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posted by LaminatorX on Friday July 03 2015, @03:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the transition-to-lion-taming dept.

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.

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @03:29AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @03:29AM (#204533)

    Want some cheese to go with that whine, pussy?

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @03:35AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @03:35AM (#204537)

    And by "everybody" I'm not just talking about software or IT, either.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @04:02AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @04:02AM (#204541)

    Management issues, imbalance between work and personal life, poor coping skills or stress management, lack of meaningful recognition for performance, and unrealistic expectation/goals to name a few. There are many more possible reasons. Evaluate the why, what is modifiable and what is not. Stress, for example, will never go away (non-modifiable). You have to learn to manage it. Even if you go to Walmart, you may lose some stresses, but you'll gain some or find familiar ones.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 03 2015, @05:01AM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday July 03 2015, @05:01AM (#204551) Homepage

      The guy in the article just doesn't know how to pace himself. There are two types of people who work for a living -- those who work to live, and those who live to work. This guy is obviously one of the latter, and combined with the stupidity of youth (and the blind obedience to any kind of authority most younger people possess nowadays) the results were totally predictable.

      The real shame is that the meltdown was so spectacular that it made the author look like either a nutjob or a drug-addict coming down from a meth binge or a gambler who needed time off to hustle up money to pay his bookie before his legs got broken. No employer likes a flake. Employers would rather employ assholes and slackers, who are consistent and predictable, rather than flakes. Grandma died? Bury her on your day off.

      Managers may pretend to be sympathetic but they don't respect this kind of shit and if they know the kid is running on all 8 cylinders then they will take a mile for every inch given and aren't surprised when the burnouts and meltdowns happen. Lessons like these are usually learned and corrected by more experienced workers, although you see it at all levels -- at my last job 10K worth of damage and a month of lost time was caused because sales made a ridiculously unrealistic promise to a customer and engineering didn't have the balls to object, so they did something half-ass with disastrous results.

      Cut back on the coffee, suck it up, admit to management plainly and honestly what the case was without using bullshit excuses, become a better and stronger person from the lesson learned. Now get up! Get on your feet!

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 03 2015, @05:29AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 03 2015, @05:29AM (#204555) Journal

        assholes and slackers, who are consistent and predictable...

        Personally...

        Now get up! Get on your feet!

        ... I'm old enough to prefer sitting and... may I have a slice of that cheese please?
        (grin)

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 03 2015, @05:48AM

          by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday July 03 2015, @05:48AM (#204559) Homepage

          Hey, it was a mistake I made a couple times in life. "Getting on your feet" and having a physical component to the work can really help with stress on the job and relaxing off the job. I'm like a mule, I'll work physically to near-exhaustion, but if you try to nag and micromanage me I'm going to bite your face until you don't fuck with me again. I'd rather get physically beaten than have to listen to a fucking lecture nodding the whole time or otherwise depend on dumb-fucks to do my job.

          • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @06:16AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @06:16AM (#204567)

            I'm like a mule

            An obstinate bastard, more intelligent than the parents, well-hung but infertile?

      • (Score: 1) by Francis on Friday July 03 2015, @11:44AM

        by Francis (5544) on Friday July 03 2015, @11:44AM (#204666)

        You don't always get a choice in that regards. But, if one is feeling like that it's a good idea to start printing resumes and looking for a better job. Eventually the stress is going to get to you and you'll have one of these attacks or it will just eat you alive. Neither of these are good options.

        Unfortunately, many bosses are too self-centered and incompetent to realize just how much less work gets done in an environment like this.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @02:54PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @02:54PM (#204730)

          Unfortunately, many bosses are too self-centered and incompetent to realize just how much less work gets done in an environment like this.

          They realize it, they just don't care. Why should they? Employees are disposable resources, to be milked for as much profit as possible for as little pay as possible and then tossed away so the next poor, desperate sucker can get his turn. Thank god we got rid of all those unions and social safety nets and everything else that allowed workers to have any kind of power, otherwise this kind of thing wouldn't be possible.

