April 18, 2023 • 52 mins
In this episode, Pat does a solo show and talks about burnout in tech. Also touches on how to spot burnout and some things you can do to avoid it and recharge from it.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pat (00:00):
Hey everybody.
Welcome back to this week'sedition of Breaking Down the
Bites.
I'm your host, pat.
You can find me on Twitter at@layer8packet.
It's the number eight Kyle.
He's on Twitter at@danath256.
Alex isn't on Twitter or anysocial media, so if you wanna
get a hold of him, you canalways find the show on Twitter
(00:22):
and tweet us there at@breakinbytespod but none of
that matters this week cuz I amsolo by myself.
That's right.
Alex is in Disney on vacationand apparently he's having a
splendid time, so shout out tohim.
And Kyle is away at a familyfunction, so, cuz we didn't give
(00:42):
you one last week.
For Easter break, I figured Iwould do one by myself just to
keep the numbers going and wedon't wanna miss too many cuz
our numbers are slowly climbingand we're getting our name out
there.
So appreciate everybodylistening in.
So, don't forget to subscribe onyour platform of choice to our
(01:05):
social medias.
So Twitter, LinkedIn uh,Facebook we have a discord out
there pretty much anywhere.
We are there.
So, find your platform of choiceand come join us for some social
media fun.
So this week, like I said, Idon't know if we'll go the full
hour depending on how far thetopic goes and how long I wanna
(01:25):
talk.
So here we go.
But this week I figured I wouldtouch on something that I think
a lot of people struggle with.
I wanna say struggle atdifferent levels, right?
Some people handle it well, somepeople don't handle it well at
all.
And it just builds and builds.
And then obviously, you know,they blow up.
(01:48):
This week I wanted to talk abouttech burnout or just burnout in
general.
Right.
So, I think it's reallyaccelerated over the last two
years with the Covid pandemic.
I think uh, pressures anddeadlines, meeting deadlines,
projects, things of that naturereally can take a hold on some
folks depending on how theirbrain works and how they give
(02:09):
their job a hundred percent, ifyou will.
Most tech people I know give,you know, 120%.
It's just the way they're wired,right?
That's why, that's just most ofthe folks I've come across just
really just want to do a goodjob and you know, just keep the
wheel going, right?
So I think over the last coupleyears, this massive tech boom
that, that has happened, and nowwe're seeing the layoffs of
(02:31):
that.
So that can be stressful as wellfrom a burnout perspective not
knowing, you know, what your joblooks like long term.
And as I think AI sort of creepsin and automation starts to
really take, hold, strangle holdof some industries I think.
Tech is I still think tech is agreat field to get into, but
(02:52):
yeah, it has, it's definitelychanged.
And so, a lot of people don'tlike change.
Personally, I love change.
I ca I, I wanna change all thetime.
It's just the way I'm wired.
But I know a lot of tech peoplethat don't like change, they
wanna come in, do their job,they know their role and go
home, you know, that kind ofthing.
(03:13):
But if you don't change in thisindustry, I think you're in for
a long, hard road.
I really do.
I think just speaking for thenetwork field you know, me being
in it since high school, whichis actually this 20 years for
me, which is kind of weird tosay.
You know, I think it's.
It's hard for people to change.
(03:34):
I think it's hard for people toreally kind of go with the times
and, you know, back when I wasdoing Cisco Net Network Academy
in high school as part of avocational technical school we
were talking frame relay anddelsy and, you know, all kinds
of stuff and Varioustechnologies that aren't here
(03:55):
anymore, right?
Uh, Pl ls, I mean, that's stillhere, but it's way less than
what it used to be.
MPLS used to be everywhere.
It used to be the darling of theindustry at one point, and now
it's, it seems to be kind ofgoing away in, in the wake of
SDWAN and some other things thatare out there get VPN and, you
know, et cetera, et cetera.
(04:15):
So, but yeah, I mean, peoplejust have a hard time changing
with the times.
I, I say this all the time thatpeople want to get into tech.
I say You, you better likelearning because you're not
gonna sit around and, you know,dot with the same stuff, you
know, year in and year out.
You're eventually gonna be madeexpendable.
And, you know, that's whenpeople start to stress out.
(04:36):
So, tech burnout definitely isreal, you know, we've all seen
it.
I've seen it.
So we're just gonna take takethis time to.
Just a couple thoughts on youknow, any of the airways, I
almost said on paper, but we'regonna take a couple minutes here
to kind of talk about techburnout and obviously what it is
and you know, kind of combatingit, what we can kind of do to,
(04:57):
you know, keep going forward, etcetera, et cetera.
So, like I said, I think techburnout really has come on in
the last couple years with thepandemic, especially tech folks
you know, transferring home,right?
So, or working from home.
That can be stress in itself.
I really think, I think it canbe different.
Like if you're not used toworking by yourself or working
(05:17):
not in an office, I think thatcan really place some mind
tricks on people.
And then on the other hand,that, you know, the people
responsible for moving peoplehome, right?
That can be stressful as well.
When the pandemic hit, I wasworking for Rentokil, which is
now Rentokil Terminex and we hadto transfer, I don't know, it
(05:38):
was a couple thousand peoplehome.
Like, you know, we just had tomake sure that we had enough VPN
licenses and enough bandwidthand throughput to, to really,
you know, get all those peoplecoming through the same pipe.
So it wasn't too bad for us, butsome of those desk side guys and
making sure people had laptopsand, you know, and or
Chromebooks or whatever makingsure they had everything they
(06:01):
need to work at home monitorsand docking stations and, you
know, all kinds of stuff.
So we, you know, on the networkteam, we had it relatively easy
just to say, okay, look, youknow, we need to bump our
license account up to, you know,for, forget whatever it was.
And then you know, make sure wehad enough internet pipe.
And that was pretty much it.
Hey, here's, here you go.
But it was way more stressfulfor some others some other teams
(06:23):
that were closer to the userthan, you know, than we were.
So, I could definitely see thatbeing a stressful situation from
a tech perspective and makingsure that people had what they
needed to work and, you know,making sure that their bosses
were, you know, off their assesand, you know, that kinda thing.
Just keep the wheel going.
I feel like that today too isquite the mantra I like to use.
(06:47):
You know, tech guys used to be,you know, tech people, I should
say in today's politicallycorrect world.
They used to really be revered.
Right.
And I had a friend who I used toplay in a band with, and he was
a wicked harmonica player.
He's since passed the last yearhe passed.
And he was a tech guy for, Iforget where he was.
(07:09):
It was somewhere local here, pa.
But we, him and I used to shootthe shit about it, and he used
to be a revered tech guy, like,oh man, you could do that.
You know, that kind of thing.
And he was one of those OGs thatjust, he, it clicked for him and
he kind of got all the perksthat came with it.
Now the tech is a mainstay inevery, in the everyday world.
(07:29):
And, you know, you don't goanywhere without using a piece
of tech.
There's more people in it.
So it's kind of, I think it'skind of lost it's luster a
little bit.
It's not as quote unquotespecial to be a tech guy or a
tech person anymore.
That doesn't mean it's not agreat field.
I would do it all over again ina heartbeat.
Just mainly for the fact thatI'm not good at anything else.
(07:49):
But I definitely think it's lostluster in.
The respect it gains.
If anything, it's kind of gonethe other way.
I think it I think companies orbusinesses or users or whatever
they take advantage of tech now,I think.
I think it's you know, nobodyremembers you for the good
times, for the good things youdid.
You're only as good as your lastfuck up, really.
Right?
(08:09):
So, people remember that, right?
Because that caused an outage orcaused them extra work or an
inconvenience or some othernonsense.
So people remember when you messup, not necessarily all the good
you did before that, whetherthey know about it or not as a
moot point, you know, but, youknow, you could do, you could
kick off 10 perfect projects andcomplete them no problem.
(08:32):
And it saves money and it savestime or.
First thing you mess up when youhear about it, and your name is
tied to that.
So I think I think there's amajor shift in that in, in
persona attitude, I'm gonna callit.
So what have you done lately forme, you know, business.
So, keeping that in mind youknow, and it's a thankless job
(08:53):
like a lot of places or a lot ofindustries.
It's a thankless job.
Nobody calls when everything'sworking great, right?
The only time you get called iswhen something's broke, right?
So there's, and there's stressbuilt into that, right?
So, and we all know that someusers don't take kindly to tech
at all.
Some people are just, they justdon't get it.
(09:15):
They don't want to.
So you're kind of stuck doingthat.
So, just kind of talking outloud here, but.
But I think some, you have somesigns that are out there for
folks in tech that you're reallystarting to kind of feel that
burnout and maybe take a minuteand step back.
First one being extreme, likecynicism.
(09:38):
Yeah.
There's a lot of folks out therethat just automatic negative
feeling about their, you know,you know, just general cynicism,
right?
Nothing to do with appreciated.
Everything's terrible, it'sgonna change, et cetera, et
cetera.
I think it's a massive red flagfor burnout, right?
If somebody, if you or someoneyou know, and your team is.
(10:02):
Seeing, you know, work is aglass half empty sort of thing,
or completely out of water.
It's, you know, is that time toquestion a bigger issue, right?
So I think that totally is a bigred flag.
You know, cynicism comes in allforms, right?
You got the constant frustrationor you know, the snarky attitude
detachment.
(10:23):
Just a general lack of work Ishould say a lack of enjoyment
in work, right?
Yeah, dehumanizing othercolleagues or customers,
whatever you wanna call it,whether you serve an actual
client base or internalemployees, right?
So, you know, Sally deserves itor whatever, you know, that kind
of thing.
I just think it's a, you know,the negative Nancy connotation
(10:47):
it makes everyone else's workharder.
Right.
You're just oh man, I gotta putup with, you know, whoever I
gotta put up with that person inorder.
Or, oh man, I need him forsomething, but I really don't
want to go because he's justtough to work with, or he's a
real bear, or whatever.
I think that's a big one, right?
The other big one just a coupleoff the top of my head.
You're just chronically tired,right?
(11:08):
You're just exhausted all thetime.
You know, barely getting up inthe morning and, you know,
sipping at coffee and, you know,we all like coffee, right?
But, you know, you can pointthem out who they are, right?
They're just, they don't wannabe there and, you know, just all
the time.
Just tired, right?
So, you know, whether that'stired of various things, right?
(11:30):
The big project or you're alwayson call or stuff keeps going
down that you constantly gottafix that sort of thing.
You know, or you know, you'rejust tired all the time, right?
Even when the workday is done oryou come back from a holiday,
right?
You just, that person just seemsto continually just be tired and
(11:51):
not into it.
I think that could be a redflag.
So whether they have NoMo, youknow, no motivation or the
feeling that need to just keepon moving forward, moving on
that, that comes in differentflavors.
But yeah they can't concentrateor Like, oh my God, I can't wait
till the weekend and it's likeMonday at two o'clock.
You know, that kind of thing.
It's like, oh you've got a farway to go there, buddy.
(12:13):
Yeah, just no energy to beproductive, you know, at a
consistent level.
So, I think that's a big one.
Negative self-evaluation.
Oh man, this is a huge one.
In this industry there ismassive high performers, right?
I think there's people that arejust, they're just built
differently.
And personally working with Alexat two of these places, I think
(12:37):
he's just built differently.
His mind just works differentlythan most people's.
So he's definitely a highperformance, high drive kind of
guy.
See, he's not of a hearing.
He gets credit, right?
So, You know, but on the otherside of that, if you're working
with a bunch of high performers,you could always have that
feeling of, oh, I'm not doingenough.
