I’ve noticed (with the help of family members and my SO) that I’ve become very negative, cynical and drained lately. Reading about burnout, I find all of the symptoms to be true for myself.
My job requires me to work on a single project full-time, and a couple of small side-projects. The management of the project is very chaotic and I feel more and more inadequate for my position. Priorities constantly change and just looking at the week’s schedule in Monday, I can tell the we’re not going meet the set goal by Friday. It has been like that for more than a year. It doesn’t help that I’ve become very pessimistic about the main project’s future.
Outside of work, I don’t have much free time. The little I have, I try to spend with my loved ones. Hobbies and other interests are on the back burner.
As the title implies, I don’t have the option of quitting or taking a sabbatical at the moment.
I know kbin is not a replacement for therapy but I was just wondering if anyone has been through this and found anything helpful other that distancing from their current workplace.
I was in a similar boat last year and went back to counselling for some coping strategies. The most helpful things for me were constantly reminding myself not to worry about things out of my control, remembering that I couldn’t possibly be inadequate because all the evidence said I was doing fine (good reviews, good feedback, not fired!), and keeping a thought diary. Every time I felt down or overwhelmed or frustrated, I’d write about the situation, list my thoughts/feelings/behaviours, and then run a critical eye over them to try and rationalise them and work out where I was being unfair on myself. The more you do that, the more you can notice negative thoughts in the moment and put a stop to them, which stops the bad mood before it even starts. YMMV but as someone with a serious self-hate problem, that worked well for me.
It also helped keeping in regular contact with management and stakeholders to update them on delays. I’m prone to blaming things on myself and keeping everyone else informed takes the edge off of that, makes me feel less like I’m…I don’t know, hiding my poor performance, and more like everything is a group decision. “Okay, XYZ is late, but I told them PM it would be and they didn’t do anything to help so that’s on them…”
Kept me sane for an extra six months, until I got to a place where I felt able to look for other jobs. Hope things get better for you, or that you’re able to get the hell out of there soon.
Thank you for sharing your experience!
I’ve never seriously kept a thought diary. I’ve kept a “thought dump” but I might try to write down more thoughtful notes and later try to go over them more critically.
I especially like your idea of keeping regular contact with management about delays. It reminded me that I’ve actually done that a couple of times and it really felt liberating. Like… taking actual responsibility and not hiding it, but at the same time… somehow sharing the responsibility because you obviously can’t handle the task at hand alone.
Thank you sincerely for this comment!
I’m not sure if this information is helpful- but to tack onto what the previous commenter said one day I realized the work wouldn’t end and that was the point of my job. I know that’s sounds kind of obvious.
I have a bad habit of sort of racing towards an end goal and never stopping to be present. I do this at work as well and realizing the above has made it easier to enjoy the aspects of my position I do like, and get past the ones I don’t. All you can do is what you can do and what’s left will be there tomorrow.
And a note on hobbies- is there a way to portablize yours more? For example I love drawing, so I got an iPad and I’m able to pull it out and draw wherever. Similar story with my boyfriend buying a laptop has really increased his ability to make music. I’m not sure what your hobbies are but it may be worth treating yourself to whatever makes it easier to fit them in the pockets of time you do have.
Thank you for sharing!
I do try to remind myself that work is always there waiting for me. Even with the unmet weekly goals the work just transfers to the next week.
As for hobbies - I love drawing as well. I used to do it regularly. I do have unfinished sketchbooks but my workplace isn’t somewhere I can really draw. I probably should actively try to pursue that again. It’s somewhat therapeutic and takes my mind off of things.
Thanks again!
This may seem simple and kind of dumb but you will need to start caring less about certain things at work. It is a form of therapeutic reframing where you understand that you cannot change external forces but only your own actions and view of things. You don’t have control of this projects and this is stressing and burning you out.
Just understand that nothing you ca do will change the projects final results and whether it succeeds or fails it won’t really affect you. Business thrive people naturally care about things which they use to guilt people into working longer and harder hours since they feel connected to it. The fact is that with the current leadership on this project it cannot succeed and you are just there when you are there. Your time is sacred and honor it.
Thank you for the advice!
Caring less might certainly help. It just feels wrong to me to take the paycheck and not put my heart into the work. Maybe some kind of a balance could be found.
It just feels wrong to me to take the paycheck and not put my heart into the work.
