I'm not a programmer, so I'm viewing the stuff on hacker news from outside the bubble, so to speak. And from here, y'all look crazy. To the average person, spending extra hours at work with no overtime pay is absurd, but you all discuss it like it's no big deal.
Your industry needs a huge cultural overhaul. People must be trained not to accept burnout as normal.
There is another view. Programmers commonly have two characteristics that make them talk a lot about burnout:
a) They are analytical people. It comes with the job. You can't program if you don't think analytically, and this characteristic can't possibly be confined to work activities, so it gets ingrained into personality.
b) They like what they do. Naturally, this is not true for every individual, but is true for most. The reason is not that this is a paradise bubble. Much to the contrary: the profession is so taxing for individuals that don't like to code that it self selects "code lovers".
Individuals fitting this description know and actively quantify their productivity levels. They know that they perform better when everything is flowing, and they know when they're off their game. Thus, they are more prone to correctly identifying lower productivity on themselves, when compared to other professions. The result is more chatter about burnout.
This does not mean programmers burn out more than other professionals. It means programmers are more conscious of their own productivity.
The burnout problem is not just talk. When I hear people on HN brag that they regularly work through dinner, thats evidence that high burnout rates are real.
And programmer's personality traits are not solely to blame. It's the whole culture of tech, and tech companies. It's Google and Microsoft building these campuses with every amenity you'll ever need (so you never have to leave). It's VCs looking for young 20 somethings to make startups (because 20 somethings rarely have a spouse and kids to care for). It's all of us on HN acting like this it's ok.
Even though I work a relaxed 36 hour work week and rarely do anything work-related outside office hours I still encountered many of the issues related to burnout. I've wondered why for quite some time and this article pretty much nails where these feelings where coming from.
Fun fact: Even the process of interviewing at other companies seemed to help. Looking back, I think it's because most interview processes contain tests that required me to spend a few hours solving (complex) problems with code.
> "Much to the contrary: the profession is so taxing for individuals that don't like to code that it self selects "code lovers"."
I disagree with this part. I think this part is entirely a myth we've concocted for ourselves - we overtly select for "code lovers" with the predisposition that non-"code lovers" are incapable of handling the work.
I have never, ever, seen this proven out, but it's a common belief nonetheless. In general I think there's too much "we're so special, we elite few" in this industry.
Yeah, there's a level of achievement - like any other field - that's only possible if you're living and breathing code, but the vast majority of tech jobs - even senior, high-level tech jobs - don't require this.
For over a year I've been working at home (with a kid), on an open source thing with little prospect of financial return. I have many of burnout symptoms the article lists. I tell myself various reasons why I frequently work into the night, but one thing is certain: it's self-inflicted.
I'm also coming from outside the bubble. From a different viewpoint, though, programmers aren't so bad about this. Try hanging out with some medical doctors and nurses, instead. I might think my 60 hour weeks are bad, but i just can't complain about it to my wife when she gets home from her 80 hour weeks. Burnout is a completely accepted part of nursing, and many nurses take it into account in career planning.
Not saying it isn't crazy also, just providing another perspective.
I think it's a bit apples to oranges. Programming is for the most part sitting quietly in front of a computer screen for hours each day. At face value it looks easier, but it's actually a lot more brain-numbing. If I'm honest with myself, I think I can do it for 4 hours a day before my brain starts to slowly shutdown. I've been working for only a couple years and I'm seriously concerned about my future in the industry.
I'll let you into a secret: four hours of concentrated, high-quality thinking a day is about the limit of what the rest of us can do as well. I don't know whether that's a human universal, but if there are exceptions, they are exceptional indeed. A programmer working eight hours a day is at best doing four hours of high-quality concentrated work and four hours of random crap like attending meetings, checking e-mail and reading HN.
In other words, don't worry about your future in the industry. You're doing fine.
I've been noticing this type of thinking a lot on HN. It simply isn't true. I am not in the tech industry (if you search my comment history you'll find I do underground tunneling) but everybody I have interacted with at my firm that is above the junior level (and the majority of those at the junior level) puts in far more than 4 hours of concentrated, high-quality thinking a day.
Out of the normal 45 to 60 hours I work a week when I am doing design work, at least 75% of that time is spent doing high level thinking. I am not an anomaly in my firm.
I don't accept nor do I respect the idea that a person is only good for a couple of hours of high quality work to their employer per day.
My understanding is that most studies suggest that working around the 60 hours per week mark results in diminished productivity compared to 40 hours per week after only about 3 weeks.
On the other hand, I think people who say that they are only able to get through 4 hours of work in a day, really specifically mean programming. And it's probably true in that limited sense, but all the other stuff - communicating with others so you know what program to write, helping others so they can work more effectively, is actually very valuable. It's just a common programmer failing to not really see that stuff as 'real work'. It's even worse as programmers get promotions and are expected to spend a significant amount of their time on management type activities.
The trick is to make those 4 hours as productive as possible, so the rest of your day can be spent on more menial tasks. Finding the right balance comes with time and experience, so I wouldn't stress about it too much.
Sometimes people claim they can be productive for 8 or more hours per day, for weeks on end. But likely what's happening is they are tricking themselves into feeling (and looking) productive, while their actual productivity finds an equilibrium far below what it could be if they paced themselves.
I guess it's nice to hear I'm not alone. Well unfortunately you need to fill in the other 4 hours in a way that doesn't leave you feeling inadequate - but you're right, it's something to work on.