          • (Score: 1) by liquibyte on Friday July 03 2015, @05:13PM

            by liquibyte (5582) on Friday July 03 2015, @05:13PM (#204789) Homepage

            This is why they changed from personnel to human resources. If you take the person out and look at them like a resource you can absolve yourself of an emotional involvement. This was noted by people back when it was first starting and they were referred to as nutjobs and tinfoil hatters. Appears they were right after all.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @01:09PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @01:09PM (#204686)

        E-fueled posted that? Wow, that actually sounded like a level-headed person.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:39AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:39AM (#204892)

        All that coming from someone who clearly hasn't burned out.

        I burned out during my CS degree, repeatedly. I had the same sort of assistance you've provided - that is to say, none whatsoever. People just kept telling me to just carry on and it'd all come back.

        It didn't. Took me two and a half years to recover from it - six months of that was spent on unemployment, avoiding everything.

        Keep in mind that you have only two pieces of information and so are not in a position to make any kind of call on the situation. Further comments, thus, are basically unwarranted.

        • (Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday July 04 2015, @03:17AM

          by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday July 04 2015, @03:17AM (#204920) Homepage

          So being burned out is a contest now? Well, shit. You win, I lose.

          You get the gold medal, and I shuffle listlessly with head hung in shame, my further comments unwarranted, back to my team locker room with a lukewarm shower and my towel as my only friends.

  • (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

      by bradley13 (3053) on Friday July 03 2015, @06:24AM (#204573) Homepage Journal

      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

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:29AM (#204888)

        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...

        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

      by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Friday July 03 2015, @05:08PM (#204787)

      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

      by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 03 2015, @08:07PM (#204835) Journal

      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.
  • (Score: 5, Funny) by DECbot on Friday July 03 2015, @04:36AM

    by DECbot (832) on Friday July 03 2015, @04:36AM (#204546) Journal

    "I've even cried a few times just at the sight of my text editor."

    Did you accidentally delete all your emacs customizations or have you seriously been trying to use atom?

    (Or are you a windows user whos been using notepad all his life and just learned about notepad++?)

    --
    cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by ThG on Friday July 03 2015, @05:00AM

      by ThG (4568) on Friday July 03 2015, @05:00AM (#204550)

      Coding has begun on a new operating system code named 'Kitchen Sink'. The new
      OS will be based entirely on GNU Emacs. One programmer explained, "Since many
      hackers spend a vast amount of their time in Emacs, why not just make it the
      operating system?" When asked about the name, he responded, "Well, it has been
      often said that Emacs has everything except a kitchen sink. Now it will."

      One vi advocate said, "What the hell?!?! Those Emacs people are nuts. It seems
      that even with a programming language, a web browser, and God only knows what
      else built into their text editor, they're still not satisfied. Now they want
      it to be an operating system. Hell, even Windows ain't that bloated!"

      • (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Friday July 03 2015, @05:46AM

        by stormwyrm (717) on Friday July 03 2015, @05:46AM (#204558) Journal
        The funny thing is SLOC-wise it seems that Vim actually has slightly more lines of C code than Emacs! Emacs 24.5 has 272,750 lines of C code, and vim 7.4 has 305,030 lines of C code. Who's bloated now? ^_^ The vast majority of what people consider bloat in Emacs are the elisp extensions (1,093,296 lines of code in the base distribution of Emacs 24.5), but it's an editor that was designed to be extensible, so don't complain that people actually write extensions to it! The vast majority of those extensions bundled with Emacs 24.5 include Gnus (the mail and Usenet reader, 105,158 lines), various programming modes like C mode (140,074) and many many more. Conceivably you could strip out a lot of this Elisp and still have a useful Emacs.
        --
        Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
        • (Score: 2) by NCommander on Friday July 03 2015, @06:50AM

          by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Friday July 03 2015, @06:50AM (#204591) Homepage Journal

          Most of the core emacs functionality is written in lisp though, most of the C code either deals with bindings, or the lisp interperator itself.

          --
          Still always moving
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @07:15AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @07:15AM (#204604)

          As a vi user, I consider vim a pointless bloatware project. It uses vi keys for editing, but does not behave like vi, so what's the point? Either make a vi clone, or behave like every other editor on the planet (ignoring Emacs for a moment, that thing lives in its very own ecosystem).

          I've tried using vim several times, every distro seems to come with it as the default, but it only takes minutes before I'm so fed up with its non-standard behavior, that I go to https://sites.google.com/a/bostic.com/keithbostic/vi/ [google.com] and download an editor that behaves like vi is supposed to.