I felt the same way, until after the second corporate buyout. The company I started with my career with is gone, the company that bought them is gone, and the company that bought them is gone as well. The product I worked on for six years is gone and the company website only exists in the internet archive and a few archived press releases.
I put my heart into it and it’s just… gone entirely.
It’s one of the last times I put my heart into my work, because all that happened in the long run is the board of directors got more wealthy.
The subsequent buyouts (and layoffs) I’ve been through have gone much better for me, personally, because I wasn’t as emotionally involved in the company/product.
I’m at the point now where I’m in a more senior role, doing consulting, and I dgaf about the client’s business or project beyond getting my work done on time and to the required quality. I start at 9, log off at 5pm, get my work done by noon, and enjoy spending more time with my kids in the summer.
Thank you for sharing!
I went through a corporate buyout and was laid off from my last job. The company changed direction and didn’t need the whole branch I was in.
I’m happy you’ve found your rhythm. That sounds great!
Just remember that working and a career is a marathon and not a sprint. You can’t win a marathon in the first mile but you can lose it by going too fast. Treat it that way. Don’t burn yourself right away.
I have so many thoughts! I think your experience is very relatable, I bet many people reading this are thinking “wait does this person work on my team or for my company?”.
If you have a trusted friend or a therapist you can talk with I think that’d be helpful to sort out how burnt out you are and how much longer you can sustain this. But even just based on your original comments alone, it really seems like a change up would be helpful. If you have friends or even friends of friends in a similar field but different company, ask around about work culture and try to find an organization that does things differently. I do think work stress management techniques are useful no matter what kind of role / company you work for, but still…. Seems like it’s time for you to get away from your current situation. Best of luck to you and I truly hope you land yourself in a better spot!
Yeah, that’s sound advice! Thank you very much!
As someone who has worked for numerous chaotic software companies over the years and had a couple rounds of burnout:
You can try the quiet quitting thing, combined with things like meditation and distancing yourself from outcomes (e.g. stoic thinking around realizing what you control and don’t control). That might keep you going for a while.
But I’ve personally found that ultimately there is no substitute for quitting a toxic job and taking real time off (at least 3 weeks). Your body and mind have experienced trauma and need rest.
Best of luck, friendo
Thank you very much for the insight!
The last paragraph is what I was suspecting from the start.I appreciate your response!
Best of luck to you too!
I am not qualified (through education or experience) to give you advice on the issue, but you might have better luck from someone that is, if you add more context about the situation. Like, are you burned out because you’re always stressed out, or you’re siloed into one project, or you work too many hours, etc.
Any advice to mitigate the situation will need to be tailored to the specifics of the situation.
Oh, and don’t necessarily respond with the context in a reply to me; edit the thread itself.
Good luck finding your balance.
Edit: I upvoted and boosted to help get more eyes on your question.
I appreciate your advice and I’ve added a bit more information! Thank you!
What has made you decide you won’t take some time off work?
I do take short breaks (one or two days at the end or the beginning of the week) but not too often, because we are understaffed, and my vacation would mean more work load for my colleagues.
Why do you consider your colleagues’ wellbeing to be more important than yours? Why do you consider staffing issues your problem to deal with?
I’m just going to reiterate what soyagi said. Don’t feel obligated to work yourself to death just because your company is understaffed; the burden does not fall on you, but whoever is in charge of the budget. It’s not your fault. You aren’t a frickin’ robot. If they can’t afford to hire enough people to run the business, their business is likely unsustainable. And that’s not a place where you want to work anyway, because it is always going to be like this. You’d be doing yourself a huge favor if you can learn to value yourself, because you deserve better.
aka “Don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm.”
I set strict restrictions and limits on my work-life balance. My company can throw all the work they want at me between the hours of 9 and 5. Anytime outside that range, I’m not an employee, I’m a husband and a father. If my phone rings at 5:15, it goes to voicemail until tomorrow morning. I’m an IT consultant, so I have the luxury of never being on call or working weekends.
Thank you!
I should probably do something similar and mute all my notifications from work after work-hours. Sometimes people like to explain tasks for me in the evening to not forget them the next day. It really doesn’t help with unwinding.
My org has similar issues, and I also have to take the oncall rota on a schedule, so I’ve found that setting my work chat alerts to only trigger when I get @'d and only syncing email after hours when oncall makes things so much better. I have the ability to be reached when necessary, but I can turn off pretty easy once the day is over because people aren’t going to buzz my phone for every dumb thing they feel they have to do at night instead of having a life.
easier said than done: don’t work when you aren’t at work.
you you need to work evenings because it is more convenient to explain things to you than bank the time and take days off.
