" I stay up hours later than I mean to, not even doing anything, just trying to put off sleeping — because the next thing I experience will be waking up and going back to work."
This is straight up depression. We need to stop using office-cliches like "burnout" and start addressing the very real mental health issues in the tech industry. Maintaining my mental health is like staying in shape, eating right, etc. Only as an adult have I learned how much work it takes to stay mentally healthy and not fall into these traps. Things like pacing yourself, recognizing when you're stressed, being able to say 'no,' taking enough breaks, having a dialogue with your boss/clients on what your realistic expectations should be for this project, self identifying with your job too much, not having outside interests outside of tech, etc all matter.
Techies seem to love stress. We're competitive, asocial, difficult, etc. No wonder stuff like this is so common. How many high profile tech suicides have we had in the past few years? We're doing the opposite of staying mentally healthy. Turns out human beings are incredibly delicate creatures, but no one wants to admit it as to not look "weak."
I thought that feeling was just normal. I've experienced it basically since I started working in tech. I can't imagine most people want to actually wake up and go to work. It's not possible.
The funny part is I find myself dreaming of going back to stocking shelves at a grocery store like I did in high school. I'd never make enough money to support myself doing something like that though. I romanticize the Peter Gibbons move to go work in construction even though I know I probably wouldn't be happy doing anything. I long for stress free days. Especially when most of the stress I experience is just completely artificial or manufactured by my boss or company. Most of the problems I have at work shouldn't bother me after hours but they never leave.
I also thought that feeling was normal. I sure have felt it during my entire career.
It's getting worse though. I've soon reached the point where I really can't give a rat's arse about my job. The software I get to develop doesn't help making the world a better place. It doesn't help people, other than making rich people richer. It doesn't advance mankind. Not does it bring joy or excitement to anyone. It's just so pointless, drab and dull.
It is possible. I actually love going to work. Just wanted to provide a counterpoint here.
I didn't always feel like this. I used to work for a depressing place. But since I started working for my current company, the culture, the people, have made it worthwhile.
It's the lack of feeling you've completed anything. I work for a major telecom company doing field support, mostly patching holes in the dike, and because of this, I can only rarely point to something and say "I did that" and feel good about completion or a job well done. It comes down to fighting the fire and moving on, which when combined with no feedback from management is a great way to leave work dissatisfied every day, and dreading the next.
These people do exist, I actually do enjoy getting up and going to work. I've had a few multi month spans of unemployment, and found that sitting around the house/apartment all day was not for me. Also, now that I have small children at home, and a spouse that works, going to the office feels like a vacation.
I wouldn't say burnout is just an office cliche, but your point appears to be supported by current research. Quoth the wiki:
> The symptoms of burnout are similar to those of clinical depression; in a study that directly compared depressive symptoms in burned out workers and clinically depressed patients, no diagnostically significant differences were found between the two groups: burned out workers reported as many depressive symptoms as clinically depressed patients. Moreover, a study by Bianchi, Schonfeld, and Laurent (2014) showed that about 90% of burned out workers meet diagnostic criteria for depression, suggesting that burnout may be a depressive syndrome rather than a distinct entity. The view that burnout is a form of depression has found support in several recent studies.
" I stay up hours later than I mean to, not even doing anything, just trying to put off sleeping — because the next thing I experience will be waking up and going back to work."
This is straight up depression. We need to stop using office-cliches like "burnout" and start addressing the very real mental health issues in the tech industry. Maintaining my mental health is like staying in shape, eating right, etc. Only as an adult have I learned how much work it takes to stay mentally healthy and not fall into these traps. Things like pacing yourself, recognizing when you're stressed, being able to say 'no,' taking enough breaks, having a dialogue with your boss/clients on what your realistic expectations should be for this project, self identifying with your job too much, not having outside interests outside of tech, etc all matter.
Techies seem to love stress. We're competitive, asocial, difficult, etc. No wonder stuff like this is so common. How many high profile tech suicides have we had in the past few years? We're doing the opposite of staying mentally healthy. Turns out human beings are incredibly delicate creatures, but no one wants to admit it as to not look "weak."