Burnout - June 2019

I ran across this video from Tony and Chelsea Northrup. It’s interesting if you want to hear two professional photographers talking about the frustrations and stresses of photography as a trade, even if you are not interested in what they have to say about burnout.

There are three things which, if I stop doing them for over a couple of weeks, feel like a warning: watching movies or a good box set; reading novels or textbooks; taking photographs.

The months I take photographs, even if just with the phone, are generally better than the months I don’t. If I’m taking photographs, it means I’m looking at the world around me and thinking that it’s worth recording. I do a lot of my reading on the train, so if I’m not reading, it’s because I’m dozing, hit by hay fever, can’t focus or preoccupied by nothing much. As for movies, those are the way I escape and relax - and I can relax to a Wim Wenders movie. So if I’m not watching movies a couple of times a week, I’m not resting properly. Sometimes I go through a couple of weeks when I don’t want other people’s stories in my head, and I never know what triggers that.

It’s been a while since I’ve done any of those things, and an age since I’ve taken any photographs. Well, Tony and Chelsea started talking about how they felt and I identified immediately. So I looked into the idea I might be burned out, or at least a little over-fried. One acronym is PAINT:

Pain – Multiple recurring physical symptoms like headaches, stomach aches, muscle ache
Anger – Feeling angry and irritable
Indifferent – Loss of motivation, drive, and interest
Negative – Feeling pessimistic, cynical
Tired – Physical and emotional fatigue

Pain. All damn June I’ve had lower back pain, I’ve been burping to the point of embarrassment, and I had to visit my Osteo to sort out a neck problem caused by doing face pulls incorrectly. Thanks to Athlean-X, I now do face-pulls correctly.

Anger. I can pass on that.

Indifference: that’s what I’ve been talking about. I’ve lost interest in stuff. I’m going through the motions.

Negative: what me? Cynical? How could you?

Tired: damn right. I can hardly stay awake after lunch.

The Mayo Clinic list these possible causes: Lack of control. An inability to influence decisions that affect your job — such as your schedule, assignments or workload — could lead to job burnout. So could a lack of the resources you need to do your work.

Unclear job expectations. If you're unclear about the degree of authority you have or what your supervisor or others expect from you, you're not likely to feel comfortable at work.

Dysfunctional workplace dynamics. Perhaps you work with an office bully, or you feel undermined by colleagues or your boss micromanages your work. This can contribute to job stress.

Extremes of activity. When a job is monotonous or chaotic, you need constant energy to remain focused — which can lead to fatigue and job burnout.

Lack of social support. If you feel isolated at work and in your personal life, you might feel more stressed.

Work-life imbalance. If your work takes up so much of your time and effort that you don't have the energy to spend time with your family and friends, you might burn out quickly.

Lack of control and unclear expectations - not really. Lack of resources? I work in retail banking, of course I don’t have really good tools to do my job. Of course my laptop takes ten minutes to get started. Of course we still use IE11 and they don’t even run ad-blockers. Of course the internet security blocks the user forum for the database software we use. Yeah, actually, now you ask...

Dysfunctional workplace dynamics - how long have I been going on about not liking the “new” office? It’s dark, no-one talks to each other, only half of us are in on any given day, and most of the time most people are on conference calls, which means they may as well not be there. You will never see two people working together on the same problem: everyone works alone and passes on the results to someone else.

Extremes of activity - so there is a sense in which my job is monotonous. I cut and run SQL all day in response to people’s needs for bits and pieces of data. To get the pace required, and to get the results as right as anyone ever can, takes a lot of focus. Inside my head, it’s a lot of hard work, but outside, I’m tapping-the-keyboard guy. At the same chair at the same desk with the same view all day every day. Monotony.

Lack of social support. Oh yeah. I am the only person in the team who does my job. I have no-one to talk to about it. There are a couple of people I can have a conversation with, maybe once a week, given our schedules. Outside work, all my friends moved away a long time ago. And as for *cough* intimate association *cough* - yeah, well, that ship sailed a long time ago.

Work-life balance. Easy. I have no life. Work takes all my energy. How many times have I gone on about my ridiculous sleep-wake schedule?

Yep. I reckon I qualify.

Next post or so I’m going to talk about what I might / can/ could do about it.