Burnt Out or Time to Move On?

Communities Blog
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TLDR: I can’t tell if I’m burnt out on my job, tech overall, or something else. What have you done to figure out which it is?

I just did my first day back after a over a week off and away from the screens (outside of a bit of Factorio… the factory must grow) and upon my return, while I felt de-stressed and relaxed, I wasn’t excited to return to my projects like in the past. Not even that “alright back to the grind” sort of mentality.

I finally spent yesterday, after months of not feeling like it, to get my media VM stacking working and functional and had a blast, but work today was just… draining.

I can’t tell if I’m just burnt out in general on tech as a whole or just my job. Even other tech jobs I thought about before no longer seem enticing.

I’m asking the hivemind of how they determined if it was time for a new job, time to take more breaks, or time to just walk away from working in tech? If you walked away from tech, what did general industry did you move to?

I love homelab and self hosting and general tinkering, but as of late have found no desire to bother outside of yesterday.

This isn’t meant to be “whoa is me” as I have a job that pays my bills, and for that I’m thankful. Nor am I looking to use the forum as a form of therapy, just curious as to if others have shared this experience and what routes they took to find out their answer.

I didn’t find anything similar already posted, but if someone is a bit better at the discourse search and finds something happy to remove this.

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I like larping as a handyman doing things like fixing my own plumbing and electrical problems. Pick up a hammer, learn a trade skill, it’s fun.

It’s weird. It’s simultaneously the most exciting and disappointing time to be alive, to be read in on technology, what’s happening and what people are doing.

“Unlocks” like fire and animal husbandry took a bit to get right. This will, too. In a lot of ways my intellectual curiosity is rekindled but preoccupation with matters of survival make it hard to stoke the excitement and suck up available attention resources.

I think this is something we’re all feeling of late.

I’m not sure what’s next.

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Maybe it’s just a feeling of general frustration with the way the world is headed & the inability to do anything about it. Makes it hard to get motivated for anything when the future looks so bleak.

Like Wendell said, it’s an exciting time for technology, yet it seems to get further out of reach for everyone as the weeks go by.

I left my sales job around 2020 & spent 3 years as a farmer after getting sick of upper management sucking at their jobs. Generally only hang around most places for a few years until my bullshit meter overflows or I don’t feel challenged or like i’m achieving anything important.

I find co-workers influence me staying long or short term quite a bit too. A fun team can make a shit job tolerable. A shit team can conversely make the best job a miserable experience.

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Try taking something away.

If that doesn’t work try swapping around the work flow if you can.

If those don’t work, then try and add something.

I’ve been in the same job for 21 years (not tech). It however has changed a lot over that time. When things get monotonous, I’ll change the work flow, or swap some responsibilities.

When I get board with my homelab, I’ll take a couple weeks or a month off. Plenty of family or house things to do.

Is it perfect, no. Does it help yes.

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I wasn’t expecting replies this fast, nor of this caliber of openness.

Wendell, I agree with your insights of handyman things making the brain go brrrrr. I recommend this for anyone reading the thread. I have a unique situation where most of those things I am not legally able to do unfortunately. I will think about this more deeply in regards to other areas I might be able to though, as I think this could be the mental “break” needed.

Mora, while I share in the “doomer” mindset to some degree, I find that fear of the unknown to be more exciting than terrifying. I left EMS after a 5 year career for tech, just after covid riding the wave of “i want to be remote making 100k a year!” wave. Always loved tech, just joined a bit late… Coworkers are probably the soul reason I have remained at this job. My coworkers are truly amazing and piss me off as well in the best ways possible. I think I’ve hit the “don’t feel challenged” but my experience and title is such a weird mismatch that finding the next thing is a bit odd, and taking a lower position isn’t as easy for the same reason.

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I think having a job/career where I have a bit more freedom or flexibility in my day to day is certainly something I’ll be looking for. Before I entered tech I certainly took the chances to switch things up even if I knew it would “suck” just because it was refreshing to get those new experiences and perspectives. Not to mention just breaking up the routine.

I certainly should remind myself homelab can just sit and do nothing as well.

Perfection is a myth, and your experience and insight is helpful. Thank you.

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I just went through this myself, although I’m in a non-tech field. This question should be asked more often by people everywhere.

