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Understanding Burnout
Cognitive Dissident writes "New York Magazine has posted a feature story about the growing phenomenon of 'burnout' and the growing interest of both healthcare professionals and even corporate management in this problem. Probably the most surprising thing learned from reading this article is that work load is not the best predictor of burnout. Instead it has more to do with perceived 'return on investment' of effort. So work places are having to learn to adjust the work environment to reduce or prevent burnout. From the article: '"It's kind of like ergonomics," [Christina Maslach] finally says. "It used to be, 'You sit for work? Here's a chair.' But now we design furniture to fit and support the body. And we're doing the same here. The environments themselves have to say, 'We want people to thrive and grow.' There was a shift, finally, in how people understood the question."' NPR's Talk of the Nation also had a recent feature story based on this article."
I'm a very busy individual with peaks and valleys -- I go from 80 hour weeks for 3 months to 5 hour weeks for 3 months (on purpose). I see a lot of people in my fields burn-out regularly, and I wonder if it really has to do with workload, or if it has to do with a lot of other secondary causes. For me, the closest I came to burn-out was during a time of my life when my workload wasn't excessive (maybe 20 hours a week of billable labor and 20 hours a week of secondary support work). The workload was feeling stressful, but it was everything else in my life that was really having an effect that I didn't realize. I vented at the job, but it was carryover from other problems. I had a house that was too big ("housing prices always go up!" they said). I had big new cars that we replaced too often ("never buy anything on credit that depreciates"). I didn't take time to congregate with family and real friends -- my only friends were either employees, customers, or people in my field of work. I didn't take time to really have a vacation -- vacating from "reality." I wanted the newest toys, and I wanted them before others ("bragging rights.") My relationship with my significant other was cluttered with just that -- clutter. We had junk everywhere, and when we got our big 4 bedroom home, we had to fill it with more clutter or it felt empty. That clutter around me ended up cluttering my thought process peripherally, adding to the stress.
So what did I do? I downsized the clutter (physical, emotional and labor) and upsized the real personal time. I don't discuss business or politics or religion with my real friends and family -- instead we talk about reality, the now, the past. I "fired" a few of my worst customers who never seemed to pay on time but always called with this or that emergency. Sure, the billable rate was great, but the peripheral stress didn't balance out. I sold my home (and bought a few mobile homes throughout the regions I work and vacation in). I sold all 3 new cars and bought 2 used cars. We sold almost all our possessions except for our books and heirlooms (including all our technology, clothing, household goods, etc), and when we moved into our tiny 2 bedroom home, we bought new items that would last until our grandchildren would inherit them.
Now life is much easier. Work never stresses me, even when deadlines happen. I don't feel like I have to worry about traveling or spending time with my aging parents or younger siblings. I am able to really work on building real friendships of honesty and caring. My relationship with my significant other is so much better because we actually have time for one another, not for the junk and clutter we used to have. I actually work MORE now than I ever have, but I still have time for myself and for others.
Many of my old friends are burning out right now -- a few of them are millionaires who can't keep a grasp on living for today. I'd say a huge percentage of them are in major debt (50%+ of their gross income), some are living way beyond their means even though they're in the top 5% earning bracket. They hate their job, their spouses, their kids, their homes, their cars, and their lives -- because there is just too much. Where do they vent it? At work -- the place they spend 8-10 hours a day invested in. Their offices are clutter piles, their cars are messes, and their face and eyes show it.
If an outsider met them, they'd say that they work too much. They wouldn't blame the (leased) BMWs, the (mortgaged) McMansion, or the (on-credit) Armani sunglasses. They'd not even notice that they're living 1 person to a bedroom and practically 1 person to a bathroom, whereas historically we've seen the average around 2:1 on both, even 3:1 in some cases. They don't realize that the more you have, the more your mind is occupied on some level with all that stuff. On top of all that overhead, they're also paying probably 40-50% of their gross income to all the various government taxes, fees and costs. That's something most forget
Burnout is really simple to understand. You try to make your car crash as spectacular as possible.
don't want to scroll through 7 pages?
Friends and I would stay up all night smoking pot and playing Nintendo. Around dawn we'd be useless sacks of shit. I still freak out thinking of the "Death" monsters in Gauntlet.
Trolling is a art,
It is not the amount of work that causes burnout, but the fitting of the person to the role they are performing. Make bad fits and the people get frustrated and burn out easier. Make good fits and the creative energy flows.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Burnout happens because we live a soulless existence working on worthless things to gain money which will be spent on worthless material things.
When you don't do anything that seem important to you, you simply stop being able to do it.
At some point, your brain figures out it only has one life to live and it's being wasted. So it "burns out" to get itself out of the current, unhealthy environment.
If you burn out, it's not really your fault entirely.
But you should recognize it as your brain and body telling you to get out now, you're killing it!
this is just my theory, of course.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
I don't know about you but whenever I feel burned out I go to http://slashdot.org/
Always be polite.
I haven't been to work in about 3 months. Basically living from my savings and a porn website (check my sig! ;) ).
I thought I was young, invulnerable, but working from 9am to 7pm just got to me, after about 4 years. Now I just can't agree with the idea that I have to go and do stuff for someone ever again.
And I feel happy without that. I think something just broke, and I don't want to fix it.
I never thought about burnout the way the article describes it, but I wholeheartily agree. If I am working on something where I see great results that positively impact my company's clients, I feel great ... even if I'm working 80 hour weeks. If I am doing something that I view as trivial or unnecessary (but cannot get out of doing it), I quickly feel burned out within a few weeks.
If this truly is the reason people get burned out, it shows that all the money spent on fancy work environments, extra-curricular events, and other perks is largely wasted.
Huh? Don't mind me, I'm just the new guy.
Yes.. burnout comes from not having a comfy chair. And while you're up, could you get me a few Dews, plug in my iPod, and massage my feet while you're at it?
Quit being a whiny pansy and get back to work.
Just kidding. Burnout is more of your lack of mental ability to cope with whats going on around you than what is actually going on around you.
Anyways.. gotta run, my Restless Leg Syndrome (RLS) is acting up again.
This sorry platitude should be dragged out on the street and shot. The head should be put on a stick and tied to the bridge for all who enter the city to see that this just doesn't apply in the modern world.
