[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Tips to relearn how to care about my job?
___________________________________________________________________
Ask HN: Tips to relearn how to care about my job?
The reality is I can't quit my job given I'm young and live in
California. I got a high paying job at a recognizable tech company,
but plagued with exhaustion and lack of motivation, which is
killing me daily life. Anything you guys have done to dig out of a
rut? I'm taking an electrical engineering class and exploitation
security class online. I'm constantly learning, which I love. I
work on a product which just clones other similar products with a
slightly better price point, so it's hard to really care about the
goal, but it would be nice to shift that mentality slightly. I
think long term I want to work on low level systems, but my current
mental state is affecting my ability to learn effectively. Maybe
therapy could help.
Author : whitepirate20
Score : 54 points
Date : 2022-09-23 17:04 UTC (5 hours ago)
| uptownfunk wrote:
| I would humbly caution against looking to a job to fill an
| emotional void or you will be left feeling empty. It may help to
| find some friends, connect with family if possible, engage in
| activities which nurture the emotional self (caring for plants,
| animals, other human beings). All the best
| jollybean wrote:
| The value you add is not a function of how cool or curious your
| work is. Try to derive some satisfaction out of the fact you are
| doing something needed and useful and that your 'micro
| contributions' matter probably to a lot of people.
|
| Also, take a vacation for a bit it helps to add perspective.
|
| Finally, if you get thrust into a crap situation, you'll learn to
| count your blessings quickly.
| throw149102 wrote:
| A short list of things worth thinking about trying, listed in no
| specific order:
|
| 1. Find a project at work that you are interested in, and move
| over to that.
|
| 2. Join a completely different team/org at work.
|
| 3. Join a completely different company, doing different types of
| work.
|
| 4. Join a socially responsible company, doing charity work.
|
| 5. Quit your job, and take a 6 month break. Don't think about
| work during that break.
|
| 6. Go see a therapist for at least a couple of months.
|
| 7. Improve your diet and exercise routines, potentially with
| professional help from a trainer or a nutritionist.
|
| 8. Begin a treatment plan using drugs w/ the approval of a
| psychiatrist.
|
| 9. Begin a treatment plan using drugs without the approval of a
| psychiatrist, YOLO mushrooms time.
|
| 10. Leave your job, and move into an _entirely different
| industry_. Go start a farm.
|
| 11. Take a trip to a country with a radically different way of
| life, to gather some perspective.
|
| 12. Take some daily time to do something away from a computer -
| like join a pottery club.
|
| 13. Read some philosophy books on the meaning of life. Do some
| introspection based on what you read.
|
| 14. Pick a goal at work, like getting a promotion, and figure out
| what you need to do that.
|
| I want to also offer a quick theory of burnout. Burnout is caused
| by 3 different sources:
|
| 1. Plain old overwork. Too much on-call is not good for your
| soul.
|
| 2. Mission doubt. If you begin to doubt the reason why you are
| doing something, you will get burned out.
|
| 3. Broken steering. If you feel that nothing you do actually is
| changing the situation, that you're unable to make meaningful
| progress in your work.
|
| What I want to stress about this theory is that _you don 't need
| all three to have burnout_. Some people think that taking an
| extended vacation is the cure to all burnout, because their
| theory only accounts for source 1, when you can have burnout from
| a job where you only work 20 hours a week. You might wish to
| first try and figure out which of these 3 sources seem like the
| cause for your burnout, and then which of the 14 options seem
| most appealing to you.
| Wojtkie wrote:
| Take a vacation, seriously.
|
| I took 2 weeks off earlier this year and it did wonders for my
| motivation and accruing burnout.
| deanmoriarty wrote:
| What if one takes a vacation of two weeks and, after having had
| a wonderful and relaxing time, comes back even more burned out
| about their work situation, and the question "wtf am I spending
| my finite time like this?" comes up in their head even more
| frequently than before? Asking for a friend.
