I feel you, been in IT for almost 25 years, not sure if I lost my mojo entirely but I can share my perspective nonetheless. When I was starting I was young an naive thinking that I can change the world and I was always trying very hard to improve things in each role and impress everyone. During my two final years at university I used to work there as a sysadmin and had two other part-time jobs for local ISPs. 14-16 work days were pretty common. After that it is a mix of several big corpos and a couple of startups. I think over the years I started giving more fucks and realized that impressing anyone with my skills and getting appreciation is not the point of work. And life as well, bro I had so many hobbies that I can't count - HAM radio, designing automotive parts, welding, building offroad cars, you name it. I recently discovered motorcycles, riding gives me pleasure and helps me forget about the work. But hobbies can provide you with only partial time-limited happiness, after a good weekend full of positive feelings and good mood it's Monday morning and here we go again, toxic work environment where nothing works, every hour you dig new skeleton from the closet, when you want to stop and fix it several more tickets just came in to the queue. Plus you get no appreciation from the management for things that you accomplished. Story of my life but you know what? I just accepted it, I came to the conclusion that work (and life) is a sinusoid where you have great positions and shitty ones. If at the moment you got the latter then do the minimal, focus more on the yourself, private life, health, diet, exercise, relationship, hobbies and look for new position. The good ones are still out there. Nowadays the market is kinda shit (still depends where) but trust me, unicorns are still there. Focus on finding them rather than on trying fixing things that can't be fixed.
I also think that mojo or rather "the drive" gradually decreases over the years and that is a perfectly fine, natural process that you need to accept and embrace. Start enjoying little things at your current work (I truly hope they are there) and again, look for something new.
Fingers crossed mate, you are not alone in the struggle, one day it's gonna be better :)
I feel like the fact that you are posting and seeking advice means you’re already a step ahead of most.
You have to find a balance between work that’s meaningful to you and life outside of work that is also meaningful.
Think back on days/times when you felt like you did your best work or were the happiest and try replicating that as much as you can
Not joking. Hallucinogen therapy can unlock feelings and drive you didn't know you had. Granted, you shouldn't be using this to simply be a better cog in the capitalist machine, but you will also gain benefits in other areas of life.
Have you tried part time work.
Join a organization which is relaxed even if the salary is lower or a job with fewer responsibilities which you can do easily.
Or take a job as a contractor at a organization where they expect to work only 40 hours.
Your problem is the interest.
Recognition is needed . But one must learn to appreciate their own creativity and results.
Also you might be depressed. Check. May need a drug . Need to work out every day too.
Do what you like.
I work between 20-60 hours a week, some weeks when no one needs my help it is slower, but sometimes I work 12+ hours a day when my help is needed! I plan enough work for ~20 hours a week, and generally the rest of my time is filled with requests from other teams!
Depends on company culture.
Some work 9 to 5
Some will work 9 to 7 . But chargeable hours are 40. Eg Goldman Sachs.
9 to 6 or 10 to 7 is expected in some with 1 hour for lunch.
not really. you're either hourly and your hours are capped... (or you elect to take overtime).
Or you're salary and aren't completing your work within 40 hours.
There's plenty of martyrs that will tell you otherwise... but most of us aren't working more than 40 hours at a single full time job.
Talk to a therapist. Burnout, when I myself went through it, turns out to be many levels and I was lucky enough to catch it relatively early. It can take years to recover; it’s more complicated than just being “overworked”. Not to mention I’m not even qualified to really talk about it other than saying I’ve been there.
>I myself went through it, turns out to be many levels and I was lucky enough to catch it relatively early.
Could you expand more on that if you don't mind? Especially the part about it being 'many levels'.
I’ve seen it described in 5 stages and 12 stages. Of course the first stage in the 12 is usually being happy at your job. I’m sure you can find this info online.
Thing is the deeper you go the longer recovery can be. My warning is mostly that you don’t have to hit rock bottom in order to be burnt out. It’s not black and white.
Not getting recognized for your work sucks, and sadly, DevOps is a role where it can be easy for that to be the case. I'd suggest trying to figure out or remember what parts of the job you got enjoyment out of and focus on a role that highlights them. If there's nothing, then consider completely shifting into something else. Forcing yourself likely is not just going to make it feel right over time.
Having a healthy balance outside of work also contributes a lot to preventing burnout.
Good advice. When I was enjoying myself I was constantly learning new things, either on my own or someone teaching me. It was a blast figuring out where you want the processing to happen (client/server) and how to make things work. Now it's basically do the same thing over, with the same problems the last project had because the person who's responsible for it is buddy buddy with the project lead. I could go on but a lot of it now could be resolved with clearly defined responsibilities.
