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My first job burnout

• d--b 11y ago
  Why is this called 'My first burnout', are you planning on having another one?
  • visakanv 11y ago
    I think it's "first job" burnout, rather than first 'job burnout' EDIT: Actually on second read I'm not so sure. Maybe it's just a natural figure-of-speech thing rather than a deliberate choice of words
  • gjvc 11y ago
    as in "the first one I've encountered"
  • lolive 11y ago
    I read this title as "My first burnout (made me understand what burnout is)".
  • chisleu 11y ago
    Burnout is going to happen unless you are in an awesome job that you will never leave. I think most people hope to change jobs every 2-3 years anyway.
    • smeyer 11y ago
      Just because you're changing jobs doesn't mean you're burning out. I've known people who have had several jobs over a career (some they liked and some they didn't) without ever burning out at any of them.
• visakanv 11y ago
  > After spending a few weeks away from work catching up with movies, I started feeling better. Once I got my thoughts back, I decided to quit. By that time I didn’t like my job at all, I couldn’t imagine going back not even for a day. If I knew it was a burnout at that time, and if I got help in time, I might have been still at the bank working as a branch manager :) This is one of those interesting "stay vs leave" situations. If OP had recognized impending burnout early on, and addressed it, would she have been happier staying on at the bank? It's usually quite hard to say.
  • Killswitch 11y ago
    It is very interesting. I recently had burnout get so deep that I couldn't hide it anymore and had to react, I asked for a week off because I was burnt out. Got given that weak off, 3 days in was fired. 1.5 years 10+ hour days, 7 days a week with only 2 days off after my daughter was born.
    • adwn 11y ago
      > 1.5 years 10+ hour days, 7 days a week with only 2 days off after my daughter was born. Why did you do that? (not an accusation, genuinely curious)
      • Killswitch 11y ago
        I was given equity in the company, told it was my company too. I felt me working extra would contribute to the success of the company. I was often pushed by the CEO when I was feeling tired and that I couldn't work anymore. I've ruined friendships with some of my closet friends because of the company... In the end, the equity I got wasn't worth the trouble I went through. I will never accept equity anymore. Pay me my salary, or find another shmuck. You're not creating the next Google, Facebook or Dropbox. The equity isn't worth it.
    • austenallred 11y ago
      Sounds like getting fired was for the best
      • Killswitch 11y ago
        I felt like a thousand pound gorilla made out of stress was literally lifted off my chest 2 days after I was fired, and my anger subsided and I thought about everything. It was a godsend. I had my head buried so deep into that company I was deluding myself. Now I'm free from the shackles that stagnated me, and I can advance my skillset and do what I love because I'm not being forced to work in an archaic codebase of spaghetti and feature creep.
    • 11y ago
• piqufoh 11y ago
  Great read and good take-away message "if your not enjoying your job, try something else" - it's a medicine that is sometimes very difficult to take. Speaking of medicine - you were given a twice daily injection for six weeks, and you don't know what was in the injection?! > I still don’t know what was in it but surely it was some really good stuff :)
  • juliangregorian 11y ago
    Worth reflecting on what a luxury it is to be able to pick a job you enjoy.
• donatj 11y ago
  God that sounds like the rut I am in.
  • ice303 11y ago
    Happened to me a couple months ago. Fainted on my desk, had to go to the hospital by ambulance. Almost 8 weeks at home. Don't wait for it to happen.
    • lloeki 11y ago
      > Don't wait for it to happen. Sounds so much like what's happening to me here, yet how to distinguish between the "real thing" and confirmation bias?
      • ice303 11y ago
        For me, i had a bunch of signals that I was ignoring for a couple of months. - Could not sleep well at all. Woke up many times in the middle of the night, my mind was always thinking about work. I lay in bed, heart pounding really fast. - Loss of appetite. My breakfast would be a cup of coffee and 1 or 2 cigarettes. Could not eat at all in the morning. - Starting to feel pain on my chest, near the heart, during the day. Hands shaking, confusing speech. One day, I was at my desk, speaking on the phone with a work colleague. On my side, there was another colleague also speaking to me. I started to see everything blur. I tried to speak but I couldn't. Started to feel a huge pain in the chest. I remember putting my hand against my heart and then passed out. - When I recovered my senses (a couple of seconds later), I couldn't feel my legs, I was shaking, and couldn't speak. It was terrifying. I really though I was having some sort of heart attack. In the end, was a really bad burnout, stress, altogether. I'm still doing my job (sysadmin), but I don't know how long will I be able to stand this. So, take care!