I have the exact opposite experience. Tho I’m chronically single so that changes things. I like working until 7-8 pm some days and just relax for an hour or two in the afternoon on others.
Can you increase your estimates for the work to give yourself some breathing space or ask to be transferred to another project or perhaps you can get an extra person to take some of the load to free you up ?
You pinpointed all the pain points at my workplace. We are a startup, understaffed, in my opinion, and long estimates are frowned upon. Our main project is what we were hired for, so transferring is also not an option.
Thanks for chiming in!
Sorry to hear that. Realistically you are only one person and can only do so much. If I’m getting pressed for different things I put the decision on the pm . you can have x now but it means I’ll have to put y on hold.
Thank you!
For me, switching to WFH is what did it. It turned out a ton of the stress I associated with the job was centered around being in the office - I was being nearly constantly distracted by people and events which had no bearing on me or my job. Working from home for nearly a year now has been a major relief. I now get my job done in about 3 - 4 hours and then basically just hang out near the phone in case it rings, surfing the web or working on hobby projects.
And the best part is that I’m about 30% more productive this year according to the stats. So it’s a win-win for everyone.
Thanks for sharing!
30% more productive sounds great!
What’s a “sabbatical”? I don’t get paid unless I’m doing work. The way I resolve my burnout is by looking at my bank balance, average rents (and the increase of rent over the last 10 years), and my life expectancy. Until there’s enough money in there that I can live on that, I have to work. And I have to assume that I’m less than 8 hours from being fired and going from my salary to minimum wage; so I’d damn well better exceed any expectations. My feelings, my ennui, and my burnout do not matter. My survival is reliant on providing greater value to my employer than I cost to keep around. My value to anyone is limited what I can provide them in the immediate past and foreseeable future - myself included.
Burnout and not being at 100% of expectations is the same as suicide. Every day I wake up and ask if today’s the day. Every day so far, I’ve decided there’s a reason to keep going. Look at it like that. If you like living, keep working.
Figure out where your inadequacy is and what is expected that’s making you feel that way. Align yourself with the people who sign your paycheck - what they want should be what you want. If being around someone is making you act in a negative way, don’t be around that person unless it’s essential.
If this isn’t some of the least empathetic advice I’ve ever read.
That’s right up there with my mom telling me “get a job and you won’t have time or energy to be depressed” when I told her I was depressed and wanted to see a counselor as a teen.
looks more like a cry for help
Yeah, that’s been my experience - that the people who are the least empathetic are the people who are having the same problem and trying the “tough love” approach on themselves to attempt to overcome it. They’ve shut off their compassion sensors because they can’t afford to apply any to themselves, so it’s not there for others either.
“Sabbatical” is a new concept to me as well. Where I’m from, they are unpaid.
I do subscribe to the idea that you should definitely provide a sufficient value to earn a paycheck and I do like the idea to first look inwards for the problem. I don’t think what you described is a sustainable way to live though. Expectations are external and you don’t have much, if any, control over them. If “not being at 100% of expectations is the same as suicide” for a long period of time, than that mindset itself is suicide. How can you always meet a 100% of something you have no control over?
Don’t get me wrong, I know people’s situations are vastly different and sometimes you do what you have to do at a given time to survive. But if you operate like that for a long-time, I don’t think your psyche will stay intact.
Thank you for sharing!
I know it’s not easy, but something that has helped me in a similar but not identical situation is to refuse to think about work outside of work. I was up last night worrying about work. So I know it’s not a perfect strategy, but trying to lock your mind against it is helpful. Or has been to me. I try the “yes, this is a ‘problem’ but not a problem for right now. I deserve to only have to try and figure it out on the clock.”
My subsidiary strategy is to try and have a fun mental game to play with myself. I’m a Star Wars guy so I try: If x was different how would Episode Y play out. Or what would my ideal zombie videogame look like. Essentially something that is “unimportant,” that I like, that has a lot of factors to consider. #1 to enjoy thinking about, and #2 that is complex enough and detailed enough to supply me with an “endless” well of stuff to prevent the scaries from sneaking in.
Thank you for sharing!
I like your mental game! I’ve been doing something similar but maybe not as in-depth.
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