Take a break.  I had to learn this as i work all the time.  

Once it started effecting my sleep and my family i took time off.  Not worth having a heart attack.

I took most of last week off.


I am the only one at the facility that does what I do.


They sent up a replacement for Wednesday and Thursday.





I am going to walk into a major shit storm.................



Other than me bitch I sit on ARFCOM and bitch....and I got a lot of stuff done around the house..................Knob Creek time!!!



 

Turn down OT other then my on call OT, don't answer the phone at home when work calls looking for bodies. Limit OT to finishing up the job I'm on at the time.

We are down to 1/2 the workers we used to have and management has almost doubled while we also do almost all the computer work they used to do. After management lying about hiring replacement workers for those retired or who have quit [that used to be unheard of] over and over again, there is no trust of management. 1/2 of the remaining workers will be retiring in the next couple of years with no hiring done to train incoming workers as the company has a training schedule that is almost 5 years long to get a hire to where the company wants them.

I spread out my vacation now and take three or four day weekends or pad holidays instead of a week at a time. Seems to help in the stress area along with not answering the telephone before I screen the call.

I work in an industry where one screwup can mean serious injury or death and the only person that r\really cares is yourself. Management talks a good game but the hours they push people to work [if you are stupid enough to take them all] says otherwise.

My point came when I was coming home after a late night call and I couldn't remember how I got home, I was just in the driveway. Never remembered the drive home.  I cut my OT work by at least 50% after that, fvck hitting a tree at 3am because the company won't hire more workers.

I hear ya Sheep, I often find myself feeling the same. You devote yourself to work, you let it consume you. Working is a hobby of mine, Im very passionate about it and completely invested (not financially, but physically, mentally etc). I too burn myself out. Sometimes I feel like a tractor pull with too much weight, like Im spinning my wheels in the mud but not getting anywhere . . . .



The only advice I can give you is the one thing that works for me: that time you get outside of work, those evenings, the weekend, the morning; whatever it is you get. YOU REALLY REALLY HAVE TO MAKE IT GOOD, MAKE IT COUNT. Get out, hike, fish, hunt, shoot, be with family and friends, laugh, drink, cook, be involved in others lives, do exactly what it is YOU want to do. And in that same thought, if you wake up on a Saturday morning and all you feel like doing is sleeping on the couch, SLEEP ON THAT DAMN COUCH!!! Its ok once in a while, but don't make a habit out of it.




I personally think "burning out" is a result of too much focus on work and not enough focus on your own personal life, the ratio is off. Like your sub-concious wont let you keep focusing on work, it is letting you know you need to make more positive steps outside of your work or in other realms of your life. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in my work I forget its MY life, not theirs. Remind yourself, its your time, you just choose to spend it with them.

I think you're spot on. I just need to spend more time on my personal life.



 

Lots of mini trips to the shooting ranges. I skipped out on a meeting that I probably should have went to, I went to the shooting range with a friend. He brought his 454 Casuall. I got a call from a co-worker while at the shooting range from the meeting that I skipped. The first question out of her mouth was "where are you?" because she heard the gun fire.

My latest one was a 5 day work-a-thon on my daily driver and my project car and didn't really get any where on them but I feel better because those things are on my schedule. I also work the min of 40 hours a week until I come out of it.

I travel for work so I don't really want to travel on my time off.

I've never understood peoples' desire to take destination vacations. The very few I have taken weren't worth what I paid for them. I prefer hanging out locally.
And I liked it better when I lived in Colorado.

How about you come down here to FL and kick around for a while, and I'll head out to CO and find myself a nice ride on your RR to enjoy the scenery?

Took a 4 week break from work on vacation. Got a new boss when I returned. The old boss absolutely sucked and had no people skills.

I realize that there are about a hundred people looking for every good-paying position, and get back to work. Having a paycheck is a lot less stress than not having one.

That's not true about my job.





 

Jim, is that you?

You are young.  Take solace in the fact that while stretching yourself at work, you are growing in skills, experience, and confidence.



You will look back at this time and realize you got tougher and smarter.  Knowing you can push yourself beyond your comfort zone is empowering.



