Accidentally in Code

Tag: burnout

  • Life After Burnout

    Life After Burnout

    PhotonQ-When the Phoenix Rises
    Credit: Flickr / PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

    I’m currently in what I would describe as a post-burnout-phase. The memory of being burnt out is vivid, and I fear going back there, but I’m doing OK and even cautiously optimistic about the future. Sometimes I resent the cost, and sometimes I just feel so grateful to be in this better place.. and usually, something in between, a bittersweet mix of the two. Shared by my friend, who tells me she misses me like crazy, but she’s so glad I’m doing better.

    Burning Out

    When I look back at where I was, I wonder how I thought that was bearable. Dreading having to start the day, every morning, although some more than others. Walking home in tears, more often than not. Desperate to escape, but feeling trapped by work permits and my identity being so tied up in things that I did, rather than who I was (am). Getting smaller and smaller in what I dared to do because everything seemed to be somehow wrong and then nothing I’m doing is meaningful, or appreciated, and what am I doing here anyway, again?

    The thing about being at my lowest, is that I had lost the ability to fake it, to believe in myself just enough to try. I just got so flat, accepted that nothing good would come, and where do you go from there? Nowhere.

    Until I hit this place of “I cannot do this anymore” is that it forced me to come up with something that I would want to do, instead. And a plan, to work towards it.

    Getting Away

    I looked at the data about what helps women succeed in this industry, and then found that. Specifically – I looked for someone who would look out for me, and be a sponsor. I arranged it, and then I ran away.

    I wasn’t sure if I would come back.

    So I set myself some goals of things to build, and to write. Which I missed, by a long way. And I arranged some places to visit. Maybe over-scheduled myself, somewhat, too much so to be creative.

    But – I recharged. Started to feel joyful again. Exploring gave me reasons to want to get up every morning, again. I started to connect to who I am rather than things that I did, and to contemplate living without them. Got used to being alone, again. Because my life in Sydney was the hardest thing to leave. A casualty of the flames.

    To not be an expat anymore, to return to a country that is technically “home”, but doesn’t feel like it.

    The Present

    I remember the feeling the morning when I realised that I wasn’t dreading the day ahead. I’ve yet to come home in tears. After a rough week I had a moment when I contemplated giving it all up, and knew that if I did, I would be OK.

    Sometimes something reminds me of the things that drove me to that point, and I want to panic. But I try and remain outwardly calm at least, and remind myself that I already met the minimum goal I set for myself. That this experience is not that one. I convince myself that it will be OK, and so far, it has been.

    Of course, one day it might not be. But the clock that was going double time has slowed. This less frantic drum beat, makes me less frantic to have good things right now, yesterday. I can work with OK. An extra few beats does not herald an explosion, it was just a bad day, and tomorrow will be another one.

    Try again.

    It’s weird, going past the milestones. The first time I felt appreciated – gave me a warm glow for days, still does, even. The first time I did a women in tech event – terrified because I had to be “on”, worried because I have nothing good to say about the experience of women in this industry, still… and I had a great time. Talking to school kids, panicking because I’m an appalling liar and being positive felt like it would feel like lying… and then realising that it didn’t, that it wasn’t. Putting something I’d done out there, afraid that I was behind, worse than everyone else… and realising that wasn’t the case at all.

    I think though, the same way that you never fall in love again like the first time, because the first time you give yourself fully and optimistically in a way that it’s never possible to do again… Now, I keep something back. Make an effort to maintain my “side” interests, and projects so that they’ll be there when I need them. Keep in mind the plan, which is not a lifetime of casual misogyny, but a life that I define, and things I want to create.

    Not being on a work-permit helps the way I thought it would. I feel less trapped. It’s easier to be happier in a place where you don’t feel like you have to be.

    Of course, it’s also easier to be happier in a better place. I’m lucky to have found one.

  • 3 Things I Learned on my Burnout Break

    3 Things I Learned on my Burnout Break

    Piedras de primavera, spring stones
    Credit: flickr / Vicente Villamón

    I can live with less internet.

    Note – this is no no internet (although I survived my 6 days in NK), but less. Most of the time when traveling I’ve had some connection, but there has usually been a limit. Maybe it’s not on my primary (favorite) phone, or it’s really slow/intermittent (Bali! Portugal), or I have 15mb limit (Europe, O2 roaming data is 1.99 GBP for 15MB daily).