Work is first and foremost labor/expertise in exchange for some wages and it's done at the pleasure of your boss with your consent.
"Thriving and growing" is something that the worker concentrates on exclusive of work. Should "thriving and growing" intersect with work it should only do so to increase the salary the worker at their current or next job. Period.
"Burnout" is another one. The employee is totally responsible for this as the employer will extract as much productivity as their morals allow with no consideration for "burn out."
In some cases, there are benevolent employers, but this is the rare exception.
Sorry for the rant, but these HR platitudes are a pet peeve of mine.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I just don't have time to read it, I have meetings to go to.
No insult intended, but it actually used to be "You sit for work? Use the floor or figure out how to levitate, or your job's going to Bangalore."
Burnout? The hell with that. If everyone else is burning out, then "Pay raise" is where I'm going.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
As some of the ranting and raving I have done in the past has shown.
But I have reached beyond it. I am now embracing nihilism.
It is very liberating. Or perhaps I am confusing it with mu.
But in any case, when the maws of burnout clamp down onto you, use the purchase to thrust yourself down its throat. Because it will all come out in the end.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I found my cure to nearly burning out was to take a more self-interested viewpoint on things. Instead of hanging around that half hour to an hour late to get A out to client B I'd just go home on time. I gave up on carefully balancing my schedule to keep certain amounts of time free for emergencies/high priority issue response because a co-worker was using that as an excuse to dump work on me. If I was was sick I'd take the very next day (or even the afternoon) off no matter what I was assigned so I wouldn't get exceptionally sick the day after that.
Little selfish changes like that did me a world of good. I was being too lenient to the behaviors of both client and co-worker and because of that I was being walked all over. I was always tired and increasingly cranky before. Afterwards I'm able to have a more laid-back and infinitely more positive attitude. It's a bit of a disturbing thought that parts of my working environment are so bent towards destroying a developer (and their life) by default. At least my manager and the rest of my co-workers are rad and I get to work in the languages I love.
I almost gave up IT this year. I was working at a financial institute and the work was fun. I wrote a BlackBerry app using java with a .Net backend. Fun stuff. But my manager was a complete jerk. Constantly moody. At my review he said "99% of the time we love you, but that 1% is killing us". I was out for a few days earlier in the year when my son's babysitter almost died, and this was brought up. "I don't care about your babysitter, I don't care about your kid. I just want you to be here for eight hours a day." I gave my notice at the end of the week. Turns out he lost all of his developers in that review month. He must have read somewhere that reviews were the place to smack your employees around.
Although it wasn't the work that made me quit, I was very reluctant to go through the same crap with a new manager. Instead of giving up IT entirely, I went out on my own again. I barely had enough work to pay the bills through the summer, but DAMN I was relaxed! By the end of the summer I was able to stomach another corporate job. It's boring work (See: Read Slashdot), but they are flexible. My old manager was anything but. I'll give it a while and if I get too bored, do my own thang again.
Burnout may not be something you can control, but you can fix it.
If I'm working on a project and not making any progress, another four hour day at work seems unbearable. If I'm making great progress and enjoying way I'm doing, I'll forget lunch and dinner and find myself starving and exhausted 14-16 hours later, but quite happy. Progress I think is the key.
Dekker Dreyer
I'd wager that overall health is a big factor, too. I recall a study that ended up on the front page here. Rats that were injured and under stress both took longer to heal AND were a lot less active. Speaking from personal experience, any sort of lingering pain/injury can really contribute. In my case, it got to a point where the injury kept me from sleeping well, which made getting up and going to work awful. When I was there, I was horribly unproductive as I was always distracted/unable to concentrate, which ended up causing more stress as work piled up. When I got home, I'd need to wind down before I could get to sleep.
The end result was that I was always tired, hurting, and totally unable to get anything done. It was one massive negative feedback loop, and I found myself just wanting to quit everything. The end result was depression, burnout, and suffering.
I'd say staying healthy is one step in preventing burnout.
Fill in your four or five-letter word of wisdom here _ _ _ _ _.
There is a strong physiological underpinning to burnout, as years of constant stress and little sleep take their toll on the brain (in fact, the last stages of burnout are very much like those of a clinical depression). It is possible to recover, but it can take *years* and it's a difficult process.
A while back I wrote an article for Kuro5hin on this same subject, and that got plenty of positive responses. It was later expanded and wikified into a Wikibook which you might find interesting: Demystifying Depression
(Yeah, sorry for the shameless plug, but this is important stuff that all of us in IT should be aware of. Besides, the link is to a public wikibook, not to my personal blog or anything.)
If your having burn out check out this book, Tuesdays with Morrie. My favorite quote is along the lines of, If a culture doesnt suit you, don't buy it.
NASA manages to get a satellite photo of what the Fremen have been bribing the Spacing Guild to keep hidden.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
What they're really pointing to as "burnout" is really a lack of personal growth. Call it the "working dead" if you will. You're working, but never "productive" enough for advancement. you have all the other things but aren't really "alive".
John Mayer even has a Song about it "Something's missing"... you can buy it on iTunes with your credit card to put on your iPod, in your in car stereo adapter, on the way to work!
Burnout is ages old, in my experience, its been around since before the computer. Now, with the advent of the computer are all kinds of new stresses: Operator overload, ergonomics (is that listed as a real word yet?) and distraction stress etc. ad nauseum.
Previously, neither management or worker knew about ergonomics and distraction stress, then workers knew but couldn't get any support at work, now bosses know... still not much support to rid the workplace of it. AFIK, countries other than the US are well out front in the race to reduce workplace stress.
One of the little known problems in the workplace (not trolling here) is scent! If you are distracted continuously by nasty perfume of co-workers, it causes higher stress levels from everything else. Even the little things have to be taken into account when trying to reduce stresses in the workplace.
There are government agencies and laws to support getting a better workplace environment... its just a big effort to get it implemented without causing huge amounts of more stress.... sigh
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
In my view, burnout occurs due to the reason that people do not have a well-conceived goals.
Understand that, and work for it - you wont have burnout at all. People with real well-conceived goals, work for 100 hr weeks and they are the happiest there could be (cant say the same for the family though )
But, if you are working for the sake of working - or to just to feed yourselves and family, they you are a prime candidate for burnout.