| goldenchrome wrote:
| Your life is full of abundance but it has no meaning. Figure out
| how to create meaning or else you'll continuously burnout as
| you're working for no reason. For me it was deciding to have a
| kid, but that is specific to my life circumstances.
|
| What I've come to believe is that responsibility is the meaning
| of life, so try adding responsibility to your life.
| twblalock wrote:
| If you got a job at a high-status tech company in California, you
| can get another job at a different tech company. It's like
| complaining you got into Harvard and other Ivy League schools
| wouldn't want you.
|
| If you want to work on something different, you can only do that
| by getting a different job, either in the same company or at
| another one. If you stay where you are, you know you won't get
| what you want, so you need to make a move.
| s1k3 wrote:
| You're missing the point. He's unmotivated despite where he is.
| He's trying to figure out why, not simply to walk over to the
| greener grass.
| elliottkember wrote:
| > I work on a product which just clones other similar
| products with a slightly better price point, so it's hard to
| really care about the goal
|
| I think this sums it up perfectly. Try another job first.
| There's a saying - "a change is as good as a rest". Worth
| trying!
| twblalock wrote:
| No, I did not miss the point.
|
| I have never, in my entire life, seen someone who is unhappy
| with their job somehow find happiness without changing jobs.
| And it's not good enough to find hobbies or devote time to
| family -- if you don't like your job, you don't like 1/3 of
| your waking hours and you should really do something about
| that. If the job is the source of unhappiness, staying in the
| job will perpetuate the problem.
|
| Furthermore, the OP is in a very privileged position and has
| many options available, as does anyone else who works at a
| large California tech company.
| throw149102 wrote:
| Changing jobs is (likely) necessary but not sufficient. For
| example, if OP works a front-end job at Meta and switches
| to a front-end job at Google, that's unlikely to make them
| motivated. I don't think you're "missing the point", but I
| do feel that your answer is very incomplete.
| twblalock wrote:
| The OP stated a desire to work on low-level systems,
| which is different from their current job, and my advice
| was given in that context.
| alecbz wrote:
| > If the job is the source of unhappiness, staying in the
| job will perpetuate the problem.
|
| There's a bit of a leap here -- you're made unhappy by your
| job, but it's harder to say how much of the cause is the
| job vs. you. The relevant question is really just whether
| taking your current mind and putting it in a different job
| will make everything better, or if the issue is, at least
| partially, how you're relating to your job.
|
| I say this as someone who's had a string of jobs where I'm
| unhappy for ~similar reasons. Each was a bit different, but
| the consistent undertone of unhappiness makes me think that
| it might be higher leverage for me to examine my
| relationship with my job instead of just hoping over and
| over again. I suspect there's ways of thinking about my job
| that I'm "carrying" with me, and addressing those things
| will do more for my happiness.
| notenoughbeans wrote:
| Lots of good advice has been posted already.
|
| > I work on a product which just clones other similar products
| with a slightly better price point, so it's hard to really care
| about the goal, but it would be nice to shift that mentality
| slightly.
|
| Building something that has already been built at a better price
| point can be an interesting challenge. Obviously there's only so
| much control you have over the project, but learning how to
| deliver solid software on a budget is a super valuable skill. If
| you want to shift your mentality I would suggest that you
| approach it as it's own learning process.
| 71a54xd wrote:
| I've had a similar problem post covid - although I never had
| covid the after-effects of isolation have been somewhat hard to
| work through.
|
| Surely others have dealt with this - but I actually did pretty
| okay throughout the lockdown in my okay sized room in NYC. My
| roommates paid rent but left for other states so I basically had
| an apt to myself. I got lucky enough to have a job as well -
| however, this instilled an odd kind of lazy malaise.
|
| I've since left new york since everything worth doing in tech is
| remote - separated where I sleep and work etc. But it seems like
| my ability to properly get focused or excited about my work has
| completely atrophied.