Or, oh, you know, my, myperformance is not up to par
(13:01):
with theirs and things of thatnature.
And I always try to say, look,if you're the smartest guy in
the room, you're in the wrongroom.
But to a degree, you gotta giveyourself credit for being in
that room.
There's a lot of people won'teven be in the room with, you
know, with people smarter thanthem.
It's just the way they're built.
So, you know, and it's not afeeling of incompetency or you
(13:22):
know, or like you're notachieving anything.
It, they're, again, you're justkind of, you're built
differently when you have thatnegative self-worth, I guess.
Or if you get that working allthe time and getting nothing
done or everything you do iswrong, you know, that kind of
thing.
That could be a sign of, youknow, some burnout.
You know, you may need to kindof hang it up a little bit and
(13:44):
step back and recharge.
Again, just a couple things.
You know, the inadequate, youknow, inac feeling ina
inadequate, boy, that's amouthful in your role, right?
The work that you do feelschaotic and high pressured,
right?
And that's gonna vary onindustry of where you're at.
Big tech being one of them cuzthey're constantly innovating.
(14:06):
So I'm sure there's quite thechaotic environment there and
high pressure to get out thatnext version of chat.
G P T.
Yeah, I slipped it in there.
See that?
You're feeling like you're doingfar too much for too many
people.
Man, I get that all the time.
You're just like, man, now I gotmy job and now I gotta do this
person's job too.
You know, that kind of thing.
(14:27):
So, you get that quite a bit.
Feeling like your efforts maynot make a difference, right?
That's a part that's all part ofthat negative self-evaluation.
So just be wary of that.
That's quite quite common intoday's world.
And I also think social mediahas not helped with that
particular piece of it.
(14:48):
I don't think we celebrate the,not to say celebrate, but I
don't think we talk about thenegatives quite as much as all,
all you hear on social media.
It's a place of perfect, right?
So you see, hey, I did this, orHey, I passed this cert, or I
got this big project done, blah,blah, blah.
But what you don't see is.
You know, that project has beensitting around for six months
(15:08):
cuz you found three ways to doit the wrong way, you know, that
kind of thing.
So I don't think the negativegets talked about as much.
All you hear is the positives.
So the positives on social mediacan think that, you know, these
people are living in a perfectworld and you're just like, oh
man, here I am failing at life.
And these people are doing someawesome things.
So don't get discouraged bythat.
(15:29):
Social media is not a it's not ait's a not a morality post.
It's not a place to, you know,throw your marker up to say,
okay, look, I have to live up tothis person.
You know, that kind of thing.
So just be wary of that.
You know, there's far morepositive on social media than it
is, than is negative.
I think that's part of it.
I think you people start, haveto start talking about the
negative or else the positivedoesn't.
(15:51):
You know, doesn't really meanmuch, right?
You know, you have to, I don'twanna say celebrate your
failures, but you have to learnfrom your mistakes to get to the
top of the mountain, right?
You just don't climb Everest atthe first try.
You know, you take notes and youkeep going and eventually when
you do succeed, it feels thatmuch sweeter cuz you know, of
all the hiccups and stumbles yougot to get there.
(16:11):
So that's another big one.
Just a couple things to watchout for as well from a leader
perspective.
So, if you're managing peopleyou know, here's a couple of
things just from my ownexperiences and what I kind of
jotted down.
If you're seeing some of yourteammates or people that you're,
(16:33):
that report to you they'veincreased on the job accidents,
so human error, right?
So we've all done it.
I've done it more times than Icare to admit or count.
You know, it happens.
It just, it is what it is.
But it increased mistakes atwork and can be a red flag to
say, Hey, you know, let's checkin on this person to see what
(16:54):
the deal is.
If you have more turnover thanusual I think turnover is big in
today's world.
You know, there, there's variousreasons to that.
But if you are having moreturnover than you normally
would, people aren't staying forvery long.
Or you have multiple peopleleaving it, you know, within a
couple of months of each other,and it's just like, oh, okay,
let's take a time out here andsee if there's an underlying.
(17:16):
Speak, you know, coming from aguy who's had six jobs in 10
years, right?
And yes, I did count them beforeI recorded here.
So, that's true.
I've had six jobs in 10 years.
And most, you know, some of themwere due to, you know, things
outside of my control managementchanges above me or, you know,
whatever.
But some of them were just like,oh man, this is a dumpster fire.
I gotta get outta here, and thatkind of thing.
(17:38):
So just be on lookout for thatlower quality work from the
people that do report to you,right?
If they're just kind of mailingit in, or the the hot word now
is quiet, quitting, right?
So they're around, right?
You're giving'em a paycheck, butthey're just, they're doing just
enough keep keep you off theirback.
So, you know, just kind ofmailing it in, that kind of
thing.
Uptick in sick days, right?
(17:59):
Decreased productivity, poorcustomer service.
Just a couple of things Irattled off here.
So, like negativity spreadingthroughout the team, right?
That's another big one.
Lack of participa participation,et cetera, et cetera.
And I've had most of these onthis list just kind of throwing
things out on paper.
But you know, definitely the bigone for me is when the small
(18:20):
talk disappears, right?
Cause I'm a naturally apersonable guy.
I talk to my team quite a bityou know, and it's usually all
day long and sometimes they evenget sick of me.
They're just like, oh man, shutup.
I hope not, but maybe I don'tknow.
But when I've really had enoughof a place my, that, that small
talk just stops.
I just, I don't engage, I don'tparticipate.
I'm just like, you know what?
(18:41):
I just wanna do my time and gohome.
You know, that kind of thing.
And it's not necessarily becauseof the team.
It's just because I'm just fedup with, you know, what the job
is feeding me or whatever.
So yeah, the big one for me is,you know, you stop talking to
your team, small talk, you know,Hey, how was your weekend?
Or whatever.
That kind of thing.
(19:01):
That, that's a big one.
I guess we wanted to touch onwhy we have burnout, especially
in the tech sector.
And I think it's, I think it's acombination of things, right?
It all kind of wraps up to one,it wraps up to chronic stress,
right?
You're always stressed out aboutsomething, right?
White knuckled or whatever.
You know, but we're trying tolike, what's the cause and how
(19:25):
long has it been sort of goingon?
That's kind of, The realquestion lies, right?
I think there is a, like rightfrom the get-go, I think there's
a sink or swim mentality rightout right outta the gate, right?
Especially with folks cominginto the ranks or, you know, in
college or, you know, in somesort of STEM program that they
(19:49):
have.
So, and there's a statistic herethat I found that 40% of
students are leaving thoseprograms within the first,
within the four years because ofthat sink or swim mentality,
right?
So, you know, but it'sinteresting to, to see that, you
know, it's become a businessmodel of sorts in a lot of
(20:09):
industries and occupations.
You know, they're saying, Hey,you gotta give up time, you
gotta give up other things inyour life in order to do X.
Right?
So, that comes from, you know,slaving away at a nine to five
or, you know, your regular hoursat work, and then expected to
pick up the phone when it ringsafter hours, right?
So, case in point when I was atEvolve on their field operations
(20:33):
team our main responsibility wasinstalling voice, a hosted
voice.
So, and we were a, they were anational company at that point,
and one of their biggest clientsthat had multiple sites
throughout the states.
A lot of them were in Californiaor on West Coast time.
And so, you know, I would do myregular in-office.
(20:58):
You know, eight to eight 30 tofour 30 or nine to five,
whatever it was, and then gohome.
And if I had an install thatnight nobody puts a new phone
system in the middle of the day,right?
It's all at after hours.
So six o'clock, California timeis nine o'clock Eastern time.
So I was on the phone, you know,walking somebody through,
(21:19):
plugging it here, plugging inthere, plugging a phone, making
sure it registers, gets an ip,the whole deal, blah, blah,
blah.
You know, and that might havebeen a two hour process
depending on how well it wentthat night or not.
So, that was a big one.
You know, and the wife, most ofthe time, the wife went to bed.
You know, didn't see me till thenext morning.
(21:40):
So, you know, it's a familything too, right?
Your family has to understandwhat this job entails as well,
depending on how far the chainyou go.
And it seems to be a man, itmakes sense, right?
The further up the chain you go,the more the more demand and the
more sort of after hours you'redoing.
So, you know that, that's aninteresting one.
So again, the after hours sortof baked in, right?
(22:03):
But these companies in the lastcouple of years are just that's
expected.
So I've been at companies thatpay you on call and then some
companies don't at all, which, Imean, it is what it is, but it's
just, you know, you want thesepeople 24 7 and you know, not
really paying them.
(22:24):
What they're, you know, notaccounting that into their
paycheck.
So just, I'll throw that outthere.
But I think in terms of causesin the workplace themselves I
think the big ones are poorleadership, work overload.
We just kind of, I just kind oftalked about a toxic culture,
which is a huge one.
Toxic cultures are just, oh,they're such career killers lack
(22:47):
of career growth and aninsufficient reward, right?
I think that people look at thatas well.
Just say, Hey look I'm bustingmy hump for 16 hours a day, and.
You know, not getting a penny ornot getting any time off or, you
know, not balancing that outwith, you know, Hey, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna take a couple hoursduring the week to balance that
time.
You can't because if you're, youknow, if you're a one or two man
(23:11):
department, you know, you'releaving the other one on the
island, or there's nobody hereto, you know, nobody here to
write the ship if you're takingoff for a couple hours to
balance that time.
But just from a poll that I sawon online and it's an
interesting one.
The main source of employeeburnout at workplace workplaces
and a whopping 22% is poorleadership and unclear
(23:35):
direction.
Right.
You get that a lot.
I've seen that time and timeagain.
I feel like it's a theme intoday's places where they just.
You know, there's no cleardirection of where they want to
be in five years.
So if they don't have adirection, you can't plan for
that, right?
(23:56):
From an IT perspective in theperfect world that we don't live
in, right, I'll say that.
But in a perfect world,technically, the IT department
technically stays ahead of thecurve slash business for lack of
broader term.
Just enough, just slightly aheadof that curve.
(24:17):
So then if something drastichappens they buy a company or
suddenly sales goes through theroof you can absorb that, right?
And just keep moving.
But a lot of places basicallyjust see it as a cost center
which it is, don't get me wrong,it totally costs money to, to
run both from a technology and apeople perspective.
(24:40):
But but I don't think companiesrealize how much tech can do for
them cuz they don't understandit or they don't listen to the
people who do understand it, andtherefore they're not willing to
pay for it.
So I feel that's a big one too.
Like, okay, look, you're givena, you know, you're given a
(25:01):
budget of X, and then they comein and say, okay, look, I want
to do this, and this, and here'sthe money to do this.
And it's like, well, you wantthe Ferrari performance on a
Yugo budget.
Like, that's just not gonnawork.
Like I, you know, I can makesome things work, but.
You know, don't put me in thatposition where things are
constantly breaking and youknow, cuz you don't wanna put
(25:22):
the money towards it and, youknow, off we go.
And it's just a vicious cycle,right?
So, I think there's a lot ofthat.
I think there's a lot of placesout there that, that do that,
that expect the Ferrari, youknow, performance on the clown
car budget and that, that leadsto massive burnout.
I know a few people that justhave straight up and left their
(25:45):
place because it's like, look,I'm working with 10 year old
hardware and they just keep,we're just keep reviving this
stuff and it just works.
Oh, let's get us to the nextquarter.
Oh, get to the next quarter.
And that next quarter nevercomes.