I was struggling in my engineering career as a consultant. Wasn’t sure why. Just had very intermittent productivity and low numbers in terms of client billability rate. I knew I was suffering from brain fog regularly and couldn’t get my head into work. What I thought might be seasonal affective disorder expanded into all parts of the year. I even took a bunch of time and even more money to explore the possibility of ADHD. Nope. None of that fit.

My Manager proposed that I consider transitioning to part time work, which I considered and ultimately jumped at. It’s been a great move. Right away after the switch to a 30-hour week, I found that I just worked better, could focus better, and was getting just as much billable work done as I had been working full time! Not only that, but I also have a better personal life, have been exercising way more, and have been much more productive at completing things around the house and in my personal life.

Yes, it was a significant financial hit, but ultimately just meant I’ll have less saved for retirement this year. I expect the change to part time to be fruitful enough to earn me a promotion next year, so I suspect I’ll end up ahead in all things.

Ultimately, I think I had two problems: 1) I didn’t know how to turn off from work or just leave an unproductive day as-is and move on to life at 5pm, and 2) I constantly struggled with the constant grind of producing to support the hourly metrics while seeing that we as consultants just keep just about everything as inefficient as possible to support those hourly metrics and ignore the need to advance efficiencies, business ideas, etc. Going to part time allowed me to separate the production at work from the advancement that I now do outside of work. Put another way, I do billable work when clocked in and I work on things that I want to do to advance my career off the clock, such as studying for the PE Exam, business planning for a startup business idea, and finding better ways to organize my projects. It just works better for me despite the lower pay.

So getting down to brass tacks, you’re the only one who can answer your own question. It may be quick and easy or long and arduous to answer - it took me at least three years to figure out the basis of my issue. For you, it could be similar or it could be a mental health issue such as depression. Consider meeting with a Psychiatrist if you think that might be the case. However, based on your description, I’d first recommend picking up a copy of What Color is Your Parachute by Richard N. Bolles (there are quite a few editions throughout the years - it’s no problem to pick up an old one for cheap). It’s ostensibly about job hunting, but foundationally, it’s about knowing yourself better. An I will tell you that there has been no major advancement in my work or life that happened apart from the actions I took after coming to know more about myself.

I wish you all the best in getting back on track. Feel free to reach out with any questions.

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I am just-now entering into my 3rd year of my 6th career.

Today was the first day of 730-ish where I was not entirely excited to drop into the river. I would like to blame this on the Master’s Degree Machine, but that’s probably just my mini-me genuflecting to my ego.

One of the most important Lessons I try to share with my students is:

No matter that with which you decide to occupy yourself, if doing so doesn’t lead you to run-smiling into it every day, your better choice lies elsewhere.

This is not to say that I would assume all days to be equal; some doldrums are predicated less on the ocean, and more by the season.

As for “tech” (or any other personal joy-full activity): I have purposefully avoided tying such personal pleasures to my survival as such may ultimately become a chore.

It’s really no fun at all for a person to reach the point where they have to force themself to do something they enjoy shrugs

If I could, my counsel would be that you revel in the fact that you have decision-making opportunities: you’ll run for joy when the road forks, as there will be no path #3 :wink:

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Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m much help. I’m too young and I barely got my career before I got diagnosed with some health issues so I might not be much help in terms of the burnout, but from when I was working in IT beforehand and got “burnt out”.

You need to find a hobby that is not IT related, which is hard because if you’re like me most of the stuff you do at work is also stuff you enjoy doing at home ,depending on what you do in IT . For example, I started reading a lot more I looked for a topic I wanted to know more about and I read about it or a comic book or manga .

And there’s no shame of taking a bit of a demotion in IT to try something new unless financially you really need the amount you’re getting paid and you’re barely making it by with that then maybe hold off on that but there’s no shame in it.

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First of all, you are hundo-percent not alone. I feel this SO much. That media VM you talked about working on Sunday says the whole thing imo.

If you were actually burnt out on tech, poking configurations on your unpaid weekend would have felt like eating broken glass. Instead You had a blast because the problem isn’t the tech. The problem is who that tech is made to serve the second you clock in on Monday morning.