Or you could go somewhere and get your smile back:

Thanks for that man...good way to look at it.



 

I don't take work home with me or talk shop off the clock. I forget what I do for a living the minute I get home and don't remember till the next time I clock in. I deleted my company email account on my personal phone a while back ago. Now instead of not replying on my days off I don't even read them in the first place.

ETA: It's amusing because there are people I have known well for a few years that have no idea what I do for a living that's how little I talk about it. Some of them probably assume it's something illegal.

2mo sabbatical every 7 years

I had a call last night that embodied that to a T. Good post, sir!



As for stress relief, light to moderate alcohol consumption, shooting things, fishing, boating, quality time w/ friends and family, and foreign vacations.



 

Vacation is good, also having a sense of humor helps.

Motorcycles and guns, plus cooking.
Picked up and older BMW car not long ago and it's quite sporty, even the Mrs liked going for a drive out in the country last Sunday.

Best way to deal with the burnout is to break the routine and get away from the norm even is it's just for a few hours.
Just do something different and enjoy. Stop and smell the roses sort of thing.

yep. ER nurse too. my parents have a 52 acre farm as well as another 28 acres. ive got a 4 wheeler and guns...

I like my company, I like the people I work for, the people I work with, and the people who work for me.  I'm in a high enough position that I can influence the success or failure of the company to a not small extent, I can influence the direction we take and what we will be in 5 or 10 years to an even greater degree.  All of this means that I want to be at work, because I want the company and the people (including myself) to be as successful as we can be.  And I agree with the idea that "burn out" comes from too much focus on work, and not enough on private life.  I can feel myself get to a point where I've allowed myself to believe that everything I want to accomplish is important right now, and after some time of spending more time, getting more spread out, accepting more responsibilities, I realize that not only am I missing out on some of my personal life, that I'm failing at some of the "lesser" or easily put off responsibilities of my job.

So I back off, clock normal hours, prioritize my projects, leave early once in a while, until something (new customer, new work, lost work, lost customer...) spurs me into the other direction again.

I'm just trying to keep the pendulum swings closer to balance, and being realistic about how much can happen at a time.

I deal with it with money.

Because, you know, that's why I go to work in the first place.

What if this burnout at works happens to take place at a drag strip?

Try going to a football game, you'll love it.

Money's got nothing to do with it.



 

Then you have an awesome job and don't need to post in this thread.



 

Then you have a cool job

Quit. Seriously, if it's affecting your life outside of work.


I've quit three jobs due to a combination of burnout and stress. Two were simultaneous... I was working for Fedex and a hobby shop on opposite sides of DFW. Part time at both, and the hobby shop was paying so little I was nearly paying THEM to work there. The owner was a backstabbing pseudo-friend, I found out later. I was driving about 80 miles a day in Dallas traffic during this time, mostly during rush hours.

I suddenly realized that I was in serious trouble when I ended up having a panic attack in my house and trying to hold onto a door to keep from falling on the floor. It took a couple more attacks for me to realize what was going on, but when I did, I cut off communication with the "friend", quit both jobs and got a new one less than 5 miles from my house.

I was fine literally the day I started the new job. And I was making about double what I had before.

The only other time I quit due to issues like that was back in July of this year. I was working as a UAV operator in Afghanistan for about a year and a half, pretty much 8-12 hour days, every day, on a little FOB, only breaks being when we had bad weather. I started feeling burned out just over a year into it, and about 5 months after that it hit me HARD. One day I was about to take off for a mission, and realized right there that I was done. 2 days later I was on a helicopter to Kandahar.

I'm unemployed right now trying to get my head working right again. It's not going well

ETA: Your wellbeing is worth a LOT more than money.

I work with guns and idiots with guns all day. I detest that shit.

I'm beyond burned out, but I'm not sure where else to turn at this point in my life. Been
in the industry for about a decade.

My ambition has been sapped, and it seems no amount of vacation can remedy it.

Thinking about a new career, but not sure where to go.............

Surf HOTD, I mean BOTD.