Ask HN: Have You Burned Out?
98 points| dirtybirdnj | 3 years ago | reply
I just got turned down for another job and I am at the end of my mental and emotional rope.
Tomorrow I have a second interview at a local retail store. I've been a web developer or software engineer for a decade but increasingly painful failures have ruined me as a person and I am lost and without purpose in life. I think I just need to give up on software, I no longer feel welcome or wanted.
I have read that burnout can take up to five years to be resolved, I'm about in year three at this point. It's kinda like a recession you can't see it coming but looking back its easier to see when it started and its root causes.
Even with resources (supportive wife, limited family, therapist) recovery is slow, difficult, confusing and not a straight path. I need a job and purpose before life can improve and I can find a daily existence that's not 90% stress. Until then every day is a catastrophe where I'm upset that I didn't solve "the problem" and all I can think about is fixing "everything" or I'll lose my wife, my house, my independence, my dignity...
If you are suffering from burnout I wish you luck in the eternal struggle for normalcy. I can't say it ever gets better, but try to be kind to yourself. Most of all be honest with yourself even if you can't be with others.
If this post in any way resonates with you feel free to respond or just yell into the void.
[+] [-] whatthedangheck|3 years ago|reply
In the past 4 years I've seriously looked into going to Nursing School and Cosmetology School respectively (Cosmetology School might seem silly but it's only a year, it's cheap, and it's something I'm interested in). The idea that I'd give up my cushy SWE job for much lower pay even in the case of Nursing says everything there is to say about how burnt out I am. In the end I probably will leave this field anyway. I don't suspect spending my middle age and above programming will be any more fulfilling.
Above all the weirdest part about burnout as a SWE is the GUILT that I feel about it. I get paid a lot. I have a very flexible job with a lot of autonomy. I am coddled but somehow I daydream about ... going to work from 7-7 at a hospital???? It makes me question my sanity.
[+] [-] jahewson|3 years ago|reply
Nursing is a noble career but, especially in the US, it is brutal, will destroy your body, horribly paid (unless you're a travel nurse, which comes with its own downsides) and the working practices are essentially a non-stop wall of abuse. That 7-7 shift you dream of? Great news - your next shift begins at 9am, see you then!
Cosmetology is nice but the schools trained thousands and thousands more students than the industry required so your job prospects are close to zero.
Go work for a startup or find yourself an expensive hobby instead.
[+] [-] yodsanklai|3 years ago|reply
I feel similar. I used to love programming. Nowadays, it seems most of my day is fixing problems and patching things. I'm getting anxious every time I get pinged, and oncalls are the worse. The simplest things made me nervous as I'm worried I won't be able to fix them.
But then, the salary is comparatively so high that I may as well work a few more years in this field. I know I could just switch teams, or go work for a different FAANG. But even knowing that, it's hard to get detached from the work. It is very stressful, and I think not good from my health. One thing that put a lot of strain on me is thinking how my colleagues perceive me. They are all very good and it makes me feel bad not being at the same level (and not as passionate as them).
[+] [-] iceswimmer|3 years ago|reply
Burn out played a role, but the most driving factor was that I couldn't care about what I was working on most of the time. I didn't want to spend my productive years adding the next useless feature, "making that button pop", or tweaking the sign up form to try to increase sales. I felt that I wasn't using my time right.
I saved enough and quit my job. I could've made a lot more money if I kept working as a SWE, but now the feeling I have that I'm doing the right thing for me is well worth it. So far I'm very happy with the change.
[+] [-] WheelsAtLarge|3 years ago|reply
I'm a true believer that a daily hobby you love gives you the opportunity to decompress. That's my first suggestion to anyone in danger of burning out.
[+] [-] Throwaway112211|3 years ago|reply
This is the first worldiest of first world problems, but it is something I have also experienced. A high paying career like this does end up feeling like a trap if you ever want a change. It becomes extremely difficult to make the jump and switch careers. Not only will I be giving up the relatively high salary I am lucky enough to have to switch to an industry that on average doesn't pay as well, but I would also need to start completely over in that industry making my new salary well below that already depressed average. I would be willing to take maybe a 20%-40% pay cut for my mental health, but it doesn't even feel like a real option when we are talking about something around 75%.
