Why do they burn out?
How many years have I been driving a gantry crane at the plant, I have never burned out! And these are real sissies!
Familiar?
Burnout of IT people is already a byword. If in their environment IT specialists still find understanding, then outside they are faced with wild denial.
Look what, he’s depressed! Can’t work! Fools have been stuffed into your head, so you justify your laziness!
During my modest seven years in a leadership position, I had the opportunity to manage different people. There was an experience of team leadership over the development team. I do not pretend to the truth, and even more so to some serious scientific research. But still I want to systematize my observations and make a series of articles “team through the eyes of the boss”.
As always, I am extremely glad to comments, additions and opposing opinions. After all, my main goal is not to broadcast my “invaluable experience”, but rather to look at my work from the outside. And draw conclusions. I’ll start my cycle with one of the hottest topics – burnout.
Over the past few years, I have been actively working with factories, I have heard a lot of unflattering things about developers. For me, workers and IT specialists are two poles. Some are sure that the world rests on them, while all the rest are engaged in garbage and do not produce anything. For others, getting a profession at a vocational school and then working in their specialty all their lives is akin to a curse.
OK, let’s try to break down the main points.
We do not burn out in the workshop
I heard this argument not only from hard workers, it somehow comes through in many opinions. Like, how do you even imagine the burnout of a gantry crane operator? Such, oh, that’s it, I can’t pull the levers anymore, the white light is no longer nice to me … Well, it doesn’t happen like that ???
Generally, it happens.
It’s just that each area has its own traditions. There are these traditions in solving problems. According to my observations, all workers are divided into two types. Those who like to swell and weird freaks with near-geekish hobbies. Both the first and the second way is an opportunity to relieve stress. I will not discuss the effectiveness and controversy of these methods now. But the fact remains. Not burnout, but “green melancholy”, from which the green “serpent” will well save. Why don’t you burn out and therapy?
Those who do not drink find different hobbies in which they also take their souls away. Digging in the engine of an old “six” or sawing out with a jigsaw helps them escape from the foam of days and switch to something sweeter to the heart. This is exactly the same therapy, just found intuitively, by trial and error.
And yet, burnout of workers is a much rarer process and not as destructive as that of IT people. So there are other reasons? There is.
Technostress
In fact, technostress is, in my opinion, the main problem of the IT sector.
Let me explain. In the 21st century, the speed of technology development is simply amazing. Programming languages and applications are evolving, something new is constantly appearing. And to solve incoming tasks and grow, IT people are still migrating. That is, they learn new languages, frameworks, master new tools. And this process does not stop.
Now it is difficult to master some area, so that later you can feed on it for at least ten years. I judge by my passion for 3D modeling. There is no point in watching Blender disassembly videos three years ago. Half of the solutions that these vids show either no longer work or work in some other way. The basic principles remain the same, but we are talking about a deeper dive. And here it is necessary to look at the principle “the fresher the better.”
Working in the IT field is a constant study. CONSTANT.
It is difficult for me to draw an analogy with any profession, say, from the times of the USSR. Probably only some top doctors and scientists.
A worker, on the other hand, can actually do almost the same thing all his life. Our gantry crane operator in thirty years may not think at all. He is capable of operating this crane blindfolded. And even if they bring a crane of a different model, it is quite possible to relearn and feed on this for the next fifteen years.
If you do not study, the brain loses its plasticity, but it gains stability. And this, including protection against burnout.
OK, but what about the statements of some olds? I’m talking about programmers who wrote code in Fortran. From time to time I come across articles by such people (sometimes very eminent ones) who promote the idea: “You just need to write code. There is nothing there that you can burn out from.”
Yes, the olds are entitled to their point of view. But here it is important to ask – and now they continue to develop something? And if so, on what? Forgive me, but the example of Fortran or Pascal is just completely by the way. These languages have gone through several revisions and yet their development is a matter of decades. The pace of modern instruments they never dreamed of. Many old players, with all due respect to them, once mastered their stack in the same way and live in it for years. In Russia, this is not so felt, but in the West, where programs on Cobol continue to work in the same banking, yes there. The programmer is long retired but continues to maintain code written many years ago. Neither the language nor the programmer develops.