    It’s annoying, but I just drafted blog posts in the notes in the notes app instead. This was actually helpful, as I would not do any research or fact-checking as I went along (can be distracting) but later. As a result, I think I wrote more, and faster unplugged. It did put me off coding things though, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to look anything up or download anything. The other major annoyance is that most of the time over October and November, I have been unable to watch video – not great, but not the end of the world, either.

    I take for granted a constant and fast connection, and yes sometimes I don’t have it, but this is the longest period in a while where I’ve been internet deprived in some sense. It’s a helpful reminder, as an engineer, how important it is that the things we build function with poor, intermittent, or no internet. Twitter’s addition of photos to the stream annoys me for this reason. When I’m limited to 15MB, an image-heavy webpage will significantly deplete my internet reserves. Engineers could do a better job, in general, of handling this.
    The worst part of this was that sometimes “just this one thing” on the internet would take an hour or more. Because I often deal with poor internet by opening MOAR tabs… I don’t know why I do this. It is basically the opposite of what I should be doing if I really want to just do that one thing and go to sleep.

    Relaxing is not the same as Being Relaxed.

    This idea has it’s own blogpost, but essentially – once I had chilled out, I didn’t need the things I normally do to “relax”. I survived No-Novel November, for example.

    The things that made me want a break, were not the same as what made me afraid to go back.

    Obviously, no-one takes an extended break and moves to another country because they are completely happy with how things are.

    If you’d asked me what I was needing a break from at the end of September, and what I was worrying about going back a week ago, I would have given you a different set of things. And then, what actually made me excited to go back was something else again.

    I guess we don’t always know exactly why we need a break, and it can take time to process the things that are the most stressful – especially those things that we try so very hard to tell ourselves are fine. But I think it’s helpful to honor the feeling of needing one. I’ll do this again, should the need or occasion arise. And I understand better now, my friend who when I asked her how she had survived and got so far in this industry, told me she had burnt out and taken a break multiple times. I’m so grateful to her for admitting that, and making me feel that I could make the same call.

  • On Burnout

    On Burnout

    burnout
    Credit: flickr / Tim Williams

    I am so burnt out right now. There’s a long list of reasons for that, but a lot of it is just the industry and how women are treated – as one of my friends put it “dudes are just a trigger warning for you at this point”. And this is exacerbated by not feeling that I’ve been doing anything meaningful, and I’ve just been questioning a number of things, including where I live.

    So I’ve been concocting a plan – come December 2nd, I will be based in London. And October and November are devoted to Adventures. First the Grace Hopper Conference (which was awesome), and then California for an internal leadership course, and as of today… officially non-work-related-adventures.

    I’m going to relax in Bali, roam around Barcelona, catch up with friends in Kitchener-Waterloo, see the Northern Lights in Reykjavik, and look for some kind of inner peace on a yoga retreat in Faro (Portugal).

    Shorter explanations:

    “I’m exploring my alternate career as a travel blogger”

    “I’m an international fuckwit of no fixed address”

    What do I hope to get out of this?

    First up, I just need a break, a chance to reconnect with what I think is important. There’s a freedom that comes from not having to answer to anyone, and weekends and short breaks have not been long enough for me to really connect with and hold onto that.

    Secondly, I need to remind myself why I love to make things. This means more time to make things for fun, learn the things that I want to learn just because they are interesting, rather than because they’ll help my career or team or whatever.

    Thirdly, I want some distance from this industry, and the appalling treatment of women within it. Every week I encounter new pieces of data, and new stories, and they are not abstract to me, this is the world I live in. I’m hoping a break from this world will help me not connect with these stories and data as much for a while.

    Finally, this is my time to explore what I would do if I wasn’t afraid.

  • Sydney, One Year On

    Sydney, One Year On

    IMG_3573

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about when I decided to move to Sydney. The two week period in which I changed my mind every day – multiple times a day, even. I cried every day. It was a difficult decision, where to go, and it was hard to live a place that I loved, even whilst I knew it was not a forever-place.

    It was, in a number of ways, a short-term decision. I thought the other option might be a better career move for me, long term, but didn’t address an immediate and pressing thing that I just knew was too important to me not to resolve soon.

    And so I figured, come for a year, and see.