      • marvin 11y ago
        If you are stuck with the idea that you're about to burn out in the first place, that's a pretty clear indication that you have a problem. No need to second-guess those kinds of thoughts.
• wobbleblob 11y ago
  I don't mean to be a jerk or anything, but a burnout is something you better not blog about or write about on facebook or speak about in any way that can be traced back to your real name, if you ever want to find another job again. Potential employers will google the names of applicants before an interview, and if the first thing that comes up is your name and photo on a story about your first job burnout, you're going to have a very difficult interview, if they don't cancel it altogether. It depends on where you live of course, but where I live (Western Europe) a burnout on your resume can be a career death sentence. It's illegal to fire an employee who is home sick, and people unable to work because of a burnout can stay home sick for months or even years at the employer's expense. If it happens, you try to hide it on your CV. 'Stayed home taking care of children', 'Went back to college', 'Took a sabbatical', 'wanted time to travel' even a serious but purely physical illness (that was cured), all make good excuses. If there's a hole in your CV that can't be explained in such a way, they will assume burnout, and will likely not want to take the risk.
  • DanBC 11y ago
    Lying on your CV is probably fraud and is almost always a very bad idea. Lying about mental health only contributes to the stigma and discrimination that some people experience. It also removes some of the legal protections you have[1]. It's probably better to be honest - "I had time off for a common illness. I got treatment and I now have some advanced techniques and some protective measures, although noone expects any recurrance of the illness. Then move the topic onto what good things this company does and why you're applying. [1] in some jurisdictions you have to disclose your illness to get disability discrimination protections. Not all places.
    • wobbleblob 11y ago
      You're right, lying is a bad idea, but phrasing something bad in a way that sounds a little better is sometimes necessary, especially with something that you know is behind you and won't affect your future work. It's not fair, and it doesn't help with the work stress, but employers do disqualify a candidate for this.
• provemewrong 11y ago
  > weak-up-call > even I wasn’t even 30 at that time I don't want to sound like a grammar nazi, but might I suggest proofreading the next time.
  • petewailes 11y ago
    Pretty sure the author doesn't speak English as a first language. Sounds like they might be originally of European extraction.
    • mistaken 11y ago
      Yep, based on the name she's Hungarian. Also proof-reading is hard, because most of the time you cannot see your own mistakes.
    • provemewrong 11y ago
      English is not my first language either, I'm European myself. Those look more like inattentive errors rather than lack of language proficiency. I didn't mean to upset anyone, just a tip for someone who aspires to be an author.
• deedubaya 11y ago
  > My _first_ job burnout This makes me sad. Live to work, not work to live.
  • rifung 11y ago
    I think most would agree that you work to live. I would bet 90+% of people would quit their jobs if they didn't have to make money. On the other hand, I don't think there's anything wrong with finding a job that you don't hate, pays the bills, and gives you enough time to enjoy other aspects of life. Personally I found that thinking I should love my job actually made me more frustrated because every time I found something I didn't like with my job, I would think about how this isn't what I want to do and try to find another job.
• beat 11y ago
  My first true burnout came working at a "lifer" job, enterprise engineering for an organization everyone has heard of. It was good for a long time. Then a new manager and a change in organizational direction came at about the same time. What should have been a very fun new project instead became miserable. But I was a "lifer", and wasn't going to leave. Eventually, I got fired, and it felt like someone had cut my chains off. The worst thing is that I wasted nine years of my career there, three in misery. And it took me a couple more years to realize that I shouldn't work for others at all, but instead should start my own company. And I'm still not to the point where I can make a living on my own product without dayjobbing. But someday, someday I'll be able to sync up my love of enterprise configuration management problems with my wish for freedom and independence.
  • nextos 11y ago
    Can you expand on what you're doing now?
    • beat 11y ago
      I'm working on a search engine for complex system configuration. It tracks changes in any sort of system configuration (configuration files, database schemas, deployed apps, firewall rules, whatever) and lets you see what changed when across entire groups of systems. It's really targeted at larger applications built operated by multiple subteams and specialists. Large systems suffer from interaction-driven failures - Component A changes, and Component B breaks. For example, a db schema change can break applications that rely on the schema. But if the databases are maintained by a separate team of DBAs, coordinating and communicating change and dependencies is difficult, and debugging them is even worse. Being able to see changes that can affect your own domain from other domains outside your scope can make solving system failures a lot simpler and faster. I took several months off last year to work on this, and built an alpha version. It worked, but mostly taught me what needs to be done to build a beta and head for production. Alas, I had to go back to dayjobbing for a while, so it's slow going again. :( But it'll get there.