The reality of modern corporate tech is a system engineered by short sighted suits and rent seeking monopolies to create a digital version of serfdom. We are expected to burn our best cognitive years, health, and creativity to pump quarterly yield for faceless conglomerates, tech cartels, and institutional parasites that don’t give a damn about people or our planet.

You came from EMS. In that line of work the system was probably underfunded and broken, but your labor had undeniable, immediate human meaning. Trading that reality for that ticket life, corporate platitudes, and “optimizing shareholder value” for the 1% is guaranteed to break a person’s spirit. I personally don’t think it’s burnout, it’s more like your brain’s rejecting an extractive parasite.

If you walk away from tech entirely, they win. They keep the keys to the castle, and you surrender the single highest leverage skillset of our generation. My idea and the way I’ve been operating myself for the last couple of years, change the terms of engagement: Treat the day job as hostile extraction in reverse.

Stop looking for purpose, honor, or identity in corporate employment. It is an adversarial transaction. They exist to extract surplus value from your labor - your only objective is to extract their capital, benefits, and paid time with the absolute minimum spiritual investment possible. Give them their baseline competent output, close the laptop at 5:00 PM on the dot, and take their money to finance your own life. (and don’t for a second feel guilty about that mentality) Every dollar and hour you claw back from a faceless enterprise is a win.

Weaponize your competence and technical knowledge. If you want fulfillment, use that leverage to kick the ladder down to regular people. Strip the rent seeking subscriptions and bullshit out of your family and friends’ lives. Run self hosted services so the people you care about don’t have to pay monthly ransoms to Big Tech just to view photos or store files. Help regular folks break out of proprietary repair monopolies. You don’t have to break laws to run a quiet, effective resistance. Just use your brain to starve the corporate beast and build resilience for the people around you while spreading the word.

Home-labing really is a counter culture. In my opinion (and from my own experience) that media VM wasn’t just fun because you got it running. It felt good because nobody was charging you a monthly fee or harvesting your telemetry while you did it for yourself. Self hosting is an act of defiance against a world determined to make us own nothing and rent everything.

The corporate machine wants you feeling tired, isolated, and helpless so you keep paying into the ecosystem. Don’t let them kill your love for the craft just because they own the platform you’re contracted to. We are the many, they are the few - take what you can from them, and build something real with the rest. For people, by people.

Just my 4¢ (because… inflation)

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I like tech, troubleshooting and building things (or rather problem solving in general).

Unfortunately, doing that for a job with terrible timelines and management has left me burnt out. The things that used to excite me now evoke a sense of dread.

I’m on the job hunt, something more relaxed and focused on my core skillset would do me good.

Have your finances sorted and work on your hobbies. Socialization also helps a lot but it can only go so far.

I haven’t found a proper answer yet, maybe I will at some point in the future.

Wishing luck to everyone in the same boat.

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I like hammers and drills. Levels and squares.

I burned out in software dev ~4-5 years ago and quit. Did some time with something completely different; landscaping and construction building decks and fences, working outside in the sun. We build some nice things. I miss working outside in the sun. Unfortunately there was no money in it so I am back in tech now.

Turns out humans need sun. Sitting and staring a screen all day isn’t great.

I am doing better my second time around, under a different and more enjoyable project. I still have to be careful about burnout because programming is a passion and a hobby before it is a job. It’s just convenient I can also make money doing it.

Many days its a struggle tho, because I don’t really have energy to work on my projects after spending 8 hours staring a a screen at work, do I really want to stare at my own screen for another 2-4+ hours?

I am still struggling to find balance myself but I don’t think I’ll ever stop enjoying programming and tinkering with tech.

Mix it up, find balance. Spend time on other hobbies, or with friends. Consider picking up an instrument, music is rewarding.

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I’ve been burned out for a few years now also. Everyone else is right about you not at all being alone. I guess I started to question technology as a profession when it became clear to me that building stuff that was useful for average people was losing it’s place as a priority, but like Wendell said there’s survival to think about also, and I’m not so lucky as to be able to just walk away entirely.