          Sure, it has no syntax highlighting, but for code I use Geany or Visual Studio anyway.

          • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday July 03 2015, @11:09AM

            by TheRaven (270) on Friday July 03 2015, @11:09AM (#204656) Journal
            As a vim users, I have spent too long in vi clones to want to invest the time in training my fingers for a different editor, but I also wouldn't want to give up on syntax highlighting or unlimited persistent undo.
            --
            sudo mod me up
            • (Score: 1) by Pino P on Saturday July 04 2015, @02:22AM

              by Pino P (4721) on Saturday July 04 2015, @02:22AM (#204913) Journal

              Ever considered Viper mode in Emacs?

              • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday July 05 2015, @11:41AM

                by TheRaven (270) on Sunday July 05 2015, @11:41AM (#205261) Journal
                Viper isn't quite close enough, unfortunately, though it's better than the vi mode in Atom. For code it doesn't make so much sense, but when writing prose I actually prefer a modal editor, as it encourages me to separate writing from editing.
                --
                sudo mod me up
          • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @04:51PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @04:51PM (#204783)

            every distro seems to come with it as the default

            For what it is worth, Slackware has Elvis [wikipedia.org] symlinked to "vi" by default (it does ship with vim as well) and the various BSDs tended to use nvi [wikipedia.org] last I checked.

        • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Monday July 06 2015, @10:24AM

          by darkfeline (1030) on Monday July 06 2015, @10:24AM (#205543) Homepage

          Here's a section from the UNIX programming book by ESR that talks about this exact issue:

          http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/index.html [catb.org]

          Basically, vi has traditionally shoehorned editor functionality as native C code when it should have adopted the added complexity of a proper scripting language. When you want a single new feature, it makes sense to write a little C code into the program and not add a whole scripting language, but as you add more and more such features, that scripting language starts looking mighty attractive. But then you have the sunk cost fallacy (it's less effort to write this feature in C code too instead of refactor out ALL of the previous features and add a proper scripting language). Vim falls somewhere in the middle, where it has accumulated many hard coded features like syntax highlighting yet also provides a half-assed scripting language (and now provides multiple half-assed bindings to other scripting languages like Lua and Python). It just becomes an unmanageable mess, hence the Neovim project attempt to fix it by reinventing Emacs.

          --
          Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
    • (Score: 2) by turgid on Friday July 03 2015, @08:08PM

      by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 03 2015, @08:08PM (#204836) Journal

      Did you accidentally delete all your emacs customizations or have you seriously been trying to use atom?

      You jest, but I've been a vi/elvis/vim user for many years now and a few months back I started a new job where our projects use and depend on Eclipse. Luckily on Linux, not Windows, but still I am utterly flabbergasted at how slow and flaky Eclipse is, how long I have to wait for it to finish doing mysterious things in the background, how it forgets randomly my SVN configuration and authentication details, how it magics up non-existent syntax errors in C++ and Java code (and refuses to run it as a result)... I sometimes go to lunch when it starts "building workspace" and come back and it still hasn't finished! Thinks that would normally be instantaneous if done with make on the command line take 20 to 30 seconds. It goes away for minutes without repainting the screen or updating progress bars then does it all at once in a blur just as it's finishing. And don't get me started on the way it tiles the windows and all those stupid trees of "folders" that you have to click through.

      And then there's ant. What the heck is that all about? Build scripts written in XML! Seriously? Someone must have been having a laugh.

      The stress and frustration has almost made me ill and I have considered looking for a new job.

      To add insult to injury, if you use vim to edit a file in an eclipse project, it gets its knickers in a twist because it seems to keep a special private copy of the file and whinges at you after a few seconds when it detects that the one on disk has changed. So then you have to click, click and click again on lots of pictures and press F5 hundreds of times.

      Vim, git, gitk, meld, diff, sed, grep, (ba)sh etc. are the right tools.

    • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday July 04 2015, @05:12AM

      by isostatic (365) on Saturday July 04 2015, @05:12AM (#204934) Journal

      Did you accidentally delete all your emacs customizations or have you seriously been trying to use atom?

