disempowering, which can make you feel helpless. More reason to have small teams, cut out middle management, hire good developers, and trust them to make decisions. Being a code monkey is a recipe for burnout.
- clnq 4y ago
  Being a code monkey is fine if one embraces that position with its economic and ambition consequences. It could even be a good economic deal with a 9-to-5 minimal effort mindset. Being a code monkey who thinks it's their job to be responsible for the company is hard. In that case, I agree with you. Such a code monkey needs to put themselves in a position of power somehow.
  - Trasmatta 4y ago
    It's not about being responsible for the company. It's about having the ability to make the decisions to guide your own work without endless bikeshedding, internal politics, red tape, conflicting messages from different layers of management, and constant meetings that go nowhere. > Being a code monkey is fine if one embraces that position with its economic and ambition consequences. It's perfectly fine. It can also lead to burnout.
    - clnq 4y ago
      > endless bikeshedding, internal politics, ... , conflicting messages from different layers of management, and constant meetings that go nowhere. This sounds more like manager incompetence than being a code monkey. But embracing code monkey-ism could help as I imagine it involves just doing tasks at one's own pace and putting up strong emotional boundaries to mismanagement. Can constant meetings or bikeshedding really hurt someone who's just looking to run out the clock? P.S. I'm talking about choosing to be a code monkey as a philosophy, a choice. Not as a skill level that I'd call "beginner". Some people call beginners code monkeys, I am not a fan of that.
      - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
        > This sounds more like manager incompetence Or it could be two or more competent managers coming into conflict. Or incompetent ones. It is not that rare l - if you recognise the situation, you can pick a side, but if you dont know what to do, you could be viewed badly by all participants
- gedy 4y ago
  > More reason to have small teams, cut out middle management, hire good developers, and trust them to make decisions. Well, that is until the senior engineers or managers burnout from being "responsible" for keeping product from crashing, performance issues, and/or technical debt but without authority to change things! QED
LaurensBER 4y ago
I spend most of my 15 year career working at startups I've worked long evenings, weekends, dealt with stress, tense situations (both commercial and social) and deadlines and never had any symptoms of burnout. I switched to a large enterprise company and enjoyed the relaxed pace for a year. The first 6 months took some adjustment but I quickly figured out that getting things done in a large company just required a bit of a different skill set. Sometimes it took weeks to get a simple configuration changed but when I finally talked to the guy I learned that he had 5 kids, three of them who were sick, instantly made me realize that my frustration about the pace was uncalled for. Fast forward to the second year, I got a new manager who turned the office politics to 11, put people in positions that they were absolutely not fit for and in general made a huge mess out of everything, ignoring the advice and suggestions of the team while doing it while continuously reminding us engineers of our low place in the picking order. If there was a way to rank managers this guy would be in the bottom 5%, I've worked with about 30 managers (in one way or another) in my career so this was bound to happen at some point. However, I was totally not prepared for the effect it had on me. Within months I was reduced to someone who was frustrated 24/7, unable to do even the most basic task, I was sleeping poorly and my physical health was suffering. It took an enormous amount of energy just to sit through online meetings without lashing out, the rest of the team was feeling the same so you can imagine what kind of environment it was. I was lucky to get a new job very quickly and after getting out of that toxic environment I was my old self again in mere weeks. I can totally imagine how burnout can be modeled as learned helplessness. If, I, as young, healthy guy can be reduced to a wreck, in months, in a toxic environment, I can only start to imagine what people have to go through that don't have the luxury of switching jobs quickly (for whatever reason).
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
  > Within months I was reduced to someone who was frustrated 24/7, unable to do even the most basic task, I was sleeping poorly and my physical health was suffering. Always remember that it's jsut a job, and that your manager's opinion - outside of that org - is no more important than anyone else's opinion in the world.
  - planetsprite 4y ago
kayodelycaon 4y ago
I think there is a lot to this. Burnout is somewhat poorly defined. The more specific "learned helplessness" would cover a lot of the cases and would be a useful guide for treatment.
vouaobrasil 4y ago