|
| _My first step in solving this was using an app to track tasks
| that give me the most and take the most - so different kinds of
| "work" and things that "waste" time (youtube, web browsing etc)._
|
| I haven't found a solution but it's troubling to say the least. I
| initially was worried about not progressing as fast as I wanted
| to - now I've identified the issue is I rarely complete more than
| 3hrs of deep work per day. Or 6hrs of doing anything.
|
| However, I've sort of accepted I'm an introvert - stopped trying
| to be "cool" for the right reasons and idk I have decent savings
| which feels good.
| softfalcon wrote:
| > Maybe therapy could help.
|
| Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
|
| You're beginning that existential question of what matters to you
| and what you want to spend your time doing. As soon as you do
| that, uncertainty will creep into far more than just your work.
|
| You chased the golden dream, now you "have it" and are near the
| top given your nice high salary. You're not at the absolute tippy
| top, but you're closer to the summit than at the base of the
| mountain.
|
| Congrats, your Maslow's hierarchy of needs is mostly met and now
| you're getting mildly philosophical about your life and work.
|
| It sounds like you're in a state where you've learned to grind.
| It paid off, now you're trying to keep up the pace by continuing
| learning to eek out that last bit of performance from your engine
| as you speed along.
|
| I was there too. Voracious learning felt like I was building,
| finding my niche, but I was bored with what I did at work.
|
| The solution is to go to therapy and discuss this problem
| directly with them. Explain how what you have put all this time
| into is now boring you, you feel the need to change, but are
| unsure how to. You want to stay motivated.
|
| Get ready for a big change. You're about to uncover topics like
| burn out, depression, expectations for life, building meaningful
| and fulfilling relationships... this is the meaning of life
| stuff.
|
| Possibly, you're putting too much weight of importance on your
| job. You may be letting it define you.
|
| You'll need to process all this and more. It's going to take
| time. I suggest therapy so you don't end up in the deep pot holes
| I did before I decided to eventually start talking to someone
| about the uncertainties in my life and how I handle them.
|
| Good luck, this is a big topic you've just opened up for
| yourself.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I want to second this. Therapy is a great way to learn how to
| navigate personal change.
|
| There is no shame in this. Think of it as hiring a personal
| trainer. Like everything else, self-improvement is a skill. :)
| digianarchist wrote:
| >Possibly, you're putting too much weight of importance on your
| job. You may be letting it define you.
|
| Exactly.
|
| I would caution in response to the original question that the
| answer might be that you shouldn't relearn to care about your
| job, and maybe just continue to treat it like a job.
|
| OP if you're with Kaiser then you can self-refer to their
| psychiatric care unit and they'll give you 7 sessions with a
| councilor. From there you can decide what you want to do.
| There's a round of testing for ADHD, depression and anxiety.
| I'm going through this myself now.
| vellum wrote:
| You don't have to care about your job. Most people have about
| four good hours of work in them. Just do your four hours, and
| take the rest of the day off. No job is worth burnout.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > You don't have to care about your job. Most people have about
| four good hours of work in them. Just do your four hours, and
| take the rest of the day off.
|
| OP says they're young and recently got a high-paying job at a
| recognizable California company. This isn't good advice.
|
| Working half days every day may work for certain senior people
| in slow moving parts of a company. However, getting a high-
| paying job in California at a big-tech company and then putting
| in half days will get you PIPed and removed really quick.
| fasterik wrote:
| Or find something to work on that you actually care about. I
| don't have any trouble working on something for 12 hours a day
| when I find it intrinsically interesting and meaningful.
| gw99 wrote:
| Watch that. Doesn't always work. Not everyone you will work
| with loves what you love or gives as much of a shit about it
| as you do. And it's painful watching them fuck it up day
| after day after day. Eventually you end up disliking it by
| proxy.
|
| I'm also a weirdo. I intensely dislike what I do for a living
| but I'm good at it and the money is pretty excellent. And I
| hate it enough to want to do a quality job of it and automate
| as much of it as possible so I can do something more
| interesting with my time instead.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| > And I hate it enough to want to do a quality job of it
| and automate as much of it as possible so I can do
| something more interesting with my time instead.
|
| How does this work in a full time job where you hate what
| you are doing? When you automate something, you're not
| freeing up time to do whatever you want. You're just
| freeing up time to do more of what you don't like, isn't
| it?