      Vim user that typed "ggdGZZ"

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by NCommander on Friday July 03 2015, @04:58AM

    by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Friday July 03 2015, @04:58AM (#204549) Homepage Journal

    I left engineering and information technology after burning out very badly, although I was on a downward spiral even before I got involved in SoylentNews. Looking back, I'm honestly not sure how I managed to do half the shit I've done, but if it wasn't for the rest of the staff, I'd probably gone to pieces trying to keep this project alive. As it stands, I find myself completely unable to work in the field with the sole exception of coding on rehash, and some random Dwarf Fortress modding. A lot of it is that no matter where I've worked, there's rarely a sense of having others have your back, or team; the entire industry feels like a meat grinder to me, to the point that I don't think I can ever work in a corporate environment again. At previous jobs, I'd put hours of work just to see it discarded, or being unable to reason with those in charge. As a firefighter, I always remember being treated human, and while the people we pulled out of cars weren't always happy to see us, I always knew my crew had my back. I can never remember anything similar working in IT/engineering.

    While we're technically incorporated, what I do on rehash is mostly for myself, and what I want to do for the community, and while by lines of code, I'm probably the most active dev, I always know that Paul, TheMightyBuzzard, Bytram, and everyone else have my back if I need to bail out, and I'm not judged by my previous failures. No need to live up to a constant, and IMHO, impossible standard of perfection which seems omnipresent in the corporate world. I'm not constantly a gear in a machine to make others look better, or put money in someones pocket doing (IMHO) unethical work, or inane coding and development practices, such as having to remove X lines of code for the amount you wanted to commit, including comments. I'd like to think my leadership of the project, combined with avoiding those pitfalls has helped to make SN what it is today.

    Anyway, after some soul searching, I left Anchorage and returned to Rochester, went back to school, and got my EMT-Basic certification. Longer term, I plan to renew my firefighting credentials and get my paramedic certification and perhaps land a job as a carrier firefighter. I just put in my resume for Rural/Metro Rochester to work on an ambulance, and have no intention to returning to my previous line of work, at least not under someone else's management. The pay isn't great, but money can't bring happiness or satisfaction.

    --
    Still always moving
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Kell on Friday July 03 2015, @06:17AM

      by Kell (292) on Friday July 03 2015, @06:17AM (#204569)

      What you do is important and helps people. Sometimes it may not feel like anything we do matters, but it does - even if only to the few people around us who are close enough to see it. A lot of people fall into the trap of imagining that they aren't important and that nobody cares. There are few people for who that could be true.

      --
      Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
      • (Score: 4, Touché) by NCommander on Friday July 03 2015, @06:31AM

        by NCommander (2) Subscriber Badge <michael@casadevall.pro> on Friday July 03 2015, @06:31AM (#204578) Homepage Journal

        I need to code in a "Thanks" moderation for this ...

        --
        Still always moving
        • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 03 2015, @03:34PM

          by Gaaark (41) on Friday July 03 2015, @03:34PM (#204753) Journal

          "Thanks", NCommander, for all you do, and all those behind you.

          Did that sound gay to you?
          (Damn... What show/movie is that from?)

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (Score: 2) by RedBear on Friday July 03 2015, @10:02AM

      by RedBear (1734) on Friday July 03 2015, @10:02AM (#204641)

      I've got your back, fellow human.

      Not exactly sure how, but it's the thought that counts, right? ;-P

      Whenever the site has issues I don't worry about it too much. I just think, "NCommander and his crack team are working on it. Must be an important new upgrade. It will be back soon."

      Everything you've done here has been outstanding and very much appreciated. Thanks very much for your contributions and best of luck on your EMT and/or Firefighter career.

      --
      ¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
      ... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by purple_cobra on Friday July 03 2015, @11:12AM

      by purple_cobra (1435) on Friday July 03 2015, @11:12AM (#204658)