I can see the reasoning here but I think it's a little different. Learned helplessness is the phenomenon where people stop trying to change their situation or circumstance because they feel ("learn") that nothing will help. Burnout is a little different. Burnout is more like when you simply don't want to do something any more, but often people with burnout still have the capacity to change their circumstance. Often people with burnout will quit or take time off and seriously reconsider their situation, whereas that is not the case with learned helplessness. In my opinion burnout is actually more of a natural phenomenon, which is the mind simply needing to do something totally different and perhaps more meaningful. I believe it is also due to the unnatural tendency for people to work in the same or similar field of expertise for far too long, which is simply not natural especially for highly intellectual fields.
- marcusverus 4y ago
  Is it possible that the difference is just a matter of scope? Like you said, "Burnout is like when you don't want to do something anymore". Isn't that what learned helplessness is, with a 'something' that's life-scoped instead of work-scoped?
  - vouaobrasil 4y ago
    The key aspect of learned helplessness is that the person has a lot of trouble changing their situation. Just being very averse to doing something does not fall under than unless the person also has trouble exiting from the situation that they are burnt out from, which is generally not the case with burnout.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  > In my opinion burnout is actually more of a natural phenomenon, which is the mind simply needing to do something totally different and perhaps more meaningful. Strong disagree. Scientists burn out harder than programmers and what they do is arguably more "meaningful", at least to the individual scientist. Actually I think burnout is often triggered by moral injury, which starts by having a personal investment in the narrative of your objective
wibblen 4y ago
This is my take as well. A related problem is the idea of control. If you feel you have no control over a situation, then action feels meaningless. The book "Lab Rats" explains this phenomenon very well. In fact, apparently, the way you make a rat depressed in a lab study is to constantly change small aspects of its environment, preventing it from ever feeling stable and comfortable. I wonder if the upheaval in modern social life resulting from things like the rapid changes brought on by capitalism and information technology are a contributor to this widespread feeling.
- marssaxman 4y ago
  The never-ending parade of software "updates", and the constant chaos of web-based services, has killed much of the joy I used to feel when working with computers. There's no real point actually learning the system deeply anymore, because they just keep changing it out from under you, and you can't really stop them. I will never buy a Tesla, with that big screen controlling everything, which the true owners of the vehicle keep on reprogramming from afar! At least you can count on an older car to keep on functioning in the same way you're used to, from one day to the next.
bigDinosaur 4y ago
Yes, burnout is not really about how much you work at all. It's caused by a mismatch between your values and your work. For many people here their values probably include curiousity and wanting to learn. I burnt out almost completely doing work that was easy - but that I totally and utterly despised because of how boring it was (and how little it would advance my career). This was indeed like learned helplessness (not being prepared to quit immediately when I had the means - which was actually at any point (!) - was the learned helplessness part). In other words, you can burn out at a job that's 12 hours a week and not burn out at a job that's 60 hours a week. It depends heavily on the nature of the work. Whenever people talk about feeling 'burnt out' purely due to how many hours they work I am always sceptical and suspect the root cause is actually different (note that I actually think our work week is too long even at 40 hours, I think too many hours of work are unhealthy for other reasons). In this sense I'd distinguish 'exhaustion' from 'burnout'. The former can turn into the latter but often does not but the root cause of exhaustion is exertion whereas this is not the case for burnout. They can converge, of course, the ultimate result may be severe depression in either case, but it's still worth distinguishing.
throwawaymaths 4y ago
100% agree that it's similar to learned helplessness. You put in large amounts of effort only to be rewarded with failure (or miss the social recognition you expected, or didn't get a pay raise, or management cancels your project)... Perversely the advice to take a break is likely often counterproductive, because you will further associate a reward with the burnout. Honestly IMO the best move is to reassociate labor with reward. Do small things like refactoring, chores, etc. Then plan to take a needed break some time disconnected from the high effort event.