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Only if you make the automation public. Plenty of data
| input guys didn't mention they automated their job and
| raked in a full FTE working a few hours a week.
|
| Doesn't work as well these days since most knowledge gets
| shared and a lot of devs are too eager to reveal their
| cards.
| gw99 wrote:
| No comment :)
| 3qz wrote:
| Terrible advice when he lives in a high cost of living area.
| softfalcon wrote:
| No matter how much you love it, 12 hours a day will never be
| healthy long term. This is what pro level athletes do to
| compete and get into the Olympics and they regularly burn out
| after a few years of it.
|
| I strongly urge you to take the time to establish a long term
| pace that will allow you to regularly decompress from work,
| learning, and stress every single day as well as whole "step-
| away" moments for weeks at a time to allow you to completely
| disconnect at regular intervals throughout the year.
|
| Based on your description, you're young and your youth is
| powering this ability to keep going. Even if you take perfect
| care of your health, this energy will decline with age, more
| health complications will arise merely by being older, life
| will put more expectations on you, or conversely, a lack of
| life due to grinding too hard professionally will bring
| depression and loneliness.
|
| Think carefully about how maintainable your perspective on
| work and life is for what will be at minimum the next 20
| years.
|
| Stay safe and take care of yourself.
| badpun wrote:
| > This is what pro level athletes do to compete and get
| into the Olympics and they regularly burn out after a few
| years of it.
|
| I believe this is a myth. Excercising for 12 hours a day is
| not the best strategy to get your body and mind in shape
| for the Olympics. Internet sources claim that Olympics
| athletes train 5-7 hours a day. Pro football (soccer)
| players at top level, with absolutely insane amount of
| competition constantly breathing down their necks, usually
| train from morning till lunch and that's it. Doing more
| would only do harm.
| softfalcon wrote:
| Oh I know it's a myth, you're not wrong. I was simply
| using the myth we keep hearing as a foil for how bad an
| idea this is. It's a perfect example of imbalance that
| results in burn out.
|
| I do appreciate you pointing out that this is a myth.
| It's important people don't think this is somehow
| manageable, even for "just a few years".
|
| All that being said... you're still going to keep hearing
| it on the news, in books, from movie stars, etc...
| fasterik wrote:
| I agree that pacing and breaks are important and I didn't
| mean to imply otherwise. I was offering an alternative
| perspective to the claim that "most people only have 4
| hours of work in them". I just don't think that's true for
| people who are working on things they find intrinsically
| motivating. I'm also skeptical of the claim that that 60
| hours a week isn't healthy long term, assuming you have the
| right habits in place. But I'll admit that I haven't really
| looked into the research on this, if it exists.
| badpun wrote:
| Most people don't care about anything that strongly. Among
| those who do, most of them care about things that others
| won't pay for (e.g. obscure open source project, or making a
| hobbit-like garden etc.).
| jameal wrote:
| I have a couple of suggestions that you might be interested in.
| First, set aside regular time to go outside and walk. If you can
| do it in a park or other natural environment, even better. A
| daily walking routine did wonders for my mental health.
|
| Then, try talking out loud to yourself as you walk. Sounds
| strange, I know, but it can actually be really fun and
| elucidating. For me, it was a helpful exercise to clarify my
| values, goals, and find more creative ideas for moving forward.
| You can put in some earbuds and those around you will be none the
| wiser.
|
| Someone else mentioned this, and I will echo it too. Be
| compassionate with yourself. It will take some time to find your
| way out of your rut. It's completely normal and from this you
| will grow stronger and more resilient.
