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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 kaszz on Friday July 03 2015, @02:46PM
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
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
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
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
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.