I have come pretty close to burnouts - and it is not during the time when I worked 85 Hrs/week; it was when I was doing stuff for which I had no interest at all. Even though I knew it all along, I understood that money was not my goal in my life pretty much late in my life. Once I understood that, everyday of work was a horror. I was working maybe 5/6 hours a week - and still I was close to burnout.
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
I've always felt that within the lyrics to the song, "Outside In," Poster Children has an excellent definition for what directly leads to the phenomenon of burnout.
"Trade the future for a payment
On a suitable replacement
For everything you've lost along the way."
Eventually, it begins to feel more automatic to simply stop caring about what you're not doing instead of working and otherwise engaging in preparation of the acquisition of things like physical possessions or the proposition of stability, which is sadly often just a cycle that feeds itself. The burnout comes when your brain realizes that life has been passing you by while you've been instead focusing on things that are really supposed to be enabling you to live it.
--"It's easier if you don't think about what's missing at the end of every week."
But I lost interest about half way through.. I .. Just .. could... not... go ... on...
Dirty Pirate Hooker
You take a car and ram it into other cars. In the end, you either win the race, or blow up. It's more of an adrenaline pumping experience than work related depression.
This really rings true for me. After working as a Unix/Network engineer for 7 years, I burnt out HARD. Decided I needed a radical change in my life and pursued other things. I'm finally getting back into the corporate world 3 years later and realizing that when I was working 75 hours a week for a dotcom designing and implementing exciting new systems and architecture, I didn't burn out. When I worked for 3 years at a large hospital organization just to have them scrap the 1 billion dollar project and years of work, I realized that absolutely nothing I had been doing was worth anything (in a sense of accomplishment). By structuring workloads of a team so that each member gets to do some design work along with the drudgery, I think employees would feel a greater sense of satisfaction in their work.
Sincerely,
Your Boss
While I won't speculate on the cause, I have to say I have found a solution for myself. Ten days in Hawaii is the only place where I can truly relax and unwind. I take other trips throughout the year, mostly exploring cities. While those trips generally provide a good environment for the mind, the body also needs to rest. And for that, Hawaii is the perfect place for me. I can get away from any and all monitors and simply do what I want for those days. Basically, take a vacation every year and go and unwind and let your body and mind relax.
-Palal
We've had 4 burnouts. 2 of them were managers. 2 were programmers. The cause is definitely lack of satisfaction and not excessive hours. There is a 100% correlation between rapid company growth and declining individual influence that causes burnouts. They tend to be very ambitious. 2 of 4 quit when another person was promoted above them or hired to fill the role above them. Another aspect not mentioned by the media is that burnouts tend to lock themselves in their cubes and never be seen.
People forced to work excessive hours usually go somewhere else but don't burn out. They actually don't quit or take long vacations to make up for it, which shows they probably bring the long hours on themselves.
Its better to burnout than fade away
Pressure creates stress.
By reducing your financial obligations, you've done a good job of reducing these pressures. If a client gives you too much shit, you fire 'em. Employees should have the same attitude. If your boss is unbearable, fire his/her ass and get a new one. Live in a place without many jobs? Find contracts where you can telecommute, move, or find a new line of work.
Don't buy top-of-the-line everything. Learn to enjoy Doom 3 at 800x600 with a 32 MB of video card. You don't have to get rid of everyhing, but you have to get rid of some things and scale back on others. The bottom line is that people need to take active steps in setting up their lives so that they have as much leverage as possible over their own lives and so that "stress" like this won't be a problem.
Slightly off-topic but still relating to the idea of burnout as being tied to a lack of progress.
Could it be the seemingly tireless repetition of the same damn shit grade after grade, and going through the textbook for half a year just to go through the whole damn thing the other half preparing for the final, makes a lot of kids feel their time in school is wasted doing nothing?
This was true of myself, at least, but maybe it's true of more kids than we think. Perhaps we should accelerate our school systems, and kids will be less bored, less prone to drop out, and get further by the time they graduate?
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
I can happily work long hours when I know it will make a difference. But too often there's somebody causing a disconnect between the work and the reward. That's what causes stress, the natural confusion arising from the mind having to override the body's strong desire to beat the living shit out of some asshole who desperately deserves it. Maybe we should start a fight club.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Instead it has more to do with perceived 'return on investment' of effort. So work places are having to learn to adjust the work environment to reduce or prevent burnout.
//perception// of the reality being the problem, rather than the reality itself. In other words, this is being sold to management as a way to create mere perceptions of work ROI, rather than actually creating work ROI. In short, they're coddling the industrial tendency to insist upon exploiting workers with deception.
So in other words, these geniuses have JUST DISCOVERED that workers tend to react badly to being overworked and undercompensated? Welcome to the party, Boss! It's good to see you finally made it to reality!
What disturbs me, of course, is the framing of this as the
Trust me, Boss. The perception is not the problem; it's the reality.
---
IMO your post is insightful insomuch as it exemplifies the mentality of the subjects of the article of those who become burned out perfectly.
The world wasn't meant to be so, perhaps you just need a different perspective.
All employers may not feel it is their duty to ensure their 'workers' are happy. However, the best employers will attend to their employees and inspire them to be the best... If your boss isn't doing that, then they aren't meeting THEIR potential and everyone is losing out.
A CEO who inspires their employees to excellence deserves every $ they make. But they don't accomplish this through fear.
Frankly, you just sound bitter. :/
I've found that an important aspect of burnout can be physical health. If you have a chronic illness (even just chronic pain, and its attendant distraction, can easily qualify), its drag can be limiting and make many areas of your life seem limited and uninspiring.
Being in poor health, even if not with a specific illness, can also be a drag. And inhabiting one's chair longer in compensation, trying to complete the "dreaded" work, can become a positive (in function, not in perception) feedback loop.
It's certainly not the only aspect of burnout, but I think physical health continues to get short shrift in our (U.S.) society, in considering the nature of overall well being.
(And I don't mean that everyone should be Lance Armstrong-buff. But generally fit -- enjoying that feeling -- and certainly without lingering, outstanding health issues.)
The problem is more fundamental than "burnout". The problem is an overall breakdown in U.S. society. For example, the U.S. government has become very corrupt: George W. Bush comedy and tragedy.