|
| You mentioned therapy, which is a great and I think everyone
| should try at least once. I would also recommend coaching. The
| difference is that therapy deals more with trauma and healing
| where coaching deals more with a person's present situation and
| guiding them to a more desirable future. In a coaching
| relationship, you are seen as the expert of your life, and the
| coach simply acts as a partner to help you discover the answers
| that are already within you. Disclaimer: I am a coach by training
| so I am biased, but I've worked with a couple different coaches
| myself and have found it to be incredibly powerful.
| rr888 wrote:
| Get unexpectedly laid off into a bad job market. Seriously makes
| you a better employee that really values a good job. Its been 8
| years already and I still try much harder to delivery good work
| and please the boss.
| OneLeggedCat wrote:
| Peter: "So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized ever
| since I started working, every single day of my life has been
| worse than the day before it... So that means that every single
| day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life."
|
| Therapist: "What about today? Is today the worst day of your
| life?"
|
| P: "Yeah."
|
| T: "Wow. That's messed up... I'm sorry. Go on."
|
| P: "Is there any way that you could sort of just zonk me out so
| that, like, I don't know that I'm at work... in here? Could I
| come home and think that I've been fishing all day, or
| something?"
|
| T: "That's really not what I do, Peter"
| mxuribe wrote:
| Firstly, YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Beyond the Great Recession and the
| Great Resignation, i firmly believe i'm beginning to see the
| Great Malaise everywhere! Its not just here about jobs/careers,
| but many places that i look, and with many people that i speak.
|
| With that out of the way, and at risk to your cognitive load (by
| adding something else to your life), have you considered taking
| up a hobby/interest that is unrelated to your profession, and
| unrelated to the EE and Sec. learning that you're doing? It might
| sound silly, but maybe you need to activate other parts of your
| brain - hence a hobby might do the trick. Alternatively, if you
| want to dive into your learning path...have you considered
| contributing your time or code, etc. to an open source project
| that is aligned with your security learning? This could get you
| some real-world experience in security, enable you to connect
| with a network of people for future (hopefully more fulfilling)
| job, help you feel good about donating time to some open source
| goodness...and ultimately distract you from your dayjob...at
| least until you're ready to jump. ;-)
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > i firmly believe i'm beginning to see the Great Malaise
| everywhere!
|
| Indeed. It's in the air. I think we underestimate the trauma of
| living through a pandemic for the last couple of years. There's
| a collective, societal trauma that we're witnessing. It's
| causing people to rethink what they value as well as leading to
| upheaval in various spheres (personal, cultural, political...)
| dochtman wrote:
| Find a job with similar pay but a goal you care (substantially)
| more about?
| duped wrote:
| This is called burnout, you don't fix it by doing _more_ work -
| including self study.
|
| Take a long weekend every few weeks, go to yosemite. Or fly to
| vegas and cut loose. Pick up golf or pickleball or whatever. Make
| some friends who aren't engineers and live a bit.
|
| Then you can come back to work with a fresh mind and care enough
| to get your shit done well.
| popularonion wrote:
| I started doing those random weekend trips to cope with my
| burnout and became of those SWEs living paycheck to paycheck
| making $250K.
|
| It can also isolate you from normie friends/family who
| obviously can't afford to travel like this.
|
| If you're 20-something and sick of it all and you've never been
| to Vegas, hell yeah you should go, I'm just saying don't
| sleepwalk into bad habits.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| And when you do come back with the fresh mind, have a beginners
| mind. Work very hard to not fall into your old patterns.
| Approach things as new. Acting like a beginner but drawing on
| your old experience in a controlled way is very powerful
| shafyy wrote:
| It's not necessarily burn out. I mean, it's possible that the
| job's just boring. Some people can handle boring jobs better
| than others, mentally.
| alecbz wrote:
| That's still burnout, no?