      Good luck with the change of career. And isn't passing on a scratch for a personal itch what make FOSS work? The analogy needs some fettling, but you know what I mean.
      I _did_ have a meltdown (former sysadmin) and spent a number of years out of work because of it. Where I work now, in the public sector, is becoming increasingly stressful (the organisation has money issues and to save money they're...getting rid of some low paid staff, something that will save maybe 0.5% of the inadvisable debt the organisation toils under), though it has given me quite a lot of job satisfaction until fairly recently. We are being crushed by unattainable targets, and changes to how things get done make those targets even less attainable. There are also far too many shiny arsed seat polishers and not enough people doing what needs to be done. The latest ruse is "values based recruiting", i.e. people who can bullshit belief in the stupid catchword slogan are more valued than people who are qualified to do their job.
      At this rate we'll be bankrupt inside of 3 years, so I've reluctantly started looking for alternative employment.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday July 03 2015, @12:44PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday July 03 2015, @12:44PM (#204678) Journal

      I am deep in the middle of burnout myself. Four years ago I threw myself into a project mind, body, and soul. I worked on it 16 hours a day and built mountains--it felt like half of the Himalayas. My coding partner was working on the other half. We got it done, and took it in front of potential angel investors, and in the middle of the meeting my coding partner started behaving oddly, replying to things that hadn't been said, responding to innocuous statements with extreme paranoia. The investors looked like they were in the room with the girl from the Exorcist. I hurriedly shut down the meeting and took him out of there. I took him back to the hotel, but he wandered off.

      I didn't know what to do so I managed to find his parents' number and called them. His mother answered and after listening to the symptoms told me he was severely bipolar and had been off his medication for a year. I freaked out. I immediately locked him out of our systems and started reviewing our code base. Everything he had written was an insane pile of spaghetti code and had to be completely ripped out and re-written. It was shattering.

      I have found it extremely hard to code since. I love technology, and the urge to create is still there. But the moment I sit down to code, I get flashbacks and paralysis sets in.

      I hope to be able to rehabilitate with small scale projects like helping out with rehash. I want to code again and want to help SN. Hoping that's enough to get me past the past.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Friday July 03 2015, @01:23PM

      by iamjacksusername (1479) on Friday July 03 2015, @01:23PM (#204691)

      After 15 years in IT, I am taking off for the next year or so. Just going to travel. Realistically, I probably won't come back.

      While I have not broken down in front of my text editor, I know I'm finished. I already bought my one-way plane ticket and mentally checked out.

      I'm done with backup logs.
      I'm done with flapping interfaces.
      I'm done with customers with 30 years out of date technical expertise telling me how to do my job.
      I'm done with "my nephew can do this why do you charge so much".
      I'm done with "well the security company had their technical guy..."
      I'm done with exe installers that haven't been updated since 2005.
      I'm done with "why isn't DRS working this time"
      I'm done with "yes, you have to pay for software..."
      I'm done with weekends lost for pointless technical changes for companies that no longer exist.

      I have been doing this for 15 years and I honestly couldn't care less about anything I did. I feel no sense of accomplishment. I am good at what I do but, when you don't even care about what you do, does that even matter?

      So, I get it. I know I am finished. I wonder how many other tech refugees there will be a in a few years when this current tech bubble collapses. When, the fresh hires become too expensive so they are replaced with outsourced armies of low-wage workers. All those late night, half-day holidays because someone had to be on-call, missed events because "change management says do this on the weekend". Will they look back and think it was worth it?

      I know that answer for me.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @03:06PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @03:06PM (#204738)

      A lot of it is that no matter where I've worked, there's rarely a sense of having others have your back, or team; the entire industry feels like a meat grinder to me

      That's America for you. Everyone is only looking out for themselves and how to exploit others for personal profit. What you feel is by no means unique, its to be expected from being submerged in an economic system built on greed, selfishness, and exploitation thats been left to fester unchecked for hundreds of years.

    • (Score: 1) by Frost on Saturday July 04 2015, @03:48AM

      by Frost (3313) on Saturday July 04 2015, @03:48AM (#204922)

      You're doing great work here, NC. It's amazing how much better this site works than Slashdot, and how quickly you've been able to improve it with essentially no downtime. You'd be one of my top picks for a secret superhero coding team.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @06:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @06:38PM (#205076)

      I was once mistaken for an EMT when i was in Rochester. I was wearing blue cargo pants, and someone asked me am i an EMT. I said no, but she said yes i am, so i just said no i am not. I didn't even know what an EMT was at that time, because i'm not from USA. I had to ask. I was there on a business trip. Do i win a cookie NC?