If I had it my way, I'd work half time programming and half time working a public facing job.
My wife works in postpartum care, and while she usually works 3 12.5 hr shifts per week, if the hospital is going through a busy time it can be more. In addition to her normal scheduled hours, she will have a few on-call shifts per month, and during feb-april (usually the busiest time of year around here) it's pretty much assumed that she'll get called in for these. In addition to the scheduled on-call shifts it's usually not hard to find other times that the hospital is in need.
Of course even at that, I don't think she's ever worked more than like, 60 hrs a week. I can't imagine anyone working 80 hr weeks consistently in nursing. It doesn't even seem safe - nursing is very physically and mentally demanding work, someone consistently overworked is much more likely to make mistakes.
Also ask Investment Banking people. From what I hear, they lead a life at least as busy as ours, and what's worse is that they often cannot control what urgent tasks are shoved into their faces.
I call the talk on "programmer working long hours" stereotype and myopia.
Overworking doctors and nurses leads to mistakes that kill people. I think it's quite possible that programmer culture doesn't have a healthy attitude and that medical culture is even worse.
I started to type up a reply about how burnout tends to be project-related, not the norm, but then the more I thought about it... the more your final statement seems 100% true. Why am I trying to rationalize burnout in this industry? Even if I can explain occasional pushes to complete a project, you are correct.
I'm not a programmer, but I burnout from being bored and unsatisfied with my work, I even get burnt out from feeling like I'm not doing enough. If I'm doing something engaging and exciting I'm more than happy to work long hours.
I'm usually the only one on any team that is willing to sit down with "that tool", written by some guy who left the company years ago (maybe using VBA Excel or Access macros because he wasn't actually a trained programmer), and understand it to the point that I can fix just one piece of it without rewriting the whole thing from scratch.
And then I can recommend ways to wean the company's process away from that sort of fragile dependence on unmaintainable code.
But that kind of work is not for everyone. A lot of the time, people don't even like the smell of the code they wrote themselves only a few months ago, so slogging down in the sewers of the ex-COO's magic Excel spreadsheet would be absolute torture. I see it less like an undercity diver busting up grease clots in the drains, and more like a surgeon carefully and methodically removing colon polyps before they go malignant.
And I am burning out here because I have been explicitly ordered to not fix anything without prior permission. Ordinarily, I would be spending some time every day safely refactoring old code and eliminating dead code. But SLoC is a management metric here. Reducing the total lines of code would upset the applecart.
> But SLoC is a management metric here. Reducing the total lines of code would upset the applecart.
God... what a horrifying situation. That seems like exactly the opposite of what management should be doing. I get satisfaction when I can refactor copy/paste, unparameterized code with something more concise and easily testable. I hope you find a better place to be soon.
I have been at least keeping my eyes open for almost two years. I have worked here for almost two years. I recognized almost immediately that this was a dead end for me, so I just turned the resume burner down to simmer.
I already have a job, and it pays well enough, so even considering the poor working conditions, I haven't seen any offers that would entice me to leave it. I don't really want to work with professional 3rd-party recruiters, and more than once I have walked away from a company that wanted to start negotiating salary before even inviting me to interview.
If this were San Francisco or Silicon Valley, I would probably be gone by now. But quieter markets seem somewhat less eager to hire anyone with less than exactly five years of experience, and are very reticent about paying anything extra for older prospective employees.
Aside from the job itself, I am getting so, so sick of modern software industry hiring practices. It seems like every person in every HR department is constantly keeping secrets and monitoring possible lines of sight from any hidden lawsuit snipers.
I built the database and web interface for my current workplace 3 years ago. We used Excel as a temporary quick fix for inputting data. Problem is, we are still using it 3 years later. I am constantly cleaning up the mess of crap data being in the database because of this. Its really tedious, and has generated far more work than replacing excel with some proper web form that properly validates the data. I never get a chance to build the web forms, as it will take a week or two to do it properly. Instead I spend my time on tedious boring crap, that I shouldn't have to do, because management doesn't see it as a problem, other than me complaining about it.
If something is boring, there is a good chance it can be automated somewhat.
The author's premise is that you burnout because you do not spend time on the things that truly fulfill you, whatever those may be. It is very possible, and maybe even probable, that people who do not "work so hard" can still experience burn out because they do not use their free time to do the things that fulfill them.
If you are working so hard that you simply cannot find any time to fit in fulfilling activities, then yes, you should not work so hard.
If you are being taken advantage of and pressured into working too hard without adequate compensation, then you should find a better job.
However, "not work so hard" is not an answer to the problem as outlined by the author and seems more like a response to the headline than to the article itself.
I'm not missing the point of the article. I'm disregarding it.
When you're working so hard that you burn out, we shouldn't be discussing how to mitigate the effects. Just stop working.
This author tries to pretend the cause of burnout is not too much work, but too much "unfufilling" work. As if working from morning till midnight is perfectly fine, as long as you convince yourself the code you write in this half-asleep state is making the world a better place (and not just lining the pockets of your boss). This is exactly the attitude the tech industry needs to erase.
Yes, programming can be fun, but everyone needs a break, even from fun things. Furthermore, having a fulfilling job doesn't mean your time is free.