|
| I think some people view burnout as "being overworked to
| exhaustion" but I think that's just one form of it.
| jacksonkmarley wrote:
| It is probably pretty dependent on your particular work
| situation, but if you have some freedom in your daily tasks, you
| could try inserting more interesting small things in amongst the
| grind.
|
| For example in my job (quite dull) I automated some data
| collection, stored the data in a database, created a web app to
| present data from the database, ran it all on a server etc. None
| of it was anything my boss would have given me as an explicit
| task, but it was useful stuff that I could make a case for. It
| was also stuff I hadn't done before and was interested in
| learning how to do.
|
| Granted, the weight of crappy project management decisions
| eventually became too much for me to put up with, but for a while
| I quite liked going in to work and setting up my mini-projects.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Here's some good advice on what not to do, which you might be
| doing:
|
| https://experimentalhistory.substack.com/p/excuse-me-but-why...
|
| Your problem is not that your "mental state is affecting your
| ability to learn effectively" as if you were a robot created only
| to work and learn. Look at yourself with some dignity and
| compassion.
| tunesmith wrote:
| I think you need to answer what it is you like about your
| _career_ , independent of your job. Like, I just simply love
| understanding problems to the point that I can identify a
| solution that makes it easier for everyone to understand. That's
| independent of my job, but I get good-enough satisfaction if my
| job allows me to scratch that itch.
|
| If your job isn't allowing you to express what you love about
| your career, then you have something to go on in terms of
| changing your job. But if you're finding you actually don't love
| your career, that that would imply a different path entirely.
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| Don't.
|
| Care about yourself.
|
| If you're working on things that interest you and with people you
| enjoy interacting with and you're treated well by your employer,
| then your job with take care of itself.
|
| If you're not, find a new job until that list is satisfied.
| ncr100 wrote:
| This (posting) is therapy .. and you can also pay for better
| quality / holistic therapy.
|
| Observe your situation (gather details of the 'problem') & you'll
| likely naturally make some headway at resolving your
| difficulties.
|
| Example:
|
| Why did you take the job in the first place?
|
| What excites you about the current job?
|
| There are many reasons to be de-motivated. Something wrong about
| the job. Something about you. Something that's unconscious, for
| you, it seems currently. Focus on observing the flow:
|
| * your sensory experience ("my butt really hurts today sitting in
| this chair")
|
| * => thoughts ("this job requires that I spend a lot of time
| backing-up what I'm working on with evidence of progress, for the
| sake of my Manager's approval, and for my Manager's own upward-
| mobility")
|
| * => evoked memories ("when I was young, Rob took my pencil and
| claimed I had stolen it from him in the first place")
|
| * => feelings ("this job offends me")
|
| * => and follow-on thoughts ("to be successful at this job I'm
| going to have to become a different person than who I am now, how
| am I going to do that, do I want to do that. I really prefer that
| people just trust me, and not require proof and evidence that I
| am Good at my Job.").
|
| My mind often has a general Sense > Thought > Memory > Feeling
| flow in my experience.
| jmckib wrote:
| Have you considered working for a company with goals that you
| find more meaningful? For me working in biotech has provided
| that, but you need to find what's right for you. Don't spend your
| life working on "clones of other similar products with a slightly
| better price point". Your words!
|
| Therapy probably couldn't hurt either, but you should make your
| career move soon if you can. Burnout takes a long time to recover
| from. Personally I burned out from working long hours and it took
| years to recover from, even though I was enjoying my work and
| found it meaningful. Don't overwork yourself.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| 1.)Have kids.
|
| 2.)Work at doing something else, since you clearly don't like
| what you're doing. Looks like you're already doing that, so just
| keep going. Could your physical activity and health be what's
| affecting your mental state?
| rychco wrote:
| I don't mean to be rude, but 'Have kids' may be one of the
| single worst pieces of advice you could give someone who is
| "plagued with exhaustion and lack of motivation".
