I have trouble concentrating at work to the point where I barely complete any code. I Can never flow unless I'm working on a project at home. Music can help but the network is often too spotty for songs to load consistently. I'm easily distracted by the internet and conversations with co-workers. I'm not allowed to work overtime, and get 8 hours of sleep - so being tired is not an issue. Am I burnt out? or just extremely apathethic?
I've been burned out twice before. This cognitive sluggishness is similar, but not identical. Lately there's nothing particular going on at work that has had a consuming or stressful effect on me, but that doesn't entirely rule it out.
Constant work fatigue and an inability to perform intellectually (either in terms of study of producing code) is what a burnout looked like for most of my ex-colleagues. You're about the correct age for one too, according to my observations (which are anecdotal).
Burnout doesn't always have to be exhaustion-focused. I'm no expert but to me it sounds like you're disengaged/apathetic moreso than exhausted. Boreout is another common term that gets thrown around on hacker news/reddit.
I think as software engineers we don't always consider the social element much, we tend to focus on the problems we are solving day in and day out, but the people are a critical piece of the puzzle as well. I similarly had a lot of coworkers I cared for leave for other jobs, and that ended up hitting me harder than I thought it would.
I think I'm burning out because my job is too easy. I like working. Satisfaction of completing a good job makes me happy. Is anyone else experiencing burnout as a result of numbingly boring tasks rather than from intense bursts of mentally challenging work? Am I conflating burnout with something else like depression?
Writing up UI designed by a designer who doesn't understand my domain's interface guidelines, reexplaining how my software works to the product person during every product meeting, trudging along under leadership that doesn't understand the costs of all the manual things I'm not being empowered to automate and not having new features to show off every 2 weeks is what is making me feel like I'm burnt out.
I've been at the opposite end of things. I've had to sprint through terminals to catch flight after an incredibly slow deployment at a hotel like out of a nail-biting Hollywood thriller. I've crunched through long days before critical events, and then crunched even longer days to work through all the issues we came across afterwards. But these things usually resulted in satisfaction more than frustration.
My symptoms have been physical too. I've vomited before going into work at least a dozen times. I had to start embracing it to get on with my day. Thankfully this is no longer an issue for myself but I couldn't even tell you what had changed to start preventing that.
It's likely burnout. I have experienced this for a solid year now. Just sit at my desk for 8 hours a day unable to get any real work done. Have probably 30 minutes of real productivity a day. Started after working insane hours for months and months on end. I refuse to work more than 40 now. Funny thing is I get great reviews because I just decided to hijack a team lead role that was missing and just run the team. No one knows how absolutely fried I am. My opinion is that humans are not meant to just sit in front of a desk producing useless widgets that do no real societal good besides making money for our employers. We have no sense of purpose. We just make dumb shiny things. I am still struggling with it. Starting a new job soon in an official management position, optimally I am happier there.
Yes. Absolutely. The less enthusiasm you have for your job, the more you will notice the early hour you have to wake up, and the traffic you have to fight, and exactly how long 9 hours can be. And when that happens, you'll burn out because you are using up so much willpower to do the bare minimum you'll wear yourself out
How to tackle it?
- Find a project you enjoy doing. Either at work or a side project.
- Spend some time on Stack Overflow helping others. Ostensibly you are engaged in "professional development".
- Find a new job. This may seem obvious, but if you are doing something you don't like, find someone who will pay you for doing something you do like.
Needing more and more time to get less and less done. Constant preference for "short breaks", distractions and procrastination, instead of trying to focus on work. At this point you are already burnt out.
Hmm, I feel like I'm burning out right now - both very exhausted and very bored - work feels tedious. I never linked these too things together. Thank you
Maybe but I don't think so. In my mind, burnout requires some point of burn. In my experience, these jobs are just cush and have a nice paycheck but lack any type of burn. I usually get paid well to do something I feel is trivial but they see value in it. The job doesn't actually challenge me intellectually and maybe it was fine when I liked the people or was building out the process but then over time it's not enough to keep my mind from wondering (and sometimes the people change, so my engagement tanks because of that).