  • (Score: 1) by gznork26 on Friday July 03 2015, @05:29AM

    by gznork26 (1159) on Friday July 03 2015, @05:29AM (#204556) Homepage Journal

    It was the early 80s, the project was a radar countermeasures test set for the USAF, and I pointed out a gaping hole in the spec, so I was tasked to fill it. Consequently, I was consulting to the group I'd been on, while designing, building, testing and documenting the means for a tech to troubleshoot the automated test machine interactively.

    I went home one night, tossed some rice in a pot, and stood there staring at it. I realized that I had to do less, so I started planning my exit so I could count down the time until I was off the project. Burnout did have a bright side for me: it gave me the inspiration to self-publish a novel about people being forced into an even worse form of burnout that there was no cure for. (If you're curious, the thing's called 'Burnout Fever', and you can get it for Nook or Kindle.)

    I did that to myself, but I've seen other people being pushed into it. The management mindset that forces people to accept unrealistic demands seems to be a kind of drug for them; they get to look good at the expense of their staff. The workers are expendable, in their eyes. And as long as we think we're each alone in that situation when we are driven to it, we can't or won't do anything about it. I guess it's the tech workers' time to unionize.

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday July 03 2015, @06:07AM

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Friday July 03 2015, @06:07AM (#204563) Homepage

      If what you're talking about is TISS, then whomever put it together did a damn fine job. TISS was the flagship of all the test stations. Everybody else was stuck on things that looked straight out of 60's sci-fi movies -- if not manually operating dials and taking measurements from needle-gauges it was watching a green CRT and wiggling and kicking things until they got the desired result.

      • (Score: 1) by gznork26 on Friday July 03 2015, @06:26AM

        by gznork26 (1159) on Friday July 03 2015, @06:26AM (#204575) Homepage Journal

        Nah. The trailer-sized unit was dubbed AN/USM-464. You rolled it up to a fighter and told it what kind it was, and it started the canned testing sequence. Designing the UI was challenge, though: 6-line x 32 char display, caps and numbers keyboard, and a single knob.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hopp on Friday July 03 2015, @06:16AM

    by hopp (2833) on Friday July 03 2015, @06:16AM (#204568)

    Take a day and do what you want or nothing at all. Working 7 days a week? Call in sick once in a while.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @07:01AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @07:01AM (#204597)

      Then get dropped by the company for being a slacker. Then you find out the agency that places you as a contractor will no longer represent you. Then you find out other contract agencies put your resume on the back burner.

      Either you work till you burn out or you get dropped from the industry and have to do something else. Either way, you're screwed.

      There is one alternative - move to another city where the agency reps haven't heard about you. Shame about your spouse and kids getting uprooted every several years.

      And another alternative - get a job as a permanent employee instead of a contractor and take a cut in income and sit in the corner doing some boring job for years (COBOL, maybe).

      Years ago, I read that the average burnout period in IT was 7 years. I lasted three times that long before storming out of a meeting with a client who thought that a web site shouldn't take more than 8 hours to develop (my schedule estimate was 6 months). That was the last straw. I now live on 1/3 the income I used to make and my ex calls once in a while to say hi. What a great career awaits the modern IT pro.

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by TheRaven on Friday July 03 2015, @11:23AM

        by TheRaven (270) on Friday July 03 2015, @11:23AM (#204660) Journal

        If a company will fire productive people for not working stupid hours, then it's probably not a good place to work. Studies have shown that productivity peaks for non-menial tasks at around 20 hours a week, plateaus up to a little over 40, and then declines. From 20-40 you're less productive per hour, but the increase in time compensates. Above about 40, you start to make mistakes that take longer to fix than the extra time, so you're more productive just having a nap under your desk.

        If you're a contractor, try to work remotely and aim for a 4 hour working day - people will be amazed at how productive you are.

        --
        sudo mod me up
        • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday July 03 2015, @12:16PM

          by MostCynical (2589) on Friday July 03 2015, @12:16PM (#204673) Journal

          I'm not a developer. I am also not management (also too much stress for too little reward)
          I have seen misery, though..

          Most companies with large developer pools use contractors, and don't care if they burn out. Seven day weeks, 14 to 18 hour days? Normal. Take a weekend off after four months without a break? Get asked by management if your are really commited to the project.