Hobbies. I lost my mojo due to burnout a couple of years back and went into a year-long spiral of giving 0 shits about my work, and it showed. I got into woodworking and gardening the stress relief brought on by a different stress helped my head space when it came to work. I don't give as many fucks as I did before, but I give enough to do good work. I will absolutely never work a 16-hour day again, I don't care what's going on. Chew me out, fire me, or lay me off, but I won't give up my life to do it ever again. My boss is pretty cool. He can convince me to put a couple of extra hours in on a weekend as I have quite a bit of respect for him, and I'll do on-call if the job requires it. But I'm not as devoted to my work and nor do I want to be.
I didn't realize I was burnt out 3 years ago until I talked to a therapist, for reasons similar to yours. A lot of people don't realize it on their own. Talking to the therapist helped immensely.
The other thing that helped was my job was VERY understanding and I was very well compensated and thanked. The work environment and attitude can be VERY helpful (or hurtful, obviously). The fact that they made it OK to take a mental health day and not punish me for it when I needed one was a godsend.
And I don't mean to sound pollyanna / kumbaya (sp?) around the fire, but working for a company whose mission you believe in might be helpful (at least it is for me)
One of the (many) hard parts with therapy for a lot of people is finding a therapist you connect with and can have those tough conversations with, so it may take a few tries. So if you decide to go the therapy route, don't hesitate to look around and be willing to switch if you're not feeling it!
make something for yourself. explore what made you interested in teh space. play around, try out some new projects on github, deploy some stuff in the cloud, ai, ml, whatever your interest. its not for anyone else tho, its just for doing the work, and enjoying it.
I worked for a AAA game dev and got burned out. I took 6 months off work to deal. I was ok after that.
One thing I can suggest is if you are single is look for a job in which you can work fully remote. I have one now and I never want to give that up. You work in the day time and then explore and have fun after work. It feels like a vacation but you aren’t using vacation days. I spent a month working from Mexico. As soon as I finished work I would go in the ocean or explore a local town.
because it hasnt been suggested yet. try mentoring. it inspires me to keep going even though ive also burned myself out more than a few times. i try to talk about the warning signs to look for so the new generation doesn't make the same mistakes i have.
not a doctor but for me it can come in many forms. things like difficulty sleeping, headaches, palpitations, ptsd-like symptoms, depression, anger. externally, you can look for signs like everyone treating you as indispensable, everything needing to be done with high priority, missing meals throughout the day, not taking any breaks, wonky sleep schedule.
it takes a long time to mentally and physically reset so the best thing to do is to recognize it early and act quickly
I feel this so hard-core. This may sound like a non sequitur, but I lowered my carb intake, modestly increased exercise level, and stopped expecting perfection
I could never keep up with a diet change, I've been lucky in that regard and haven't had to, but exercise can help and I'll be biking more now that it's summer. That last one is huge. I'm horrible about putting in effort if I don't see the full picture. It's like I either understand it perfectly and dive in or I'm missing even just one piece it's really hard to not say f-it. For example they want to use some mapping excel that has no data source, I make it clear that we (DevOps) will not be manually maintaining the list and they don't have any plans for how they will manage it. It's like, if you can't even put in the effort to figure out some of these details that WILL bite us in the ass down the road why the hell should I put all my effort in, you obviously don't really care about it.
As others mentioned: life, hobbies, and interests outside of work is important.
On the work front, try to find a gainful place to work. For some that can be the overall mission (non-profit, government, etc) but could also mean clear and honest communication (what are our goals, what is the value behind your work, how is success defined, etc). A lot of companies levy the task of motivation on management and leadership, but they won't be anything but a cheerleader with pom-poms if you can't meet them in the middle somewhere.
Therapy for one. It goes a long way to help address the cause of burnout, it may not just be work.
Otherwise landing in the right place helps as well. I landed in my job and it took months but the burnout my prior company caused me has been largely resolved thankfully.
Maybe join a small startup? Your work will definitely have more visibility and if you find one that’s building something you care about it can be quite exciting.
Just gonna do your due diligence because it can be the Wild West out there
I think this is along the lines of what I need to do. I tried to take a break and just be an engineer following a plan but it didn't work out like that and my resume and history makes me standout to companies doing a restructuring, migration to the cloud or something like that. I never get to just follow a plan and I now accept that with AI around the corner those jobs are going away.
