Catching Up: Frustration, Burnout, and Productivity

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Hey folks, I am going to CrossFit. It's a Saturday here. Um, I figured I had a pretty long week and uh I didn't get many videos out. Certainly not as many as I'd like to. Um, and uh kind of figured I'd just catch up on where things are at. Um, how I'm trying to tackle certain things. So, this isn't like a Reddit topic. I don't have a question I'm going to be answering. But, in general, if you're new to this channel, um, I try to take questions in the comments or if you want, you can submit them on social media to Dev Leader or Nick Cantino on LinkedIn. And, uh, if you submit questions through social media messages, uh, then I'll just keep you anonymous. But, if, uh, yeah, if you've seen the other videos, you know that I usually just go to Reddit to answer stuff or, um, questions that people leave.

So yeah, today I'm gonna do it a little different because I'm driving to CrossFit. Um the Saturday location is pretty close. Um so it doesn't give me a ton of time to go through topics, but I thought kind of interesting week for me just because uh I don't know. I've been talking about burnout and stuff a lot because I'm really burnt out and uh kind of reached a milestone at the end of last week, I think. Yeah. which is good. Um, so I don't know if I've like kind of set it on on the channel, but the original sort of a deadline for the project was last week and the uh we had a bit of a a not like a scheduling issue, but basically due to another project that came up. It was actually So I I've talked about this other project. Um there's a bunch of people that were involved and we were like, "Hey, we want to extend it by basically a week.

Let's go. Come on." Um sorry, person delay wasn't driving. And just because of how uh how things are coordinated with who we have to present to, we couldn't extend it a week. The next earliest date was a month. So while for some people it doesn't make a big difference, right? because, you know, they're they're wrapping up their stuff on the project. There's always like a couple pieces that go a little over because it's not like quite black and white when things are finished. Um, so they're wrapping things up. That's great. They can kind of go back to normal. So, it's really nice for the team because over the month there's people that are like already completely moved off the project and back to to normaly. A couple other people are still like wrapping things up. And for context, like we have services that go across the planet and we don't just like snap our fingers and and put those services everywhere all at once.

We have to take our time and and do it carefully. Um so depending what the changes and stuff are, right? Like we have to accommodate that. Now that's great, but the problem for me is that because I am leading the project, I don't shift off of it, right? So, it's nice for everyone else to to kind of be moving off, but I don't move off. I get stuck on it for another month. Um, now the reality is that the sort of the weight of the project reduces for me because parts of it are totally closing out. That's great. But, yeah, it doesn't uh doesn't remove it from my my to-do list. So, um it's got got a little bit better over the last week, which is nice. Uh but then I I took someone else's, uh backup on call shift. We swapped. And just for for a little bit more context, the reason why this is like extra extra for me is because originally I planned to take a full week off.

I've been so burnt out. I was going to take a full week off from work just to literally do nothing. and try and reset this past week because you've if you've seen the other videos, you know that like I'm I got nothing left. And uh yeah, like uh someone someone asked to swap and uh I don't I don't know trying to be helpful. Um there's I wasn't the reality is I wasn't going to take the time off though because I my normal on call shift would have been coming up in uh in a week. So, I just took it a week early, the backup part. Um, and I wasn't I was going to move my my vacation out a month anyway because taking a week off or sorry, when I do when I do my on call shift and taking a week dedicated to that in the middle, like I'm going to be so um not distracted, I don't know what the right word is.

I'm going to be so focused on doing on call work that I'm not going to be dedicating time to this project. So, I don't want to take a week for that plus a week of vacation. Like, that's not I'm going to be so stressed out for wrapping up this big project that like it's not worth my it's not worth it. Like, it won't be a good vacation. So anyway, just from a timing perspective, going from like complete burnout to like a I had a super busy backup on call shift. Um it just like destroying me, man. Like so I didn't get uh I didn't get a lot recorded um cuz I didn't drive anywhere. I I hadn't left my house until Wednesday from like the whole week, Wednesday night or Thursday morning. I hadn't left my house. I think it was on Thursday. So, um, hadn't gone to the gym.

CrossFit is, uh, you know, classes start at 6:00 in the morning, but that's when my on call shift starts. Classes at that location end at 6:00 at night. That's when my on call shift ends. And then I was working on this other project for work after 6:00 p.m. anyway. So, even going to like a normal commercial gym, I just didn't have like capacity for it. So, it's been it's just been more right? Like, it's just a lot going on. And um yeah, I just kind of need need the main project to wrap up. That'll take a huge uh burden off of my plate. Um and then the second project, uh I don't I actually don't know when that this uh it's without getting into the details of it, it's like the the I don't know a good way to explain this. The scope the scope is changing because we're a support role in it.