    And as the end of that year approached… I kept thinking about why I decided to come here, what would make me stay.

    I wanted the city-girl life, which I have had and is everything I hoped it would be. The apartment where from the roof of the building I can see the Opera House, and the Harbour bridge. Lots of (girl)friends, evenings out and about. Something cultural pretty much every week – either an art gallery, or the theatre.

    Sydney, from when I first saw it, and still, has seemed to me the most beautiful city in the world. But, it is expensive – rent is astronomical, and being so remote so are flights. It’s far from my family. It’s far from anywhere, really, even other parts of Australia.

    I’m still single, and I’ve found dating as an expat is hard, especially in the second country. The option of leaving is clearly there, and whether or not I allow myself to consider them, the questions “could this tip the balance that I would stay?” “would you come with me?” come to mind.

    The biggest thing that has made me think about leaving, though, is feeling burnt out on this industry. On occasion, I walk home in tears thinking about quitting my job, running away to live up a mountain, I also find myself considering the fact that I am on a visa. If I took that off the table, would it be easier to cope with those moments? My friend was talking to me about startups, and I explain, my job is the only stable thing in my life. But, what if it wasn’t? What would that change?

    There are a lot of things necessary for expat-life that I am good at – making myself feel at home somewhere new. Accepting things as they are, and not how they are in other places. And others I am terrible at – like forms and bureaucracy – this is why I don’t have a driving license right now.

    I’m so glad I came here, though. I’m so glad I had this experience, saw these places, met the many amazing people who have come to be my friends. I always want to choose the bigger, more interesting life, even though that is not the easier one.

  • Balancing, Integrating

    Balancing, Integrating

    cow up a tree
    credit / http://freeaussiestock.com/free/Victoria/Melbourne/slides/cow_up_a_tree.htm

    I bought my laptop home with me for the long weekend. I was writing code at 9pm on Wednesday night. Last week, I worked Sunday night.

    Sounds like I have a work-life integration problem, right?

    I used to have these strict rules – laptop stays at the office. No work at the weekends. I drew lines around my day, theorizing that if I had a full evening and couldn’t work, I would have a real break.

    I didn’t used to have my work email on my cell phone. Now I do – one of them even beeps when it arrives. I turned it on because I spent a day in transit and another at TEDx and wanted to be semi-available. I didn’t get round to turning it off, and mostly just keep it on silent. It’s not the problem I imagined it would be.

    When I arrived in KW, I didn’t know that many people and was in a relationship with someone who worked at the same place. Since we broke up, and I’ve been finding different things to do with my evenings (even if that is often hanging out on the cross-trainer watching Drop Dead Diva – Amazon). Maybe I needed those rules, as I got over grad school and the constant guilt. When, frankly, I didn’t have as much else to do.

    But now it’s a different story. And, I worked Sunday night because Friday afternoon I took off to do someone a favor – the timing worked well, I got a jump on Monday. Sure, I was working late on Wednesday but I left the office, worked out with my trainer, had a nice walk in the sunshine to pick up some dinner, and then came back to it as my colleagues in Australia arrived for the day, which meant I could sync up with them. And sometimes things are easier to do without interruptions – so after everyone else has gone home!

    At any time, I could turn email off on my phone. But mostly I just don’t bother to look at it. I could return my laptop to the office, it’s just a couple of minutes away anyway. The symbolic separation was only ever that, and I don’t feel like I need it anymore. Besides, I travel for work. A lot. It’s pointless to pretend that doesn’t impact my life – it does. In positive ways, because I experience new things and see cool places, but in negative ones too. It’s hard, sometimes, but it’s a choice – so clearly I think it’s worth it. I just forget that when I’ve spent 8 hours in San Francisco airport waiting.

    I read an article with Marissa Mayer and one of the things she mentions is that burnout happens when you miss the things that are important to you. The thing that if you miss it, it ruins your week. I’m not completely sold on this theory, or perhaps it’s just for me a week with no down-time would be a stressful and miserable experience. But I see the point – I didn’t lose out on anything by working a couple of extra hours on Wednesday night, I felt good about what I got done and enjoyed my chat with the Australian. And it was a free choice – perhaps that is the most important thing. I didn’t have to.

    Anyway, the upshot of all this is, my work and life are a little more blended than they used to be, and I’m OK with this new way.