[gfe8ygighjb7]

I have worked in retail, dealt with some of the rudest people. Sometimes, I still get angry about it. But my job satisfaction was certainly higher back then. At the end of day, I was tired but I didn't had to think of work anymore. Sure I met some assholes, but I also met some great people, some are still my friends.

Other jobs I had were tutoring, security guard, IT helpdesk. All these jobs had higher satisfaction and they ended at the end of day.

Now my dev job never really ends, I am constantly thinking about work related problems even while playing with my kids. The stuff that I work (storage) on is used mostly by advertising industry based on our clients. I am not making the world better, just making myself and some people richer. I might be burning out too, not sure if I was in retail for 10+ years, if I would feel same way. But when I worked with older people in retail, none of them ever complained about burn out like we programmers do.

[culopatin]

Don’t you think that now that you’re not struggling to make ends meet you have more time and have the freedom to think about these things?

I went from working 16hs and never being home paid 10/hr to a cushy 8hr job where I am mostly working on my personal projects and I can’t wait to get out. But I’m not going to go out there and say “burnout is real” because I remember that back then I didn’t have a choice and I was way worse than I am now.

[gfe8ygighjb7]

> Don’t you think that now that you’re not struggling to make ends meet you have more time and have the freedom to think about these things?

I don't disagree with this point. In a way, it is Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

Now that I am re-reading your original post, maybe I misunderstood you initially. Sticking with Maslow's theme, I suppose you are saying that someone declaring "burnout is real" is same as someone who has never been hungry, experiences their first hunger and then declares that "hunger is real". Yes it sounds silly.

And yes there are billions of people who do same mind numbing boring jobs all their lives, and they probably are suffering from burnout too. They just don't go out and say it.

But how can we improve their lives if no one talks about it. Some of lower needs have immediate consequences, and no one needs convincing that it is real. Now that majority of humans don't need to worry about food and shelter, we probably should start discussing next needs in hierarchy.

[ibejoeb]

> Now my dev job never really ends, I am constantly thinking about work

100%. Made so much worse by the hard cutover to slack and zoom. Always on, always on camera, always on the record.

To some of the other commenters talking about it being a privilege: turns out that making a lot of money is often associated with shit culture, yes. Probably not a ton of fun driving a few keys up 95 either.

The tweet is cool. He found something that suits him. He does the job and it's done, he has enough money, and he's satisfied. That's a happy existence.

[cactus2093]

> Now my dev job never really ends, I am constantly thinking about work related problems even while playing with my kids.

I don't know your situation in detail, but I have caught myself feeling like this in the past and it was completely self-imposed. I want to believe that my work is adding value (even putting aside big-picture questions of whether it's valuable to the world overall, just providing immediate value to the business & clients can be rewarding), and since you have so much leverage as an engineer to impact the experience of thousands or millions of users with your code it's easy to let that feeling expand into an unhealthy amount of pressure to put on yourself.

I have found that stepping back and being explicit about my expectations for myself and my work has helped a lot. There are some things that are entirely out of my control, so I definitely shouldn't let myself get stressed about those. There are other things that could be within my control but don't fall within a reasonable set of constraints that I choose to set for myself. I don't expect myself to never make a mistake, or to work 80 hour weeks. This latter category is less black and white and I still struggle with it sometimes. I do want to be committed to my job, I do want to be seen as valuable, and work my way toward promotions, but you can still do that in tech in while still maintaining some work/life balance.

Being a founder for a few years also helped my outlook on this a lot. As a founder, or I imagine a CEO, this type of intense self imposed pressure is seemingly very necessary in order to succeed. As an employee, you see a much smaller reward if things go well, and you should allow yourself to feel a much smaller amount of pressure/stress when problems arise.

[sjg007]

The work may never end but at the end of the day what has been done is good enough for that day.

[tolbish]

Go back to retail?