Hours worked doesn't always contribute to burnout. I can easily feel burnout working 40 hour weeks filled with unsatisfying work (e.g. bureaucratic paperwork, interruptions for unimportant issues, unchallenging problems, etc). Conversely, if I am actually able to code and develop an application that is semi-interesting, I could easily go past 40 hours a week and not feel any burnout because it is fulfilling and/or enjoyable. I could also stay at 40 or a little below.
The key consideration is (perceived) fulfillment. Time spent is involved in determining this, but isn't the only variable - importance of work, enjoyment/satisfaction, sense of accomplishment, etc.
You're right. It's not just a matter of hours worked. Fufillment plays into it too. But even a job you love can burn out if you do it for too long. What's more, most of you consider programming a fulfilling career. So if you're burning out, it's probably due to your long hours. And we know programmers work long hours. So do the math.
I can corroborate this. My last job was not very intense[0], but I still experienced burnout symptoms after a few months. After a while, I just hated going to work. I got a new job, and I was suddenly energized. I started staying late to work on things not because they were past due, but because I was interested in them. I found a sense of accomplishment and self-fulfillment in doing them.
[0] Typical 8-5, fairly laid-back atmosphere, significant amount of freedom.
You need to understand that software developers aren't like factory workers. The difference between a factory worker putting in 1500 hours of work in a year and 3000 hours of work in a year is maybe that 2x more widgets get made or something. It's easy to just get another shift of workers to come in and get the same total widgets made, no big deal. But software development isn't manufacturing, it's a creative, even artistic venture. Making software is like making a movie. The difference between working 1500 hours in a year and 3000 might be the difference between making "Sharknado" and "Citizen Kane", meaning, the difference between making an incredibly compelling product that has a huge social and economic impact or just some throwaway crap that will fade in relevance quickly over time.
Making great software tends to require extremely talented developers who are extremely engaged in their work. And that tends often to result in devs working long hours as a natural consequence, though that's often not strictly necessary to produce good results (despite what I said above, though it is often strongly correlated). Regardless of how many hours are put in, when there's a collision between the passion and engagement in the work from the individual on the one hand and the rewards, recognition, and guidance coming from management and the rest of the company the result can easily be burnout. Burnout can happen even if you're only working 20 hours a week, it's not about some trivial reaction due to overwork. It's about traumatic interpersonal experiences. It's about being engaged strongly and passionately and either being overused or misused.
Alternately, think about it in relationship terms. A passionate dev has fallen head over heels in love with the project their working on. So much so that they dedicate a lot of their life to it. If they don't see that love reciprocated, or if that love is used in service of an abusive or dysfunctional relationship then it will cause the individual significant emotional trauma and heartbreak which is manifested in the form of "burnout".
Again, burnout isn't necessarily overwork, it's the equivalent of heartache and emotional trauma in business relationships.
I misread "shut down" instead: thank you for correcting me. Still: people respond to incentives and turning down an idea like that and letting the employees know that… this is an incentive and it may have lead to some results. So the question still stands.
I'm in the bubble and you are absolutely dead on. My secret to avoiding burnout was to do contracting for four years. After this, and after going back to full-time work, I realized (at more than an intellectual level) for the first time that the more you work the less you make. Completely eye-opening.
Respect the 9-to-5 workday and good things will happen.
I have also found contracting is a good way to avoid burnout. The biggest difference is that there is a direct cost associated with hours worked and business owners readily feel the impact of asking you to work more.
When working on a day rate, you also have more power to say "My day is over, screw you." if they ask for more than their share.
Contracting is pretty sweet. The freedom gives you a lot of power.
Call it reaching for the brass ring. Tech is one of the few fields where fairly average people can get ahead and potentially move up the ladder. If my options are to burn out my body in the oil wells of South Dakota for a few years, or work hard at tech ventures over my whole career, the tech ventures have a better chance at a really big payout. Tech isn't perfect, and I'd agree there is a lot of problem with crazy hours and burn out, but it is also one of the few industries that is semi-meritocratic (so those long hours can pay off)
Long hours may contribute to burnout but are not a cause in and of themselves. I tend to work less than 40h a week on my own terms and am still burned out right now.
After a nasty brush with burnout, I've been doing as much as I can to try and steer clear of it and overwork...and also to encourage my team to do the same.
It's a little tricky, because the "work work work" bug in your ear makes you feel like you should be putting in more cycles, but honestly the long-term get-shit-done factor is way better if you calmly plan and execute and take your time.
I just wish there were more people locally to compare notes with.
I program because I love it. It's my hobby. I quit my job a 14 months ago. 5 months ago I thought of an idea I wanted to pursue. I've been spending 8-12 hours a day 5-6 days a week on it since then.
I'm sorry you apparently picked a career you don't get real enjoyment from. Those of us that picked something we love don't see doing it a lot as a negative. We see it as just that, doing something we love.
Good to hear that you're happy and your choices have worked out, sincerely. But kindly please consider the following points:
1. You may not have worked enough to burn out. If you're in your 20's you can work longer too. If you don't have a family you can work longer.
2. Not everyone can make the career choices you got to make. I do program and enjoy it but it's way to risky for me personally to quit my corporate job. Please consider you might have some privileges others don't have or less responsibilities than other people.
3. For those of us who toil in the corporate world, depending on the situation, it is just foolish to spend more than the required 40 hours (except for limited crunch time). Why should I slave away and get no reward? I get paid the same. Consider that corporation might take advantage of those who do enjoy programming to do more work for less.