[+] [-] dirtybirdnj|3 years ago|reply
Oh man do I feel this one. I love the daily communication of the standup rituatl, but when its used as a cudgel by uncaring PMs it just becomes this daily shaming ritual used to extract maximum efficiency (under threat of pain) from terrified developers just trying to keep up.
My only advice is to get a plan together for when your runway suddenly ends. I hope your situation is better than the ones I was in, but I didn't expect to be in the situation I'm in and not planning for it (having better savings) made it a lot worse.
[+] [-] giaour|3 years ago|reply
To echo another commenter, nursing as a profession is noble but brutal. My cousin has what is considered a "cushy" nursing job working in pediatric oncology. He has stable hours, gets to work long term with a small set of patients and get to know them, and his work is less dangerous than many other specialities, but the work is emotionally devastating.
[+] [-] c-fe|3 years ago|reply
Why are you not trying to find some part-time positions, and then maybe decrease your SWE work to 20 hours per week and try out other things in the remaining time? I think this could be a good fit for your situation, and possibly be a transition to see if you really want another work or if not without completely leaving the field.
[+] [-] cableshaft|3 years ago|reply
I daydream about working as a barista sometimes. I don't even know anything about being a barista. It just seems like a job where I interact with people and the worst I can screw something up is a drink order, not a feature that millions of people use.
And the worst I can get stuck on something, is a machine breaking down and telling a customer "I'm so sorry, here's a refund, can we get you something else", not spending all morning banging my head trying to figure out why javascript won't let me iterate through an array and claiming it's not an array, or trying to figure out how to fix out complicated parsing function so it will properly parse some gnarly data coming in for a new query in a slightly different way.
But the pay cut would be obscene. I couldn't afford that. Otherwise I'd probably make the switch for a while.
[+] [-] wonderbore|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] colinhowe|3 years ago|reply
I was brought in as CTO to fix some stuff. I fixed that stuff and then realised that how I wanted the business to operate and how the CEO wanted to operate were very far apart.
It all came to a head when somebody got fired and I disagreed with both the decision and how it was carried out. This was just one item amongst a bunch of other things.
This drained me so hard emotionally. I was CTO at another startup for much longer and never got close to this level of burnout. I've talked to someone else about this (talking is helpful) and they had a similar experience. It's not always about the hours or the tenure. 60 hours/week in the right environment is very different to 40 hours/week in the wrong environment.
It took a few years for me to get over this. I took some less complicated jobs with less responsibilities and less personal investment before chucking myself back into the fire. It's going well so far and I'm definitely more resilient as I've been through some pretty dire work shit since then.
Sorry to hear you're having a tough time of it. Getting less personally invested for a while really helped me. I also took on some hobbies that I had total control over and that helped too.
Good luck :)
[+] [-] dirtybirdnj|3 years ago|reply
I've never been involved in HR / sausage making you're describing but I can empathize so much with this feeling.
At one of my better jobs I was a developer on a backend app that would crash frequently due to queue processing issues. I kept getting distracted from what I was doing to fix this as it blocked account management teams from using the system (making money). I went out of my way to create a prototype tool to diagnose the issue (that I was fixing almost every day) and when I asked management for some time at work to finish it, they said no.
The way this was handled was fucking awful. They gave me a meeting to present what I created, but before it started the most senior person started things by saying "I'm going to let you present this but there's no way we're going to use it".
I wish I had just said ok I won't waste your time, I quit.
This is one of those PTSD trauma things I havent quite gotten over yet... it melted my candle in an unhealthy way.
It's especially sad for me because for a time (about a year?) it was the best job I've ever had and I really fondly look back on the things I did and (most of) the people I got to work with. It was a great fit for a time but it came undone in a way I was unprepared for.
[+] [-] freedomben|3 years ago|reply
Yes, exactly. Such an important thing to know. Even one day in a horrible position can be absolutely brutal.
[+] [-] netule|3 years ago|reply
I took a few months off, which, I know, is a luxury that not many can afford. During this time, I took stock of what was important to me. Did I still love programming? And, was programming the thing that made me unhappy?