The U.S. has a higher percentage of its citizens in prison than any country, ever, more than 6 times the percentage of those in prison in European countries.
The U.S. is the most obese country in the world, except for a small island nation in which people eat a lot of coconut.
Is it?
Maybe not all workplaces, but many are heading in that direction.
We have to stop allowing the corporate world to determine our national priorities.
This is only tit-for-tat in that clearly, corporations are not loyal to any one nation. If we don't do that we will be like rats in a treadmill, running faster and faster for less and less. We have to say no, stop the addiction cycle. They will thank us for it, but they can't do it themselves.
This is an abusive relationship. Increasingly, the carrots are being replaced by sticks, and people are incentivized not by pleasant rewards, but by the absence or reduction of punishment. This is a sick way to run a society and it is not sustainable. Its a symptom of the decline of America. We ignore the increasing rate of burnout at our own peril.
.. that burnout is a built in ROI calculator for the individual, then its probably a good mesure for the companyy as well.
;-) )
Here we have two projects. An ass-old- buggy, poorly written code base and the new one that is just starting. I dread the old code base, because it brings on immediate burn-out. The return is so little for that code base that we've stopped developing it except for easy enhancements and bug fixes.
Other times I've experienced burn out is when you just go too hard at a goal that is too far away. It is better to take things into small steps that can be checked off. I also find that when you have the option to work in one project with little changes, it is best not to linger. Instead, let the change requests stack up. Then hit the code base hard, and thereby forcing yourself to feel productive as you check each one off.
But nothing still keeps me more motivated than seeing the $$ behind the work. Early on each feature has a profit margin to it. By the time you're in a maintenance cycle, you're doing it to keep the software functioning as it should. Its not nearly as sexy.
The other thing is the right tools. Having to deal with asinine tools negates your agility to get the changes implemented timely. You should be able to focus on things from a customer perspective and not how hard it is to implement. A good tool is worth its licensing fees many times over. (I'd include a shameless plug for Qt from TrollTech, or Perforce, but I'm not going to
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
I spent the first three years after graduate school working on the "Trusted Mach" project. The code I wrote, three years of my professional life, now sits on a shelf somewhere at the NSA, never deployed.
After that I spent a year working on a firewall product for Norman Data Defense systems. Ever hear of it? Europeans may know Norman ASA for its antivirus software, but I believe the firewall had all of about six customers worldwide.
There are a few other projects where I'm not sure whether the code i wrote was ever deployed or not. I believe my work on EDOS helped sling around the bits received from the Terra and Aqua satellites, that brings me some comfort.
But I've spent a good chunk of my professional career writing code that ultimately made no difference to anyone. That's why I'm satisfied now to do part-time less complex software development work for a small business (where what I write gets deployed immediately, and if it doesn't change the world at least helps our customers), and work part-time as a shiatsu therapist (where what I do makes a definite impact).
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I too burned out, not finding another job yet my wife getting a little nuts about it. What do you say to her?
From the abstract:
How this is a surprise is precisely the root of the problem.
The biggest reason for burnout, from the perspective of one who has suffered a lot of burnout, is almost entirely the return on investment issue.
When you work long, hard, thankless hours, or do work that others have no idea how to do, and do not get either of adequate recognition, appropriate remuneration, or personal satisfaction, it piles on you until, one day, you end up looking at where you've been and where you are now, and see that your standard of living is not any better (possibly worse), or that you don't have the respect or position you feel you have earned, or you simply do not feel that you are achieving what matters to you in your life. And on that day, you feel either inadequate, slighted, or unappreciated. The result, in all of those cases, is that you burn out.
While some people might tell you to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and take life by the horns, it is not always so easy to do --- especially if you try and try and nothing seems to change. It can be demoralizing at best, and the peception of getting nowhere just makes it ever harder to pick yourself up and try again.
The answer for employers who want to stem the effects of burnout is to help their employees achieve meaningful, real satisfaction from their work.
Providing wages that (at least) keep up with cost of living, making available opportunities to advance one's position, offering employees ways to share in the profits of their work, supporting employee achievement of what is important to them, giving them recognition and appreciation for their contributions, and simply respecting them as people are the tools you need. A nice chair doesn't hurt, but it doesn't stop the burnout. Burnout is more psychological than physical.
Now, employers don't have to just give things to their employees on a silver platter, either. It's all about reciprocating peoples' efforts in a meaningful way. Unless they're starving, a holiday turkey once a year isn't as meaningful as some people think. Neither is a gold watch after thirty or more years of work. If employees can look back just one year and honestly say to themselves that they are better off now and are on the road to achieivng what is important to them, you'll see the burnout rate go down and the productivity rate go up (probably exponentially).
Most people actually thrive on a challange, but only when the potential reward is right. While stress plays a factor in burnout, it is simply contributing to the phychological complications that are at the root of the problem. A sense of achievement is a very real queller of stress. People can handle schedules, deadlines, and crazy hours. It just has to be worth it to them.
Now, if you are the one suffering from burnout, what you need to do is to take proactive measures to accomplish something meaningful in your life. It can be all at once or baby steps. It doesn't matter which. It doesn't have to contibute to getting that mansion on the beach, or the expensive sports car, or even popularity and fame. You just need something to reaffirm that you are capable of getting to where you want to be in life and that you are getting something from your work --- that you are not just a slave to the grind.
If your mind constantly wanders to money issues, look for a better income opportunity or some supplemental income opportunities, like moonlighting, freelancing, or merchandising. If you yearn for more respect, appreciation, or personal satisfaction, you would be amazed how much you get from doing some charity work or pitching in to help out with community projects. If you just need to get some inkling of enjoyment from what you've earned instead of funnel
I'm wondering if our farming ancestors back in the day when everyone farmed ever suffered from burnout. Did they ever stand up and say "that's it, no food this winter, I'm not plowing one more row!" After all, these farmers had no room for personal growth, very little way to express themselves creatively on the job, had very hard deadlines, and most of their lives were affected by things well outside of their control (weather, taxes).
Sorry if I'm bucking the feel-good trend here, but I think this is a load of nonsense. Of course I have bad days, even a bad week or so. But that's all it is. Life has its ups and downs, and you learn to roll with them as you grow up. Giving those downs special names and wondering if we should call them an illness seems far-fetched and frankly silly to me.