Let me know in 10 years, when you are 50 pounds heavier, have a distressed family life, stress, high blood pressure and back at a 9-5 doing crud apps for insurance companies how it feels then.
If we take the higher end of you statement (12*6) you are working 72 hours a week. Seriously, you aren't that productive (Studies show this) so you are just 'wasting' time anyway, if you don't have to be in an office to 'pretend' to work those hours, then get the fuck away from the screen
working on your own stuff for 8-12 hours a day 5-6 days a week is WAAAAY different then working 8-12 hours a day 5-6 days a week for someone else and not getting compensated. Your comparison is a complete miss.
You're getting voted down by people who assume that your experience can't possibly be real because it isn't their experience, but I feel the same as you.
I submit, as argued in my other comment, that greggman is the one assuming his/her experience should take priority.
If you are able to work years on end at 70 hours a week then more power to you. But that doesn't mean other people who do burn out are to blame or inferior b/c they didn't follow in greggman's footsteps or didn't choose "a career you don't get real enjoyment from".
Moreover, seriously consider this: Is working 72 hours for just 5 months enough to burn someone out? Especially if your young and responsibility free, wouldn't it take a lot longer?
You're reading a lot into my reply. I'm replying to the parent to my comment which was arguably judgemental in saying "y'all look crazy" and "spending extra hours at work with no overtime pay is absurd" and "Your industry needs a huge cultural overhaul"
My response is to that.
My response is even in line with the article this is linked about. That message paraphrased is "If you like what you're doing you won't get burnt out. If you're getting burnt out you're probably doing stuff you don't like doing."
I know plenty of other people in my camp. People with 2 or 3 kids that some how manage to find time to code and learn new tech after work because they just love it. As concrete examples, one of them is designing 3D software to generate STL files for 3D parts so he can design toys for his kids. Another just got both an Amazon Fire and has already created one tiny app on it and now just got his Oculus Rift 2 and is playing with it. How he finds the time with three kids I have no idea but he posts is progress regularly on his FB.
If you don't want to work a lot I have no issues with that. What I have issue with is people calling me "..crazy" for doing something I enjoy. If you don't enjoy it fine. Do something else. If I enjoy it let me enjoy it!
You're not crazy for doing what you love. You're crazy for thinking you can cram in every single thing that you love, plus rest, eating, and excercise, into one day, and not collapse at some point.
"How he finds the time with three kids I have no idea but he posts is progress regularly on his FB."
aka, "I don't have your perspective, so here's an outsider's point of view." Don't be so confrontational about it. OP wasn't confrontational, merely pointing out what seems to be a terrifying part of your culture from the outside. The fact that avoiding burnout is a regular topic on HN is very telling.
You don't honestly believe that burnout is a natural part of working, do you?
I think it's systemic of not having a plan in place to appropriately deal with a creative job.
And my point which was missed was that making broad generalizations about an entire industry with zero personal experience is irrational. I don't tell lawyers their culture is shit because it's not a single culture, it all depends on the industry, the individuals involved, internal structure and more. But sure, let's take an entire profession and just make blanket generalizations about it!
I am a programmer. My industry does need a huge cultural overhaul.
But I also know that my co-workers and I have shared personality traits that make such an overhaul extremely unlikely, especially given the shared personality traits of those whom we typically serve.
The traditional manner in which workers overhaul their own industry is via cartelization and collective action. And to us, that just seems like trading in kings and getting back a tsar. We think the cartel enforcer would immediately turn on us, because we all know both game theory and history, and it totally would.
But we're still stuck at that Nash equilibrium, where all of us get a little bit screwed, because any attempt to get less screwed would make you more screwed.
I'm not going to propose a solution here. I'm just saying that it should be readily apparent to anyone, not just an insider, that we need to seek a new equilibrium.
My underlying thinking in what I said is due to massive generalizations that are so common today. When people say, "the tech industry is sexist" I understand that what they're saying is rooted in fact with hard-evidence and examples, but and this is the key, by making these sweeping generalizations it discredits those who are actively making an effort to solve these sort of problems.
So then usually the response is, "well I didn't mean every one, just those that are the causing issue" to which I like to point out how in the push to be PC and equalize everything, they are not policing their own words in the same manner that they police other people's words, for if that was the case, they would say, "some groups and subcultures within the tech industry are sexist" Generally speaking, when I see someone use "all" "everyone" or lack a modifier like "some" or "subgroup" I try to point out the absurdity of it.
I agree with the majority of the article, but one thing leapt out - the first question that the author suggests might 'help you to pinpoint your resentment';
Why do you want to take a break, go on holiday? What are you really running away from?
Taking a break and going on holiday is not running away from things. Even if you're working on something that you absolutely love, with an amazing team of people, doing something that will change the world - it's still a good idea to take a break. Experiencing different cultures, seeing new things, getting out of your comfort zone, and looking at things from a different perspective is fantastically useful. It makes you see things differently. Going on holiday is a good thing in itself; it isn't merely a cure for the bad things.
If you think that going on holiday will make things easier at work, you're probably wrong. Work is work, and taking a break from it doesn't make it not work. More importantly, if you take a break for a bit, then come back to the same grind, it's still going to burn you out.
If you are worried that you're burning out, and you find yourself trying to solve it by taking more vacations, ask yourself, "Why do I want to take a vacation?" You will probably find you want to get away from something (the "wrong" reason), vs. trying something new or doing something different (the "right" reason).