It never ends until it ac, untilthat gear actually breaks and
there's no way forward.
Then you have a major outage,you're losing money by the
minute.
(26:06):
And then the sea level peopleare going, well, why do, what do
we pay you for?
This stuff's down all the time.
What do you want from me?
You give me parameters to workand this is what I can make
work.
You know what I mean?
So that's a big one.
The other one is, you know, poorleadership.
From a people perspective I'dlove, so out of those six out
(26:28):
six jobs in 10 years, I'd leftquite a few of them due to poor
management and, you know, notseeing the worth of their people
underneath them and only reallycaring about themselves.
So, I mean, that's just the waythe business game is played
nowadays.
But it is what it is.
And then you just, you know,then it's your prerogative to
move on and hope the next placeisn't like that.
(26:49):
So, poor leadership is a bigone.
Not knowing how to manage peopleis a huge one.
Like I've left jobs cuz peopledon't know how to manage people.
You have people of all walks oflife on your team, right?
Introverts, extroverts, hardworkers, just enough to get
buyers, you know, that kind ofthing.
And nine out of 10 managerscan't handle that.
(27:13):
They can't handle thosedifferent personalities.
That takes a massive undertakingto really understand what your
people are doing and how to getthe most outta your people.
And most mo, most managerscan't.
So that, that's a big one too.
You know, kind of, again,busting your hump and then, You
know, people on your team notbusting their hump, or at least
(27:37):
not at your level, and y'all getthe same raise at the end of the
year, or, you know, nothing'sever done about it.
And so it's like the groupproject, right?
One or two people do it, andfive or six people sit there and
you know, chat until class isover, right?
It's the same principle.
So that's a big one.
That's a burnout factory forsure.
(27:59):
Work overload that kind of goesinto the same thing, right?
That's a burnout, that, that's amajor red flag.
Toxic culture.
I can't tell you how manycultures I've been in that and
these businesses like to saythey have a great culture.
Most of the time their culturesucks.
It's terrible.
And piece of Friday is notgonna.
That culture, it just isn't.
(28:20):
Now when you're overworkingpeople for six, you know, 16
hours a day and you know, allthis stuff on their plate and,
you know, Friday pizza justdoesn't cut it.
So toxic, you know, culture aswell.
I've been a part, a couple ofthose.
I've been a part of one itwon't, I won't name it, but you
used to walk into the boss'soffice.
(28:41):
He, you say, okay, look, I havea good idea for X, Y, and Z.
He's yeah, it's a great idea.
Great idea.
And then he told you what youwant to hear.
He walked out, the next personwould walk in and he told that
person what they wanted to hear,and often it start, it, it was
conflicting information, so henever could quite, you know, he
(29:03):
was basically fooling everybodythat walked into that office and
just like, how long is this?
Sideshow, you know, clown showgonna go on.
So that's a big one.
The toxic culture is a big one.
Water cooler talk of, you know,this, that or whatever.
You know, that sort of thing.
And I think this one's true too.
This should be higher on thelist than what it is.
But at 15% comes into the lackof career growth.
(29:27):
I think that's probably closerto 20 or it should be anyway.
Cuz again it goes from thosepoor leaderships, right?
So you're you don't have acareer, you don't have a, a way
up, right?
There's no way to get promotedor no way to, you know,
whatever, because your directboss or supervisor is sort of in
your way, right?
So, yeah, so that's a big one.
(29:50):
So this is a couple, couple bigones on this list and just a
couple of percentages on whichone's the big ones.
So just Throwing that out thereas well.
I got kind of shift a little bitto fighting some of that tech
burnout I should say.
What, like some things you cando and some things I had to do.
Cuz I was the hamster on thewheel that never got off the
(30:10):
wheel.
I just went and went and wentuntil I eventually was like,
what am I doing?
I gotta get off this hamsterwheel.
I can't keep doing this.
Cuz I was, I literally wasburning out and talked to my
wife.
She was like, oh my God, this isinsane.
Most of that came around, it waswork related.
And the other half of that wascert studies.
I never got off the hamsterwheel for that either.
(30:33):
So it was working eight hours aday and then coming home and
study until 10 11 at night anddo it all over again and day in
and day out.
And you can only do that for solong before you really start to
feel the effects of that.
And it's not just you, it'sfamily related as well.
We didn't have kids at thattime.
But if you have kids, they'recertainly gonna notice it.
(30:53):
So I would definitely recommendfinding a balance on that.
So that's a that's a big one.
But that kind of leads into myfirst thing, right?
You have to set boundariesbetween home and work, right?
You know, and for those thatworked from home, from the
pandemic, that got a even alittle worse, those boundaries,
(31:15):
cuz they started to blur, right?
Cuz you worked at home and nowyour home is home, obviously.
So, just a couple of thingsthat, that I did.
And so.
Where I'm at now, they give us aseparate phone for work things.
But I've been in places wherethey do both.
You can put your email right onyour personal phone.
(31:36):
But I basically now just keep mywork phone downstairs if I'm not
working.
Or else I'd be checking every 10minutes when I'm upstairs.
Right.
And try to be with the family.
So, email messaging platforms,all that stuff.
Notifications, whatever ifyou're on your own personal
phone notifications for thatstuff go off on non-working
(31:57):
hours.
Right.
Like I said, I keep the, I keepmy phone down here in the
basement and I'm like, it'll bethere in the morning.
Right and, you know, usually theother part of that is you know,
I would set out of office emailsfor.
You know, for the off days orweekends or vacations, right?
You know, that, that helps withthe separation of boundaries,
(32:17):
right?
Set periods in my calendar toautomatically reject meetings.
So like for downtime, you know,things of that nature.
Again, if you're on call or youhave a change, you know, change
night, you know, most placeshave like a steady change window
whether that's Wednesday nightor Thursday night or whatever
period of time.
Then, you know, I've had a fewbosses say, you know what, yeah,
(32:40):
go and, you know, during theweek, just balance it out, you
know, kind of thing.
So if I was tied up with achange for four hours in that
week, I would, over the next,you know, couple of days, I
would then take four hours ofpersonal time back and do
whatever.
So I would, you know, for thoseperiods of time say, okay, I'm
gonna take an hour this day, twohours this day whatever.
(33:00):
For those periods of time I putmy calendar to reject anything
in those meetings.
So, If it's that important,they'll find another slot.
Right.
This is the big one too.
If you're like, you know, I'mfully remote now, like I only go
in when I have to.
Whether it's a meeting or alunch or, you know, something
goofy, it's a handful of times amonth if that.
(33:21):
If you're hybrid that kind ofthing I highly recommend setting
up a separate room for youroffice and where you're working.
And then don't go in that room,if you will, for like,
recreational activities.
Right.
Now depending on, you know, theway your layout is or your house
or whatever, that, that may beeasier said than done, but try
(33:42):
to not to be in that room whenyou're not working.
That, that's the main goalthere.
I guess, you know, what you cankind of go from, but yeah, I
would separate the, you know,separate the cool stuff from.
That office, cuz that's a workonly zone.
Right.
You know, the other thing too Ithought about from a, what you
(34:04):
can do to fight burnout is likeautomate what you can at your
job.
Right?
So especially me in the networkspace, automation has been real
big in the last couple of years.
I'm trying to learn moreautomation.
Not that I have a whole lot oftime for it, but I do try to
automate when I can.
And so that sort of takes outsome of the burnout of the
(34:26):
mundane tasks that you have todo all the time.
So I try to, I would sayautomation is your friend when
it comes to that thing.
Right.
When it comes to that sort ofthose repeatable tasks and that
takes a little bit more off yourshoulders as far as, oh, I gotta
do this stupid, you know,whatever it is.
So that gives you a moment tobreathe and sort of dial it back
(34:47):
in a little bit.
Cause you don't have to do thosetasks if you automate them.
So that's a, that's aninteresting one.
I'm trying to work on myself.
I would also say you like reachout to others, right?
It's an odd feeling when youfeel like you just exist to, to
work.
So if you feel that way, thenit's kind of hard to value
(35:09):
yourself outside of that.
So, you know, again, try to.
Reach out to people that areoutside of your work circle,
family, friends, et cetera.
That starts to play in the realyou space, real you being in
quotes.
Instead of just people justthinking about the work you
again, work you in, in, inquotes you know, but there's
(35:32):
always that time where if you'refeeling burnt out, you know, you
reach out to a doctor orcounselor psychologist
psychologist, et cetera, etcetera.
Mental health has really takentaken center stage in the last
couple of years, and they alllock the center house.
So, that can definitely play onpeople's psyches and moods.
So, you know, it's really commonso it helps to know that you're.
(35:53):
Alone in that space.
So I definitely some sort ofcounselor or psychologist or,
you know, something of thatnature would really help.
So, and lucky for me, there's atrained counselor, psychologist
right next door.
But him and I usually talk aboutnonsense BS over beers.
So it's not it's not a full,it's not a true psychologist
(36:16):
session, but it does help.
So I don't get over there asmuch as I used to before kids.
But every now and then, he Iring the bell and he answers.
So it's always a good time.
So shout out to Mike, my nextdoor neighbor.
So, yeah, and I would just say,you know, from a colleague
perspective you know, I wouldask, I, you know, ask for help
or simply talking to them aboutyour issues or problems is
(36:38):
probably not, you know, is.
If you get too much, it gets toomuch of a drag.
But every now and then, I thinkit's a good move.
Just say, Hey, you know, just,you know, shoot the shit or you
know, Hey, what do you thinkabout this?
Or am I overreacting about X orwhatever?
That kind of thing.
So, and I think that goes bothways, right?
So if you have a, if you have acolleague that you kind of trust
(36:59):
that you can bounce things offof, I think that really helps
with some of the psyche and theday-to-day grind.
Now this next one depends on howmuch of relationship you have
with him or her, but talk to theboss.
Right.
So, most of my supervisors orbosses I've had decent
relationships with.
There's one or two that I reallyjust, I really don't care for,
but most of them have beenpretty decent.
(37:21):
You know, but they don't knowyou're struggling until you un
like, until you tell them orunless you tell them.
Again, this whole mental healththing that's sort of thrust
itself in the front burner, it'sreally not a sign of weakness,
but it's, you know, saying, Hey,I need some help, or sign of
maturity, whatever you wannacall it.
(37:41):
You know, most bosses want youto succeed at you know, at your
job too.
Which is in their best interestto make sure that you're on the
up and up.
So, most of the bosses that I'vecome across don't mind having
the heart to heart.
So it's, that's an interestingmove over the last couple of
years that has really, you know,become pretty common.
So, you know, but I alsounderstand the fears on the
(38:03):
other side of that, right?
So it's, you know, it's notuncommon for employees to feel
that they're jeopardizing theirjobs, right?
By telling their boss they'renot doing so hot.
Right?
That's probably not the bestfeeling that you could have.
You know, But it's a lot moretrouble for you to burn out and
quit on them than just coming totell, just coming to talk to
(38:24):
them, right?
So I think there's balancethere.
You know, you know, if you getup and quit, then they're gonna
start the whole hiring processover again, putting out an ad,
interviewing people, spendmonths training them to, you
know, to do their jobs or getused to the department quirks
and whatever.
So there's definitely skin inthe game for your boss to make
sure that you're doing all rightand keep it on the straight and
(38:46):
arrow.
So I would recommend talking tothem and at least getting a feel
for them and see if they canhelp you out or whatever's
burning at you.
See if they can at least leadyou in the right direction or
put some of your fears to bed.
So it's an interesting one thereas well.
