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Am I burnt out? Or just not suited for this job?

by launchplus on 10/4/11, 9:32 AM with 28 comments

• by rjd on 10/4/11, 12:20 PM

  It maybe just normal depression. It reads a little to me like you have lost the feeling of control and feel like everything slipping away... and that maybe manifesting as a coping mechanism as a form of depression.

  To quote the intro from wikipedia, see if this is familiar:

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  Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless. They may lose interest in activities that once were pleasurable, experience loss of appetite or overeating, or problems concentrating, remembering details or making decisions; and may contemplate or attempt suicide. Insomnia, excessive sleeping, fatigue, loss of energy, or aches, pains or digestive problems that are resistant to treatment may be present.

  ------

  And most importantly also from wikipedia "Depressed mood is a normal reaction to certain life events" i.e. things have happened which have caused the fun to disappear. Remember if it depression, it happens to everyone and huge percentage of people reading this would have the same reaction to your situation.

  I'm no expert on depression and its probably unwise for me to give any more advise but as far as I'm aware talking is always a start, and anecdotally its worked wonders for me in the past. Even just the process of explaining it someone else can bring perspective to things that seem out of control, the blog post may have already helped with this.

  It might be a time for a catch up with a friend or your parents or something.

  Or take up a completely different activity. I had a friend that studied psychology and one thing he said that stuck with me was "your mind gets stuck in loops, when you are in a mood you will only have thoughts related to that mood".

  So an easy way to break the mental cycle can be do something else that takes your mind off it. I found squash good for this, its so fast, frantic, and full of surprises that for 30 minutes you are in a completely other world, and during that time your mind can relax, or process its outstanding stress.

• by brador on 10/4/11, 12:39 PM

  I think in the next year or two we're going to see this more and more.

  Degree qualified, startup fresh out of university with no post-grad work experience, failed startup, making ends meet with freelancing with little hope of rejoining a career track.

  Now don't get me wrong, were all beating the Fuck Big Corp drum here, but you can't beat big corp for a relatively stable income and ratable work experience.

  That's why my advice to kids is: Get that degree, get some work experience (1 year say), THEN work on that startup. That way, you have a fallback option.

• by chris_dcosta on 10/4/11, 1:30 PM

  I've noticed there is a general malaise around a lot of people at the moment, and I think it has nothing to do with personal circumstances, and more to do with the "impending end of the world scenario" that's been in the media now for nigh on 4 years.

  I've also notced people are having real trouble making decisions that 5 years ago would have been snap ones. It's as if there are a lot of people whose thought processes are being befuddled because they worry that in a few months time the world could be turned on its head.ie confusion arises when decisions made today may need to be revised in the very near future in an unknown way.

  Of course I worry about that too, and the last years have been the hardest I have ever known for finding freelance work (yes to pay the bills), but I tell you what, I've completely let go of any hopes of trying to protect myself from any "world crisis" on the basis that if the worst does happen, we'll all suffer equally, and you'll be in the same boat as me.

  So give up trying to control it and things will start to look better already. And decisions will be easier too.

• by buff-a on 10/4/11, 12:08 PM

  I don’t even know what I am working for at the moment since everything seems so unpredictable. Every feature that I design and code may just get changed or scraped upon completion. Even if I do complete it, when am I going to get paid for it? Or will I even get paid?

  You are not burnt out. You are just living in fear. I totally understand. You are going to have to confront a different fear to change this situation: your fear of sticking up for yourself in contract negotiation. Bottom line: if someone owes you money, its your fault. If you don't know if you will get paid, its your fault.

• by rdouble on 10/4/11, 4:47 PM

  Most people who do creative/analytical, solitary "desk job" work burn out at some point. Writers get writers block, composers go mad, mathematicians solve the Poincare Conjecture then disappear off the face of the earth.

  Programmers have the worst burnout potential, because in addition to the unpleasant parts of the job itself, you have to deal with some of the most obnoxious personality types on the planet, and do all your work on a machine that is conspiring to ensure you never get anything done. It's assumed other solitary creative/analytical types are oddballs who take tons of time off to recuperate between projects, but programmers are expected to produce day in and day out. There's also the looming archetypes of the superhuman guy who writes 3D engines in his spare time and the billionaire PHP programmer, making you feel bad about both your abilities and bank balance.

  As a general salve, I turn off the internet for days at a time, spend time with friends as much as possible and go to the gym. However, none of that is as effective as not working with bozos, and not working on projects I don't care about.

• by 0x12 on 10/4/11, 11:16 AM

  You need to get better at the administration side of your business pronto. What's getting you down is that you are apparently unable to control the relationship with your customers, both financially and with respect to the scope and definition of the work and that can become a real drag.

  Once you have that under control I think you're ready for a re-evaluation of being burnt out or not. When I work real hard and don't get paid I feel miserable, when I work real hard and money flows in to my bank account I feel a lot better. Ditto for working really hard and seeing the work discarded or re-done several times. Inefficiencies like that can really get you down as well.

  Being burnt out goes quite a bit deeper than this.

• by wuster on 10/4/11, 3:48 PM

  I think your burnout is because you enjoy working hard, but have trouble knowing when to find that balance between productivity and happiness.

  In my 7 years since college, I've worked at two tech companies, and I've experienced burnout at both at one time or another.