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Is that backed up by evidence?
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Having a responsibility of kids is a good motivator and
| releases seratonin/dopamine through parent-child bonding.
| alex_suzuki wrote:
| I agree. It is completely unfathomable to me how someone
| could give this advice.
|
| Similarly ridiculous, couples going through a relationship
| crisis often receive this kind of "advice" to "fix their
| relationship".
|
| The only people who might think this is a great idea probably
| don't have kids...
| TheGigaChad wrote:
| hollowcelery wrote:
| As other commenters have said, this could be burnout. In my
| personal experience, improving from burnout requires two things:
| an extended break from anything mentally demanding (preferably
| more than a month, but at least a few weeks), and a change in
| circumstances when you return (whether it's a different team,
| different job, different project, etc). Both are necessary. If
| you just take a holiday without changing up your work, then
| you'll spend the whole time dreading returning to the usual
| grind. It's important to have something different to look forward
| to when you return. While you're away, you can think about your
| work and whether you genuinely find it rewarding.
|
| A lot of people go through this. I've been through it twice, and
| both times it felt like it hijacked my brain. It probably feels
| like you're doing something wrong or you're a bad employee, but
| most likely you're just in a temporary rut.
| umutisik wrote:
| I was in a similar situation 10 years ago, but in a less well-
| paid job :) I happened on a musician's talk about how to be a
| productive musician. He was saying that his most important
| suggestion was to "write everyday". It seemed obvious that
| musicians should write music everyday. But he meant writing your
| thoughts everyday on paper. (I am not a musician btw) I took that
| to heart and started writing in the mornings. The practice helped
| me to construct, then re-construct, my work and career from first
| principles.
|
| That being said, "my current mental state is affecting my ability
| to learn effectively" sounds like you're in some distress. It
| will not hurt at all to seek help.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| The suggestions for taking a break or seeking therapy are great
| ones.
|
| Fundamentally, there isn't much overlap between the work that we
| get _paid_ to do and the work we find meaningful. Unless you work
| for a non-profit that 's saving the world, there just isn't.
|
| What to do? Well, one thing I've considered is that once I am
| fully ready to retire, I do part time software development and
| give half my earnings to a deserving charity. I get back a few
| days out of my week, and the knowledge that my donations are
| doing _far_ more for a charity than my volunteering could ever
| do, and as a bonus I get to keep half to pursue my hobbies. I
| think that would be a win win for everyone if you could swing it.
| beembeem wrote:
| I've been in your shoes and will suggest something different than
| the consensus here.
|
| Instead of sitting around learning (taking online classes)
| actually DO something. - Create something with
| your own hands that gives you satisfaction. - Write a
| journal everyday to give yourself a sense of accomplishment.
| - Use those new EE skills to make a circuit that performs some
| small task to automate your daily life.
|
| Sitting around and learning without applying the knowledge is a
| drain of your precious time.
|
| Create, don't consume.
| hosh wrote:
| If you cannot care about the goal, then the goal is likely not
| really worthwhile. There was at one point where I exhausted
| myself for what was essentially an SEO app. I got to the point
| where sitting in front of the laptop and the thought of typing
| generated significant pain; my body freezes. That's burnout. I
| had nothing left to give. After that, I swore I would only look
| for work that I find worthwhile and purposeful. I identified some
| broad areas of social impact that felt meaningful for me (e.g.
| legal, healthcare, education, finance) and only looked for
| startups that were working within those areas. YMMV.
|
| If you are young, and you have a good social safety net (family),
| then it is probably better to actively search for a different
| company, one where you feel that you are contributing
| meaningfully and purposefully.
|
| If the only reason you are there is for the high income and the
| prestige of working there, but you do not feel you are
| contributing meaninfully, then forcing yourself to work through
| this will hollow you out. You'll wake up at middle age with a
| middle-age crisis. You might succeed with the prestige or wealth,
| and none of it means much. (Or you realize that your youth is
| ultimately ephemeral, and you can never get it back again).
