burnout jobs

There’s no sense in glorifying the suffering that comes along with self-sacrifice in the workplace. And let me say upfront that self-sacrifice and hard work are not the same thing. You should definitely work hard to get better at whatever it is that you do — the long-term rewards that come from applying focus and learning over a long period of time are large, and lifelong.

When I talk about suffering and self-sacrifice in the workplace I’m talking about the kind of environment where your best is never enough, where fear and shame is used to motivate instead of caring and coaching, and where time to spend with your friends and family are questioned as if there could be nothing more important in life than work.

If you work at a place that rewards suffering, then question it. If you see that people who self-sacrifice repeatedly are disproportionally rewarded for this behavior, be aware that it’s unlikely that any amount of discussion around how unhealthy this might be over the long term is likely to change the culture anytime soon. It’s more likely that this aspect of the environment reflects a view from leadership that values immediate output over long-term capacity growth, and a fundamental belief that people are interchangeable like parts in a machine, rather than unique and expandable in their capabilities. This sort of environment is also likely to result in people burning out, followed by another generation of employees behind them willing to do it all over again, precisely because the self-sacrifice behavior is what the culture has been designed to reward.

If you believe you’re in an environment that is designed to encourage self-sacrifice over health and teamwork, what should you do? Well, I think you should still work hard and do you’re best to get better at your job, but I won’t tell you that suffering along the way is some kind of virtue — it isn’t. The reason I’d still encourage you to work hard regardless is because the fastest way to go from where you are to at least a place that’s at least incrementally closer to where you want to be, is to accomplish as much as you can in your current job, then use those accomplishments to improve your resume, and then start looking for a new gig.

Without making the best of the situation you’re in, you might find that moving from your current situation to a better one might be very difficult. From there will follow feelings of being trapped, and from there, definitely will come burnout.