by choxi 4y ago

Trasmatta 4y ago

Related to this: one thing I saw somebody here say one time is that responsibility without authority is a key to burnout. Having the responsibility to complete a large amount of work without the authority to make the decisions needed for that work can be incredibly disempowering, which can make you feel helpless. More reason to have small teams, cut out middle management, hire good developers, and trust them to make decisions. Being a code monkey is a recipe for burnout.

clnq 4y ago
Being a code monkey is fine if one embraces that position with its economic and ambition consequences. It could even be a good economic deal with a 9-to-5 minimal effort mindset. Being a code monkey who thinks it's their job to be responsible for the company is hard. In that case, I agree with you. Such a code monkey needs to put themselves in a position of power somehow.
- Trasmatta 4y ago
  It's not about being responsible for the company. It's about having the ability to make the decisions to guide your own work without endless bikeshedding, internal politics, red tape, conflicting messages from different layers of management, and constant meetings that go nowhere. > Being a code monkey is fine if one embraces that position with its economic and ambition consequences. It's perfectly fine. It can also lead to burnout.
  - clnq 4y ago
    > endless bikeshedding, internal politics, ... , conflicting messages from different layers of management, and constant meetings that go nowhere. This sounds more like manager incompetence than being a code monkey. But embracing code monkey-ism could help as I imagine it involves just doing tasks at one's own pace and putting up strong emotional boundaries to mismanagement. Can constant meetings or bikeshedding really hurt someone who's just looking to run out the clock? P.S. I'm talking about choosing to be a code monkey as a philosophy, a choice. Not as a skill level that I'd call "beginner". Some people call beginners code monkeys, I am not a fan of that.
    - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
      > This sounds more like manager incompetence Or it could be two or more competent managers coming into conflict. Or incompetent ones. It is not that rare l - if you recognise the situation, you can pick a side, but if you dont know what to do, you could be viewed badly by all participants
gedy 4y ago
> More reason to have small teams, cut out middle management, hire good developers, and trust them to make decisions. Well, that is until the senior engineers or managers burnout from being "responsible" for keeping product from crashing, performance issues, and/or technical debt but without authority to change things! QED

LaurensBER 4y ago

I spend most of my 15 year career working at startups I've worked long evenings, weekends, dealt with stress, tense situations (both commercial and social) and deadlines and never had any symptoms of burnout. I switched to a large enterprise company and enjoyed the relaxed pace for a year. The first 6 months took some adjustment but I quickly figured out that getting things done in a large company just required a bit of a different skill set. Sometimes it took weeks to get a simple configuration changed but when I finally talked to the guy I learned that he had 5 kids, three of them who were sick, instantly made me realize that my frustration about the pace was uncalled for. Fast forward to the second year, I got a new manager who turned the office politics to 11, put people in positions that they were absolutely not fit for and in general made a huge mess out of everything, ignoring the advice and suggestions of the team while doing it while continuously reminding us engineers of our low place in the picking order. If there was a way to rank managers this guy would be in the bottom 5%, I've worked with about 30 managers (in one way or another) in my career so this was bound to happen at some point. However, I was totally not prepared for the effect it had on me. Within months I was reduced to someone who was frustrated 24/7, unable to do even the most basic task, I was sleeping poorly and my physical health was suffering. It took an enormous amount of energy just to sit through online meetings without lashing out, the rest of the team was feeling the same so you can imagine what kind of environment it was. I was lucky to get a new job very quickly and after getting out of that toxic environment I was my old self again in mere weeks. I can totally imagine how burnout can be modeled as learned helplessness. If, I, as young, healthy guy can be reduced to a wreck, in months, in a toxic environment, I can only start to imagine what people have to go through that don't have the luxury of switching jobs quickly (for whatever reason).