  • cleaver 11y ago
    I was in a very similar situation with a full-time permanent government job. They were restructuring the organization and had an offer to leave with a nice severance package. I left and have been some form of self-employed ever since. I had been planning a career change at the time to something not computer related. This gave me a good chance to try out consulting and I realized that I didn't hate computers, I just hated my job.
• Daneel_ 11y ago
  I've experienced job burnout, but not because of the job. I had changed roles, which meant a change of team leader. Previously, I'd worked quite closely with my team leader, and he'd mentored me, as well as defending me when the inevitable little mistakes come up. He also gave me the freedom to get my work done in the way that suited me best - he had a very hands off approach, provided I got the work done and on time. My new team leader was the complete opposite, and micro-managed everything, to the point of three stand-up meetings a day to discuss progress on tasks, which he might re-prioritise at any time. It was a complete nightmare, and my productivity plummeted. It took me 9 months to go from loving working at the company, and doing extra work outside of hours pro bono simply because I liked helping my boss, to completely loathing work, and leaving the company. A good manager can make the world of difference in job satisfaction, and definitely stopped me from burning out despite actually doing more work under my previous manager.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
• kisstheblade 11y ago
  Sorry for the kids today! post... I find it weird that so many young people get burnt out, in relatively simple jobs with no responsibilities (on the job or with kids/family). A couple of people at my office have had to take a couple months of sick leave because burnout. And they had simple responsibilities and no overtime etc. I myself have worked normal "IT days" for over 15 years, sometimes it's hectic and sometimes calmer. You only have to know how to relax in your spare time. And yes I work at home also sometimes ("bring my work home") and sometimes think about work problems semi-constantly. But going for a run etc helps to clear your head. Or having a robust night out with a killer hangover! I think these young people just don't know how to work hard and party hard :) And they are crybabies, also.
  • Frondo 11y ago
    "And they are crybabies, also." Funny thing I've discovered in life, understanding and compassion are free. They don't cost a thing, but they're still some of the hardest things to get out of a person. Have you talked to the people who got burned out? What do they say about it? Your post doesn't sound so much like a "kids these days!" post as, to be frank, an "I'm an asshole" post.
    • kisstheblade 11y ago
      Well sorry for the Louis CK style commenting :) It hits a nerve because part of it is true :) Further down is a funny post about youngsters "understanding" that you don't actually have to work ("So while you think it's OK to slave away, work for free and abuse the State sponsored drug, they don't.") for life to be good. Sure, if somebody wipes your behind and burps you regularly. Well I work, my life is good, I'm not complaining (about work at least!). But really, quite the problem people have these days. 8-16 work days in a comfy office with no responsibility whatsoever and they get burnt out at 25 (2 years out of school). I think that's a pampered crybaby. And I'm not now talking about people with some medical issues, those you can't of course help.
      • Frondo 11y ago
        So... you're still calling people crybabies, but I'd still like to know: did you ever talk to these people about their burnout? Did you try to understand what was going on with them? Do you have any curiosity at all about the people you're judging?
• Apocryphon 11y ago
  What's the difference between burnout, and boreout? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boreout It sounds like the author was experiencing the latter before she experienced the former.
• shiggerino 11y ago
  >"I started 7.30AM in the office finishing up around 6-7PM." Stopped reading there. Whoever is in charge of HR at that place needs to be taken around the back and shot by the shareholders. Even ignoring the labour issues, I seriously doubt they saw a significant advantage in productivity over a conventional 8-hour day, instead they lost what was probably a very valuable employee. Hope they're happy.
• rilita 11y ago
  The article seems curiously devoid of explanation as to what caused the burnout. As a result there is no reasoning in it really as to how to avoid burnout. ( besides "take a break when you need it" ) It seems to imply that burnout is a failing of the employee not of the employer. I disagree with this notion entirely, as I think management has a duty to care for and protect their employees from burnout. That is why there is always a chain of responsibility, so that this can occur at all places on the chain. A properly functioning corporation will help their employees avoid burnout and not make demands of them that inevitably cause it.
• phhk 11y ago
  How the fuck did this article receive so many points? Burned out working at a bank? Huh? Getting a job because of her boyfriend? What's the moral of the story?