IT burnout and the urge/need to keep up

Manny:

After I passed my VMConAWS Management test a few days ago and posted about it on LinkedIn/Twitter, a couple of people said to me – You’re killing it mate! Another said – Way to go!

Am I really killing it or killing myself? Is it really the way to go or the way to an early grave?

Last year was tough for me and the family on multiple fronts. One of the bigger reasons why it was tough was that my father in law passed away. He was only 64. Died instantly after an accidental fall from an old timber ladder that splintered. As he lost his footing on the way down from the roof of his house, he hit his neck on balcony and that was it. He was a good man, the type of man the world needs a lot more of. He was an electrical engineer, made a fortune out of sailing on and working in huge merchant ships, transporting grain, timber, sand, and oil from one continent to another. But.. He never got to enjoy any of it. He quit his sailing job when he turned 62 because he failed his mandatory, annual health test (probably something to do with the thousands of liters of scotch he downed over the past 40-45 years!). One bad health problem after another, he was finally in decent health when he lost his life to that fall from the ladder.

Why did I mention about my FIL you may think? The point is I see myself and a lot of driven people in our industry constantly learning and educating ourselves. It’s a never ending process and I think I love it. With a self-diagnosed mild Attention Deficiency Disorder, I get bored quickly and to cope I have developed this constant need to keep stretching myself and set myself improbable goals. I’m up at crazy hours of the morning, 3am or so, learning up about something new in the industry. I do my thing till about 6.30am, get ready for work, and catch the bus to work at 7.12am. By the time evening rolls around, I’m knackered. But my 3-year-old twins deserve my time more than anything else, so I roll my sleeves up and entertain them in whatever way till they go to bed about 8.30 or 9pm. Then I spend an hour or so with the wife chatting about the day and our lives, then off to bed about 10pm. When the alarm goes off at 3-4am the next morning, there have been multiple times when I cannot recall the last few minutes before my brain and body both shut down the night before for some desperately needed sleep.

I’m all about my family. At no time, ever, have I studied towards anything when they’re up and about. ALL the time I’ve spent working on myself has been when they’re sleeping soundly. There I am, toiling away in the night. Miles to go and all that.. When I wake up in the morning, my brain’s already going – let’s do this. My trusty 12 year old computer gets booted up and with a big cup of black coffee in hand, I’m back at it. The urge to learn something new, to catch up to ‘others’, to the pace of the industry, to something that keeps me awake during those god-awful hours. In addition, I have this urge to help others as much as possible, even if that means less sleep. I believe a life well spent is one that’s helped other people succeed or do better for themselves. I’ve participated in VCDX mocks for others at 3am sometimes, plenty of other mocks at 4am, 5am and so on.

To top it off, my wife’s had fairly serious PND after the birth of our twins. Having been cooped up in the house looking after two wailing little humans takes its toll more than you’d think. Me, the Mr. Crazy, or Superman as my FIL used to call me, has had to step up and always do waaay more than my fair share of housework and raising the twins. There have been numerous nights where the kids have kept us awake for one reason or another, be it the flu or whatever, making the PND rear its fugly head now and again.

Burnout much??

Financial independence is another ‘thing’ I’m striving towards. There’s no way I see myself working in a corporate job beyond 50, hopefully, earlier. I’d like to be able to wake up when I want to, eat out in the morning, drop the kids off at school/uni, throw some meat on the barbie for lunch and dinner, work out in the gym late in the arvo, pick the kids up etc.. – all of this while not affecting our standard of life. Mind you I don’t have any grandiose dreams either.

But.. Given the constant trauma people like you and me put ourselves through, how do you cope with all of it? I’ve started to go out for a run early in the morning and it’s definitely helping. There’s zero time to spare for playing a sport, I used to love cricket, volleyball and table tennis. Believe me, I know how to make time for things but there’re only 24 hours in a day which are just not enough. My body’s telling me to ease up. What good is a dead man with a VCDX number, right?

Thing is, according to me, you don’t know when the last bell’s going to toll on you and your time will be up. Might as well make the most of it till that happens.

Bilal:

So I thought I would chime in slightly on this, as it is something that is constantly in the back of my mind. Working in tech means that you have to accept the game is always changing. You have to keep up in some way or get left behind.

It is difficult, me just like Manny want to learn everything and have as much knowledge as possible! It drives us crazy when we do not know something. In some ways that is to our credit, but it can easily lead to our detriment!

I am all about using your time as wisely as possible, I have purposely stayed away from jobs that could end up with loads of travel, regardless of the levels of pay involved. I value my home time, with my family even more so now that I am married. 

This isn’t the only profession that requires you to keep up-skilling and to stay on the ball. My wife is a Dr and among working shifts and dealing with all sorts of gruesome things, she has to teach courses, write papers etc. She spent 6 months in Zambia helping set up a teaching course, pretty much directly after we got married! But working in IT I understand how important these kind of things are, and she supported me through the highs and lows of the VCDX too.

I have currently been learning some PowerShell gradually, but I have slowed down my pace a bit. I have a timeline, but if life gets in the way it is all good. I want to learn sooooo many things, but the VCDX I went full force 150% into it and was relentless with it, but it did burn me out quite a bit. It did teach me that I have my limit which is far beyond what I thought, but also there is no need to go that full force at the expense of everything else around you.

When I mentor people I warn them of the time drain but also tell them there is no rush, slow and steady will win the race. 

I have noticed the topic of burnout is coming more and more to the forefront (which is great), people need to be able to openly talk about it and discuss it. As with many issues in life, half the battle is admitting to yourself that you have an issue. I have always seen posts about SysAdmins burning out on Reddit all of the time, people in IT seem to want to be the hero at the detriment of their own health.

I strive for balance, even Batman needs balance, spending too much time on one side of the fence comes at a hard cost, mentally and physically! My brother was joking with my wife, telling her how my family used to call me Binary Bilal, either I am all in or I am not, on or off. So sometimes you will see me working on something really hard, but as soon as I am done I will happily just sit and chill and do absolutely nothing, nothing will stop me from…doing nothing!

Now @cragdoo did an excellent couple of posts on burnout and coping mechanisms here:

https://www.cragdoo.co.uk/2018/09/17/burnout-in-it/ 

https://www.cragdoo.co.uk/2018/10/01/burnout-in-it-coping-mechanisms/

The #vCommunity, in general, are very friendly, and if you want to discuss this kind of thing, you can reach out to any of us. Sometimes you just need to be able to discuss and vent a bit. We have all been there but I am a firm believer your job and work should not come at the detriment to y our own personal health and the well being of you and your family!