This happened to me after the company I was working for was acquired by a much larger one. The pandemic, working from home, the constant internet feedback loop, coupled with little meaningful or enriching work caused me to resent my job in secret all while being promoted and constantly praised by my superiors as doing a great job. The most depressing days were doing nothing at work only to log off and do the same thing in my personal time - nothing. Benefits and pay (I call the golden handcuffs) persuaded me to stay at least a year later than I should have. Quitting my job for a company that does impactful and meaningful work for less money and benefits has been super freeing and my love for computers and thirst for knowledge returned almost instantly. Sometimes you get so focused on optimizing for the most comfortable job that gives you the best return on your time that you lose site completely on your happiness.
One of my favorite HN discussions on burnout pointed out the prevailing form of burnout that arises from relentless overworking and burnout are rooted in the same cause: when effort becomes decoupled from reward:
> What causes burnout is if the effort-reward cycle misses (either repeatedly for small efforts, or if you put in a lot of effort and have a categorical miss)
> Reward could be anything. The feeling of a job well done (easy to miss if the project is a failure, or if management pivots), it could be the expectation of career advancement, it could be soft recognition by peers... And is dependent on the individual and project. You could even have an outward success and a pay raise but if you wanted your peers to love you and they didn't.... Burnout. You could even have an easy and unpressured job and burn out if it's not providing the rewards you expect.
> In any case the disconnect between effort and reward teaches your brain to associate effort with failure and the fact that the common. "take a break" advice failed for you should not be surprising, because I think that doesn't work in general: it doesn't reassociate effort with expected reward.
That's really interesting. Thank you for sharing. It certainly works as an explanation of my own experience. It suggests the cure is to spend a while doing things on a scale too small to fail, recalibrating one's sense of connection to output, and growing from there. The challenge might be finding a task small enough that success is very probable, which is simultaneously large enough that one cares whether it is accomplished.
> Luckily, there are a few proactive steps you can take to energize yourself without walking out of your job....she recommends creating “momentum” by shaking things up in your routine and making a list of small, affordable and practical things you can do to deviate from your norms.
It seems very good advice, but the article got me lost with the example.
> Twenty-three-year-old Katie did that and then some, quitting her office job during the pandemic when she couldn’t take the boredom any longer. ... Now, she’s working for herself as a travel blogger...
It is the exact opposite of the advice.
Boredom is a very interesting subject but the article is quite short.