          Sure, not a good place to work, but when they are all like that, your only choice is.. a different career, maybe?

          --
          "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @12:35PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @12:35PM (#204676)

            That is the problem for contractors - they are all lousy places to work. Corporations have no incentive to make it a good place to work. They figure if you're payed big bucks, you take all the shit they can throw at you.

            BTW - I once calculated the dollar value of all the projects I've worked on that were cancelled. It came out to $250,000,000.00. No, that's not an exaggeration. One was $100 million and another $80 million. The others were in the tens of millions each. Try to feel good about a career with that little to show for it.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @03:10PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @03:10PM (#204739)

          If a company will fire productive people for not working stupid hours, then it's probably not a good place to work.

          You think there's a choice? Wage theft and worker exploitation is endemic to corporate America. Your choices are to either deal with it or be hungry on the streets.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by TypnoHoad on Friday July 03 2015, @09:52AM

      by TypnoHoad (5588) on Friday July 03 2015, @09:52AM (#204638)
      I couldn't agree with this more.

      If you have a breakdown it can take years to get back to equilibrium that's if you can ever get back.. I know this from both first and secondhand experience.

      if you think you are near the cliff now - row back immediately. Trust me the road back from a breakdown is a lot harder than any short-term career "setbacks" you might suffer from returning your work-life balance to something that works for you.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @03:15PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @03:15PM (#204743)

        The really fun part about breaking down is being told that its all your fault, that you broke down because you have a weak will and moral failings, and if only you had better work ethic and stronger morals and weren't such a pussy you could deal with it. After all, all you need to do is put your back into it and pull yourself up by your bootstraps!

    • (Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Friday July 03 2015, @01:30PM

      by iamjacksusername (1479) on Friday July 03 2015, @01:30PM (#204697)

      Great advice but, in my experience, most people seem to need to learn that the hard way. I know I went through that phase. I re-phrase it sometimes- "You cannot keep working like you are 22 with no responsibilities for the next 40 years. Take a minute. Nobody ever went to their death bed wishing they had gone into work more."

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Friday July 03 2015, @01:54PM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Friday July 03 2015, @01:54PM (#204708)

    I'm sorry for him, but ... I've cried tears of relief that my trusty text editor has delivered me from a life of poverty. Wait until you've worked at Wal-Mart a few hours, buddy, you'll be enthusiastic about coding.

    --
    (E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
    • (Score: 2) by Common Joe on Saturday July 04 2015, @04:05AM

      by Common Joe (33) <{common.joe.0101} {at} {gmail.com}> on Saturday July 04 2015, @04:05AM (#204925) Journal

      No, not necessarily. Your comment and this article describes the situation we've set up in the U.S.: either get a (Wal-Mart) job with no meaning and not enough pay to feed yourself and your family or get a job with so many expectations and constraints that it is impossible to keep up and the only thing that keeps you going is the idea that you don't want the Wal-Mart job. Then one day, you hit the burn out wall, collapse, and can't do either.

      It's a very sad state of affairs that corporations refuse to acknowledge and fix. I find it hard to believe those at the top don't know or understand these scenarios happen on a daily basis. I findit more likely they simply don't care.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by kaszz on Friday July 03 2015, @02:46PM

    by kaszz (4211) on Friday July 03 2015, @02:46PM (#204725) Journal

    About work-life:
      * Prioritize to satisfy your health, sanity, and social life above other shit.
      * Managers and peers with unrealistic expectations shall be moved on from or just pretend to do.
      * Require that you are paid. And paid. Your bank account matters. The smile of others doesn't.
      * There's a limit on the amount of work you can do. Shun anyone that tries to override it in any way, in any area.
      * Avoid different tasks as it will distract your brain.
      * People that scream and whine on you. Drop them or move on. Get them out of your life.
      * Things take the time they take. If the right circumstances are there they take even less time. Forcing them makes them take longer.
      * For the corporation you are just a resource to make a profit from using any legal means. Don't forget game theory.
      * When life starts to en roach on your stress level, food quality or sleep. Bring out the chainsaw to chop things away.
      * Have good sex and do things for fun. If you don't have that opportunity - warning. Life is too short to waste on menial shit that doesn't matter in the long term.