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
> Within months I was reduced to someone who was frustrated 24/7, unable to do even the most basic task, I was sleeping poorly and my physical health was suffering. Always remember that it's jsut a job, and that your manager's opinion - outside of that org - is no more important than anyone else's opinion in the world.
- planetsprite 4y ago

kayodelycaon 4y ago

I think there is a lot to this. Burnout is somewhat poorly defined. The more specific "learned helplessness" would cover a lot of the cases and would be a useful guide for treatment.

vouaobrasil 4y ago

I can see the reasoning here but I think it's a little different. Learned helplessness is the phenomenon where people stop trying to change their situation or circumstance because they feel ("learn") that nothing will help. Burnout is a little different. Burnout is more like when you simply don't want to do something any more, but often people with burnout still have the capacity to change their circumstance. Often people with burnout will quit or take time off and seriously reconsider their situation, whereas that is not the case with learned helplessness. In my opinion burnout is actually more of a natural phenomenon, which is the mind simply needing to do something totally different and perhaps more meaningful. I believe it is also due to the unnatural tendency for people to work in the same or similar field of expertise for far too long, which is simply not natural especially for highly intellectual fields.

marcusverus 4y ago
Is it possible that the difference is just a matter of scope? Like you said, "Burnout is like when you don't want to do something anymore". Isn't that what learned helplessness is, with a 'something' that's life-scoped instead of work-scoped?
- vouaobrasil 4y ago
  The key aspect of learned helplessness is that the person has a lot of trouble changing their situation. Just being very averse to doing something does not fall under than unless the person also has trouble exiting from the situation that they are burnt out from, which is generally not the case with burnout.
throwawaymaths 4y ago
> In my opinion burnout is actually more of a natural phenomenon, which is the mind simply needing to do something totally different and perhaps more meaningful. Strong disagree. Scientists burn out harder than programmers and what they do is arguably more "meaningful", at least to the individual scientist. Actually I think burnout is often triggered by moral injury, which starts by having a personal investment in the narrative of your objective

wibblen 4y ago

This is my take as well. A related problem is the idea of control. If you feel you have no control over a situation, then action feels meaningless. The book "Lab Rats" explains this phenomenon very well. In fact, apparently, the way you make a rat depressed in a lab study is to constantly change small aspects of its environment, preventing it from ever feeling stable and comfortable. I wonder if the upheaval in modern social life resulting from things like the rapid changes brought on by capitalism and information technology are a contributor to this widespread feeling.

marssaxman 4y ago
The never-ending parade of software "updates", and the constant chaos of web-based services, has killed much of the joy I used to feel when working with computers. There's no real point actually learning the system deeply anymore, because they just keep changing it out from under you, and you can't really stop them. I will never buy a Tesla, with that big screen controlling everything, which the true owners of the vehicle keep on reprogramming from afar! At least you can count on an older car to keep on functioning in the same way you're used to, from one day to the next.

bigDinosaur 4y ago

Yes, burnout is not really about how much you work at all. It's caused by a mismatch between your values and your work. For many people here their values probably include curiousity and wanting to learn. I burnt out almost completely doing work that was easy - but that I totally and utterly despised because of how boring it was (and how little it would advance my career). This was indeed like learned helplessness (not being prepared to quit immediately when I had the means - which was actually at any point (!) - was the learned helplessness part). In other words, you can burn out at a job that's 12 hours a week and not burn out at a job that's 60 hours a week. It depends heavily on the nature of the work. Whenever people talk about feeling 'burnt out' purely due to how many hours they work I am always sceptical and suspect the root cause is actually different (note that I actually think our work week is too long even at 40 hours, I think too many hours of work are unhealthy for other reasons). In this sense I'd distinguish 'exhaustion' from 'burnout'. The former can turn into the latter but often does not but the root cause of exhaustion is exertion whereas this is not the case for burnout. They can converge, of course, the ultimate result may be severe depression in either case, but it's still worth distinguishing.

throwawaymaths 4y ago

100% agree that it's similar to learned helplessness. You put in large amounts of effort only to be rewarded with failure (or miss the social recognition you expected, or didn't get a pay raise, or management cancels your project)... Perversely the advice to take a break is likely often counterproductive, because you will further associate a reward with the burnout. Honestly IMO the best move is to reassociate labor with reward. Do small things like refactoring, chores, etc. Then plan to take a needed break some time disconnected from the high effort event.