Like you said, take vacations that are a change of view (even if that view is just the beach for a week), not to quit missing your Tuesday Night Dinner.
While you don't have to agree completely with me, and holiday are always nice. But if you need to take a holiday, then perhaps you do have something on your mind that you want to get rid of.
My take was that the author was talking about situations where people say "I _need_ to take a holiday" with the implication that work is too much for them right now. E.g. a holiday for the sake of getting away from a burnout work situation as opposed to a holiday for the sake of experiencing different cultures, seeing new things etc. The former is good and healthy, but in the former you are running away from something.
Three weeks ago I hit absolute rock bottom with exhaustion from working hard for the last 2 years (I worked out I've been working 70-80 hour weeks since Dev 2010 with 8 days off in 4 years).
I resolved to get my life sorted out, I cut back work hours drastically, started riding my bike more and went to the Doctors to get help with sleeping tablets and pain management (the last 3 months I've been waiting for a double wisdom extraction) and stopped trying to carry the world and it's problems on my shoulders.
Later that week I found in a fairly horrible way that my partner of 7 years had cheated on me and I threw her out.
I stuck with the resolution I'd made to keep changing my life.
Now I'm sat at work taking a break after writing some really nice code to handle a problem that had stumped me for a month, I'll pack up for the day in a couple of hours then I'm going home to have a shower and going out on my bike for a 45 mile ride then home, netflix documentary and sleep.
In the last month I nearly destroyed my business, my health and my wellbeing as well as losing a long term relationship and I'm happier today than I have been in 4 years.
I have off moments but I just remember how bad I felt when I was sat at 2am watching the moon wishing everything would end and that they will pass in time.
The anxiety attacks have just about gone completely and meditation seems to control the ones that I do get.
I've also realised that none of this stuff business, relationship or whatever is worth sacrificing my own long term happiness over, I was miserable for 4 years, no more.
Parts of this resonate with me and yet I have a variable 40 hour a week ceiling where if I'm extremely lucky I top out at that. I can safely say I've had many of those thoughts and they didn't revolve around the amount of time I spent at work.
Some days just the act of leaving the house and coming home has me beat down. There's a serious lack of energy just spending 4 days in an office and working from home on Friday. I guess I'm saying the amount of time spent doesn't equate to the feelings of burnout. I'm fairly positive now many of my symptoms that you've expressed are likely due to some form of depression, however serious or mild it may be. I don't have anxiety attacks that I'm conscious of but that and thoughts of "wishing everything would end" are pretty clear indicators to me.
I'm glad you're on the right track and it looks like what you're doing is having some positive impact. Always stick with what works because it's clearly a push in a positive direction for you. Like me, however, you may wish to look into dealing with depression because I've exhibited many of these same symptomatic behaviors. That can affect us the same no matter if we're working 4 hours a week or 40 really, it all feels the same to me at least.
One question though: did your spouse cheating on you have anything to do with you working that much for the last 4 years? How did the relationship even last that long? How much time did you spend together and how many nice things did you do together?
I'm asking because the relationship I'm in would probably suffer a lot if I worked 80 hour weeks for two weeks in a row, let alone 4 years. I'm wondering how other people's relationships look from the inside.
> did your spouse cheating on you have anything to do with you working that much for the last 4 years?
Probably, I worked so hard to build a future for us both that I ended up neglecting her far too much, I think if you don't get the emotional support you deserve off your other half sometimes you'll be tempted to look for it elsewhere, I can forgive her for that but I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who cheats, she could have at any point told me that's how she was feeling and I would have listened, mistakes both sides.
> How did the relationship even last that long?
We loved each other and I was working for our future plus despite the hours I tried to make time for her.
> I'm wondering how other people's relationships look from the inside.
I'm wondering that as well, the reality is that when you work 9am - 7pm 7 days a week there is not much time or energy to do anything else.
I've learnt my lesson but it came at a high price however the price would be wasted if I didn't learn.
Could I contact you somewhere to discuss the positive changes you are making in your life? I don't want to take away time from your busy schedule but I've been dealing with similar problems for the past couple years and I'd like to discuss strategies for moving past this darkness.
This line in particular really spoke to me as it's about all I can manage at the moment (hoping for change rather than actively pursuing change):
"I have off moments but I just remember how bad I felt when I was sat at 2am watching the moon wishing everything would end and that they will pass in time."
> Later that week I found in a fairly horrible way that my partner of 7 years had cheated on me and I threw her out.
Really sorry to hear that. My relationship is on its last legs and that messes with my ability to work, which in turns messes with my relationship. For me, it's a downard spiral.
> So what is responsible for this miraculous change?
The realisation that if I don't change course I'm going to either have a complete breakdown or throw myself off a bridge.
> Simply working fewer hours?
Unfortunately no life isn't that simple though working fewer hours does have a side effect which is it frees up time to do things you enjoy doing, in my case Cycling.
Getting out everyday on my bike in the sun (or rain, it is England after all), eating right and getting some quality sleep have all had a marked effect on both my mood and energy levels.
The irony is last week I got more done than I would have in two weeks a month ago working half the hours.
I'll take 4 hours wide awake and well rested over 12 exhausted and stressed.
I'm not entirely there yet but I'm mentally stronger than I have been in a long time.
Unfortunately, very few people acknowledge what it really takes to keep the "trees" healthy, even if they think they do. A great deal of "progressive" companies assume that a break room with an Xbox 360 and a soda fountain should automatically translate into astronomical employee morale, despite regular overworking and underpaying.