I think the value of having more control over your own time and energy cannot be overstated. It sounds weird, but I would advise you to start something now even if you’re not entirely sure exactly what that’s going to be. If you really do feel like you’re done, then don’t wait for things to maybe get better. At the same time, I would not shy away from stretching out whatever plans you make and put things together slowly over the next few years. If you have time use it, and as @MadGoat said don’t be afraid to take back whatever pound of flesh you can get along the way.

If you start making widgets on the side, and find that you kinda hate it, then try making doodads instead. Even if making widgets doesn’t work out as a profession you might find yourself enjoying it more than you thought you would, and that’s a useful signal on its own.

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I get this feeling, too. I personally think there is something almost unfortunate about being a tech enthusiast and working in tech. I’m a senior network and security engineer, and over time I have started loathing trying new things at home, or hosting something new. I get all those jollies doing that for customers in the “real world”. I have tried to pivot my hobbies away from tech, and while this has helped a little, there is still that pang of rage when a family member or friend asks for help with something tech-related. I do that all day, on grander scales than “why is this app not working”, I don’t need that at home too.

I think it’s about balance. I have never managed to get the balance right, I feel imbalance has had a very negative effect on my life in general, but whomever said (paraphrasing) “do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” clearly didn’t consider the tech industry when they said that.

Perhaps you just need to (as I am trying now) make some clear boundaries between what is work and what is fun or what you do offline, like Wendell said really - do something completely different even.

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100% this. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been screaming into the void about the state of things, so it’s somewhat of a comfort to know I’m not the only one.

@Tannerdoestech I feel ya. I only recently got into working in tech. The same is true for my start as a “knowledge worker.” I started my career landscaping, construction, and then as a home theater tech. I could work 50+ hours no problem. Certainly I would get physically exhausted, but I was never mentally drained. In my ignorance, I looked at desk jobs and thought, “wow, that must be so easy and nice.” Little did I know, a desk job could be far more draining.

Unfortunately I can’t go back to that type of work, both for financial and medical reasons, but if I could I think I would. That type of work still satisfied my urge to solve problems/puzzles (try fishing a wire thru a house with minimal or no cutting holes into walls), but it also let my brain relax and wander. One thing I miss about that work was that I could listen to audiobooks and podcasts while I did my work. Today, I spend so much mental effort on work, that if I play a podcast, it’ll finish and I’ll have no idea what it was about. That’s a lot of mental strain, and doing that for 40, 50, or more hours a week is draining.

I love tech, and I actually enjoy many aspects of working in tech. MadGoat calls out one of the other issues that I struggle with (for work in general), which is I put too much of myself into my work. I see myself as “new” compared to nearly everyone else in all my jobs, so I always feel like I’m “catching up” which leads me to work more than I should.
I also care about my work, even tho more often than not, no one else does. Part of me knows I should let go, end my day “on time” and not care as much. Another part of me feels like doing so is “giving up the good fight.” I certainly have given up on some of my ideals when it comes to work, but there are some I feel like I might never let go of, even at the cost of my own sanity. I want to believe that pushing myself to be better will make others better. I have seen it work in some places I’ve worked, but I’ve also seen it evaporate at others. Personally, I tend to feel better if the workplace feels malleable, where I can influence things for the better, but that’s not necessarily likely the case for everyone. More likely/generally, MadGoat’s advice is the one to follow.

The side projects can feel more satisfactory bc you have the chance to take your time, learn, and explore without a concrete deadline. I learn best and the most with no constraints on timing; I’m"slow" to learn, but only bc I dive as deep as I can. Work is all about output, extracting value, and meeting deadlines. There’s a lot of lip service about “learning” and “growth” at many workplaces. Anyone who doesn’t believe that, I challenge you to tell your manager/supervisor that you’ll be taking half a day every week to explore our learn some new topic and see how they respond. Having more opportunities to learn and grow might also help remove the suck from the day to day grind; if you feel the same way about learning.

You’re not alone. We’re not alone. My advice would be to reflect on what things have made work more bearable for you in the past. Maybe you’ll find it’s the people. It could be the projects or workflows. Perhaps it’s something similar to what I look for at work (having influence). It could also be more opportunities to learn or grow, and honestly I think that’s a big one. I know my advice is to do a thing that’s going to add more mental load, but the goal is to have an answer (or an inkling of one) at the end that makes things better for you going forward.