So, I mean, really in the grandscheme of things, right?
Making a few concessions, right?
To make sure you don't burn outis really in both your
(39:09):
interests, right?
That kind of thing for variousthings that I just mentioned.
So, you know, some of the thingsyou can kind of discuss, right,
is, you know, moving some ofyour tasks to other teammates or
maybe even outsourcing it,right?
Bringing in a contractor,whatever.
That, that's always an optiondepending on depending on
company structure and, you know,that sort of thing.
Change in deadlines if they canbe changed, right?
(39:30):
Change in deadlines to make surethat you're not, you know, super
overwhelmed.
Cuz if you have six projectsyou're working on, then they're
all within the same deadline,are all within the same month.
They're just like, ooh, that's,that is tight.
So, that's an option.
Again, reinforcing thoseboundaries, right?
So, people come to you lessoften, particularly in off
hours, right?
(39:51):
I've had that quite a bit wherepeople know like, you.
People that you interact withand you help consistently, they
know which ones are good ones inyour department and which ones
aren't.
So who do you think they'regonna go to?
And next time they have aproblem, they're gonna go, the
good ones, they're coming toyou.
So, and most of the time that'snot real process.
It's, you know, most of the timethey've gotta put in a ticket
(40:14):
and it eventually gets to youdepending on your role, right?
You may be a third line supportor whatever but people bypass
that and come right to you andchat you in teams or Slack or
whatever you use and saying,Hey, I need this.
And it's like, oh man, you know,like, I, you know, there's a
process here, blah, blah, blah.
So, yeah, just reinforcingboundaries.
Cuz if you let people if yougive people an inch, you're
(40:36):
gonna take a yard.
That's just nature, that's justhuman nature.
So, you always have to bereinforcing those boundaries.
So whether that's getting yoursupervisor involved to say, Hey,
This person reached out to medirectly.
This could have been handled bya lower level or whatever.
Then you know that, that's adiscussion for process and that
should be on your boss to takethat the rest of the way.
(40:58):
Right?
Change in roles andresponsibilities to, to put to
bed what isn't working for you.
Right?
So if that's doable you know,another one, another option is
taken paid time off to rest andrecharge, right?
So, you know, gimme a week atthe beach or, you know, whatever
it is.
That, that's how, that, that'salways a good one or an option
at least.
I think the last couple of yearshave been good with this,
(41:21):
especially in the IT space.
Just cause of the nature of thebeast, the flexible hours right.
So using flexible hours to workwhen you feel most productive or
functional, right?
So, case in point for me, youknow, I don't usually start
till.
Around nine till, you know, somedays I take the kids to the
babysitter and then I come backand take the dogs for a walk and
(41:45):
get them settled and they eattheir breakfast and all that
kind of stuff.
I'm usually not down here tillnine, sometimes nine 30.
But, you know, I'll either workthrough lunch or you know, or
like I said, the, our changewindow is a certain night of the
week.
if I'm working that change that,that night, then, you know, the
rest of the week I'm, you know,I go for walks or or after the
(42:06):
kids are in bed, I'll come downand, you know, hammer out a
thing or two depending on what'sgoing on.
Or if I don't, if I feel like I,I've been away from the desk for
too long that day, I usuallycome down at night and bang out
on a thing or two.
Cuz it's nice thing cuznobody's, nobody else is online.
So my teams isn't blowing up3000 times a minute for people
that need all kinds of shit.
(42:26):
Yeah, so that's kind of nice.
You can focus when you know youare working, when others aren't,
but it works for you, right?
Not necessarily, cuz you haveto, cuz you want to be down here
and doing things.
So, so the flexible hours thingis a big one as well.
So, the other one here givingyou more sort of autonomy or
recognition, meaningful workthat's gonna differ per company,
(42:50):
right?
So that, it just depends on theenvironment and the industry
that you're in.
And last one here is kind of, Ifeel like this is a hard one
because like everybody wants youto be everything all the time.
But I would ask for clearer jobexpectations.
Say, look, what do you expect ofme?
Right?
So, you know, There's only somany projects we can get done in
(43:12):
a year or only so many ticketsyou can resolve in a timely
manner or whatever the case maybe.
So I would ask the boss to say,Hey, you know, can you gimme a
little clearer expectations andit should not be answer the
phone whenever it rings.
Right?
That is not the correct answerhere.
So, but again, you know, youhave people internally come to
(43:36):
you and asking for all kinds ofstuff because you're the go-to
person.
You've helped them before andthey're not gonna stop.
So it's like, all right, youknow, how long do I put, how
long do I do that?
Or, you know, so you have tohave a clear job expectation to
kind of shrink those, I don'twanna say responsibilities, but
(43:58):
kind of, you know, clean up someof the chaos that leads to this
burnout.
So just be wary of that as well.
Nothing wrong asking for alittle clarity.
So, this is the big one.
I think this is the big one, andI'll wrap this up.
This is the last topic for thisone, but you have to find a
company that values you.
(44:19):
Right?
Let me say that again.
You have to find a company thatvalues you and, you know,
sometimes it's not you, it'sthem.
Right?
I think one of the biggest partsof burnout in tech is feeling
that you don't matter and you'rebeing treated unfairly.
And like we said, the work isjust, the work environment is
just toxic.
(44:40):
It just is.
There's a lot of places likethat just don't care.
You're just a number.
You're, you know, The minute youwalk out the door, your seats
not even gonna be cold, andthey're gonna have another body
in there doing the same shitthat you did.
Again, I've been in a coup acouple places like that, and I
understand that they have abusiness to run and in recent
(45:02):
years, it is just a cog on thewheel.
But it doesn't have to feel thatway.
Right?
If you brought up your issuesand nothing's going to change,
maybe it's time to investigateyour other options.
You know, the other part of thatis when you're sort of escaping
the prison, right?
Escaping a terrible job, it canbe tempting to take the first
(45:24):
offer you get, and that can be amistake cuz then you're just
leaving one shit show foranother.
And I've done it, I've done it.
I've, you know, I was sodesperate to get outta places.
I just took the first thing thatcame along and then I realized
it was just, Another shit showwith another coat of paint.
And I was gone in the next, youknow, in the next year.
(45:44):
Anyway.
You know, and this goes back towhat we talk about on this show
at Arias points all the time iswhen you're interviewing for a
job, you have to be interviewingthem as well, right?
You kind of have to get as muchinfo as you can to say, okay,
these, this place doesn't havethe same red flags as the other
(46:05):
place.
And I get it.
You can only tell so much froman interview, right?
And I think the first six monthsat your new place, probably that
honeymoon phase where you don'tknow any better.
But then as that slowly startsto wear off and you really start
to see some of the skeletonsthat this place, you know, that
your new place has, then it's amatter of can you live with
those skeletons or.
(46:25):
You know, is this another shitshow and you're looking for
another job in a year?
I think it, you know, youdefinitely have to be confident,
right?
And know what your happiness isworth.
Right?
I think that's a big one.
But you know, as you're goinginto these new roles, are you
trying to look for a new role?
Like trying to get as much infoon the company culture as you
(46:46):
can?
Are there like company events?
Are there happy hours?
You know, what's their attitudetowards overtime in flex hours
that we talked about?
What are your hours like?
Does it, you know, is there aset nine to 5, 8 30 to four 30,
whatever?
Does it include weekends orholidays, things of that nature?
How much holiday leave is there?
Right.
So here in the us depending onthe vertical or the space you're
(47:10):
in, Some places get moreholidays than others.
Currently working for the bankthat we're off every federal
holiday.
So, that, that tends to be morethan the private business.
So that, that's something tothink about as well.
You know, is it on Always oncall situation?
I've been at places that arealways on call cause you're the
guy or you're the gal and no oneelse knows what you know, which
(47:33):
is a blessing and a curse Iguess.
You know, so you're kind ofalways on call, right?
Crunch times, things of thatnature.
How many duties are you expectedto perform, right?
Is there, you know, the classicline, right?
Additional duties as needed,right?
Like, what does that even mean?
What does that include?
And I think.
This one may matter more to somepeople than others.
(47:57):
But do you believe in thatcompany's mission or product you
know, do they donate to charityor do they support various
causes?
Right.
How, you know, are you proud tosay I work for X?
Right.
That sort of thing.
How do they recognize theiremployees, if at all?
Right.
So, I've been in a few placesthat recognize their employees
quite well.
(48:17):
The best company culture that Iwas a part of before.
It got stale, at least to me wasa Volvo ip.
They had that startup feel tothem, so they worked hard and
played hard, you know, that kindof thing.
And every quarter they hadcompany quarterly meetings and
they did what they called rockstars.
(48:37):
So basically it was from everydepartment you picked the best.
You know, they had the bestperson chosen from every
department, and then they, theygot whatever was was offered
that.
So like for example I'm a bighockey guy, a big ice hockey guy
here in the States.
And so they had company seats tothe Philadelphia Flyers since
they were like a half houroutside of Philly.
(48:59):
So, So when I won the Rockstar acouple times, I always took the
flyers tickets cuz they had icelevel seats.
So like that was my reward,right.
For being in the rockstar of thequarter, whatever it was.
So, you know, or I think theother thing was like, like a
couple hundred buck gift card toAmazon and there was one or two
other things I couldn'tremember, but I always took the
hockey tickets cuz it was alwaysa great time.
(49:21):
So stuff like that, like how dothey, you know, how do they
recognize their employees, if atall?
Or like when I was at Venerable,they had this they had a thing
called Kago or Kajo, I forgetwhat it, something like that.
And basically it was a kudossystem.
Say, hey, Thanks, whoever forhelping me the other week, or
you really did, you reallypulled through with this
project, blah, blah, blah.
(49:42):
And then they would leave youlike a little review.
And then, so if you tallied upso many of those from your
either colleagues or from, youknow, people that you served in,
you know, in, in our case it wasinternal employees.
You tallied up so many of those,then they gave you an Amazon
gift card or they gave you, youknow, various, a visa a hundred
(50:04):
dollars visa or whatever it was.
But there was some sort ofmonetary, some gift there, so
that was cool too.
So, just a couple of placesthat, that I've done to have
that, you know, reward system ifyou will.
So yeah, so the employeerecognition is a big one to to
going on.
So, that was kind of it.
I think this was a good one.
I think burnout is quite, Thehot topic at the moment.
(50:26):
I think it's really gottenheightened over the last two and
a half to three years.
I definitely think it was worthtalking about and needed to
discuss what other people do orother things that really kind
of, you know, the warning signsthat you're, that you are, you
know, in, in that burnoutterritory, right?
(50:50):
That kind of thing.
So, I think that's it.
I think that was it.
Wow.
We were just it's one hour onthe dot, so till I get this
edited, it'll be probablysomewhere around 55 minutes or
so, depending on how far I wannaedit.
So, but no, I wanna thankeverybody for joining this week.
On the new episode, breakingDown a Bites, make sure you
visit our website,breakingbytespod.io, where you
(51:13):
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(51:35):
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(51:57):
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It just helps us tune the show alittle bit to what everybody
wants to listen to and keeps'emcoming back.
So again, I wanna thankeverybody for tuning in and I
hope to see everybody in nextweek.
We got a full boat next weekAlex and Kyle will be back.
So three Amigos will ride again.
(52:19):
Bye.
Hey everybody.
Welcome back to this week'sedition of Breaking Down the
Bites.
I'm your host, pat.
You can find me on Twitter at@layer8packet.
It's the number eight Kyle.
He's on Twitter at@danath256.
