I don't know about you, but I've experienced job burnout, and it isn't pleasant.
In case you're not acquainted with this somewhat poorly understood phenomenon, burnout is sort of a workplace version of depression. You know, you used to whistle while you worked, and now you'd rather get a root canal than get out of bed to go to work.
Burnout is bad news. If you're not aware that your work stress and frustration have reached the boiling point, you can find yourself in a near-constant state of irritability or anxiety. You might end up doing things you'll later regret and damaging your career or your personal life.
In addition to high-stress jobs like emergency workers, air traffic controllers, and doctors, I was surprised to find that high-tech professionals are prone to burnout, according to a number of studies.
There are three things you need to know about burnout: how to recognize it, what to do about it, and how to avoid it.
How to recognize burnout
This is not rocket science. If you complain about your boss or have an ongoing feud with the jerk in the cubicle next door, that's not burnout. If you used to enjoy or at least tolerate your job, but now you're constantly stressed and frustrated, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight, then you're probably experiencing burnout.
If you recently took a swing at your boss, then you've been there for a while.
What to do about burnout
Again, not rocket science. It's like peeling an onion. First, take a vacation. That's right; you have to try this old standard first. Get some perspective, and see if that helps. Try to determine the source of your stress, and change it--transfer to a different group, ask for a raise, whatever.
If that fails, then get out. I'm not kidding. You can figure out what went wrong and psychoanalyze yourself later. There's just too much at stake. Find yourself another job, take a break, if you can afford to--whatever it takes. Just get out. Get some distance and perspective, put yourself back together, and start over.
How to avoid burnout
Avoiding burnout usually comes down to recognizing the source. If it's an individual or a one-off thing, then it's probably not going to become a chronic problem. If it's a company, then switching companies might do the trick. If it's your profession, then it's time to consider a different one.
Times of crisis often lead to the discovery that you might be on the wrong path. Sure, it's tough, especially if you've put a lot into your career, but it happens. What's worse: changing careers or being miserable for the rest of your life and ending up a bitter old person?
Bottom line
Burnout happens. It happens in high-stress jobs, and it happens in the high-technology industry. Sure, your job is important. But your career and your personal life are more important. Staying in a job where you're burning out may earn you a few paychecks, but it may cost you far more in the long run.
Quick, by a show of hands, how many of you have workplace stress? Almost everybody, great.
Now, how much of that stress do you think is self-imposed? What, no hands?
Well, I'm not surprised, but you may be in for a shock.
You see, most people make their own stress. Why do they do it? How should I know? I'm not a shrink. I'm just here to tell you that a lot of it is self-imposed.
... Read moreRemember when carpal tunnel syndrome was looking to be the big bad wolf that would blow down the IT industry with a gust of wrist injuries?
While some people have certainly and unfortunately been afflicted with it, it has not become the epidemic that so many predicted.
An Associated Press article on Sunday looks into what happened with the repetitive stress injury washout:
With the personal-computing boom of the 1990s came thousands of repetitive stress injuries or repetitive strain injuries. RSI became the hip medical acronym of the keyboard era, with subset carpal tunnel syndrome the diagnosis of the day.
"At its height of diagnosis, anybody showing up at a doctor's office with wrist pain or hand pain was being diagnosed with carpal tunnel," said Carol Harnett, vice president of insurer Hartford Financial Services Group Inc.'s group benefits division.
Since then, carpal tunnel cases have plummeted, declining 21 percent in 2006 alone, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among workers in professional and business services, the number of carpal tunnel syndrome cases fell by half between 2005 and 2006...
"Clearly, if keyboarding activities were a significant risk for carpal tunnel, we should have seen, over the last 10 to 15 years, an explosion of cases," said Dr. Kurt Hegmann, director of the Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational & Environmental Health. "If keyboarding were a risk, it cannot be a strong factor."
Back when RSI concern was at its peak in the mid-1990s, I was working in the industrial design group at Sun Microsystems. We looked at all kinds of ways to reduce wrist, arm, and shoulder stresses. We looked at a variety of novel keyboard configurations that small companies were putting on the market--each with its own set of pros and cons. With the litigiousness of American society, there was a major concern about putting out keyboards and mice that had been examined from an injury standpoint and validated by third parties.
But it seems that people have learned to adapt and have adjusted their behaviors to compensate for potential problems. For example, I've had occasional shoulder pangs caused by using a mouse pushed far rightward by a typically bulky modern keyboard. Switching to my laptop keyboard and allowing my hand to come back to my center fixes the problem. I only know one person who has had serious enough problems to require medical therapy and a brace, and he uses a notoriously mouse-click intensive piece of software.
What has your experience been? What about other people you know? Is this largely a solved problem or have people just shut up about it?
The National Institute of Health has given a group of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh a $426,000 grant to study the effectiveness of a watch for measuring stress.
The eWatch is a giant wristwatch that is both a sensor device and a computer.
It measures sounds, motion, ambient light and location of the environment, as well as the skin temperature, health status and activity level of the wearer.
The device was developed by Daniel Siewiorek, director of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute in Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science, and Asim Smailagic, research professor in Carnegie Mellon's College of Engineering.
The study itself, led by University of Pittsburgh professor of psychology Thomas Kamarck, will use the eWatch to determine specifically what factors constitute stress for an individual and "quantify how stressors affect one's daily life, as well as to pinpoint when these effects begin and when they end."
Previous studies have shown that people who report that they have more stressful lifestyles also have higher rates of illness such as heart disease. But it's been hard to pinpoint detailed information on how stressful experiences affect individuals on a moment-to-moment basis long-term, according to Carnegie Mellon's statement on the project.
To that end, study participants will wear the eWatch for five days and answer up to 3 minutes worth of questions asked by the eWatch every 45 minutes.
The questions will be things like 'Working hard?' and 'Happy?' with a 'yes' or 'no' response possible.
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