-Jeff
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
Wow, I hate my job. I work 3 days a week and have 4 days off. I am bored out of my mind. I try to keep busy at work but management sucks. I am also taken two graduate classes and a mentor to a elementary student. Am I burnt out cause I have so much free time or they don't pay me enough. I have more experience and certifications compared to half of the workers, yet I am paid the least.
Your employer does not cause burnout. They pay you to do your job. Sometimes the jobs of two or three people. Does this push you outside your comfort zone? Does this cause you stress? Coping with difficulties is a skill just like everything else. Just because you are exceptional at the bold points of your job description doesn't mean that you will be treated like a king. We have climate controlled buildings. We get bathroom breaks. We even get our special needs met no matter how trivial to the employer they may be. Suck it up or find a different job. There are plenty of people out there that are praying to get the opportunities that you have. We should all feel incredibly lucky that we get paid to use our brains to make a living.
I don't see what's so surprising about this observation.
Anyone who's ever done double shifts for a month to meet a deadline knows that you feel pretty great when it all comes together. You bond with your team mates, eat pizza and rock out in the halls out 3am, brainstorm to come up with elegant solutions to challenging requirements, and generally make the world a better place in some small way.
On the other hand, you can start to feel pretty shitty when you're working regular hours for years and years on a project, where there are no written requirements and the customer keeps changing his mind, repeatedly obsoleting big chunks of your previous work.
Oh yeah, and don't even think about refactoring that old code to better reflect the new requirements, because that would require us to test it again. Just add some new functions to the old classes.
"Classes? What are these "classes" you speak of?", asked the team lead. "I don't see why all the variables can't be static. After all, there's only ever one socket connection.". I shit you not.
One day you wake up and realize that four years of your life have gone by, and all you have to show for it is a mass of spaghetti, (that would probably take you six months to redevelop if you started from scratch tomorrow), a few bucks in the bank, some new grey hairs and a collection of cute puffy stress toys.
So yeah, I think it's pretty obvious that return on investment is a more important factor than workload, in causing burnout.
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
My friends and I discuss religion and politics no problem...I am generally not friends with people who don't think like me. Politics and religion are important subjects to me, so if I could not discuss them with friends...that would suck.
:) ) and I don't want to shun them.
You can pick your friends. You can't pick your family.
My family, however, are extremely conservative Christians who are in denial that I grew up and realized that their religion was just one of many and completely uncompelling. I have to sit calmly and let comments like "God is looking out for you!" float by after I comment that I just got a nice bonus for my hard work on a project at work. I'm cool with that. I'm the bigger person. I don't say "Wow that was lucky!" when they claim that their god was the root cause of some pleasant event in their lives. If I stood up for my beliefs the same way they shove theirs in my face knowing that I reject their claims of a god...there would be unhappiness.
So yeah, I don't talk about religion or politics with my family because they are good people in all other resepects (
Blar.
OMFG.....with the salaries in corporate upper managment I don't EVEN want to hear about burnout.
Their main stressors should be whether they drive the benz or the porsche on any particular day.
The problem is un-yeilding religion and un-thinking followers of that religion created a world that was extremely harsh towards atheists, and in certain regions, extremely harsh towards other religions. Prior to the 20th century, a person who was publically atheist could count on being treated as a second class citizen by the religious majority. 'God-fearing' people wouldn't want to socialize with or hire atheists...and many condescended to the atheist.
It's just a bit of backlash for thousands of years of religion supressing rational thought and logic through government...especially considering the reccent fundamentalist movement in the USA. Atheists saw the world finally beginning to accept them and then *bam* the religious majority decides they want to hang on to their control of the culture.
Blar.
If I work for you, give me a fucking raise, don't make me choose between you and my wife, and when I go on vacation wait until I get out the door before you start blaming all your problems on me.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
According to TFS (summary) higher management can have the problems too. This is direct proof that it is not work-load related at all. Higher management usually doesn't have too much to do than meet&greet and make stupid decisions. IT however is imho the highest stressed department in any business but I haven't seen a lot of burnout yet in the different companies I work for.
Quite honestly I have a large workload at any job and a lot of stress. I never burnt out although I had to put up with very bad management, shareholders without IT knowledge starting random projects involving the latest buzzwords, inter-office romantic relationships (makes some people very lazy), major layoffs (55) to afford some (2) CxO's and give the CIO and CEO a bonus each over three times my yearly wages when sales was down by 50%. I think it has a lot to do with perceiving problems and 'taking the office home'. If I am done at work (4-5pm) I usually put on my jacket and I am gone and so are the work problems until the next work day. Some people however take their work home and finish stuff up or do long extra hours.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
I consider myself "burned out", pursuing my efforts now on a personal level or for friends. In a way, it seems a shame I am "wasting" such precious insights that 35 years in design work ( I mean *real* design work ) gives a designer. Yet, I elect to live at a near poverty level in lieu of having to "sell my soul" to the suited-and-tied corporate types. I want so bad to go back to the time that I actually meant something to the company, and not be considered just another commodity.
My burnout occurred as I had spent years learning and perfecting a set of software I liked to use on PC's where I could write my own device drivers to make the computer do ANYTHING that it was capable of doing. These were .COM, .EXE, and .SYS files, written in C++ and assembler, running under DOS. I had collected every tool imaginable to let me do any sort of DSP, control any interface, or let me do any mathematical equations ( differential calculus ) on my machine.
I was in the midst of a dream project where I was trying to build a wide-range VCO, yet have the extremely low phase noise which would be required for using it as a local oscillator to drop 256QAM to baseband. The managers came in and demanded I do my work on some lousy 386-SX based machine running Windows 2.1 ( which was current at the time ), running doublespace. My machine at the lab was a 286. But I knew what I was doing with that one. I had no idea how to make my stuff run under Windows in a supervised environment.
I had no interest whatsoever in the fancy graphical output of Windows because I had no idea how the get the machine to do what I wanted, and do it without all the bloat which took forever and a day to execute. My mind was still set on how to use amplifier gains to increase the Q of my resonant circuits and configure the short term phase error through one varactor and the long term frequency control through another varactor, so I could simultaneously reap the benefits of fast phase correction without perturbing the frequency setpoints.
