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.
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.
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.
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.
Not saying it isn't crazy also, just providing another perspective.
I call the talk on "programmer working long hours" stereotype and myopia.
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.
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.
[0] Typical 8-5, fairly laid-back atmosphere, significant amount of freedom.
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.
True! Smart move: did it work?
Respect the 9-to-5 workday and good things will happen.
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'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.
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.
Anyway I wish you all the luck on your idea. :)
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
There are dozens of us!
and
> Your industry needs a huge cultural overhaul
aka, "I don't have your perspective but let me tell you why you're all wrong"
You don't honestly believe that burnout is a natural part of working, do you?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."
I'm notoriously bad at answering emails but I check that one more than most :).
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.
Sorry to hear about your partner, that is horrible. Best of luck.
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.
Some companies see their employees as oranges they need to squeeze as much as possible.
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.
And out but never open
But there are trapdoors
That you can't come back from
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.
[1] http://apps.who.int/classifications/icd10/browse/2010/en#/Z7...
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.
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
Thanks for taking the time to write this article.
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.
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? :(
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.)
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.
Quit my job of course. I'm not stupid.
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.
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."
Even if you love what you do, you can't do it for 10 hours every single day for years.
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.
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.
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.
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?
I actually think this guide is much more accurate: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?BurnOut
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.
I read Hacker News, and I work just for a paycheck. If I weren't working for the paycheck, I'd expect to have to pay my employers.
And by the way: http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/10/health/sex-athletes/
More importantly, the positive benefits of regular sex have been made evident by virtually every study ever done on the matter.
- Nutrition - Exercise - Friends (Support Network)
The above will continue to happen. Get healthy, get a tribe. It's not HN, by the way.
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.
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.
Just get out there and talk and share.
