NSSpain’16: “Burnout” Lightning Talk

by Marin Todorov

I gave a rather impromptu lightning talk at NSSpain’16. Many people who haven’t been at that conference have asked me if they could see it too. Since it was just a 5min talk I thought it’d make for a nice short read. I used the original slide images and my speaker notes. So here it goes…

Most people think burnout happens like this…

Your colleague works, works, works, and then they work some more to meet that impossible deadline, and then one day out of the blue:

Bang! They are totally burned out. Nada. Zilch… A straight line on the machine: PEEEEEP! You never hear from them because they’re done.

But that’s not how it happens

Burnout isn’t only a work related issue, it is a type of psychological stress and it has very similar symptoms to depression. In fact, burnout comes out of the inability to effectively cope with the amount of stress you experience.

Everyone’s taking daily doses of stress, and in small amounts, it can be healthy. But at a certain point when stress keeps building up and overwhelms what you can cope with, that’s when you’re heading for a burnout.

And it can be any kind of stress — work related, something in your private life, or just something else…

The first type of burnout I’d like to mention is “occupational burnout”. You get creative and motivated, you work and work and work... As long as you cope with the related stress — you deliver amazing results!

And you keep delivering because you are a self-starter. You keep running as hard as you can towards that deadline. And because your manager is creatively motivating you, you pull through and keep converting specs to code …

At the point when people start saying you’re amazing because you manage to get an inhuman amount of work done, you might start missing some deadlines. Not suddenly — just sometimes; and not by a lot — just by little.

You can’t really realize this yourself — but by the time you notice anything was wrong you have a huge clogged task queue and find yourself unable to pick tasks and complete them.

And this keeps happening until a point when you lose all motivation to do anything because you just feel unable to complete work tasks or become indifferent to working.

You still might be able to deliver one thing or another every now and again, you might finish something on time, but it’s nothing like what’s expected of you.

The second type of burnout you might get into has nothing to do with work.

It’s just high amounts of daily stress that at some point you find yourself unable to cope with. People often get a burnout when they have small kids at home, like twins or triplets — it’s just too much stress. You manage up to a point but there might come a moment when you simply can’t keep going on.

Losing a parent is a devastating event in your life that also might lead to a burnout. The time that builds up to the end, the funeral, and all the ways that this event makes you question everything, life, and all around you would generate an immense amount of stress.

A failed pregnancy, being robbed, being betrayed, could all be an event that continuously builds up your daily stress levels up to a point you can’t cope with.

And a third type that’s is somewhat difficult to explain might come for no reason at all…

You might get sick for a while and simply stay home more than usual. You might move to a different city and start spending much more time by yourself. You might have a little less free time and stop doing sports…

And the scary thing is — it’s VERY difficult to FIND A WAY OUT of a burnout on your own.

So who can help you out?

Is it your employer? I doubt that.

Is the state gonna take care of you? Why?

Your friends, family, and teammates are the ones who deeply care about you. These are the people you are connected to on a personal level. And you should care the same way about them too.

If you see a friend or a teammate starting to struggle, you should go and ask them if anything was wrong. If they want to talk about things over a drink or during a walk in the park.

It’s … VERY … important … you do that.

They might not know anything was wrong before you asked and talked to them.

Then send them to rest.

Send your colleague home. Or start doing the chores of your spouse. Give them a break.

If you see them struggle — start paying them a little more attention. Have you told them they looked good recently? Buy them a present just because… or take a trip together!

Eventually, it’s gonna be fine. Don’t worry!

But you can prevent yourself or your inner circle from tough times if you’re keeping an eye on them.

When you do, they’ll do that for you too.

THE END

This is not a medical advice, if you are not feeling well seek professional help.

PS: You might be asking if that talk was really not planned how come I had these gorgeous illustrations to go with it?

I and my friend Nikolay (Underplot Apps) have just released a bunch of iMessage Sticker Packs so I just grabbed few stickers and used them for my talk :)

We both would be very grateful if you check them out and let us know if you like them too: Tomo Chan (the stickers from the Burnout talk) and a discounted bundle with more characters.

Thank you.