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Occupational burnout is a well-known problem within the computer programming industry. While many programmers have experienced it themselves, or at least witnessed it happen to others, few have experienced it as intensely as reddit user Max-P has.
In a comment at reddit, Max-P wrote:
A little over a month ago, only 3 years into the project, I blew up. One day I woke up, sat in front of my computer and broke up in tears. Called the boss to tell him I couldn't work for a few days. To this day I still can't code. I'm not even sure I will ever be able to code again either. For now I'm looking at applying for Walmart for an undetermined amount of time.
Let his tale be one of caution; let it be a lesson to learn from!
Original Submission
NC added: /r/technology at reddit briefly went private. I'm copying the original post here as as an extended message in case it goes down again.
Another part of the problem is that people frequently deliver on unrealistic expectations at the expense of their own health, sanity, and social lives. This reinforces the mindset that sets these expectations in the first place, and sends the message that anyone who objected to the deadlines was just whining.
So. Much. That. I'm currently in a state where I litterally just can't write code. At all. I get dizzy, headaches, I've even cried a few times just at the sight of my text editor. And it's all my fault, because I've set myself the requirements way too high. Producing quality code at a very high speed was my pride. I started working on a project I had a lot of motivation in, and it was a rewrite of an old software. So I knew the requirements, what didn't work and what did. It worked very well, we had a whole webapp ready for beta in 3-4 months, and my boss already had started to sell it. Clients were happy. Even if it wasn't the best code at all, it was pretty solid compared to the old spaguetti we had. I was happy, because the other developers said it was impossible to rewrite the whole thing in any reasonable time to be worth the money. I totally won my bet, delivering new features almost weekly. There was only one problem. I had set absolutely insane expectations, at a ridiculous price while at it because I was 18 and was barely out of school, so it was a great opportunity for me. Developement speed slowed down considerably. Projects piled up, but it was fine, I didn't have much pressure anyway, just a pile of work for the next 5 years. Eventually I requested to have a second developer to help me: but of course, at both that price tag and the requirements, they all got fired right away because management felt it was ripped off. Which at the time didn't realize and agreed with: they indeed seemed slow to me, and the code quality was terrible. I ended up being the sysadmin of two servers and several VMs, the network between them, manage all the monitoring/configuration/backups, work on two webapps (both desktop and mobile) + their backend + the matching mobile apps. I also had to QA the whole thing myself because the boss would only test once it was pushed to production to ensure there were no bugs at this point (despite me setting up several staging areas specifically for that, with a fresh copy of the live data). All in all, that's over a dozen programming languages and 3 different databases. I also did tech support once in a while (and add specific workarounds to bypass work proxies for some of our clients, because our app had to work everywhere according to management). And I was the only one that could understand and manage all of that. We didn't have any backup resources in case I wasn't reachable. A little over a month ago, only 3 years into the project, I blew up. One day I woke up, sat in front of my computer and broke up in tears. Called the boss to tell him I couldn't work for a few days. To this day I still can't code. I'm not even sure I will ever be able to code again either. For now I'm looking at applying for Walmart for an undetermined amount of time. Burnout is serious matter.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by cmn32480 on Friday July 03 2015, @04:11AM
I've never quite hit the point of a total meltdown, but I've been (am?) close. Even recently, the thought of driving a bulldozer for a living has more and more appeal.
From my personal experience, I can say that I can see the burnout coming (due to too much travel, too many people screaming for too much stuff from my department, and too many work commitments, job stress, and not enough time to get them all started, much less finished). Thankfully, I was able to talk to my employer about it and, at least so far, hold it off.
The feeling of knowing it is coming, and knowing you need a break (or better yet a vacation), but still having all the demands on you is debilitating. Your productivity goes into a death spiral and there is no motivation. It can affect your whole life, not just your job.
I understand what it feels like, and it can be a pretty scary place.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 4, Informative) by bradley13 on Friday July 03 2015, @06:24AM
For me, it was an unexpected, but critical project - taken on in addition to normal work, because a friend needed the help - that almost sent me over the edge. Six months of intense pressure and massive overtime, and it's taken two years of reduced workload to (mostly) recover. I never expected to hit the wall like that :-/
We aren't indestructible. It's not courageous, or particularly smart to ram yourself into a wall. When you start really suffering from the symptoms - can't sleep properly, maybe the odd panic attack - it's past time to do something. Admit that you aren't a superhero, talk to your employer, fix the situation, before it permanently "fixes" you...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by cmn32480 on Friday July 03 2015, @01:56PM
That is the same boat I'm in. An unexpected project, that had sucked up all the time available, with a heavily accelerated timeline.
I'm pretty lucky in that my employer actually cares. They don't want to see people go up in flames. I'm not quite at the acute stages of burnout yet, but seeing it on the horizon has allowed me to bring it to their attention, get some help on the way through the hiring process, and back away to get back to a more manageable balance.
I've seen it happen to others (I was young and stupid and didn't realize what I was seeing at the time), and as such I am aware of the symptoms, and I think that is why I was able to pull my head out of my ass long enough to see that it was starting to happen to me. I'm glad I caught it when I did. If I had kept pushing too much longer, it would have been a spectacular flame-out.
Burnout is like any disease, catch the symptoms early, and you might be able to prevent the end result.
"It's a dog eat dog world, and I'm wearing Milkbone underwear" - Norm Peterson
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:29AM
Depends. Is the employer deliberately doing this to you?
Mine did. I was being paid $15/hour, and the employer felt that I should be paid $14.50/hour, so he gave me 60-80 hours of work per week until I burned out. I wasn't sleeping or eating, I was stressing all the time.
I actually considered suicide as a way out, all over a matter of $20/week for my employer. He was getting far more from me than he got from the person he eventually replaced me with, but he's happier because he saved his money.
How can I prove this?
Quite simple: the three mistakes he fired me over? My replacement made those very mistakes, and didn't even get a written warning.
Those mistakes are going to cost him a lot of money.
(Score: 2) by The Archon V2.0 on Friday July 03 2015, @05:08PM
Scary ain't the half of it. I burnt out once, in a call centre job back when I wasn't far out of school. I was so desperate to keep whatever recession work I found that I held on beyond reason. (I would actually shrink away from ringing phones and was well on my way to eating-disorder thin from diminished appetite by the time I quit.) Since then I've learned a couple of things.
1) It doesn't matter what job I work, from retail to IT to drafting, I'm more aware of what burnout looks like and can see it coming far better.
2) I have far less tolerance for it. Much of my patience for abusive BS was exhausted in that one job. Now when I see it coming, I start looking for work right away. That way if my current management tells me that my burnout is a problem with me and not the job, then I've already got the hunt underway and hopefully have my first interviews lined up.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday July 03 2015, @08:07PM
I was lucky. I managed to hold off until a couple of years before retirement, and then I just stopped caring..but I was able to hold on until I could take a reasonable early retirement. It's been over a decade and I still haven't recovered my love of programming, but it's slowly coming back. But I'm retired, so it's only on my own projects. And even then I have a hard time doing more than an hour or two a day. I don't push it, because I *want* to recover my love of programming.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.