| Further, at that time, you are much less likely to absorb the
| risk of changing your career -- dependents, tech-industry ageism,
| etc.
|
| In this post-lockdown economic time and huge demand for workers,
| this is the time where it is favorable for employees. That window
| is still open, but it is closing. When it closes, we'll be left
| with lower demand for workers and higher inflation. The window
| for job mobility is open now and it won't last forever.
|
| You may possibly be able to apply for a different job internally,
| but I suggest it is something you feel you can contribute
| meaningfully.
|
| If you still insist on staying, you can try to get a mental-
| health leave until you come out of burnout. Take the time to find
| out what is really important to you. It is probably not status or
| prestige, even if it seems that way. If you're able to find the
| purpose within you, then that will be what gets you up in the
| morning; you might be tired, and even exhausted, and yet,
| purposeful and meanginful work makes it feel like it is worth it.
| csdvrx wrote:
| A lot of people will tell you to not care about your job, but I
| think this is wrong: life is better lived (and happier!) with
| passion.
|
| There is no shortcut: you have to really care about what your job
| is doing, the people you are helping, the core mission. I love
| helping my employer make more money.
|
| If you can't align with your job (ex: there is no price I can see
| myself optimizing/sellings ads-to-eyeballs), find another.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| It sounds like you're burned out. Take a vacation ASAP. Take that
| time to rest. Beyond vacations, make sure you take one day/week
| where you rest - actually _rest_. Eschew productivity on that
| day. This was called sabbath in the past and was connected with
| religion, but there 's much to learn from that tradition of a
| weekly rhythm of rest to create a secular sabbath. Disconnect -
| turn off the phone, get away from screens, no social media. Get
| outside in nature. Hike, bike, row, etc. Let your mind wander.
| After you feel like you've entered that rested state for while,
| take some time to reassess your situation.
|
| It's good that you're taking classes and are constantly learning,
| but consider that in this season of burnout those (vocationally
| related) activities could be contributing to the problem.
| pesfandiar wrote:
| In this case, they're bored more than they're overworked.
| Trying to find more meaning within their day job may be more
| effective than completely cutting off. Sometimes working harder
| but on a more meaningful project could reverse a burnout faster
| than avoiding the problem.
| ghaff wrote:
| >Take a vacation ASAP.
|
| Not as a specific reaction to burnout but in the past I've
| taken 3 to 4 week trips (often group trips) where I've largely
| disconnected. Takes more discipline to do that now most places
| than it used to be but can be a total change of pace. What type
| of trip of course depends on what sort of thing interests you.
| Take a look at something like the Wilderness Travel catalog to
| get an idea for the options out there. (Are many such companies
| but I've had good luck with them.)
| Blackstone4 wrote:
| Take a vacation Try to move internally saying that you need a new
| challenge
| blatherard wrote:
| > Maybe therapy could help.
|
| I think this is where I'd start. At times in my life I focused my
| efforts at solving my unhappiness by thinking I needed to change
| my job. In retrospect I mostly did that because I found it easier
| or more socially acceptable to say something like "I hate my job"
| than "I am lonely and depressed" (even when only thinking it to
| myself). Therapy was pretty good at working through some of this,
| at least for me.
|
| Of course, there are jobs that aren't right for a person. Talking
| to someone might help you sort out whether that's the case.
| rcarr wrote:
| Obligatory recommendation whenever burnout comes up: Get a copy
| of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron and work your way through
| it. It was originally designed to help blocked creatives but it's
| helped all kinds of different people escape ruts.
| jhp123 wrote:
| Having been in similar places emotionally more than once, the one
| thing that helped significantly was hard exercise (running,
| weight lifting). Another trick that helped a little was facing
| the work I dreaded at a set time first thing in the morning, e.g.
| going in early to a coffee shop and grinding through work for
| like an hour.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-09-23 23:02 UTC)