I've had burnout too (I think). It's stressful as fuck. What I described above is not, because I don't care at all. My burnout situations have crashed hard and usually bleed into my personal life more so.
I feel that. I'm quite open and creative but writing poems and bringing 10 different music instruments to a novice+ level won't pay my bills.
So I studied some STEM and worked in a field that interests me. But working in consulting brought me to a burnout in just under 2 years. I quit and now have a chill desk job, but even now - I often can't motivate myself and I see no point in sitting 8 hours at a desk, when I can work in 2 bursts of 30mins a day and get all the things done that a urgent.
So what then? I google stuff, look at my phone and chat with the one nice guy at work. Apart from social communication, all that time feels so WASTED.
And then at home you crave to go online and sit at your desk again, but this time it's a gaming desk. So because it's your hobby its cool - ?. No, honestly it drains your energy as well because it's no contrast to your work setting.
Fuck I need a cabin in the woods with a garden and a 15 hour remote job, I guess.
What are people's thoughts/experiences with burnout happening without overtime? Over the past few years I've grown more and more bored at work. Even switching jobs from different ends of the spectrum didn't fix this. I can get myself into flow but it seems to take more and more will power as time goes on. Different tech challenges help, but it's nothing like my halcyon days of straight out of college. Of coming into work and just doing the job and enjoying it with no use of will power. I go home and then fight to do the "bare minimum", read, exercise, eat healthy, minimal home chores and decent sleep. I've wondered if having a home hobby would help but I have none. I feel like "burnout" describes where I'm at, but I have a hard time stating it as fact because I rarely work over 40hrs a week on the job. So, thoughts? Could I actually be in a burnout phase or is this something completely different?
Having been in a similar situation, my sympathies; I've found it to be a very strange sensation. The burnt-out knows exactly what work tasks they need to do, they know that it's easily within their own capabilities, and they (at a conscious level at least) even desperately want to do the tasks to fulfill their professional obligations (or to simply continue getting paid). But the body just will not do it or forcing it to do so feels as strenuous as Olympic weightlifting such that one is exhausted at the end of the day not from being productive but from attempting to beat oneself into being productive. It's a very unhappy state to be in.
Not at all. I've myself been burnt out from focusing too much on work. It sucks to be out of balance. If you feel that work is all that matters and you don't need anything else to be happy then good for you. I have a feeling that others might feel different.
This really got me thinking... Burnout might not be the right term to use in this case. My biggest issue right now is that I feel like I'm not learning enough and I'm not using my full potential. My biggest skills and interests are building native iOS and Android apps as well as hardware hacking. At my 9-5 I do neither of these, I get to do semi-big custom web apps but much of it usually ends up being wrapped in WordPress. Sigh.
I would say that burnout is about not caring. About not finding enjoyment and satisfaction in the work that you previously did. If you find yourself reacting with far less enthusiasm to the same sorts of tasks that in the past you found exciting and interesting that could be a big sign of burnout.
Burnout is about stress and not necessarily about "overwork". You can get burnt out on a 40 hour a week job or even on a 10 hour a week job. Spending a half of your waking hours every weekday immersed in an ocean of stress is quite sufficient to screw your brain up and burn you out. Software development can quite easily be (and is typically) a very highly stressful job. On top of the normal stresses of coding you have the typical saga of trying to determine and meet the right specs, you have the drama of trying to chase bugs around at the same time you're trying to get work done, and you have immense schedule uncertainty and schedule pressure on top of everything. And that's the average case.
My advice, for whatever it's worth, is to try to find a way to reduce your stress as much as possible. Maybe find a position with less responsibilities that pays well enough. Then spend your free time slowly re-acquiring a passion for tech by taking on small, highly rewarding projects.
The burnout I'm struggle with is cognitive fatigue. I love programming but find my mind can only handle so many hours. Answer is simple, take some time off and exercise but easier said than done.
I always thought this is what people referred to when they spoke about burnout?
I certainly feel some symptoms of burnout - quality of my work went down, development is no longer interesting, all projects look the same to me. But this is not something sudden, it's been there for years, slowly changing my life. Sorry for such an useless comment, but I'm realizing it will be difficult to recover from this creeping apathy.
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