How often does a company see its employees as equals? How often does a company try to ensure that the employee's demands and the company's demands are equitable? Most of them mask their blatant anti-employee bias in moralistic language to try to shame people out of asking questions: as one example, if you leave for another opportunity whilst involved in a project, you're considered "disloyal" or "unstable" and guilted, even though a company would shave off a unit in a heartbeat if it meant a major change in their financial prospects.
Even companies that claim they understand career progression, work-life balance, etc. often have these problems lurking underneath the glitzy exterior. I say this and people will think, "Yeah, that sucks, but not my workplace!" The reality is yes, your workplace probably has this same issue too. Just think about it for a while.
We need to start thinking of employment as a mutually beneficial exchange between equals with equally applicable moral rules. Why should the company keep 90%+ of the revenue an employee generates? Would that fly if it were a partnership deal between corporations? Surely the services of an employer are worth something, but are they really worth that much? The only reason employers can take that much is because employees don't believe they can claim any portion of that revenue without an employer, and they have to take the paltry 2% or they won't be able to get anything, which is usually false if the employee has a marketable skill.
In my opinion and unfortunately experience, burnout is tightly coupled with procrastination. Neither burnout, nor procrastination is classified as disease, though. It is known, that a burnout is a life-management difficulty. [1]
To get to my point, the whole burnout process starts with procrastinating. However, the sources for procrastination can be very different. This is where you should fight the problem. If you have depression, get help. If you are lazy, well that sucks. (Sounds easy, I know. It is not easy in real life, I know). But in the end, your own inaction is digging your grave.
It's not the break you need. You need a new approach to handling life. Handling life differently. If you keep "only" taking breaks, the burnout becomes a cycle, instead of a one-time exhaustion. And you will go throught this cycle often.
The fact that I'm writing this, instead of studing/working, shows that my procrastination problem continues to grow, and eventually enlarging the burnout on the horizon.
"As a software developer, I’m passionate about writing codes and creating new things. However, as I also need to perform managerial duties, I had less and less time to do so. Repeatedly, I had to work for days without writing any useful code for the team, I became highly agitated."
It's surprising how hard it can be to find time to just write code, even with a full time job in software development.
Meetings. Email. Technical feasibility. Gathering requirements. Testing. Investigating bugs. Various forms of technical support. Architecture and design. Documentation. Time sheets. Reports. Fixing builds and managing dependencies.
All of these are good and important and necessary for any software product to succeed. But they call also really suck the passion and productivity out of a person.
"All of these are good and important and necessary for any software product to succeed. But they call also really suck the passion and productivity out of a person."
Exactly! How do you normally deal with these? (Just curious as a still younger developer who has recently left business corporate world (excel etc.) about a year ago to pursue developing as full time at a startup)
These are the most frustrating things that start consuming a growing chunk of your time. Writing code for hours on trot to solve problems is always a joy, but when these coding sessions start becoming rare... well you just start hating these hygiene things even more and at times this negativity starts extending to people and other stuff around... Not cool at all. Still looking for better solutions... as these are what i think contribute more towards the frustration and consequently burnouts
Occasionally I will block off a several hour appointment on my calendar labeled "Develop Software". Usually works. Sometimes do it for our entire team.
Actually I like to code, but I also like architecture and design bit. Sitting down with a pen and paper, working out options for the main algorithms, seeing what looks best. Meetings and emails, not so much.
Here's a crazy idea: work less. Try first with a 40 hour week. Then 35. Just the 40 hour week could probably give you enough time to do other things you want. And make this mental note: if your business needs you constantly for more than 40 hours a week, you're doing something wrong.
Your work should be your passion, but it shouldn't consume your life.
I agree with what you're saying but as someone who has had this issue recently but also already works a relaxed 36 hours a week I think the article was pretty much spot-on.
I'm pretty sure burnout is endemic to this industry, if not most of society. It's a good idea to be on the lookout. Don't underestimate the dangers of burning out (they may include losing your passion entirely).
The human body is generally well-adapted to maintaining homeostasis, in the absence of extreme illness and disease, i.e. feeling thirsty when you need fluids, hunger when you need calories and needing sleep when you're tired.
However, sometimes external and internal factors can cause us to ignore these basic needs/warning signs. The need to meet a deadline, the need to not let down your coworkers or the need to demonstrate "passions" for your line of work. The first two apply pretty much to any job nowadays, while the latter applies groups that are often expected to show a "portfolio" of their work, such as artists, musicians, graphic designers and increasingly, software developers.
All of these demands can easily lead to burnout and a lack of passion, not just tiredness. Feeling tired is one thing, as one usually ascribe that physical causes. But having a feeling of lacking passion can be soul-crushing, as it leads one to question whether one is in the right field of work. This is perhaps the one of the worst effects of burnout and must be avoided. Burnout is the cause and a lack of passion is merely a symptom.
Realizing there is much more to life than work-related goals, as the article suggests, is a good solution.
The only way I've been able to avoid burnout is to be deeply involved in things outside of work. I work a 9-6 front-end development job, but I also teach people how to train their dogs once a week, I write creatively for my own purposes, and I teach coding classes a few times a year. By adding variety and focusing on a few things that are important to me, I don't get burnt out on any of them. It does mean that I'm busy, but I've never felt more stable than I do now. I think having those competing priorities helps me keep the balance that I need to avoid burnout.