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I don’t think this issue is only tech career related, so thank you for taking time out of your day for a response!

If I could go part time I think that could solve a lot of issues, but i wonder if I’d make good use of that time. Also glad to know that it was more of a journey rather than a “quick fix”

I’ve been trying to read more, so I’ll take What Color is Your Parachute as a sign…

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This has happened before, just seems to over the horizon for some reason.

I believe this is my going on 4th year in tech… and is my 3rd career. Each time I switched careers its been quite a change, car wash management → emt then paramedic → and now tech.

thank you for taking the time to respond and share your thoughts, I appreciate it.

Nailed it. Thankfully the day job is not sysadmin style work, which tends to be a lot of the homelab stuff, but it’s still same-same for sure. I’ve been debating getting into painting miniatures, but run into the “not creative” and also what the hell do I do with all of the ones I paint lol

I’ve been considering this more and more, just not sure what direction I’d like to go. As splifingate spoke to, I have not yet again found the “run-smiling” thing.

Best wishes on your health, and thanks for your thoughts!

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I have said more than once “so who’s dying?” when handed an “emergency task”, as the complaints of the corporate world simply do not register as valid. Probably some other stuff to unpack there at some point, but my world view is certainly different from my time in EMS.

I try and limit my personal attachment to the job, but when opinions on structural things (such as what SIEM to run, y’all ever heard of Gurucul before?) are ignored repeatedly, then resulting in either more work, or just a bad experience, I feel compelled to “try harder” so that my job doesn’t continue to get worse. Probably a sign to leave, but not like the market is great.

Certainly have been trying to keep this mentality, a co-worker of mine is the embodiment of it and I aspire to get my brain to accept that.

I have done this and it’s a blast! I found some dell tower servers and picked them up for cheap, cleaned them up and added some of the missing parts and got them to some friends for starting and furthering their self-hosting journeys.

Getting what you want without getting fucked by the world feels like cheat code in this day and age.

Thank you for your 2¢ 4¢

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As the old saying goes: it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life.

I’ve felt the way you feel many times. I recently reinvigorated myself just this year. For me, hobbies have never been enough. I need to be building toward something to get a real sense of accomplishment, and that means there has to be a certain degree of utility to what I”m doing. Sometimes it’s with my hands, sometimes it’s with my mind. Sometimes it’s both. I’ve done a wide array of things and I’ve learned that it’s usually not what I initially think it is, and what gets me moving again is something… unexpected. I have to explore and try new things to find the next thing that will do it for me.

So I’ve learned, through these iterations, it’s best not to wallow in the feeling and try to figure out why or rationalize a plan or a move forward. Instead, I plot a direction and a plan to move in that direction as quickly as possible. It’s always clear in hindsight. It’s messy to act without clear steps, but rewards are in ambiguity if you’re willing to walk into grey areas. In that hindsight, it’s faster and actually less convoluted than sitting on your current position and trying to figure it out in a cerebral way. So I flip the table instead.

I can’t advise it for everyone, but it is the quickest way to self-actualization. Kind of like this:

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a2vQ0G9_700b640×1021 99.6 KB

If you’d prefer, I can solve all your problems for the low low price of 3 easy payments of $699.96.

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This is the 5th time in recent weeks that I’ve been told to pick up an instrument. I did percussion and dabbled with keys, maybe it’s time to get a keyboard.

I really miss what I was doing in my first full time tech job. Main “IT support” person for a small design and fabrication firm. Got to solve a lot of interesting problems that were more along the lines of “hey can we do -insert some wild but plausible thing-” and then I got paid to go gather that info, figure pricing, do some small demos, and then build whatever they decided on. In my searches I haven’t found many “solution finder” type of roles, at least not without being principal architect type of thing.

I don’t think most of us will, as passion tends to win over logic. I certainly should try to be more mindful of the balance.

Holy shit does this resonate.

This ebs and flows at the day job. I’ve gotten some great QOL things approved and built, and then in the next breath say “hey this is a bad idea” and they run with it, only realizing too late the warning. It’s whiplash.

This is why I left that job I talk about above. There was no path to “level up”, and while I realize you can’t always have promotions and growth all the time, stagnation in the workplace kills my brain.

thank you all for your thoughts and taking the time to respond.

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