I was talking with my executive coach, Marcy, last week. I had come to our weekly session prepared with a few topics. We ended up talking mostly about delegating work.
I’ve been wrestling with the topic for a while. The question I posed to Marcy was this: Is there a difference between work that you have to delegate and work that you delegate because you don’t want to do it?
After talking through it, I admitted something to myself that I’ve been hiding for a while.
I started by giving examples of what I meant with that question.
So, work that I have to delegate includes a broad swath of things that I’m no good at. Stuff like managing a sales process, coming up with an inbound marketing strategy, running payroll, etc.
Work that I delegate because I don’t want to do it intersects with the above, but it contains a bunch of other things too. Things like fixing broken machines in production, diagnosing emergency issues, and building big new systems. These are things that I’m actually pretty good at. But I don’t want to do them anymore.
So I was sitting there and trying to explain myself to her. I could feel myself talking too much. I didn’t feel like I was being honest, but I didn’t know what I was holding back.
After politely listening for a while, she quietly said, “It sounds like you’re burned out”.
I quickly agreed. And then I paused, slightly aghast at what I just agreed to. Because I’d been avoiding admitting that to myself. Why?
I think it’s because it feels like admitting failure.
I’ve been on-call for effectively three years straight. At first, it was because I was the only person who had any idea how production worked (because I built it and there was nobody else). Then, even though we had more engineers, there were still systems that only I fully understood, so I’d get woken up pretty often.
And I liked it. I like feeling important and necessary for the success of Keen. I like feeling heroic (and believe me, there were days that really felt heroic).
Over the last year, though, it’s changed. There have been days where the personal sacrifice has not felt worth it to me.
I carried my laptop with me. Everywhere. Ask any engineer who’s been on-call in the last few years. I guarantee you they have a story about fixing a production issue from a bar (thanks, tethering!). If we ever have a drink together, ask me about Cassandra and the Christmas concert. ☺
I had to go through my phone and turn off all sounds / buzzes (except for phone calls, texts, and the PagerDuty app, because that’s how I knew if something was wrong). I still have a Pavlovian response to texts late at night. My stomach drops and I’m instantly anxious.
But Keen needed it from me. We wouldn’t be here today without that work. It’s important work.
So it feels like failure to say, “Never mind. Not only do I not want to do that work anymore — I can’t do that work anymore.”
But a funny thing seems to be happening. I feel a lot better now that I’ve admitted it to myself and others. I’ve put a plan together to stop doing that work. Our on-call team has stepped up in a huge way to support me.
Nobody’s mad at me or disappointed with me. It turns out the only person who was feeling bad about this was me.
So I admit it. I’m burned out on what has been a big part of my work at Keen so far.
That admission has saved me. Now I get to focus on other kinds of work. I’m excited.
Here’s to the next chapter.
