At my first salaried position, burnout was so common that the studio heads just made a point of giving the team a month or two to relax after major deadlines (s

At my first salaried position, burnout was so common that the studio heads just made a point of giving the team a month or two to relax after major deadlines (so basically, something like 5-10% of every year on average was 'slack time'). We still showed up and did work but I'd estimate our productivity was 50% or worse. There was seemingly no alternative, because burnout did hit me there and there was probably a period of over a month where I could barely do my job despite the fact that I was only 18 and hadn't accumulated decades worth of fatigue. No idea how the people in their 40s kept up with us.