Hacker News Reader

Comment by systemvoltage | Hacker News Reader

I've always wondered the following:

- What precisely constitutes a burnout?

- How do you objectively differentiate between a challenging situation and over-stressed situation leading to burnout?

- What are the differences in tolerance for stressful situation from person to person? Is it related to certain personalities?

- How to conduct a self-analysis to determine if you're going through a burnout?

- Do other non-software professions go through burnout? Alternatively, is software engineering more prone to burnout?

I've always heard of burnout, but like depression which has specific symptoms and clinical diagnosis, what are the properties, symptoms and characteristics of a burnout?

I am wondering if I am going through one? I like what you said about guilt - I feel like I've gone through hell in workplaces and always curious if I should just "suck-it-in" or quit and find a better job.

View on HN

> What precisely constitutes a burnout?

You know you're burned out when things that used to motivate you to get up early and work through lunch now feel like burdens. Not just work stuff either, but burnout it starts affecting your life outside work, on things that you thought had nothing to do with work.

> a challenging situation

You're challenged when, even if you don't know how to get through it, you have in your mind a structure, a way of getting through it. You know you can figure it out, you just have to work it out, and the process of working through it energizes you. You're over-stressed when you don't see a way through, or when you see the way through but dread doing the necessary things.

Tolerance for stress depends, in part, on a person's level of resilience: your ability to face reality exactly as it is, your sense that what you do will have some meaningful impact, and your self-confidence in your ability to handle the situation. You might remember a time when you were a kid and something you dealt with seemed like the end of the world, but now you look back and wonder what the big deal was. Your ability to manage stressful situations grew.

In short, when you're burnt out, you're tired even when you get enough sleep, you are reflexively cynical and critical of the work, and you begin to feel like problems you should be able to handle require extraordinary efforts. Those feelings happen now and then when you're not burnt out, but if it becomes chronic, that's burnout.

Those are wonderfully constructed definitions. Thank you.

You're welcome. I hope they help at least one person avoid or get out of a bad situation.

Ex-finance attorney at a White Shoe law firm here. Crashed and burned out at the age of 38, still trying to find my way back (where?) over 3 years later.

For me, I knew I was burned out when I just could not face the thought of going into the office and doing my job any longer. It made me physically sick to my stomach and then, over time, started to manifest itself in other ways that negatively affected my physical health.

The linked article really spoke to me - as do a lot of the comments in this thread. I think that for those who burn out, the hardest thing is perhaps learning to forgive yourself. Sounds cliched but there it is.

Threw in the towel on a decade long career and went back to school. Career was affecting my health as well, physically and mentally, I'm 37 now. Your comment mirrors my own experiences. Just know that you're not alone.

I'm about to do the same.

Like literally dropped my notice yesterday. Cashed out a bunch of stock last week -- good timing, cuz shit is fallin this week! -- and already looking at grad school and cert programs.

I'm about to do the same myself. Its going to be expensive as hell, and I'm still not quite sure if I'll regret it down the line, but I can't keep doing what I'm doing now.

>Do other non-software professions go through burnout? Alternatively, is software engineering more prone to burnout?

Oooooh boy you should look into medicine. This is a profession that has been dealing with insane burnout since before software existed and is only recently getting any amount of attention from within the community. (Think 80+ hour surgical residency for 8 years with the self-perpetuating cycle of "that's what I had to do so I make these residents do it too" logic of hazing)

I was previously pre-med and at one of my med school interviews (when the school was bragging about their mental health resources) they mentioned a story of a physician who played candy crush every morning before he got out of bed "just so that he could have one win for the day."

I recall a conversation with a brilliant GI surgeon and she told me she started out as a pancreatic surgeon initially in her residency. It’s a very complex surgery and “beautiful” in her words describing the procedures. But she couldn’t stay with it and moved to GI because the pancreatic surgeon has to see so many patients die not too long after surgery.

What precisely constitutes a burnout?

The Maslach Burnout Inventory, mentioned in TFA, is probably the most widely used/recognised specific classification / diagnostic mechanism.

If you think you're experiencing burnout, my recommendation would be to seek mental health support and specifically request the burnout assessment. Getting that might be more difficult than you'd expect, the sector is often averse to making such determinations.

IMO any stress can lead to burnout stress, at some point it just kinda clicks and nothing seems to lead to anything better anymore, you start feeling like it's only going down. At least that's how it started for me. Imposter syndrome was getting stronger the less work I was felt able to do.

The main reason I know it was a burnout is that I never really found back. I am done with tech, or rather done with 40 hour weeks, done with unrealistic deadlines, done with so many things actually.

According to Section 22A(3A) of the NZ Land Transport Act 1998 a burnout is when "A person ... without reasonable excuse, operate(s) a motor vehicle on a road in a manner that causes the vehicle to undergo sustained loss of traction (where) the operation of the vehicle in that manner is (not) authorised by law."

Haha Mad Kiwi

Reply on news.ycombinator.com