I know if you are not into RF modems, the above looks like gibberish. What I am trying to say is I already knew how to do what I needed to do, I just had to do it the way I knew how to do it.
Hiring somebody to come in and tell me that I can't do it my way - without giving him the onus of showing me exactly how to do it his way - did not help matters one bit.
He came in expecting me to take like a duck to water with his paradigms. Giving me closed-source proprietary crap to build on, citing I had no "need-to-know" how it worked - to me - was tantamount to giving a lawyer legal documents, written in Swahili, to approve. Just tell the lawyer which ones do what and have him approve them.
I thought of myself much like a pianist, with years of experience on the keyboard. Some manager comes in, forces me to use another piano whose keyboard starts with all the A notes, followed by all the B's, and so on... all in order. The manager patiently sits behind his desk, considering me not to be a team player because I hate that piano. He patiently keeps asking me what the problem is, can't I understand? Here it is again, all the A's are here, all the B's are there. All in order. Can't I be flexible enough to use it? Just point and click.
I know just as soon as I take the time to play my music through that machine, the manager is just going to redo the keyboard again. I have no return on my investment of effort whatsoever. Its like trying to put a lot of effort in improving a rented house.
I realized this guy has his experience in presentations, which I consider to be corporate propaganda more than anything concrete and useful. I could not consider him actually designing anything. Yet his training prepared him to find corporate executive types who could be persuaded that his efforts were more valuable than mine, and I should work under him.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I tried reading the article, but after about the third page I just gave up trying to slog through it. My mind couldn't handle any more.
If moderation could change anything, it would be illegal.
I suffer from Burnout damn near every weekend. Hours on end.
;)
I just pop the CD into my PS2 and I'm good to go.
Great stress relief, too. Probably what keeps me from going Postal.
Burnout is one manifestation of depression. One well-proven method for depression related to your job to be exhibited as burnouts is classically termed "learned helplessness" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness/
... there's a 2/3 chance you're going to get depressed and that depression is going to be exhibited as "burnout" (learned helplessness).
When you know exactly what you want, follow all the rules you've been told you need to follow to get it and work like a dog and then don't get it
The view you expressed doesn't sound all that different from Tom Cruise's denunciation of "post-partum depression" as hokum made up by people who were just personally weak.
TSIA
prob not for everyone but how about this for a potential solution for some of you sufferers out there on this nutty planet. do some gardening work, it's easy to get. Spend time outdoors but it doesn't have to be really intense work, usually not too exposed, only work on nice days, listen to music and get some exercise (you'll sleep better), you just need a few tools, you'll have plenty of time to think about your own IT projects and you'll be able to clear your head of any rubbish that has been making you feel like crap. you might have to downsize a bit but from my own experience this is a liberating act, like chopping tethers that pulled you in contrary directions.
/hippy
If you haven't seen his management advice movie clips, do check them out. Hillarious! http://www.despair.com/spin.html
How about tendinitis, carpal tunnel, tennis elbow, peripheral neuropathy that affect programmers. I had wrist pain that got progressively worse till I was unable to work anymore. I was unable to work and reeling in pain for 3 years! Thankfully I stumbled upon Dr. John Sarnos Healing Back Pain. He explains that the back pain epidemic (as well as the aforementioned conditions) are a result of repressed emotions like rage, fear, anxiety. The unconscience mind, trying to protect you, starts pain in your body to distract you from having to face up to painful emotions. Wrist pain seems to target programmers because we have been scared to death about RSI by the media.
My recovery was the most incredible thing I have every seen. I still cant believe that reading a book cured me but it did. Today Im lifting weights and have a normal life. The only thing is that I am going back to full time programmering. It was partly my reluctance to give up something that deep down I didnt like that caused the trouble.
It is a bit late in the news cycle but please mod this up so that people with RSI injuries can get better.
Reading the posts, most seem to fall on the demand from job. Maybe we are not seeing the bigger picture as to why burnout is getting so much attention lately. This is certainly not the first article I read on the subject and is certainly not the last. I have always wonder if our society is reaching a critical mass where burnout is a sign that a big crash is imminent. Burnout may be a sympton of the Technological era where jobs now place increasing demand on the human brain for work as oppose to the demands on the body of the Industrial age. We live in a services economy driven by new ideas. However, to produce those new ideas, we need to first incorporated hundreds of years of knowledge through endless study then apply it. Moreover, that knowlegde increased eponentially in the last one hundred years. Another product of this era is the devaluing of the professional cause by the increased enrollment in college. The percentage of workers with college educations is larger than in previous decades where now employers have a larger pool of potential candidites. In addition, many professional jobs don't have the protection of unions as they were not traditionally needed. Yet, these jobs are increasingly being exploited by employers in the form of reduce benefits, wages, and layoffs. Then, the final blow may be consumer economy driven in large part by the media. We are buying more yet selling less thus a creating a society of debtors. As anyone with debt knows, life can get real stressful when you can't make a payment. All this originates from the growth of our society with technology, media, and economy. I think were seeing a trend of increasing burnout whereby our society collapses under its own weight.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
I appreciated that the article touched on the fact that burnout not only comes from working too many hours, but also lacking in reward (and not just $$$). I work in GIS for a State government office. Our role in the State is basically coordinating GIS activities in the State. We get very little buy-in from the executive office and none from the legislature. Even worse, where we see real potential in using GIS for some good (law enforcement, homeland security), we get very little traction. So, after years of this going on in my state, and watching other states succeed where we've met resistance or apathy, I've decided to pack it in. It's depressing to know what's possible and to one day realize it ain't gonna happen!
i read pages 1-2 and got burnt out
People laugh when I talk about this. Some even say I'm inherently lazy (when it comes to housework I'd agree), but I'm not joking when I talk about having a Work Allergy.
/* I posted on this once before, I'm just too lazy to look it up. Yes I was actively looking and went on many interviews. */.
/* Woke up each morning at 10:00 AM, checked my online job searches, stuffed resumes into envelopes and did call backs on the ones from the week before. Worked out from 10:30 AM to 11:15 AM, cooled down by taking my envelopes to the mailbox and picking up the current paper then filled the day with whatever I wanted to do. */
/* My friends and family were *very* happy about this. */
/* My Doctor was even happier about this. */.
;-)
Yes, you read that right. Work Allergy.