Alex isn't on Twitter or anysocial media, so if you wanna
get a hold of him, you canalways find the show on Twitter
(00:22):
and tweet us there at@breakinbytespod but none of
that matters this week cuz I amsolo by myself.
That's right.
Alex is in Disney on vacationand apparently he's having a
splendid time, so shout out tohim.
And Kyle is away at a familyfunction, so, cuz we didn't give
(00:42):
you one last week.
For Easter break, I figured Iwould do one by myself just to
keep the numbers going and wedon't wanna miss too many cuz
our numbers are slowly climbingand we're getting our name out
there.
So appreciate everybodylistening in.
So, don't forget to subscribe onyour platform of choice to our
(01:05):
social medias.
So Twitter, LinkedIn uh,Facebook we have a discord out
there pretty much anywhere.
We are there.
So, find your platform of choiceand come join us for some social
media fun.
So this week, like I said, Idon't know if we'll go the full
hour depending on how far thetopic goes and how long I wanna
(01:25):
talk.
So here we go.
But this week I figured I wouldtouch on something that I think
a lot of people struggle with.
I wanna say struggle atdifferent levels, right?
Some people handle it well, somepeople don't handle it well at
all.
And it just builds and builds.
And then obviously, you know,they blow up.
(01:48):
This week I wanted to talk abouttech burnout or just burnout in
general.
Right.
So, I think it's reallyaccelerated over the last two
years with the Covid pandemic.
I think uh, pressures anddeadlines, meeting deadlines,
projects, things of that naturereally can take a hold on some
folks depending on how theirbrain works and how they give
(02:09):
their job a hundred percent, ifyou will.
Most tech people I know give,you know, 120%.
It's just the way they're wired,right?
That's why, that's just most ofthe folks I've come across just
really just want to do a goodjob and you know, just keep the
wheel going, right?
So I think over the last coupleyears, this massive tech boom
that, that has happened, and nowwe're seeing the layoffs of
(02:31):
that.
So that can be stressful as wellfrom a burnout perspective not
knowing, you know, what your joblooks like long term.
And as I think AI sort of creepsin and automation starts to
really take, hold, strangle holdof some industries I think.
Tech is I still think tech is agreat field to get into, but
(02:52):
yeah, it has, it's definitelychanged.
And so, a lot of people don'tlike change.
Personally, I love change.
I ca I, I wanna change all thetime.
It's just the way I'm wired.
But I know a lot of tech peoplethat don't like change, they
wanna come in, do their job,they know their role and go
home, you know, that kind ofthing.
(03:13):
But if you don't change in thisindustry, I think you're in for
a long, hard road.
I really do.
I think just speaking for thenetwork field you know, me being
in it since high school, whichis actually this 20 years for
me, which is kind of weird tosay.
You know, I think it's.
It's hard for people to change.
(03:34):
I think it's hard for people toreally kind of go with the times
and, you know, back when I wasdoing Cisco Net Network Academy
in high school as part of avocational technical school we
were talking frame relay anddelsy and, you know, all kinds
of stuff and Varioustechnologies that aren't here
(03:55):
anymore, right?
Uh, Pl ls, I mean, that's stillhere, but it's way less than
what it used to be.
MPLS used to be everywhere.
It used to be the darling of theindustry at one point, and now
it's, it seems to be kind ofgoing away in, in the wake of
SDWAN and some other things thatare out there get VPN and, you
know, et cetera, et cetera.
(04:15):
So, but yeah, I mean, peoplejust have a hard time changing
with the times.
I, I say this all the time thatpeople want to get into tech.
I say You, you better likelearning because you're not
gonna sit around and, you know,dot with the same stuff, you
know, year in and year out.
You're eventually gonna be madeexpendable.
And, you know, that's whenpeople start to stress out.
(04:36):
So, tech burnout definitely isreal, you know, we've all seen
it.
I've seen it.
So we're just gonna take takethis time to.
Just a couple thoughts on youknow, any of the airways, I
almost said on paper, but we'regonna take a couple minutes here
to kind of talk about techburnout and obviously what it is
and you know, kind of combatingit, what we can kind of do to,
(04:57):
you know, keep going forward, etcetera, et cetera.
So, like I said, I think techburnout really has come on in
the last couple years with thepandemic, especially tech folks
you know, transferring home,right?
So, or working from home.
That can be stress in itself.
I really think, I think it canbe different.
Like if you're not used toworking by yourself or working
(05:17):
not in an office, I think thatcan really place some mind
tricks on people.
And then on the other hand,that, you know, the people
responsible for moving peoplehome, right?
That can be stressful as well.
When the pandemic hit, I wasworking for Rentokil, which is
now Rentokil Terminex and we hadto transfer, I don't know, it
(05:38):
was a couple thousand peoplehome.
Like, you know, we just had tomake sure that we had enough VPN
licenses and enough bandwidthand throughput to, to really,
you know, get all those peoplecoming through the same pipe.
So it wasn't too bad for us, butsome of those desk side guys and
making sure people had laptopsand, you know, and or
Chromebooks or whatever makingsure they had everything they
(06:01):
need to work at home monitorsand docking stations and, you
know, all kinds of stuff.
So we, you know, on the networkteam, we had it relatively easy
just to say, okay, look, youknow, we need to bump our
license account up to, you know,for, forget whatever it was.
And then you know, make sure wehad enough internet pipe.
And that was pretty much it.
Hey, here's, here you go.
But it was way more stressfulfor some others some other teams
(06:23):
that were closer to the userthan, you know, than we were.
So, I could definitely see thatbeing a stressful situation from
a tech perspective and makingsure that people had what they
needed to work and, you know,making sure that their bosses
were, you know, off their assesand, you know, that kinda thing.
Just keep the wheel going.
I feel like that today too isquite the mantra I like to use.
(06:47):
You know, tech guys used to be,you know, tech people, I should
say in today's politicallycorrect world.
They used to really be revered.
Right.
And I had a friend who I used toplay in a band with, and he was
a wicked harmonica player.
He's since passed the last yearhe passed.
And he was a tech guy for, Iforget where he was.
(07:09):
It was somewhere local here, pa.
But we, him and I used to shootthe shit about it, and he used
to be a revered tech guy, like,oh man, you could do that.
You know, that kind of thing.
And he was one of those OGs thatjust, he, it clicked for him and
he kind of got all the perksthat came with it.
Now the tech is a mainstay inevery, in the everyday world.
(07:29):
And, you know, you don't goanywhere without using a piece
of tech.
There's more people in it.
So it's kind of, I think it'skind of lost it's luster a
little bit.
It's not as quote unquotespecial to be a tech guy or a
tech person anymore.
That doesn't mean it's not agreat field.
I would do it all over again ina heartbeat.
Just mainly for the fact thatI'm not good at anything else.
(07:49):
But I definitely think it's lostluster in.
The respect it gains.
If anything, it's kind of gonethe other way.
I think it I think companies orbusinesses or users or whatever
they take advantage of tech now,I think.
I think it's you know, nobodyremembers you for the good
times, for the good things youdid.
You're only as good as your lastfuck up, really.
Right?
(08:09):
So, people remember that, right?
Because that caused an outage orcaused them extra work or an
inconvenience or some othernonsense.
So people remember when you messup, not necessarily all the good
you did before that, whetherthey know about it or not as a
moot point, you know, but, youknow, you could do, you could
kick off 10 perfect projects andcomplete them no problem.
(08:32):
And it saves money and it savestime or.
First thing you mess up when youhear about it, and your name is
tied to that.
So I think I think there's amajor shift in that in, in
persona attitude, I'm gonna callit.
So what have you done lately forme, you know, business.
So, keeping that in mind youknow, and it's a thankless job
(08:53):
like a lot of places or a lot ofindustries.
It's a thankless job.
Nobody calls when everything'sworking great, right?
The only time you get called iswhen something's broke, right?
So there's, and there's stressbuilt into that, right?
So, and we all know that someusers don't take kindly to tech
at all.
Some people are just, they justdon't get it.
(09:15):
They don't want to.
So you're kind of stuck doingthat.
So, just kind of talking outloud here, but.
But I think some, you have somesigns that are out there for
folks in tech that you're reallystarting to kind of feel that
burnout and maybe take a minuteand step back.
First one being extreme, likecynicism.
(09:38):
Yeah.
There's a lot of folks out therethat just automatic negative
feeling about their, you know,you know, just general cynicism,
right?
Nothing to do with appreciated.
Everything's terrible, it'sgonna change, et cetera, et
cetera.
I think it's a massive red flagfor burnout, right?
If somebody, if you or someoneyou know, and your team is.
(10:02):
Seeing, you know, work is aglass half empty sort of thing,
or completely out of water.
It's, you know, is that time toquestion a bigger issue, right?
So I think that totally is a bigred flag.
You know, cynicism comes in allforms, right?
You got the constant frustrationor you know, the snarky attitude
detachment.
(10:23):
Just a general lack of work Ishould say a lack of enjoyment
in work, right?
Yeah, dehumanizing othercolleagues or customers,
whatever you wanna call it,whether you serve an actual
client base or internalemployees, right?
So, you know, Sally deserves itor whatever, you know, that kind
of thing.
I just think it's a, you know,the negative Nancy connotation
(10:47):
it makes everyone else's workharder.
Right.
You're just oh man, I gotta putup with, you know, whoever I
gotta put up with that person inorder.
Or, oh man, I need him forsomething, but I really don't
want to go because he's justtough to work with, or he's a
real bear, or whatever.
I think that's a big one, right?
The other big one just a coupleoff the top of my head.
You're just chronically tired,right?
(11:08):
You're just exhausted all thetime.
You know, barely getting up inthe morning and, you know,
sipping at coffee and, you know,we all like coffee, right?
But, you know, you can pointthem out who they are, right?
They're just, they don't wannabe there and, you know, just all
the time.
Just tired, right?
So, you know, whether that'stired of various things, right?
(11:30):
The big project or you're alwayson call or stuff keeps going
down that you constantly gottafix that sort of thing.
You know, or you know, you'rejust tired all the time, right?
Even when the workday is done oryou come back from a holiday,
right?
You just, that person just seemsto continually just be tired and
(11:51):
not into it.
I think that could be a redflag.
So whether they have NoMo, youknow, no motivation or the
feeling that need to just keepon moving forward, moving on
that, that comes in differentflavors.
But yeah they can't concentrateor Like, oh my God, I can't wait
till the weekend and it's likeMonday at two o'clock.
You know, that kind of thing.
It's like, oh you've got a farway to go there, buddy.
(12:13):
Yeah, just no energy to beproductive, you know, at a
consistent level.
So, I think that's a big one.
Negative self-evaluation.
Oh man, this is a huge one.
In this industry there ismassive high performers, right?
I think there's people that arejust, they're just built
differently.
And personally working with Alexat two of these places, I think
(12:37):
he's just built differently.
His mind just works differentlythan most people's.
So he's definitely a highperformance, high drive kind of
guy.
See, he's not of a hearing.
He gets credit, right?
So, You know, but on the otherside of that, if you're working
with a bunch of high performers,you could always have that
feeling of, oh, I'm not doingenough.
Or, oh, you know, my, myperformance is not up to par
(13:01):
with theirs and things of thatnature.
And I always try to say, look,if you're the smartest guy in
the room, you're in the wrongroom.
But to a degree, you gotta giveyourself credit for being in
that room.
There's a lot of people won'teven be in the room with, you
know, with people smarter thanthem.
It's just the way they're built.