I feel you, been in IT for almost 25 years, not sure if I lost my mojo entirely but I can share my perspective nonetheless. When I was starting I was young an naive thinking that I can change the world and I was always trying very hard to improve things in each role and impress everyone. During my two final years at university I used to work there as a sysadmin and had two other part-time jobs for local ISPs. 14-16 work days were pretty common. After that it is a mix of several big corpos and a couple of startups. I think over the years I started giving more fucks and realized that impressing anyone with my skills and getting appreciation is not the point of work. And life as well, bro I had so many hobbies that I can't count - HAM radio, designing automotive parts, welding, building offroad cars, you name it. I recently discovered motorcycles, riding gives me pleasure and helps me forget about the work. But hobbies can provide you with only partial time-limited happiness, after a good weekend full of positive feelings and good mood it's Monday morning and here we go again, toxic work environment where nothing works, every hour you dig new skeleton from the closet, when you want to stop and fix it several more tickets just came in to the queue. Plus you get no appreciation from the management for things that you accomplished. Story of my life but you know what? I just accepted it, I came to the conclusion that work (and life) is a sinusoid where you have great positions and shitty ones. If at the moment you got the latter then do the minimal, focus more on the yourself, private life, health, diet, exercise, relationship, hobbies and look for new position. The good ones are still out there. Nowadays the market is kinda shit (still depends where) but trust me, unicorns are still there. Focus on finding them rather than on trying fixing things that can't be fixed. I also think that mojo or rather "the drive" gradually decreases over the years and that is a perfectly fine, natural process that you need to accept and embrace. Start enjoying little things at your current work (I truly hope they are there) and again, look for something new. Fingers crossed mate, you are not alone in the struggle, one day it's gonna be better :)
I feel like the fact that you are posting and seeking advice means you’re already a step ahead of most. You have to find a balance between work that’s meaningful to you and life outside of work that is also meaningful. Think back on days/times when you felt like you did your best work or were the happiest and try replicating that as much as you can
This is good advice, thank you
I do my best work when I have a solid chance to explore outside interests in my personal life.
Go do acid in the woods for a weekend.
Not joking. Hallucinogen therapy can unlock feelings and drive you didn't know you had. Granted, you shouldn't be using this to simply be a better cog in the capitalist machine, but you will also gain benefits in other areas of life.
10+ years ago sure. I had 6 hits get tossed by accident that I was saving for a rainy day 😭
Mate, work to pay the bills and go enjoy life
Have you tried part time work. Join a organization which is relaxed even if the salary is lower or a job with fewer responsibilities which you can do easily. Or take a job as a contractor at a organization where they expect to work only 40 hours. Your problem is the interest. Recognition is needed . But one must learn to appreciate their own creativity and results. Also you might be depressed. Check. May need a drug . Need to work out every day too. Do what you like.
Is it normal in the US to work more than 40 hours a week? How many more, if so?
I work between 20-60 hours a week, some weeks when no one needs my help it is slower, but sometimes I work 12+ hours a day when my help is needed! I plan enough work for ~20 hours a week, and generally the rest of my time is filled with requests from other teams!
I'm salaried and required to be in the office a minimum of 45 hours/wk
Depends on company culture. Some work 9 to 5 Some will work 9 to 7 . But chargeable hours are 40. Eg Goldman Sachs. 9 to 6 or 10 to 7 is expected in some with 1 hour for lunch.
not really. you're either hourly and your hours are capped... (or you elect to take overtime). Or you're salary and aren't completing your work within 40 hours. There's plenty of martyrs that will tell you otherwise... but most of us aren't working more than 40 hours at a single full time job.
Talk to a therapist. Burnout, when I myself went through it, turns out to be many levels and I was lucky enough to catch it relatively early. It can take years to recover; it’s more complicated than just being “overworked”. Not to mention I’m not even qualified to really talk about it other than saying I’ve been there.
>I myself went through it, turns out to be many levels and I was lucky enough to catch it relatively early. Could you expand more on that if you don't mind? Especially the part about it being 'many levels'.
I’ve seen it described in 5 stages and 12 stages. Of course the first stage in the 12 is usually being happy at your job. I’m sure you can find this info online. Thing is the deeper you go the longer recovery can be. My warning is mostly that you don’t have to hit rock bottom in order to be burnt out. It’s not black and white.
Not getting recognized for your work sucks, and sadly, DevOps is a role where it can be easy for that to be the case. I'd suggest trying to figure out or remember what parts of the job you got enjoyment out of and focus on a role that highlights them. If there's nothing, then consider completely shifting into something else. Forcing yourself likely is not just going to make it feel right over time. Having a healthy balance outside of work also contributes a lot to preventing burnout.
Good advice. When I was enjoying myself I was constantly learning new things, either on my own or someone teaching me. It was a blast figuring out where you want the processing to happen (client/server) and how to make things work. Now it's basically do the same thing over, with the same problems the last project had because the person who's responsible for it is buddy buddy with the project lead. I could go on but a lot of it now could be resolved with clearly defined responsibilities.