What I realized is that I didn't want to feel like a tiny cog in a giant machine, and I didn't want to work on something that wasn't in some way beneficial to others. I needed to feel like I was making a difference and not just burning my life away on something disposable for lots of cash.
I was lucky enough to find a contract with a healthcare startup where I'd be working on technology that would improve the real lives of actual people, not just another piece of software that would be discarded two years down the road. Eventually, they offered me a full-time position, and I joined as employee #9.
Am I happy now? Well, I'm happier than before. But more importantly, I feel that now I can attain happiness.
[+] [-] dirtybirdnj|3 years ago|reply
I wish I could find a path towards what you have achieved but I have been so thoroughly discouraged from pursuing my career that it is emotionally painful to look at jobs.
How did you find the contract? Networking? Job sites? Did you discuss your burnout with the employer or did you feel things were more manageable by then?
[+] [-] bishnu|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WallyFunk|3 years ago|reply
You are right.
Recovery from burnout takes years, not weeks or months. Years.
I recently got back my mojo and feel more inspired to create, and I'm quite enjoying it. It took me about 5 years to get out of a rut I was in.
One thing I will say: look for early signs of burnout and address them as quickly as possible. Burnout creeps up on you unannounced, so be careful.
[+] [-] danielvaughn|3 years ago|reply
I haven't seen a doctor but I'm not sure if I'm experiencing depression, or very low testosterone, or something else.
[+] [-] jnsie|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nebojsaciric|3 years ago|reply
The job payed $1k a month, and I didn't receive a single raise for two years, which is another reason why I quit. It was only after stopped working that I realized I was completely ruined, both mentally and physically.
The worst thing about this company is they use employee time trackers that analyze and store your mouse and keyboard movements and take screenshots every 10 minutes. My contract stated I had to have an activity level above 50% if I were to get paid.
Currently, I work as a writer for a digital marketing company, and I am having a hard time getting used to the lack of micromanagement and the slower (and much more normal) pace of work.
I can't afford rehabilitation, I must continue working to be able to survive which is really hard for me right now. I have some kind of PTSD too, I keep apologizing to everyone even though I haven't done anything wrong. So there you go... Sorry for the rant. :)
[+] [-] dirtybirdnj|3 years ago|reply
This has been a pain point for me as well, adjusting to newer, slower or more bureaucratic environments.
You deserve to honor your resilience and success in identifying your issues and working to resolve them. You are an inspiration that people like myself can struggle, and sometimes continue to struggle but not give up.
[+] [-] whatthedangheck|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tymerry|3 years ago|reply
To ease the struggling stage my biggest win was acknowledging what is the minimum actions needed to take to keep coasting, Once I accomplish those things I didn't beat my self up. Examples of this would be acknowledge 6 hours of meetings in a day is a full day, and I don't need to do 6 hours of dev work on top.
To start the healing process I quit my fulltime job and took 3 months off. After that I started contracting instead, billing hourly, and working less then 40 works for my budget and the strong disconnect between working and not working is helpful to me.
I would ask your self the question, do you need to `fix "everything"`. Sounds like a lot of pressure to put on yourself, maybe you need that pressure, maybe you don't.
[+] [-] dirtybirdnj|3 years ago|reply
This is a huge struggle for me. I have difficulty estimating tasks I don't know how long it will take. Then I can't provide cost estimates to customers who want pricing on things they don't understand to begin with. If I am lucky to deal with technical people its ok but I find intense social pain and failure when it comes to getting these important details across to people with a financial interest in not understanding or negging me down.
I really wanted to make consulting a thing for a while but the pain of working with non-technical people makes it almost unbearable.
[+] [-] ostenning|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anon2020dot00|3 years ago|reply
"Money is not everything but not having enough is" as the quote goes. Maybe there is a way to be happy without this attachment to job performance but it is a rare thing.
[+] [-] kashunstva|3 years ago|reply
I'd fill out institutional surveys that were aimed at figuring out the scope of burnout among the physician staff. But nothing ever changed. The final irony that precipitated my departure was that the guy running all of these burnout studies, a young junior faculty, used all of the resulting publications to leverage a cushy "Chief Wellness Officer" position at another academic medical centre.