So, you know, and it's not afeeling of incompetency or you
(13:22):
know, or like you're notachieving anything.
It, they're, again, you're justkind of, you're built
differently when you have thatnegative self-worth, I guess.
Or if you get that working allthe time and getting nothing
done or everything you do iswrong, you know, that kind of
thing.
That could be a sign of, youknow, some burnout.
You know, you may need to kindof hang it up a little bit and
(13:44):
step back and recharge.
Again, just a couple things.
You know, the inadequate, youknow, inac feeling ina
inadequate, boy, that's amouthful in your role, right?
The work that you do feelschaotic and high pressured,
right?
And that's gonna vary onindustry of where you're at.
Big tech being one of them cuzthey're constantly innovating.
(14:06):
So I'm sure there's quite thechaotic environment there and
high pressure to get out thatnext version of chat.
G P T.
Yeah, I slipped it in there.
See that?
You're feeling like you're doingfar too much for too many
people.
Man, I get that all the time.
You're just like, man, now I gotmy job and now I gotta do this
person's job too.
You know, that kind of thing.
(14:27):
So, you get that quite a bit.
Feeling like your efforts maynot make a difference, right?
That's a part that's all part ofthat negative self-evaluation.
So just be wary of that.
That's quite quite common intoday's world.
And I also think social mediahas not helped with that
particular piece of it.
(14:48):
I don't think we celebrate the,not to say celebrate, but I
don't think we talk about thenegatives quite as much as all,
all you hear on social media.
It's a place of perfect, right?
So you see, hey, I did this, orHey, I passed this cert, or I
got this big project done, blah,blah, blah.
But what you don't see is.
You know, that project has beensitting around for six months
(15:08):
cuz you found three ways to doit the wrong way, you know, that
kind of thing.
So I don't think the negativegets talked about as much.
All you hear is the positives.
So the positives on social mediacan think that, you know, these
people are living in a perfectworld and you're just like, oh
man, here I am failing at life.
And these people are doing someawesome things.
So don't get discouraged bythat.
(15:29):
Social media is not a it's not ait's a not a morality post.
It's not a place to, you know,throw your marker up to say,
okay, look, I have to live up tothis person.
You know, that kind of thing.
So just be wary of that.
You know, there's far morepositive on social media than it
is, than is negative.
I think that's part of it.
I think you people start, haveto start talking about the
negative or else the positivedoesn't.
(15:51):
You know, doesn't really meanmuch, right?
You know, you have to, I don'twanna say celebrate your
failures, but you have to learnfrom your mistakes to get to the
top of the mountain, right?
You just don't climb Everest atthe first try.
You know, you take notes and youkeep going and eventually when
you do succeed, it feels thatmuch sweeter cuz you know, of
all the hiccups and stumbles yougot to get there.
(16:11):
So that's another big one.
Just a couple things to watchout for as well from a leader
perspective.
So, if you're managing peopleyou know, here's a couple of
things just from my ownexperiences and what I kind of
jotted down.
If you're seeing some of yourteammates or people that you're,
(16:33):
that report to you they'veincreased on the job accidents,
so human error, right?
So we've all done it.
I've done it more times than Icare to admit or count.
You know, it happens.
It just, it is what it is.
But it increased mistakes atwork and can be a red flag to
say, Hey, you know, let's checkin on this person to see what
(16:54):
the deal is.
If you have more turnover thanusual I think turnover is big in
today's world.
You know, there, there's variousreasons to that.
But if you are having moreturnover than you normally
would, people aren't staying forvery long.
Or you have multiple peopleleaving it, you know, within a
couple of months of each other,and it's just like, oh, okay,
let's take a time out here andsee if there's an underlying.
(17:16):
Speak, you know, coming from aguy who's had six jobs in 10
years, right?
And yes, I did count them beforeI recorded here.
So, that's true.
I've had six jobs in 10 years.
And most, you know, some of themwere due to, you know, things
outside of my control managementchanges above me or, you know,
whatever.
But some of them were just like,oh man, this is a dumpster fire.
I gotta get outta here, and thatkind of thing.
(17:38):
So just be on lookout for thatlower quality work from the
people that do report to you,right?
If they're just kind of mailingit in, or the the hot word now
is quiet, quitting, right?
So they're around, right?
You're giving'em a paycheck, butthey're just, they're doing just
enough keep keep you off theirback.
So, you know, just kind ofmailing it in, that kind of
thing.
Uptick in sick days, right?
(17:59):
Decreased productivity, poorcustomer service.
Just a couple of things Irattled off here.
So, like negativity spreadingthroughout the team, right?
That's another big one.
Lack of participa participation,et cetera, et cetera.
And I've had most of these onthis list just kind of throwing
things out on paper.
But you know, definitely the bigone for me is when the small
(18:20):
talk disappears, right?
Cause I'm a naturally apersonable guy.
I talk to my team quite a bityou know, and it's usually all
day long and sometimes they evenget sick of me.
They're just like, oh man, shutup.
I hope not, but maybe I don'tknow.
But when I've really had enoughof a place my, that, that small
talk just stops.
I just, I don't engage, I don'tparticipate.
I'm just like, you know what?
(18:41):
I just wanna do my time and gohome.
You know, that kind of thing.
And it's not necessarily becauseof the team.
It's just because I'm just fedup with, you know, what the job
is feeding me or whatever.
So yeah, the big one for me is,you know, you stop talking to
your team, small talk, you know,Hey, how was your weekend?
Or whatever.
That kind of thing.
(19:01):
That, that's a big one.
I guess we wanted to touch onwhy we have burnout, especially
in the tech sector.
And I think it's, I think it's acombination of things, right?
It all kind of wraps up to one,it wraps up to chronic stress,
right?
You're always stressed out aboutsomething, right?
White knuckled or whatever.
You know, but we're trying tolike, what's the cause and how
(19:25):
long has it been sort of goingon?
That's kind of, The realquestion lies, right?
I think there is a, like rightfrom the get-go, I think there's
a sink or swim mentality rightout right outta the gate, right?
Especially with folks cominginto the ranks or, you know, in
college or, you know, in somesort of STEM program that they
(19:49):
have.
So, and there's a statistic herethat I found that 40% of
students are leaving thoseprograms within the first,
within the four years because ofthat sink or swim mentality,
right?
So, you know, but it'sinteresting to, to see that, you
know, it's become a businessmodel of sorts in a lot of
(20:09):
industries and occupations.
You know, they're saying, Hey,you gotta give up time, you
gotta give up other things inyour life in order to do X.
Right?
So, that comes from, you know,slaving away at a nine to five
or, you know, your regular hoursat work, and then expected to
pick up the phone when it ringsafter hours, right?
So, case in point when I was atEvolve on their field operations
(20:33):
team our main responsibility wasinstalling voice, a hosted
voice.
So, and we were a, they were anational company at that point,
and one of their biggest clientsthat had multiple sites
throughout the states.
A lot of them were in Californiaor on West Coast time.
And so, you know, I would do myregular in-office.
(20:58):
You know, eight to eight 30 tofour 30 or nine to five,
whatever it was, and then gohome.
And if I had an install thatnight nobody puts a new phone
system in the middle of the day,right?
It's all at after hours.
So six o'clock, California timeis nine o'clock Eastern time.
So I was on the phone, you know,walking somebody through,
(21:19):
plugging it here, plugging inthere, plugging a phone, making
sure it registers, gets an ip,the whole deal, blah, blah,
blah.
You know, and that might havebeen a two hour process
depending on how well it wentthat night or not.
So, that was a big one.
You know, and the wife, most ofthe time, the wife went to bed.
You know, didn't see me till thenext morning.
(21:40):
So, you know, it's a familything too, right?
Your family has to understandwhat this job entails as well,
depending on how far the chainyou go.
And it seems to be a man, itmakes sense, right?
The further up the chain you go,the more the more demand and the
more sort of after hours you'redoing.
So, you know that, that's aninteresting one.
So again, the after hours sortof baked in, right?
(22:03):
But these companies in the lastcouple of years are just that's
expected.
So I've been at companies thatpay you on call and then some
companies don't at all, which, Imean, it is what it is, but it's
just, you know, you want thesepeople 24 7 and you know, not
really paying them.
(22:24):
What they're, you know, notaccounting that into their
paycheck.
So just, I'll throw that outthere.
But I think in terms of causesin the workplace themselves I
think the big ones are poorleadership, work overload.
We just kind of, I just kind oftalked about a toxic culture,
which is a huge one.
Toxic cultures are just, oh,they're such career killers lack
(22:47):
of career growth and aninsufficient reward, right?
I think that people look at thatas well.
Just say, Hey look I'm bustingmy hump for 16 hours a day, and.
You know, not getting a penny ornot getting any time off or, you
know, not balancing that outwith, you know, Hey, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna take a couple hoursduring the week to balance that
time.
You can't because if you're, youknow, if you're a one or two man
(23:11):
department, you know, you'releaving the other one on the
island, or there's nobody hereto, you know, nobody here to
write the ship if you're takingoff for a couple hours to
balance that time.
But just from a poll that I sawon online and it's an
interesting one.
The main source of employeeburnout at workplace workplaces
and a whopping 22% is poorleadership and unclear
(23:35):
direction.
Right.
You get that a lot.
I've seen that time and timeagain.
I feel like it's a theme intoday's places where they just.
You know, there's no cleardirection of where they want to
be in five years.
So if they don't have adirection, you can't plan for
that, right?
(23:56):
From an IT perspective in theperfect world that we don't live
in, right, I'll say that.
But in a perfect world,technically, the IT department
technically stays ahead of thecurve slash business for lack of
broader term.
Just enough, just slightly aheadof that curve.
(24:17):
So then if something drastichappens they buy a company or
suddenly sales goes through theroof you can absorb that, right?
And just keep moving.
But a lot of places basicallyjust see it as a cost center
which it is, don't get me wrong,it totally costs money to, to
run both from a technology and apeople perspective.
(24:40):
But but I don't think companiesrealize how much tech can do for
them cuz they don't understandit or they don't listen to the
people who do understand it, andtherefore they're not willing to
pay for it.
So I feel that's a big one too.
Like, okay, look, you're givena, you know, you're given a
(25:01):
budget of X, and then they comein and say, okay, look, I want
to do this, and this, and here'sthe money to do this.
And it's like, well, you wantthe Ferrari performance on a
Yugo budget.
Like, that's just not gonnawork.
Like I, you know, I can makesome things work, but.
You know, don't put me in thatposition where things are
constantly breaking and youknow, cuz you don't wanna put
(25:22):
the money towards it and, youknow, off we go.
And it's just a vicious cycle,right?
So, I think there's a lot ofthat.
I think there's a lot of placesout there that, that do that,
that expect the Ferrari, youknow, performance on the clown
car budget and that, that leadsto massive burnout.
I know a few people that justhave straight up and left their
(25:45):
place because it's like, look,I'm working with 10 year old
hardware and they just keep,we're just keep reviving this
stuff and it just works.
Oh, let's get us to the nextquarter.
Oh, get to the next quarter.
And that next quarter nevercomes.
It never ends until it ac, untilthat gear actually breaks and
there's no way forward.
Then you have a major outage,you're losing money by the
minute.
(26:06):
And then the sea level peopleare going, well, why do, what do
we pay you for?
This stuff's down all the time.
What do you want from me?
You give me parameters to workand this is what I can make
work.
You know what I mean?
So that's a big one.
The other one is, you know, poorleadership.