In what context do you teach coding? I thoroughly enjoyed teaching while a TA in college, and have periodically thought I'd enjoy doing it again, but I don't have the inclination to go back for further degrees, nor deal with academia.
Reach out to local high schools, most these days have some form of CS classes or after school programming activities and love having local professionals come in to teach.
I've been teaching with Girl Develop It. If you have a chapter in your area, I highly recommend it! Both men and women can attend/teach, although its main goal is to promote more women in tech.
The author's theory is that burnout is caused by not doing the things one loves.
I have a different, albeit perhaps related theory: burnout is caused by not being able to get in the "flow" for extended periods of time.
I can relate to the author's example of having split duties involving coding and not coding, as I'm in the same boat. About half of my week involves developing my company's learning management system, and the other half involves going to meetings about various training activities that are hosted on the system. The latter part is what causes burnout, because the meetings are spread out through the day and totally disrupt my flow. No matter how hard I have tried, I haven't been able to block out large, uninterrupted chunks. As a result, I find myself in these situations where just as I'm about to get in the zone, I get a reminder that says "meeting in 15 minutes!"
It has reached a point where I started looking for other jobs. Anyone need a Rails developer? :(
Isn't burnout originally something way worse than exhausted and demotivated? Examples:
I burnt out once, it left me crying everytime I where alone and took me months to get through the first phase. Anything that reminded me about the old job, e.g. a faulty drive-train, could trigger stomach pain etc. It took 5 full years before I was really myself again even though I studied and had normal jobs during those years.
I have seen a couple of friends and colleagues go through the same. One of them was a promising technician who had to leave it.
Whenever I read articles like this I wonder if we are talking about the same kind of burnout? (And yes, English is not my first language.)
I had a similar experience. I left a very high stress job, and it took me well over a year to stop having anxiety attacks for a job I wasn't even employed at, anymore. I didn't even have a cell phone, and I was getting phantom phone syndrome for at least 18 months. Almost sounds like PTSD.
Yup, as I mentioned in another example, working is a business relationship analogous to a romantic relationship.
When one party is passionately in love, is hugely engaged in the relationship, and puts a great amount of work into the relationship (not merely hours but also emotional investment, etc.) while the other party is abusive, absent, disengaged, or what-have-you the result is often eventually severe emotional trauma and the dissolution of the relationship. That's true in romantic relationships, but also true in business relationships.
That's what most people don't realize about burnout. It's not merely physical, it's not about overwork, it's about psychological and emotional trauma on the scale of having your heart broken by a dysfunctional romantic relationship.
I was writing code for this company. Had burnout. Couldn't concentrate. Like something was broken in my head. Tried. Couldn't. Stopped trying. Then tried some more. Then floated in a haze between trying and not-trying. Started having really bad dreams. Would wake up, run down the road freaked out. Hallucinating.
> there were times when I got completely burnt out as often as once every few days
Hm, maybe we call two different things a burnout. I had it twice, one ending in a visit to ER, the other one blasting a single song at max volume for 20h then crying and trying to quit my job.
I don't think the author actually had one, at least not by my definition of it.
That aside, my main cause of burnouts was working extremely hard on something and not finishing it, for a long time. Or always going after a moving target. Management and goal setting issue, really, and easy one to solve - break huge goals into subgoals, or even - don't have big goals at all.
I would quit my job long before anything like that happened. A psychotic break may be something that burnout could lead to, but I'm sure that that's not a minimal requirement to say you're 'having a burnout' in most people's usage.
To be honest, that's just not the way I react to stress. I'm more likely to get a bit of insomnia and be overly critical towards my coworkers.
edit:
"The term 'burnout' was coined in the 1970s by the American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger. He used it to describe the consequences of severe stress and high ideals experienced by people working in 'helping' professions. Doctors and nurses, for example, who sacrifice themselves for others, would often end up being 'burned out' – exhausted, listless, and unable to cope."
If that's what you want to call it. I always thought of burnout as not being able or not having the desire to continue keeping up the professional pace that you've been keeping over a long period of time. It doesn't have to include any irrational element, or even explode into a cathartic moment to be burnout as far as I've heard it discussed.
'Succumbing to burnout' I get - 'having a burnout' is not a phrasing that I'm even familiar with.
I firmly believe that the reason most major religions standardized a sabbath day was for mental health reasons. There's a lot of value to taking a day for yourself in which you do no work.
Even if you love what you do, you can't do it for 10 hours every single day for years.
I've heard something similar suggested as part of the reason for the spread of Islam. 5 prayer-breaks per day where you get to chill out in the shade for a bit is a pretty compelling offer in a hot part of the world. Especially if you are doing manual labour.
I don't think this article really says anything that isn't obvious. We all know that serious cases of burnout happen because you don't like what you're doing. We all only have so much patience and tolerance for things we dislike. The answer is to stop doing things you don't like doing so much, and do things you do like doing more, and make this a permanent change, not just a two week break before you jump back into the things you hate; that may prolong your tolerance, but you'll eventually run out again. We have to find an equilibrium between the enjoyable and the necessary that allows us to be productive but doesn't make us hate our lives. That's no secret.
The problem is that most people don't have many options to change their situation in a significant way -- all they can do, if they're lucky, is take a short vacation and hope that re-energizes them enough to go into another grueling year without having a breakdown. Some of us have to try to manage a constantly ongoing breakdown without disrupting the work that brings in the bacon.