Weird people
In addition to the objective cause of technostress, there are subjective reasons. And they lie in the personalities of individual developers. I emphasize – here it is absolutely wrong to row everyone under the same brush. And yet the image of a “bearded and eccentric system administrator” has a place to be.
A lot of specific people go into programming. Introverts, not the most stable psychologically, but having the ability and perseverance. And often a rather special train of thought that helps them in their work.
However, for such people, stress is very, very hard to bear. HR specialists will not let you lie – IT specialists need their own approach. Just giving them a task and setting deadlines is not an option. It can work at the tech lead level, but when we get down, we have to dig individually.
I will always remember the time when I was just put in charge of the development team. I routinely gave them tasks and set deadlines. Everyone blew. I started dismantling on the topic: “what the hell???”. The next day, our HR came running with round eyes and began to carry me with her face on the table. “I’m crazy, you’ll scare them all away, where will I look for new ones ???”. I was confused: “But what have I done? They don’t obey orders. Am I supposed to dance in front of them??? The answer was simple: “Dance.”
And yes, I started dancing. I was looking for an approach, doing sprints, trying to get the guys interested in the task, creating mutual responsibility (failed the deadlines – framed the rest). At the same time, he involved me so that for them it was not just a job, but a personal project.
I will not judge how successful I was, but we released the platform on time.
Returning to our topic. If everything was so easy in IT, people would go there in droves and they would not pay so much money there. But no, not everyone can work there. And who can really require their own approach and really prone to burnout more than ordinary people.
Irregular schedule and responsibility.
Another key cause of burnout. The specifics of the work of many IT specialists is such that they have to be included in the process at any time. There are excesses on the part of managers and objective reasons when the application storms, followed by thousands of users. Like it or not, you need to join.
What is our factory worker responsible for? For your fingers, maybe for the health of your team. Too many, it should be noted. And yet his mistakes are not so fatal. I repeat – not always. With a single movement of the hand, individual individuals can de-energize an entire plant or city (I wrote about this earlier). And yet, on average, the level of responsibility is less. And IT people have more. It’s pressing. There are risk minimization mechanisms. Put on all frontiers of QA, be more careful with releases. But we all understand – well, it happens, damn it. It happens. And that’s part of the job. Specificity, so to speak.
Wednesday.
Also the reason, although I would not put it in the first place. And yet, tech leads and cadres keep in mind that IT people can burn out. There are even special positions, special people who make sure that the staff feel good. When all your colleagues go to a psychoanalyst, and blues is something common, it gives some freedom of maneuver. Yesterday Petya was depressed, today Dasha, and tomorrow something doesn’t rush me. Alas, not so often burnout is confused with ordinary laziness. I repeat – this is not the primary reason, but there is a place to be.
Inability to rest.
The cult of productivity that flourishes in the IT environment also has its consequences. You can’t even imagine how many people can’t just relax. For Senior Zhenya does my weekly work in two hours. I should be the same. Rested, then lost time! Fuck, fuck, hrr … pshsh … fuck …
As the famous banker Morgan said, “I can do a year’s work in nine months, but not in twelve.” You need to be able to rest. Switch off tasks and go snowboarding, smelling violets or watching a new movie that is being talked about so much. A planned regular rest is a recharge of forces for the current work. No need to bet on a vacation in three months. You need to feed your resources here and now, and this is an ongoing process. Make sure that the rest does not go beyond – yes. If you scroll insta rails not for an hour, as planned, but for three, you have a problem. And yet, “working weekends” is not right.
I summarize. IT is a very specific area. It employs specific people with specific needs and problems. And burnout is quite common in this environment. We all burn out. This must be accepted. Make sure you’re not lazy. Give yourself a break. And with new forces in the project. For on a dead mare you will not go far.