From a people perspective I'dlove, so out of those six out
(26:28):
six jobs in 10 years, I'd leftquite a few of them due to poor
management and, you know, notseeing the worth of their people
underneath them and only reallycaring about themselves.
So, I mean, that's just the waythe business game is played
nowadays.
But it is what it is.
And then you just, you know,then it's your prerogative to
move on and hope the next placeisn't like that.
(26:49):
So, poor leadership is a bigone.
Not knowing how to manage peopleis a huge one.
Like I've left jobs cuz peopledon't know how to manage people.
You have people of all walks oflife on your team, right?
Introverts, extroverts, hardworkers, just enough to get
buyers, you know, that kind ofthing.
And nine out of 10 managerscan't handle that.
(27:13):
They can't handle thosedifferent personalities.
That takes a massive undertakingto really understand what your
people are doing and how to getthe most outta your people.
And most mo, most managerscan't.
So that, that's a big one too.
You know, kind of, again,busting your hump and then, You
know, people on your team notbusting their hump, or at least
(27:37):
not at your level, and y'all getthe same raise at the end of the
year, or, you know, nothing'sever done about it.
And so it's like the groupproject, right?
One or two people do it, andfive or six people sit there and
you know, chat until class isover, right?
It's the same principle.
So that's a big one.
That's a burnout factory forsure.
(27:59):
Work overload that kind of goesinto the same thing, right?
That's a burnout, that, that's amajor red flag.
Toxic culture.
I can't tell you how manycultures I've been in that and
these businesses like to saythey have a great culture.
Most of the time their culturesucks.
It's terrible.
And piece of Friday is notgonna.
That culture, it just isn't.
(28:20):
Now when you're overworkingpeople for six, you know, 16
hours a day and you know, allthis stuff on their plate and,
you know, Friday pizza justdoesn't cut it.
So toxic, you know, culture aswell.
I've been a part, a couple ofthose.
I've been a part of one itwon't, I won't name it, but you
used to walk into the boss'soffice.
(28:41):
He, you say, okay, look, I havea good idea for X, Y, and Z.
He's yeah, it's a great idea.
Great idea.
And then he told you what youwant to hear.
He walked out, the next personwould walk in and he told that
person what they wanted to hear,and often it start, it, it was
conflicting information, so henever could quite, you know, he
(29:03):
was basically fooling everybodythat walked into that office and
just like, how long is this?
Sideshow, you know, clown showgonna go on.
So that's a big one.
The toxic culture is a big one.
Water cooler talk of, you know,this, that or whatever.
You know, that sort of thing.
And I think this one's true too.
This should be higher on thelist than what it is.
But at 15% comes into the lackof career growth.
(29:27):
I think that's probably closerto 20 or it should be anyway.
Cuz again it goes from thosepoor leaderships, right?
So you're you don't have acareer, you don't have a, a way
up, right?
There's no way to get promotedor no way to, you know,
whatever, because your directboss or supervisor is sort of in
your way, right?
So, yeah, so that's a big one.
(29:50):
So this is a couple, couple bigones on this list and just a
couple of percentages on whichone's the big ones.
So just Throwing that out thereas well.
I got kind of shift a little bitto fighting some of that tech
burnout I should say.
What, like some things you cando and some things I had to do.
Cuz I was the hamster on thewheel that never got off the
(30:10):
wheel.
I just went and went and wentuntil I eventually was like,
what am I doing?
I gotta get off this hamsterwheel.
I can't keep doing this.
Cuz I was, I literally wasburning out and talked to my
wife.
She was like, oh my God, this isinsane.
Most of that came around, it waswork related.
And the other half of that wascert studies.
I never got off the hamsterwheel for that either.
(30:33):
So it was working eight hours aday and then coming home and
study until 10 11 at night anddo it all over again and day in
and day out.
And you can only do that for solong before you really start to
feel the effects of that.
And it's not just you, it'sfamily related as well.
We didn't have kids at thattime.
But if you have kids, they'recertainly gonna notice it.
(30:53):
So I would definitely recommendfinding a balance on that.
So that's a that's a big one.
But that kind of leads into myfirst thing, right?
You have to set boundariesbetween home and work, right?
You know, and for those thatworked from home, from the
pandemic, that got a even alittle worse, those boundaries,
(31:15):
cuz they started to blur, right?
Cuz you worked at home and nowyour home is home, obviously.
So, just a couple of thingsthat, that I did.
And so.
Where I'm at now, they give us aseparate phone for work things.
But I've been in places wherethey do both.
You can put your email right onyour personal phone.
(31:36):
But I basically now just keep mywork phone downstairs if I'm not
working.
Or else I'd be checking every 10minutes when I'm upstairs.
Right.
And try to be with the family.
So, email messaging platforms,all that stuff.
Notifications, whatever ifyou're on your own personal
phone notifications for thatstuff go off on non-working
(31:57):
hours.
Right.
Like I said, I keep the, I keepmy phone down here in the
basement and I'm like, it'll bethere in the morning.
Right and, you know, usually theother part of that is you know,
I would set out of office emailsfor.
You know, for the off days orweekends or vacations, right?
You know, that, that helps withthe separation of boundaries,
(32:17):
right?
Set periods in my calendar toautomatically reject meetings.
So like for downtime, you know,things of that nature.
Again, if you're on call or youhave a change, you know, change
night, you know, most placeshave like a steady change window
whether that's Wednesday nightor Thursday night or whatever
period of time.
Then, you know, I've had a fewbosses say, you know what, yeah,
(32:40):
go and, you know, during theweek, just balance it out, you
know, kind of thing.
So if I was tied up with achange for four hours in that
week, I would, over the next,you know, couple of days, I
would then take four hours ofpersonal time back and do
whatever.
So I would, you know, for thoseperiods of time say, okay, I'm
gonna take an hour this day, twohours this day whatever.
(33:00):
For those periods of time I putmy calendar to reject anything
in those meetings.
So, If it's that important,they'll find another slot.
Right.
This is the big one too.
If you're like, you know, I'mfully remote now, like I only go
in when I have to.
Whether it's a meeting or alunch or, you know, something
goofy, it's a handful of times amonth if that.
(33:21):
If you're hybrid that kind ofthing I highly recommend setting
up a separate room for youroffice and where you're working.
And then don't go in that room,if you will, for like,
recreational activities.
Right.
Now depending on, you know, theway your layout is or your house
or whatever, that, that may beeasier said than done, but try
(33:42):
to not to be in that room whenyou're not working.
That, that's the main goalthere.
I guess, you know, what you cankind of go from, but yeah, I
would separate the, you know,separate the cool stuff from.
That office, cuz that's a workonly zone.
Right.
You know, the other thing too Ithought about from a, what you
(34:04):
can do to fight burnout is likeautomate what you can at your
job.
Right?
So especially me in the networkspace, automation has been real
big in the last couple of years.
I'm trying to learn moreautomation.
Not that I have a whole lot oftime for it, but I do try to
automate when I can.
And so that sort of takes outsome of the burnout of the
(34:26):
mundane tasks that you have todo all the time.
So I try to, I would sayautomation is your friend when
it comes to that thing.
Right.
When it comes to that sort ofthose repeatable tasks and that
takes a little bit more off yourshoulders as far as, oh, I gotta
do this stupid, you know,whatever it is.
So that gives you a moment tobreathe and sort of dial it back
(34:47):
in a little bit.
Cause you don't have to do thosetasks if you automate them.
So that's a, that's aninteresting one.
I'm trying to work on myself.
I would also say you like reachout to others, right?
It's an odd feeling when youfeel like you just exist to, to
work.
So if you feel that way, thenit's kind of hard to value
(35:09):
yourself outside of that.
So, you know, again, try to.
Reach out to people that areoutside of your work circle,
family, friends, et cetera.
That starts to play in the realyou space, real you being in
quotes.
Instead of just people justthinking about the work you
again, work you in, in, inquotes you know, but there's
(35:32):
always that time where if you'refeeling burnt out, you know, you
reach out to a doctor orcounselor psychologist
psychologist, et cetera, etcetera.
Mental health has really takentaken center stage in the last
couple of years, and they alllock the center house.
So, that can definitely play onpeople's psyches and moods.
So, you know, it's really commonso it helps to know that you're.
(35:53):
Alone in that space.
So I definitely some sort ofcounselor or psychologist or,
you know, something of thatnature would really help.
So, and lucky for me, there's atrained counselor, psychologist
right next door.
But him and I usually talk aboutnonsense BS over beers.
So it's not it's not a full,it's not a true psychologist
(36:16):
session, but it does help.
So I don't get over there asmuch as I used to before kids.
But every now and then, he Iring the bell and he answers.
So it's always a good time.
So shout out to Mike, my nextdoor neighbor.
So, yeah, and I would just say,you know, from a colleague
perspective you know, I wouldask, I, you know, ask for help
or simply talking to them aboutyour issues or problems is
(36:38):
probably not, you know, is.
If you get too much, it gets toomuch of a drag.
But every now and then, I thinkit's a good move.
Just say, Hey, you know, just,you know, shoot the shit or you
know, Hey, what do you thinkabout this?
Or am I overreacting about X orwhatever?
That kind of thing.
So, and I think that goes bothways, right?
So if you have a, if you have acolleague that you kind of trust
(36:59):
that you can bounce things offof, I think that really helps
with some of the psyche and theday-to-day grind.
Now this next one depends on howmuch of relationship you have
with him or her, but talk to theboss.
Right.
So, most of my supervisors orbosses I've had decent
relationships with.
There's one or two that I reallyjust, I really don't care for,
but most of them have beenpretty decent.
(37:21):
You know, but they don't knowyou're struggling until you un
like, until you tell them orunless you tell them.
Again, this whole mental healththing that's sort of thrust
itself in the front burner, it'sreally not a sign of weakness,
but it's, you know, saying, Hey,I need some help, or sign of
maturity, whatever you wannacall it.
(37:41):
You know, most bosses want youto succeed at you know, at your
job too.
Which is in their best interestto make sure that you're on the
up and up.
So, most of the bosses that I'vecome across don't mind having
the heart to heart.
So it's, that's an interestingmove over the last couple of
years that has really, you know,become pretty common.
So, you know, but I alsounderstand the fears on the
(38:03):
other side of that, right?
So it's, you know, it's notuncommon for employees to feel
that they're jeopardizing theirjobs, right?
By telling their boss they'renot doing so hot.
Right?
That's probably not the bestfeeling that you could have.
You know, But it's a lot moretrouble for you to burn out and
quit on them than just coming totell, just coming to talk to
(38:24):
them, right?
So I think there's balancethere.
You know, you know, if you getup and quit, then they're gonna
start the whole hiring processover again, putting out an ad,
interviewing people, spendmonths training them to, you
know, to do their jobs or getused to the department quirks
and whatever.
So there's definitely skin inthe game for your boss to make
sure that you're doing all rightand keep it on the straight and
(38:46):
arrow.
So I would recommend talking tothem and at least getting a feel
for them and see if they canhelp you out or whatever's
burning at you.
See if they can at least leadyou in the right direction or
put some of your fears to bed.
So it's an interesting one thereas well.
So, I mean, really in the grandscheme of things, right?
Making a few concessions, right?
To make sure you don't burn outis really in both your
(39:09):
interests, right?
That kind of thing for variousthings that I just mentioned.
So, you know, some of the thingsyou can kind of discuss, right,
is, you know, moving some ofyour tasks to other teammates or
maybe even outsourcing it,right?
Bringing in a contractor,whatever.
That, that's always an optiondepending on depending on
company structure and, you know,that sort of thing.