I've worked varying types of jobs. I've done the mundane general labour jobs, to working on complicated projects. It didn't matter what I did, what my work hours were, I have always felt burnt out while working. Not just your general, "Ugh, I hate this job, can't wait for the weekend." type of burnout. I'm talking the, "I'm emotionally ready to retire now and in 11,651 days I'll never need to work a day in my life ever again!" kind of burnout.
I've felt burnt out for most of my life. Been on antidepressants twice. Taking Monocor now to keep the stress of work from making my heart fly apart. Once, my Doctor forced me to quit a particularly stressful job as he was fearful I would suffer a heart attack.
The only time I've been happy as an adult? The three years I was unemployed
The ability to have direct control over what I did in a day was the the most freeing feeling in the world. To know that I could do what I wanted, when I wanted, and that I could stop when I got bored; I haven't ever been happier, healthier or saner. My Doctor couldn't believe the change in me.
I was fitter
More personable
I was even able to stop taking my medication
The only downside was the lack of money and the uncertainty of how I was going to continue paying for my life. But I was having so much fun for the first time in my life that it wasn't very stressful.
I took a month off my current job recently. It was very much like those three years off. When I got back to work, no-one could believe how relaxed and energetic I was and I received many comments about all the weight I'd lost. I didn't have one panic/anxiety attack. No stress, no pounding chest pains. And I was able to stop my meds again.
I've tried different jobs, part time, relaxed schedules. It doesn't matter. Soon after starting a new job my stress goes up, the weight starts to pack on, I'm always in constant pain, I can't sleep, my chest hurts and then I need to start the meds again just to keep from having a heart attack. My mood changes, I can't focus, every conversation becomes an exercise in sarcasm.
Now don't get me wrong. I'm not afraid of hard work. I work hard in every job I've ever done. I always put forth the best possible effort to ensure that my job is completed to the best of my abilities. I take pride in a job well done.
I just can't handle doing the actual work. I really wish I could retire. Having a free form, non directed unplanned day filled with things that interest me and knowing I can quit when bored would make me unbelievably happy. Unfortunately, no one will pay me for doing this, so I have to make do the best I can.
Oh well, at least I only have 11,651 days until retirement.
No, really. It seems to be done deliberately to roll over staff and prevent an accumulation of senior people.
/. readers will figure out who I am from that, I suppose.)
When new development is to be done, new employees are hired and assigned to the new development. That way, they learn and understand the software as it is developed. Once development is substantially complete, the same engineers, having an in-depth understanding of the product, become the maintenance engineers for the product. Eventually, as the product becomes obsolete and approaches end of life, the engineers remaining on the project are given the opportunity to explore other possible career positions in the industry.
By having the senior, experienced developers performing all maintenance work, the junior new-hires, fresh out of college, are given free reign to explore and learn the ways of system design on their own, developing a new, fresh crop of seasoned maintenance staff.
I designed and implemented a whole window system, used by millions of people every day. Now I spend my days, weeks, and months trying to screen, reassign, or fix bug reports for every perceived glitch that can happen. Someone has a bad graphics card? Their mouse is dirty and the cursor jumps? The color of that background look a bit off? Someone wants an API function to behave a bit differently in their program than in anyone else's code? I get to deal with it. Try doing that for a few years. Then add in secret projects. "We need you to add these features for this hardware, which you are not allowed to see or have access to." Spend a few days on the phone with someone in the Sekrit Lab, trying to guide them through how to use slogin and run gdb. It would make a great Bob Newhart phone routine, if a bit geeky.
Oh, I could quit and get another job, which is probably the goal of the exercise, but I need the health care plan here for some nasty long term problems. I can't afford to go six months or a year waiting for that 'pre-existing conditions' period to lapse. They're working on that, too, though. The health plan is through a company that needs bucks for their departing CEO's 1.6 billion dollar bonus, so the plan is cutting benefits left and right. "Well, you were vomiting blood for four hours straight, but we think you should have waited to see a plan physician rather than abusing your Emergency Room benefit, so we're not paying." My regular doctor and oncologist aren't covered. As of January the lab won't be covered. I figure I'll probably die here while the HR folks are giving each other bonuses for cost containment.
You want burnout? I'll show you burnout. The manager actually still has me interview people. Favorite interview question: "You're a smart, energetic person. Why in the hell do you want to work HERE?" (Heh. A few
I have a large workload right now. I'm part of 3 major projects right now, all of which have the eyes or personal involvement of the owners of my family-owned company. One of the project I have basically been in the lead position on for months now. It was sold to the owners by my last supervisor but the plan was always for me to implement it. This involves a significant amount of planning, late night windows, etc. My second project hinges on the first but is backed by the division of the company that I actually work for. I'm contracted out to another division which is the owner of the first project. Confused yet? The third project is one that I've had so little time to work on that I feel significantly inferior in knowledge to the lesser technical and non-technical people associated with the project. I'm asked a question and I honestly can't answer it because I've had little involvement in the project. It's a major projects that's worth millions to my company in the not too distant future.
I have so much work on my plate that I don't know where to even begin. On top of all that I have the daily break/fix duties of the division that I've been contracted to. There is a bad personality at the division I'm contracted too that I have to deal with. He makes horrible business and technical decisions that I have to somehow work around.
I also have a wealth of crap dumped on me from my division in the form of internal documentation, procedures, processes, and politics. I have been placed smack in the middle of the political fighting between the divisions of my company. What's more the division I'm contracted to never tells my division about the many positive things I do. They only speak up when they perceive something as being negative. Of course my division thinks that this is a major problem and that it's my fault. I must be doing something wrong if they don't hear anything good from my customer. Well for starters I have a technical relationship with my customer. There is not sales person relationship with this customer. That's where the personal comments are made. Secondly my customers switches multiple times per week about how they want to be treated (as a customer or as a member of the family).