  I'm dealing with it by:

  1) managing expectations - people are generally reasonable when they're aware of your work load and can sympathize with your need for leisure time

  2) don't be a roadblock, but you can say "NO" more often - when I was younger, I'd chase small wins here and there, but overall it did not impact my external performance metrics much. It would have been more productive if I focused on more impactful changes and leave some smaller tasks for newer team members (and use it as an opportunity to transfer knowledge + teach)

  3) there's always more work to do - one more email, one more changelist, one more code blog to read, one more framework to learn, one more person to meet. I have accepted that I cannot possibly exhaust my mental todo list. Anyone out there who says they accomplish 100% of what they want to do is either lying or have a short list.

• by launchplus on 10/5/11, 4:59 AM

  Thanks everyone for taking time to read and offering your thoughts on my situation.

  For the past few years, I've been working alone from home, locked away in my room for the most part, and well lurking on HN.

  I feel lifted to see the responses here.

  My other problem now is that I have too much work on my plate that I have trouble completing. Previously I naively took on new projects as the older ones seem to be taking forever just to sign off on deliverables.

  And honestly, there was the greed factor too - it was nice to receive the deposit to kickoff a new project since I've not been getting a salary for the past few years.

  But now they are all coming back at the same time and I'm overwhelmed.

  And with my diminishing interest in backend programming, I'm hoping to partner with a backend developer to help me out. Do drop me an email (launchplus@gmail.com) if you are keen.

  All in all, I feel really foolish about a lot of the mistakes I made during this freelancing period. I will be joining a VC funded startup for a full-time job after I'm done with my current contracts, hopefully that will put my career back on track.

• by Tichy on 10/4/11, 10:26 AM

  In general, working sucks. Having to work, that is.

• by rick888 on 10/4/11, 1:17 PM

  This is why I stopped freelancing and moved onto making my own products. It's not worth the hassle of chasing down clients.

• by helloimben on 10/4/11, 4:08 PM

  Reading this brings up a lot of uneasy feelings for me. I am a designer, and recent graduate with a job right out of school. I love what I do, and wouldn't want to be doing anything different, but recently I've been hearing more and more stories like this. It generally goes: the young, inspired designer/hacker works his/her ass off for 3-4 years, then (poof!) "burns out."

  I can't help but feel worried for myself. On average I happily work around 60 hours/week, and would probably do more if I didn't stop myself (I do need some sleep, after all). Am I in that "3-4 years" stage? I want to do design the rest of my life, but maybe I'm just shooting myself in the foot.

• by lisperforlife on 10/4/11, 1:15 PM

  I went through this phase recently. And there was a surprisingly easy solution out of it. Finding new clients and get into a habit of working out. Both these activities have given me a new lease of energy to approach problems. As the clients have right to fire you, you have the rights to fire the client as well. We all want to be nice to our clients but sometimes our decency is mistaken for gullibility and they tend to take advantage of these situations. Working out releases the necessary endorphins to combat the depression. Just a 30 minute jog everyday can make a world of a difference to your life.

• by michaelochurch on 10/4/11, 12:32 PM

  You might be burning out, but this is the "good" case of burnout in that there's an obvious cause, and if that cause is attacked head-on, your passion for your work will probably return. It's obvious that your clients are treating you badly. Not paying for work completed is never acceptable. It doesn't matter if "we didn't use the code". You did the work and should be paid.

  Get an attorney immediately. I'm not saying you should sue previous clients. If the amounts of money are small, it's not worth it. But in the future, he will save you a lot more money than he costs. Every serious freelancer has one, for exactly the reason you've discovered. Get firm contracts written with unambiguous terms regarding project scope and payment, or you will be dealing with this for a long time.

• by nazar on 10/4/11, 4:47 PM

  I am chasing one client for 2 months now. He didn't pay me. The problem is he is father of one of my best friends, who I know since early childhood. Everytime I call him he postpones our conversation. And this is one of the numerous examples of me chasing clients. I know how you feel, even if its 10$ job, you still feel crappy if you are not payed at the end of the day as negotiated. 2 years of freelancing experience here, I guess I'll quit soon. Good luck!

• by padobson on 10/4/11, 12:33 PM

  How are you finding your clients?

  In my experience, the best clients seem to come from relationships and networking. Clients don't screw people they got from valuable friends and partners. They do, however, screw people who are little more than an email address they got from a Craigslist ad.

  Look for more leverage with clients by using networking - also, take the advice others gave and stand up to them with stricter contracts and hourly pricing.

• by clistctrl on 10/4/11, 3:32 PM

  Burning out is a terrible feeling. As someone who got a job before finishing school, I spent the first few years of my career working literally 16 hour days. I felt the need to prove myself, and I worked hard to do it. After 3 or 4 years my life changed in some big ways, and the life style started to affect me extremely negatively. I continued to try to work more hours but I wasn't getting anything more done. It was like I had no more ambition to work. On one particular project I hit a big dip. I became depressed, I started neglecting things like laundry, or brushing my teeth, or eating. When the project ended, I got some time to recover a bit (but not fully) a year or so later I was on another stressful project. I think I hit my low during that. I almost became completely separated from reality for lack of a better description. I started having deep almost philosophical thoughts about what the point of life even is. Again my productivity dropped lower (and also my quality of work, and my communication) I tried to make up for it with extra hours, but it only made things worse. Eventually I quit, and found a better job that has been pretty strictly 9-5. Additionally I also stopped working on side projects for a while. I think a really important part is realizing that the situation I was in was not going to get better, and a complete change was necessary.

• by drstrangevibes on 10/4/11, 2:02 PM

  its not burn out, if you still like developing, your subconscious has just realised before you have that you are wasting your time. Burnout is when you cant do fruitful things, and the remedy is simple. Step away from the computer, eat well get some fresh air and plenty of sleep. Works every time ;-)