I was done. I left my practice. My colleagues thought I had taken a dive off the deep end. But in some way, I thought they were secretly a little envious.
But if I've learned anything from this experience, it's that renewal can come in some of the most unexpected places. Just before quitting, my wife and I had a baby daughter. When she was three, we started her on Suzuki violin. Lo and behold, she was good at it. Eventually we decided to do homeschool, with me staying home to do the at-home teaching so that she could have time to practice. I became sort of the stage parent (in the best sense of the word!) Now, a decade later, she's 13 years old and is heading off to a full-time pre-conservatory program. If I hadn't been through the disastrous burnout, I would have been languishing there still and never saw the opportunity right in front of me.
It also rekindled in me a deep love of music, to the point that now, I work as a collaborative pianist and coach chamber music groups in a local music academy.
I'm not sure the hurt of burnout every completely goes away; to this day, people look at me and I'm sure are thinking "why would you throw away all that education?"
[+] [-] stefanos82|3 years ago|reply
Then of course, the pandemic hit us all and those who were judging me got hit the hardest; now they don't have the courage to look me in the eyes, because they drunk the glass of bitter water as we say in my language and know exactly how I feel.
I don't know whether it has something to do with age (80's kid here), but it's a common trait amongst those who are around my age; we can't handle too much information at once.
If you want to have a chat, let me know.
[+] [-] dirtybirdnj|3 years ago|reply
I've gone from not ever being let go from a job (or even getting ahead of layoffs) to bouncing down the career ladder to lower and lower paying jobs. It's not that I'm unwilling to work its that my idea of what I'm worth or what I should even be doing has been so scrambled by the rejection from my chosen career and at times rejection from jobs further down the line too.
I have tried to go back to tech twice and had the most emotionally painful and abusive experiences to date.
I feel like there's a societal expectation that you should just relinquish any dignity or standing you once had when for immediate and maximal convenience to employers. Worked hard to get where you are? too bad! Life sucks it's not that way anymore you're only worth $13 an hour now. Is my resume a lie? Was the last 10 years a fever dream? Was any of it real?
[+] [-] adepressedthrow|3 years ago|reply
I can't really foresee a way that will get me going again, and I don't know that I really want to. I feel ashamed that my wife is now working, for less pay and objectively harder, when I could be making twice as much.
[+] [-] nebojsaciric|3 years ago|reply
The job payed $1k a month, and I didn't receive a single raise for two years, which is another reason I quit. It was only after I stopped working that I realized I was completely ruined, both mentally and physically.
The worst thing about this company is they use employee time trackers that analyze and store your mouse and keyboard movements and take screenshots every 10 minutes. My contract stated I had to have an activity level above 50% if I were to get paid.
Currently, I work as a writer for a digital marketing company, and I am having a hard time getting used to the lack of micromanagement and the slower (and much more normal) pace of work. Unfortunately, I've grown to hate the industry, and I'm having a hard time getting motivated, especially with the media blasting us with negative information all the time.
I can't afford rehabilitation, I must continue working to be able to survive, which is really hard for me right now. I have some kind of PTSD too, I keep apologizing to everyone even though I haven't done anything wrong. So there you go... and sorry for the rant. :)
[+] [-] avnfish|3 years ago|reply
After about 3 years of this, in 2019, I was away on a work trip and decided to tag a vacation on at the end. And I just couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't even bring myself to get food sent up to my room. I had already felt pretty suicidal by that point and knew I needed help, so I used work medical to set me up with a therapist.
It's taken way longer than I anticipated, and Covid didn't help, but I'm doing better. I'm far less neurotic, I actually have hobbies, and I've managed to hold down a couple of relationships for the first time in my life. To get to this stage, I needed to seriously take my foot of the pedal: I functionally went down to a part time job (same company, different position) and I had to completely reconfigure my values.
I miss my old self sometimes - the one that would crank all-nighters for work, a job offer or a side-hussle - but I know that old person wasn't going to last very long in the modern world!
