Burnout

What is there to say about burnout? I feel like I am always at some level of burnout at any point in my career. Up until my current position, I was unfortunate enough to be a one-man IT department. At one point, I was responsible for managing 900+ servers all over the globe. Changed positions; now I’m responsible for only 200 servers.

However, now I’m also responsible for managing IT work on the other side of the globe…during their business hours. Often I would work my 8-9 hours, go home and eat dinner, then get called to work 2+ hours in my evening. With IT positions being salaried, it doesn’t matter how much or little I work. The pay is the same.

Fast forward a bit to my current position, and the first few years were great. We were a small IT department, and there was an emphasis on shared learning. We often solved complex problems together. This made sure that even if we didn’t know how to solve problems directly, we were familiar enough with the product to figure it out.

As the department grew, that tradition started to fall off. It felt like the numbers became more important. Performing that extra task that just came in (along with several others) was rewarded more. Someone closed 20 tickets in a week; they must be doing so well! Meanwhile, I only closed six. The six I closed were multi-hour or even multi-day efforts. But on paper, the 20 15-to-30 minute problems solved looked way better.

I’ve had the conversation with my manager about this. It is known that I tend to get assigned the most complicated planned work on our team because I have shown I can handle it. While there is some pride in this, it’s also affecting my mental health. I know there’s no expectation for me to close 20+ tickets in a week, but I still feel like I fall short.

Where the disconnect comes in is with the emergency work. I’m meant to focus on the complex work; however, we are also expected to drop things for “quick wins”. Sure, it would take me 10 minutes to fix someone’s Outlook, but then I need to spend so much time to get back to where my brain was before the interruption. Resulting in a long task that takes even longer.

Where are we even going with this?

I think this was really a round-a-bout way for me to give an example of burnout being cyclical if we aren’t careful. When I left my last job, my burnout feeling was around 8/10. During the early years of my current role, it had dropped down to 2/10. Yet with how things are going currently, we’re all the way back to 8/10.

To me, burnout is a medical condition that should be treated as seriously as we do depression. Complete with sick leave from work. I knew the symptoms of fatigue and irritability hit me the hardest. Even in my personal life, I saw it spilling over. I would get mad very easily because I couldn’t stand just one more thing going wrong that day.

The worst part was that work would often get the best of my effort. While my personal life just suffered. Eventually I started therapy, and it has helped some. If you catch yourself feeling some of this, I encourage you to try to find some relief before you realize how miserable things have gotten.

What can we do?

Heal.

The hardest thing to do is to take time for yourself. If you start to feel the effects of burnout, make time for yourself. Work will always take any time you are willing to give. Quiet Quitting, which, let’s be honest. The wrong side came up with that term. Quiet Quitting is the stance I recommend taking. Don’t do a bad job; don’t be malicious about it. But you don’t have to volunteer to do everything. Nor should you.

I’m not the best one to give career advice, but I will say if you aren’t happy in your personal time and you don’t quite know why. That is your body telling you that something isn’t right. If work is really draining you to the point that you don’t want to do anything, it might be time to consider a job change.

Do something that you know you love. Whether that is going for a hike, spending time with your loved ones, or taking the dog for an extra-long walk.

Something as simple as taking a bath. I honestly think the last time I took a bath was when I was eight years old. But in the last few weeks I have started to take baths instead of showers. Because it is time that I have to be just with myself. Feel how I am without distractions. Realize that maybe part of the reason I am cranky is that my ankle hurts, and I just now noticed it.

Do what makes you happy.

It’s so important, but it often gets pushed to the side in the name of “what needs to be done”. With how fast today’s world moves, no one is going to remember six months from now that you stayed late at work all week.

Your dog also probably won’t remember those extra walks you took her on.

But I know which one I’d rather do any given day. Take care of yourselves.