Personally, I've never heard of or met anyone who loves their job and has burned out.
Have you?
Personally, I've never heard of or met anyone who loves their job and has burned out.
Have you?
Burnout is a huge problem in the creative industries, amongst people who have fought, worked for years or decades, and clawed their way into a job they love and have wanted to do their entire adult lives.
For example, as Ron Moore (I think) says in the documentary "Showrunners", there's a reason almost no TV showrunner is much older than their early 50s. The job (which is insanely intense) burns you out, no matter how much you love it.
Maybe another way to look at it is the "burn out rate". Different companies have a tendency to turn excited new tech employees into minimally-productive ones in different time frames.
For example Amazon has a burn out rate of about a year, whereas Google and Facebook are about two years and Microsoft four years.
Why should this be the case? I think people above in the thread would argue that it has to do with culture and working conditions, with moral and with levels of individual autonomy.
I have also experienced burn out with a job that I disliked. In both cases there is a feeling of not being able to focus on the work at hand, that more effort will make you physically sick.
The author's example of eating ice cream at every meal resonates with me really well. You do get tired of it, even if it's conceptually amazing.
doesn't mean you love your job. means it's great as an idea on paper maybe.
Now you have!