[+] [-] dirtybirdnj|3 years ago|reply
Oh man do I feel seen here. I worked at a commercial pizza kitchen for a few months, this led me to feel maybe I could try software again and had a really, really bad experience. It took a few months for me to apply again, which is the job in my post above. That desire to prove myself causes me so much pain and I wish I could give up.
Going to a retail job I have similar reservations, starting to feel like things have just changed and I'm the one who's not recognizing it trying to live in the past. I hope I can find a way to dig myself out of debt but it's going to take years at a drip drip drip rate compared to what I used to make in software.
Why do we have resumes and talk about our careers if we're just going to be accused of "living in the past"? I think it really just depends on whether you have a past you can be proud of or if you're embarrassed by it and trying to hide the shame.
[+] [-] nhunter|3 years ago|reply
That lead into a big downturn in my personal emotional and mental health, not helped by lots of issues in my personal life. I changed jobs, luckily still within my field, and now about a year later things are starting to feel more stable. My personal life is still in turmoil tho to the point where stress and burnout cost me the relationship with my partner, where we're in the process of separating now. It's been 2.5 years now, and I have no doubt that it will be years more.
It's burn out that started with work and just turned into full life burnout. The answer is always do less, not more. I've been trying to minimize my commitments and focus on what's core. Health, taking care of my son, my job, and my future. But it's all a setback where I wish I had been more proactive about my calm and my overall health. There's still lots of life left, this is just a wake up call about how to live the remainder of it well.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ianbutler|3 years ago|reply
However, I’m now at 9 months in and I still don’t entirely feel recovered. I still have to force myself to write code when it used to be enjoyable and find my mental and intellectual recovery happening through writing, fitness and other non technical work. I’ve slowly started to recover my enjoyment of technology but deprogramming myself from every technical thing I do has to make money to I can do this technical thing out of pure curiosity is slow going.
Would I do it again? Yes, I continue to generate ideas and make observations that I think have real business value but not for another 6months to a year and not the same way.
[+] [-] Arcanum-XIII|3 years ago|reply
Now my end goal is to definitely quit IT and find something nice to do. But let’s be honest: what’s gonna me pay that much?
[+] [-] PartiallyTyped|3 years ago|reply
I have unresolved ADHD issues too. I am burnt to a crisp and I don't know what to do.
[+] [-] dirtybirdnj|3 years ago|reply
i.e. I want to go fishing but I have an assignment I have to do. Sometimes I just need to go fishing and once I get out there and relax (mentally decompress) I am finally hit with an overwhelming sense of not being able to fish but actually I wanna go do that thing I need to complete.
I am on the spectrum too (ASD) there is something with that + ADHD that makes this stuck-in-the-mud / "failure of executive function" so debilitating.
I fucking hate when people say this, but you're not alone. I see myself in your post.
1. Take a walk / try some meditation. 2. Go back to the assignment. 3. Get stuck / can't focus 4. Repeat step 1 till you can finish step 2.
[+] [-] president|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ostenning|3 years ago|reply
It has come with a renewed sense of purpose and I wake up excited for the day and the years ahead, but its yet to been seen if it were a good decision financially, but I suppose anything is better than getting sick and dying
[+] [-] danielovichdk|3 years ago|reply
For a long period it was a matter of looking at a certain ask from someone and I would simply feel if I was ok with that ask.
I have quit a lot of jobs due to me not accepting how people manage their own responsibility and time, because it then hit me.
Listen, I feel you. But don't take shit from no one and especially if has cost on your well being. It is definitely not worth it. Absolutely not.
I hope you find your legs, get someone professional to talk to and get back in the game.
There is nothing wrong with any of us, but as we bend our integrity we slowly lose ourselves, and that's not good. Get back to your own self.
All the best!
[+] [-] dirtybirdnj|3 years ago|reply
One of my biggest struggles is that my brain CAN NOT live any other way. I am realizing that there are huge costs to living true to yourself and I often wish I could relax my morals or just "care less" as people tell me.
I wish I could say living this way is worth it, right now it's not. I wish I could help myself, and if I could my next goal would be to help others who are suffering the way I am. Nobody deserves this.
> get someone professional to talk to and get back in the game.
I will continue to tell people that I'm in therapy and advocate for taking positive steps to address mental health struggles.