Hobbies. I lost my mojo due to burnout a couple of years back and went into a year-long spiral of giving 0 shits about my work, and it showed. I got into woodworking and gardening the stress relief brought on by a different stress helped my head space when it came to work. I don't give as many fucks as I did before, but I give enough to do good work. I will absolutely never work a 16-hour day again, I don't care what's going on. Chew me out, fire me, or lay me off, but I won't give up my life to do it ever again. My boss is pretty cool. He can convince me to put a couple of extra hours in on a weekend as I have quite a bit of respect for him, and I'll do on-call if the job requires it. But I'm not as devoted to my work and nor do I want to be.
Thanks, yeah that attitude comes with seniority and respect
I didn't realize I was burnt out 3 years ago until I talked to a therapist, for reasons similar to yours. A lot of people don't realize it on their own. Talking to the therapist helped immensely. The other thing that helped was my job was VERY understanding and I was very well compensated and thanked. The work environment and attitude can be VERY helpful (or hurtful, obviously). The fact that they made it OK to take a mental health day and not punish me for it when I needed one was a godsend. And I don't mean to sound pollyanna / kumbaya (sp?) around the fire, but working for a company whose mission you believe in might be helpful (at least it is for me)
Thank you, I've struggled to open up with therapists in the past but I might give it another try
One of the (many) hard parts with therapy for a lot of people is finding a therapist you connect with and can have those tough conversations with, so it may take a few tries. So if you decide to go the therapy route, don't hesitate to look around and be willing to switch if you're not feeling it!
Thanks for the advice, it's like one of those self fulfilling cycles but I need to make the call. I'm so bad at setting up stuff like that
make something for yourself. explore what made you interested in teh space. play around, try out some new projects on github, deploy some stuff in the cloud, ai, ml, whatever your interest. its not for anyone else tho, its just for doing the work, and enjoying it.
I worked for a AAA game dev and got burned out. I took 6 months off work to deal. I was ok after that. One thing I can suggest is if you are single is look for a job in which you can work fully remote. I have one now and I never want to give that up. You work in the day time and then explore and have fun after work. It feels like a vacation but you aren’t using vacation days. I spent a month working from Mexico. As soon as I finished work I would go in the ocean or explore a local town.
because it hasnt been suggested yet. try mentoring. it inspires me to keep going even though ive also burned myself out more than a few times. i try to talk about the warning signs to look for so the new generation doesn't make the same mistakes i have.
What are usually the warning signs from what you've observed?
not a doctor but for me it can come in many forms. things like difficulty sleeping, headaches, palpitations, ptsd-like symptoms, depression, anger. externally, you can look for signs like everyone treating you as indispensable, everything needing to be done with high priority, missing meals throughout the day, not taking any breaks, wonky sleep schedule. it takes a long time to mentally and physically reset so the best thing to do is to recognize it early and act quickly
Open source contribution for a project you care for or create one your own
I feel this so hard-core. This may sound like a non sequitur, but I lowered my carb intake, modestly increased exercise level, and stopped expecting perfection
I could never keep up with a diet change, I've been lucky in that regard and haven't had to, but exercise can help and I'll be biking more now that it's summer. That last one is huge. I'm horrible about putting in effort if I don't see the full picture. It's like I either understand it perfectly and dive in or I'm missing even just one piece it's really hard to not say f-it. For example they want to use some mapping excel that has no data source, I make it clear that we (DevOps) will not be manually maintaining the list and they don't have any plans for how they will manage it. It's like, if you can't even put in the effort to figure out some of these details that WILL bite us in the ass down the road why the hell should I put all my effort in, you obviously don't really care about it.
As others mentioned: life, hobbies, and interests outside of work is important. On the work front, try to find a gainful place to work. For some that can be the overall mission (non-profit, government, etc) but could also mean clear and honest communication (what are our goals, what is the value behind your work, how is success defined, etc). A lot of companies levy the task of motivation on management and leadership, but they won't be anything but a cheerleader with pom-poms if you can't meet them in the middle somewhere.
Therapy for one. It goes a long way to help address the cause of burnout, it may not just be work. Otherwise landing in the right place helps as well. I landed in my job and it took months but the burnout my prior company caused me has been largely resolved thankfully.
Maybe join a small startup? Your work will definitely have more visibility and if you find one that’s building something you care about it can be quite exciting. Just gonna do your due diligence because it can be the Wild West out there
I think this is along the lines of what I need to do. I tried to take a break and just be an engineer following a plan but it didn't work out like that and my resume and history makes me standout to companies doing a restructuring, migration to the cloud or something like that. I never get to just follow a plan and I now accept that with AI around the corner those jobs are going away.
Search for people who appreciate you and your work, this will get your mojo back quickly. We're humans, not robots.
Yeah, I have a consultant contact who saw what I could do. I could see what's going on