I feel that 99% of my heartburn is caused by my own employer and not by my customer. My wage is 20-25% below market, even for this area. My employer has accused me of falsifying time entries and mileage reports. My employer asked me to do a significant amount of work on a 7 day period but didn't want to pay me for it. They actually said that it wasn't possible to work 96 hours in a week. It's bad enough having to work that much time in a week but it's even worse if your employer accuses you of trying to defraud the company. The same went for my mileage report. This same person refused to reimburse me for my mileage to a client in another town (actually 2 towns away) even though my last 2 supervisors told me to include it. He also wouldn't pay for the travel time. I don't even bother turning in mileage anymore. I end up eating a couple hundred a month but it's simply less heartache in the end. I didn't expense a training trip from a few months back because I heard that my employer paid up to a certain meal per dium if I had receipts. My coworkers and myself took turns buying the meals and I didn't keep receipts. I figured rather than putting up with the hassle of trying to get them to pay for it I would simply eat the 4 days of per dium. The last time I asked them to buy a book for me I went round and round with them over which customer to bill the book to. WTF?! My employer is all about making money, customer be damned. My review had a handful of negative marks on it. All of them came back to me not taking advantage of opportunities for me to bring another billable
I have never seen more people discuss at such grueling lengths to describe and put "their" stamp on something that is so damn obvious. This goes for about 80% of all Slashdot articles. Sorry for the trolling... its late and Im grumpy! :)
Then the company went bust, and I got downsized, so I went back to my last job, end user support at a 20,000 seat corporation. Everything is siloed into it's respective department. Where I used to have control over the Novell tree in my OU and allowed to create my own login scripts, print queues, network shares, now I do Windows desktop support, and nothing but desktop support. I do no projects, no builds, no login scripts, no evaluations of new equipment. The engineering lab evaluates all software, and creates install packages and OS images for everything, and hands it to us. I create nothing.
I come here every day, sit down, surf the web about 4 hours a day, do mindless trivial bullshit the rest of the time, then go home. I sit in a cube and don't have a direct view of anyone else, like a cell. My co-workers don't talk much, and they don't have much interest in technology. I entertain myself with writing scripts and batch files for the limited access I have to the systems, but I don't have anyone who's interested to show them to or to bounce ideas off of.
The money is good, the benefits are good, the work is easy, it's 8:30 to 5 Monday to Friday, I should have no complaints, but the boredom and lack of any sort of challenge is freaking killing me.
I was looking through my resumes directory, and I must have at least 30 cover letters I've sent out in the past 3 years. I've been on at least 20 interviews, and still haven't had any offers. I've got a lot of knowledge, but not enough experience on the resume, I guess. I've gone through the 5 stages of grief about my career, for a long time I was just freaking out about being stuck here, angry, then depressed, and now I'm just into acceptance. I'm tired of sending out resumes and not getting called, even more tired of getting interviewed and not getting hired. I come in, stare at my monitor for 8 hours and go home. 20 years till retirement. Whoopee!
I'm validating the throughput and bandwidth of the network and at the same time stress testing the video drivers on my workstation!
For sale: Signature. One owner. Low miles. Always garaged. New punctuation, just installed!
When Christians start living their lives based on what Jesus said and did, the feeling of hypocrisy and ridicule will go away
:-(
Well, I once tried commanding demons to exit from the souls of sick people, rubbing mud on blind people's eyes, casting death curses on trees for not having fruit in winter, and babbling in strange languages, but strangely, I somehow felt more ridiculous, not less.
The hospital just yelled at me, the blind guy sued me, and the neighbours made me leave their trees alone. Nobody likes a devout Christian these days.
that is an option most people have at this point. I havent had a vacation in over 2 years.
Thats what happens when its all contract jobs and youre working your ass off just to survive.
No sick time, no vacation, etc.
Oh youre sick for a week? Thats too bad, you dont eat.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
I have a deep respect for people of any faith who demonstrate tolerance, kindness, and critical thinking skills- but with apologies to GP poster this is just too funny to pass up!
Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense -- the starkest Madness
I believe this is the joke you are looking for:
, 00.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1754775
you realize this is the case but keep working for years longer because you realize stopping means complete financial collapse because you'll never find a job in another field that pays the same.
I am just about ready to experience this.
I moved across the country trying to avoid it when jobs dried up in attempts to secure the same level of income. Now the jobs are drying up here and theres no way out. I look around and locals consider a "good job" to be $10/hr. There is no possible way i can live on this. My girlfriend and I are both asking our parents for help moving back in with them and I may have to declare bankrupcy.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Also, you left education off your list.
And for what it's worth, you sound a little stressed. I'm just sayin'.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Ah yes, the "Who Moved My Cheese" management rationalization. All of a worker's woes are really just opportunity in disguise!
----- And all that the Lorax left here in this mess was a small pile of rocks, with one word...UNLESS.
You've identified many good alternatives to your current situation, and I agree, you don't have any brain power left to muster up the will to just make a choice.
If I were your doctor, I'd prescribe the following:
- Use 5 vacation/sick/whatever days and take off a Saturday to the following Sunday.
- Go someplace you won't be disturbed
- Spend the first few days getting your mind back. Unplug the phone, unplug the computer. Sleep as much as you can. Don't set an alarm. Do some yoga videos. Eat nutritious food.
- After you feel human again, read the following book: ISBN: 1401359418. Yes, I'm serious. No, it's not hokey.
- At this point, you should be sufficiently grounded and motivated to make the correct decision. You'll also realize that any of your alternatives is the correct decision as long as you make it be correct.
Good luck. (no pun intended)They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I started to experience a skin complaint (psoriasis) in my early twenties. By all accounts that is a pretty common period for it to first materialise. I am lucky in that I have it very mildly (if at all) most of the time but at times of high stress (and for me that is exclusively work related) it breaks out extensively. I always cursed the stuff, but I came to realise that despite how I thought I was coping/feeling about my current state of strees, my skin was a better indicator.
:-) Seriously though, skin, sleep patterns, there are a number of physical indicators that are better at warning you about impending burnout than most conscious analysis.
Burnout has become almost impossible because I cannot let the stress get so bad that it becomes worse than my skin. I never thought there could be an upside
You think that these atheists who are dismissing religious beliefs as irrational are incorrect? Or are they just 'mean'?
Would you have a problem with a round-earth believer dismissing the flat-earth believer's claims as irrational and unprovable, and making fun of them?
How about someone mocking a person who believes that White People are superior to Brown People?
Sometimes you have to call bullshit when you see bullshit. Considering the special treatment received by followers of popular religions over the last 2000 years...I have little sympathy for hurt feelings caused by a logical examination of religious beliefs.
Blar.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it