    Vacation:
      * It takes at least 3 weeks continuous and uninterrupted vacation to drop the mental load from work (according to studies). It means if you get less you may very well be on a long term spiral to burn out.
      * Shut of communication channels like phone, sms, email, etc. And drop memo reading.
      * Sleep as you like but try to get up when the sun starts to shine instead of going down.
      * Working out your body has effects other than getting better physical capacity and muscles.
      * Remove all that reminds you of work or other depressing stuff.
      * Plan to deal with stuff not to control your time.
      * Drop as many "must" as you can.
      * You have the vacation not others, so do what you want not what is expected.
      * Do something really different. Try things.
      * Begin to unwind ahead of vacation rather than going turbo mode to get everything done before.
      * You have one life, make use of it.

    For permanent employees the corporation manager set the limits of your work hours, however insane. And they may abuse contractors as they wish. However contractors may also have time limited contracts, but high pay. Make use of it.

    Don't break your back over anything that won't matter in 20 years.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @06:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @06:47PM (#204813)

      I'm hardly the type of person that lives to work.

      But 3 full weeks of vacation sounds like more work than working, and the stress of all the expenses and time off work.

      Regardless of what that study may say, that's not feasible for many of us. For me to take 3 weeks continuously off work I would be a wreck by the time i got back to work and for several months afterwards while i try to get back on my feet.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday July 03 2015, @07:02PM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday July 03 2015, @07:02PM (#204818) Journal

        But 3 full weeks of vacation sounds like more work than working,

        Then you're doing something wrong.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
        • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 06 2015, @06:53PM

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday July 06 2015, @06:53PM (#205787) Journal

          But 3 full weeks of vacation sounds like more work than working,

          Then you're doing something wrong.
           
          Perhaps it's what he is doing on vacation that is the problem. Vegging out in front of the TV playing video-games for 3 weeks might be more his speed.
           
          I love traveling but planning and expensing it certainly can be stressful. I always leave a few days between return to home and return to work.

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:46AM

        by kaszz (4211) on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:46AM (#204896) Journal

        Get a 30 m² cabin somewhere away from civilization where no machinery or people can be heard and only green grass is around. Stock up on food and just disconnect from the modern world. Perhaps you will see things different afterwards.

        Expenses are handled by having buffers and automated banking. And getting back on feet is handled by having a routine to follow. At the core it seems like work is your life stabilizer. There's something inherently wrong.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @07:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @07:49PM (#204832)

    well first thanks for all the good code i can use today.
    -
    i think some people are "prone" to burn out.
    off the top of my head i can think of a these things that might not even allow someone to burn out:
    eat healthy food. (needs time to prepare)
    sleep enough. (needs time, duh!)
    have hobbies. (colossal waste of time)
    have good friends. (demand your time)
    healthy mistrust of authority. ("sorry, no time!")

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @10:05PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @10:05PM (#204854)

    Prioritization is key. What do I mean by that? It means getting people to tell you what they want. I mean *exactly* what they want. Burnout is the symptom of management not managing.

    I use scrumm on my management. I make them write it down what they want.

    Many times it comes down to 'you have one resource and are trying to do 5 things'. 'Which one do you want first?'. Every time 'i want them all done' Yes, you want them all but you can only have one first which is it. I make them choose which is first.

    Basically it comes down to making my managers manage. I may not agree with what they pick.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @10:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 03 2015, @10:54PM (#204868)

    Sounds like somebody with a Histrionic Personality Disorder. May or may not have burnt out. Handled it horribly. Made sure everyone and their neighbor heard that they are burnt out and need attention.

    I've seen real burnout at one employment and in a completely different line of work I've even seen thousand yard stare. This just reaks of "Look at Me!".

    Clickbait bullshit.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:32AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @12:32AM (#204889)

      Unless you're actually qualified to make a diagnosis and have performed the diagnostic criteria, then you've just presented yourself to the world while shouting - with the loudest voice you can muster - "I AM A FUCKING FOOL! HEY EVERYBODY, LAUGH AT ME!"

      I think the biggest shame was that you didn't do it while logged in, so that we all know who to ignore in future.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @01:34AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 04 2015, @01:34AM (#204907)

    you guys are starting to wake up in droves. i can't believe you've all run over the cliffs like lemmings for this long. quit letting the world exploit you and your passion.