So, um we're we're basically there to provide support and it's a little bit more reactionary uh which makes it very challenging, right? Um, and then trying to be uh I'll use the word agile, trying to be agile with that kind of stuff and uh and shifting priorities as things come up to address that project. So, this is why it ends up taking time outside of work because we're trying to trying to be able to pivot to support it. But um depending on the urgency, you know, that's like that's the only time we got to be able to address things that come up. So um so what does that mean for me? Well, it means I'm still burnt the hell out. Uh I'm going to be taking time off in May for sure, though. Um as an engineering manager, I think it's a crappy example to to not take time off.

We have discretionary time off for folks uh at least in the US. uh labor laws in different countries make it kind of spicy to try and do it globally all at once to roll it out, but I think that's the plan long term. But in the US, it's discretionary time off. So it's uh in other places that's called unlimited time off. And people especially engineers I find don't take time off. It's pretty rare that people like in my for my experience abuse taking time off. And uh I don't want to set an example where it's like I'm not taking time off cuz I'm like oh no no no like work's more important work's more important. So I'm not taking time off and then people see that and they go kind of reinforcing the fact they already don't take time off. I don't want to perpetuate that.

Um but like I am literally doing that. Uh, so I've had to have conversations with people on my team because like spring break and stuff in April, especially for people with kids and they want to be at home with their kids cuz they're going to be off from school. And I'm like, "Hey, like please like take the time off. Like you need to go do that. You already had plans. Go do that." Um, and then I'm trying to explain to them like I've moved my vacation, but you'll see me take time off in May. So I'm trying to be very transparent about it because I think it's important. Um, you know, these people have been working on this project, too. So, uh, yeah, like I'm burnt out, but it's not like it was easy for them either. So, uh, just got to make sure that they're focused on on on, you know, their health and their their uh sort of like the the mental and emotional side of things too, right?

Like take the time off. Definitely. Um yeah, but the the extra this extra second project, right, that's kind of cropped up because it's chewing into like my um my personal time before and after work. It's like it's really problematic for me to sustain like a work life balance like this because then it means like for me to film content on my main YouTube channel and stuff like when do I do that? I haven't I haven't made a I haven't made a video on my main YouTube channel in two weeks. This is a channel that the only time I've missed putting videos out for a week is if I uh when I had the the c-word when I've taken vacation to go I think even when I took vacation to go to Hawaii uh you know once a year over the past two years. I think I had videos pre pre-recorded and I released them over the week.

So this is like the first time in almost two and a half years that for two weeks I haven't put out videos. No, hasn't happened. But I haven't had time to record. I just simply have not had my own personal time. Uh so yeah, I'm I'm really feeling like completely beat up and uh sucks because like it's not it's not going to help me get promoted. It's not going to get me paid more. It's uh I feel like it's because I'm doing the right thing. But at some point like kind of being motivated to do the right thing is like you only you can only reach so deep to do that right and especially after uh working on this other project since the beginning of December last year. So that's all of December uh up through April, right? That's going to be 5 months of this project.

It's almost half a year by the time it's done. So, it's been 4 months so far, and now I need to go find, you know, extra motivation. That's why you don't tailgate me, you dummy. I can see the look on someone's face when they were about to hit me. Don't drive so close. Um yeah, like it's it's just hard to kind of uh you know to reach for that motivation, but uh I think my my moral compass is aligned to what I would say is like doing the right thing. Unfortunately, I feel like sometimes it's a line for doing the right thing for not me. And uh that's that's problematic when I don't keep that in check. So, um, yeah, trying to trying to understand more what that means for me because, uh, it's it's not a good feel. And like this it what I'm trying to say is like this cannot become the new norm because it's not sustainable.

I've I've worked crazy hours for years at a time. before at a startup like weekdays, weekends and did not and did not feel burnt out. I felt burnt out like within like a couple weeks of doing this stuff. So, um completely different headsp space, completely different um interest slashmotivation. So it's it's very difficult to to keep it up. Uh so from a sustainability perspective it's just like it's not there. And also when I used to do this like uh responsibility and compensation would be associated with it. So it uh it continued to like in my opinion positively perpetuate what was going on. I just made it through the light and now it's kind of like I'm like, well, why? Like, I'm doing it because I feel like it's the right thing, but it's not it's not the right thing for me. So, I'm at CrossFit. I'm almost done being sick, which is nice.

There's a parking spot right out the front, which is nice. I should have used the 360 cam today cuz it's actually like very nice out today. Anyway, um that's today's video. I'm going to put this out tomorrow on Sunday just cuz it's not like a I don't know super informative video, but I thought it'd be nice to check in with folks. Thanks for being here and uh again, if you guys want stuff answered, you know what to do, right? Leave it in the comments or send it in on social media. Look for Dev Leader. Um but that's what's going on in my life right now. Um hoping to to kind of bounce back. If you've watched the videos over time, you probably see my especially before December like my energy level being like relatively high to just like constantly declining and people have said it in the comments, right?

So trying to trying to get back to normaly. So thanks for being here. We'll see you next time.