Change in deadlines if they canbe changed, right?
(39:30):
Change in deadlines to make surethat you're not, you know, super
overwhelmed.
Cuz if you have six projectsyou're working on, then they're
all within the same deadline,are all within the same month.
They're just like, ooh, that's,that is tight.
So, that's an option.
Again, reinforcing thoseboundaries, right?
So, people come to you lessoften, particularly in off
hours, right?
(39:51):
I've had that quite a bit wherepeople know like, you.
People that you interact withand you help consistently, they
know which ones are good ones inyour department and which ones
aren't.
So who do you think they'regonna go to?
And next time they have aproblem, they're gonna go, the
good ones, they're coming toyou.
So, and most of the time that'snot real process.
It's, you know, most of the timethey've gotta put in a ticket
(40:14):
and it eventually gets to youdepending on your role, right?
You may be a third line supportor whatever but people bypass
that and come right to you andchat you in teams or Slack or
whatever you use and saying,Hey, I need this.
And it's like, oh man, you know,like, I, you know, there's a
process here, blah, blah, blah.
So, yeah, just reinforcingboundaries.
Cuz if you let people if yougive people an inch, you're
(40:36):
gonna take a yard.
That's just nature, that's justhuman nature.
So, you always have to bereinforcing those boundaries.
So whether that's getting yoursupervisor involved to say, Hey,
This person reached out to medirectly.
This could have been handled bya lower level or whatever.
Then you know that, that's adiscussion for process and that
should be on your boss to takethat the rest of the way.
(40:58):
Right?
Change in roles andresponsibilities to, to put to
bed what isn't working for you.
Right?
So if that's doable you know,another one, another option is
taken paid time off to rest andrecharge, right?
So, you know, gimme a week atthe beach or, you know, whatever
it is.
That, that's how, that, that'salways a good one or an option
at least.
I think the last couple of yearshave been good with this,
(41:21):
especially in the IT space.
Just cause of the nature of thebeast, the flexible hours right.
So using flexible hours to workwhen you feel most productive or
functional, right?
So, case in point for me, youknow, I don't usually start
till.
Around nine till, you know, somedays I take the kids to the
babysitter and then I come backand take the dogs for a walk and
(41:45):
get them settled and they eattheir breakfast and all that
kind of stuff.
I'm usually not down here tillnine, sometimes nine 30.
But, you know, I'll either workthrough lunch or you know, or
like I said, the, our changewindow is a certain night of the
week.
if I'm working that change that,that night, then, you know, the
rest of the week I'm, you know,I go for walks or or after the
(42:06):
kids are in bed, I'll come downand, you know, hammer out a
thing or two depending on what'sgoing on.
Or if I don't, if I feel like I,I've been away from the desk for
too long that day, I usuallycome down at night and bang out
on a thing or two.
Cuz it's nice thing cuznobody's, nobody else is online.
So my teams isn't blowing up3000 times a minute for people
that need all kinds of shit.
(42:26):
Yeah, so that's kind of nice.
You can focus when you know youare working, when others aren't,
but it works for you, right?
Not necessarily, cuz you haveto, cuz you want to be down here
and doing things.
So, so the flexible hours thingis a big one as well.
So, the other one here givingyou more sort of autonomy or
recognition, meaningful workthat's gonna differ per company,
(42:50):
right?
So that, it just depends on theenvironment and the industry
that you're in.
And last one here is kind of, Ifeel like this is a hard one
because like everybody wants youto be everything all the time.
But I would ask for clearer jobexpectations.
Say, look, what do you expect ofme?
Right?
So, you know, There's only somany projects we can get done in
(43:12):
a year or only so many ticketsyou can resolve in a timely
manner or whatever the case maybe.
So I would ask the boss to say,Hey, you know, can you gimme a
little clearer expectations andit should not be answer the
phone whenever it rings.
Right?
That is not the correct answerhere.
So, but again, you know, youhave people internally come to
(43:36):
you and asking for all kinds ofstuff because you're the go-to
person.
You've helped them before andthey're not gonna stop.
So it's like, all right, youknow, how long do I put, how
long do I do that?
Or, you know, so you have tohave a clear job expectation to
kind of shrink those, I don'twanna say responsibilities, but
(43:58):
kind of, you know, clean up someof the chaos that leads to this
burnout.
So just be wary of that as well.
Nothing wrong asking for alittle clarity.
So, this is the big one.
I think this is the big one, andI'll wrap this up.
This is the last topic for thisone, but you have to find a
company that values you.
(44:19):
Right?
Let me say that again.
You have to find a company thatvalues you and, you know,
sometimes it's not you, it'sthem.
Right?
I think one of the biggest partsof burnout in tech is feeling
that you don't matter and you'rebeing treated unfairly.
And like we said, the work isjust, the work environment is
just toxic.
(44:40):
It just is.
There's a lot of places likethat just don't care.
You're just a number.
You're, you know, The minute youwalk out the door, your seats
not even gonna be cold, andthey're gonna have another body
in there doing the same shitthat you did.
Again, I've been in a coup acouple places like that, and I
understand that they have abusiness to run and in recent
(45:02):
years, it is just a cog on thewheel.
But it doesn't have to feel thatway.
Right?
If you brought up your issuesand nothing's going to change,
maybe it's time to investigateyour other options.
You know, the other part of thatis when you're sort of escaping
the prison, right?
Escaping a terrible job, it canbe tempting to take the first
(45:24):
offer you get, and that can be amistake cuz then you're just
leaving one shit show foranother.
And I've done it, I've done it.
I've, you know, I was sodesperate to get outta places.
I just took the first thing thatcame along and then I realized
it was just, Another shit showwith another coat of paint.
And I was gone in the next, youknow, in the next year.
(45:44):
Anyway.
You know, and this goes back towhat we talk about on this show
at Arias points all the time iswhen you're interviewing for a
job, you have to be interviewingthem as well, right?
You kind of have to get as muchinfo as you can to say, okay,
these, this place doesn't havethe same red flags as the other
(46:05):
place.
And I get it.
You can only tell so much froman interview, right?
And I think the first six monthsat your new place, probably that
honeymoon phase where you don'tknow any better.
But then as that slowly startsto wear off and you really start
to see some of the skeletonsthat this place, you know, that
your new place has, then it's amatter of can you live with
those skeletons or.
(46:25):
You know, is this another shitshow and you're looking for
another job in a year?
I think it, you know, youdefinitely have to be confident,
right?
And know what your happiness isworth.
Right?
I think that's a big one.
But you know, as you're goinginto these new roles, are you
trying to look for a new role?
Like trying to get as much infoon the company culture as you
(46:46):
can?
Are there like company events?
Are there happy hours?
You know, what's their attitudetowards overtime in flex hours
that we talked about?
What are your hours like?
Does it, you know, is there aset nine to 5, 8 30 to four 30,
whatever?
Does it include weekends orholidays, things of that nature?
How much holiday leave is there?
Right.
So here in the us depending onthe vertical or the space you're
(47:10):
in, Some places get moreholidays than others.
Currently working for the bankthat we're off every federal
holiday.
So, that, that tends to be morethan the private business.
So that, that's something tothink about as well.
You know, is it on Always oncall situation?
I've been at places that arealways on call cause you're the
guy or you're the gal and no oneelse knows what you know, which
(47:33):
is a blessing and a curse Iguess.
You know, so you're kind ofalways on call, right?
Crunch times, things of thatnature.
How many duties are you expectedto perform, right?
Is there, you know, the classicline, right?
Additional duties as needed,right?
Like, what does that even mean?
What does that include?
And I think.
This one may matter more to somepeople than others.
(47:57):
But do you believe in thatcompany's mission or product you
know, do they donate to charityor do they support various
causes?
Right.
How, you know, are you proud tosay I work for X?
Right.
That sort of thing.
How do they recognize theiremployees, if at all?
Right.
So, I've been in a few placesthat recognize their employees
quite well.
(48:17):
The best company culture that Iwas a part of before.
It got stale, at least to me wasa Volvo ip.
They had that startup feel tothem, so they worked hard and
played hard, you know, that kindof thing.
And every quarter they hadcompany quarterly meetings and
they did what they called rockstars.
(48:37):
So basically it was from everydepartment you picked the best.
You know, they had the bestperson chosen from every
department, and then they, theygot whatever was was offered
that.
So like for example I'm a bighockey guy, a big ice hockey guy
here in the States.
And so they had company seats tothe Philadelphia Flyers since
they were like a half houroutside of Philly.
(48:59):
So, So when I won the Rockstar acouple times, I always took the
flyers tickets cuz they had icelevel seats.
So like that was my reward,right.
For being in the rockstar of thequarter, whatever it was.
So, you know, or I think theother thing was like, like a
couple hundred buck gift card toAmazon and there was one or two
other things I couldn'tremember, but I always took the
hockey tickets cuz it was alwaysa great time.
(49:21):
So stuff like that, like how dothey, you know, how do they
recognize their employees, if atall?
Or like when I was at Venerable,they had this they had a thing
called Kago or Kajo, I forgetwhat it, something like that.
And basically it was a kudossystem.
Say, hey, Thanks, whoever forhelping me the other week, or
you really did, you reallypulled through with this
project, blah, blah, blah.
(49:42):
And then they would leave youlike a little review.
And then, so if you tallied upso many of those from your
either colleagues or from, youknow, people that you served in,
you know, in, in our case it wasinternal employees.
You tallied up so many of those,then they gave you an Amazon
gift card or they gave you, youknow, various, a visa a hundred
(50:04):
dollars visa or whatever it was.
But there was some sort ofmonetary, some gift there, so
that was cool too.
So, just a couple of placesthat, that I've done to have
that, you know, reward system ifyou will.
So yeah, so the employeerecognition is a big one to to
going on.
So, that was kind of it.
I think this was a good one.
I think burnout is quite, Thehot topic at the moment.
(50:26):
I think it's really gottenheightened over the last two and
a half to three years.
I definitely think it was worthtalking about and needed to
discuss what other people do orother things that really kind
of, you know, the warning signsthat you're, that you are, you
know, in, in that burnoutterritory, right?
(50:50):
That kind of thing.
So, I think that's it.
I think that was it.
Wow.
We were just it's one hour onthe dot, so till I get this
edited, it'll be probablysomewhere around 55 minutes or
so, depending on how far I wannaedit.
So, but no, I wanna thankeverybody for joining this week.
On the new episode, breakingDown a Bites, make sure you
visit our website,breakingbytespod.io, where you
(51:13):
can subscribe to the show onApple Podcasts, or Google
Podcasts or Spotify or whereveryou get your podcasts.
Or even just you need a planeRSS feed that is up there as
well, so you never miss a show.
If you could throw us a ratingon Apple Podcast, that would be
great.
Or simply tell a friend aboutthe show as well.
(51:35):
That would help us too.
Again, sure to follow us on allof our socials, right?
LinkedIn, Twitter Instagram,Facebook discord servers out
there.
The survey is still out there.
So if you like the show or wannasee something different or if
you hate the show or some sortof feedback, let us know.
We don't know who you are.
It's completely anonymous orjust Tally's tally's answers and
(51:57):
gives us pretty little graphsand.
And pie charts and all kinds ofstuff.
It just helps us tune the show alittle bit to what everybody
wants to listen to and keeps'emcoming back.
So again, I wanna thankeverybody for tuning in and I
hope to see everybody in nextweek.
We got a full boat next weekAlex and Kyle will be back.
So three Amigos will ride again.
(52:19):
Bye.
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