[colinhowe]

I've had burnout. I was 12-18 months in a startup before I realised it was not at all the right fit for me.

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]

> 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.

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.

[colinhowe]

Eugh :( Why couldn't that person have just let you know far far sooner? Some people just shouldn't be responsible for other people.

[freedomben]

> 60 hours/week in the right environment is very different to 40 hours/week in the wrong environment.

Yes, exactly. Such an important thing to know. Even one day in a horrible position can be absolutely brutal.