The conversation

Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

I was onboard with the new vision for the company but couple months ago I started noticing …

… I was onboard with the new vision for the company but couple months ago I started noticing something isn’t right. I felt anxious, tired, frustrated yet I desperately wanted myself to be that cliche enthusiastic startup dude. I’m no longer in my early 20s (experienced burnout before as well as two major depression episodes) so started reflecting and looking into the causes. The pivot and the product debt it caused made me do an incredible amount of production debugging and interrupted ad-hoc work for customers we tried to impress. It got so bad I rarely remember the things I worked on the day before. Meanwhile, the product scope keeps expanding and we haven’t even nailed the basics. Then SVB happened and my guess is that leadership started receiving more heat from the investors. Shit rolls downhill so now CTO only wants to hear about solutions, not problems. I’ve had it. I gave all energy and skills I had to this company. Now I’m just hitting my head against the wall. I need a break and possibly a new employer. Burnout comes in all shapes and sizes because we are all different. …

Original discussionSurviving Burnout162 source comments · at import
2

Community replies 0

No community replies yet. Add your perspective.

Replies from the source 2

Direct replies available in this import. Original-language excerpts.

PA

My advice - save walk-away money when you are young. It's incredibly satisfying to slam the door and walk away from an abusive work environment full of incompetents. We take a lot of abuse in our 20s because we are still learning what a functional and what a dysfunctional work place is. You can learn a ton from both, but at some point, once you realize what work should be, give yourself the ability to move, or you will be locked in a cycle of misery.

Full original
RE

I've been in a similar situation. My advice is to make sure you budget in recovery time. I've had burnout that took 2 weeks to recover from, and I've have burnout that took 2 months to recover from. Just make sure you don't take on more "burnout debt" than you'll be able to repay before having to start your next thing.

Full original
Continue on Hacker News

Respect different perspectives. Share concrete experiences.

Sign in to post, reply, repost, and quote.