If your version of "burnout" is completely resolved by taking a vacation, you weren't burning out, you just needed a short break. In my mind, burnout refers to a larger state of mental exhaustion.
Not exactly. Many people don't realize the situation at all. And also, there are many ways to find and reserve time for things you love, which are not necessarily related with/constrained by your work at all. People just fall into a vicious cycle so that they gradually forget to do those things altogether, and let things continue deteriorating.
>> there were times when I got completely burnt out as often as once every few days.
That's not multiple burnouts. That's one burnout.
That's what burnout is like. It's not a complete inability to work. It's a lack of consistency. I think that's why so many people don't think to do anything about it. They think, "if I just quit being so lazy..." they could get everything done. Clearly, they're capable. And it is clearly not permanent. So the problem must be them, right?
Wrong. The problem with lack of consistency and reliability is a feedback loop. If you don't keep to regular, sustainable hours, your body will take up the deficit later. Your mean productivity is basically set, it's your standard deviation that you can control.
So, you either work really hard now and have everyone freak out that you're not being as productive as they've come to expect out of you. Or you just not establish an expectation of being hyperproductive in short bursts.
To overuse a metaphor: you don't win a marathon in the first 100 meters.
Interesting article. I think burnout can be caused by a number of things, but I don't think everyone has a different burnout trigger. When faced with non-ideal conditions/expectations, burnout is inevitable. Sone people can cope with different burnout causes better than others, but if, say, your work is soul-scorching then it'll eventually get to you.
The simple truth is if you're pushing to excel in any competitive field you're gonna have to push yourself to the limit. That's why the startup game is push, make FU money and walk, not build a lifestyle business out of it, because by the time you're done there's nothing left. You've given it your all.
Read some Peter Thiel and he will tell you that in the ideal startup there should be no "competition" at all. Competition is a horrible and destructive thing.
Although, as a fact you have to realize that many people who excel in competition for example professional athletes keep an exceptionally good balance. In fact those at the top of competitions are almost always those who are very good at keeping balance. So your theory simply doesn't hold.
Personally I think he exactly hit the spot. A few years ago I regularly did things that I loved so I was achieving in various aspects and feeling happy although doing a lot. But later some interpersonal relationships went awry, the habit was broken and my life descended into a mess, without myself really realizing it. These two years I’ve been doing much less yet feeling much more burnt out and ineffective than I previously was, indeed because I have been kept from those regular things that I love for too long. Unfortunately I didn’t realize it in the beginning and probably even have already forgotten about it gradually. His wording of “epiphany” is exact.
Also, I think many of you here are simply misinterpreting what he means.
Why something you love and is important to you have to be something in your work?
Just as he himself says, he sets multiple rewards for himself, daily, weekly, monthly.
Where does he say that they are work-related at all?
"how to deal with burnout more effective" - That's the key. I have noted that my burnout often comes from situation, where I constantly feel that I'm not doing enough. Reason for that is that you should do everything and always optimize to maximum and be efficient. Things get fixed when you accept, that it's ok to lazily get to work, do something, if you feel like it, if you don't then don't. Then wonder home enjoying the world, it might take hours. Eat something, watch soap opera and go to sleep. - Suddenly you can feel happy, and not burned out at all. Need to be effective and performing well is the ultimate trap.
"The solution is actually quite simple: do what you love and is important to you regularly."
Of course I agree - this is near impossible to argue. It's what pushed me into entrepreneurship after realizing I wanted to shape my own work reality if it was something I was going to be spending 40+ hours a week doing.
That said, a reality I feel like I'm coming to grips with is that most of my friends working traditional/conventional career paths really don't give a damn about their work.
I'm a little skeptical about the idea that this is practical information most people working normal jobs will follow through with (that basically means, quit).
Let's say that for most people following Hacker News, it's because their work matters to them; and, for others, it's just a paycheck.
Because of these differing work attitudes, you will see some expression of "burnout" (or some other work-related unhappiness). Keeping in mind these differences can help, but it won't solve this fundamental difference within a team.
It's implied. If it needs explicit mentioning then probably there's something wrong with the culture because there's no reason that normal person wouldn't consider it.
What kind of pervert, anti-human-nature "culture" and "philosophy" you are talking about? Haven't they victimized and taken the happiness away from enough people already? Not to mention that being a Brazilian I suppose you should appreciate the positive value of sex very well?
"Get a tribe" is some of the best advice that can be had.
I think many people have this misconception that humans have "evolved" with technology, but in reality we're not that different than our plain-dwelling ancestors.
Sure we have better medicine and more gadgets, but we still have a strong, subconscious social desire to belong to a group of like-minded humans.
If you don't have a tribe, it's a good idea to find one.
Agreed. This is what Crossfit did for me, believe it or not. A group of well-adjusted, healthy people united by shared misery (sacrifice) who meet every day of the week for an hour or so.
They're some of my best friends.
It doesn't need to be Crossfit; it can be a user group, LAN gaming, cooking classes, rotary, biking, climbing, MAKER fair stuff, etc.
I'm not a programmer, so I'm viewing the stuff on hacker news from outside the bubble, so to speak. And from here, y'all look crazy. To the average person, spending extra hours at work with no overtime pay is absurd, but you all discuss it like it's no big deal.
Your industry needs a huge cultural overhaul. People must be trained not to accept burnout as normal.