I have been very close to burnout two times in my career. At the same employer. Both times, the following held:

  • Tight deadline. I had an urgent project on my shoulders with a very very tight deadline. In one of the cases, I also had a planned vacation starting within a week - and I feared having to cancel the entire sailing trip with my friends (it was my boat).
  • Low capacity. I had known the project was coming any day for weeks but was unable to start working on it. As such, my mental and emotional capacity was already strained.
  • I was alone. I had no one to delegate to and was solely on my own. I was the only person who knew the (DevOps) work that needed to be done. Despite me flagging for 6-12 months that I needed to offload some responsibilities. I felt helpless.
  • Constant nudging. The project was the highest priority project in the company. Everyone kept asking me how it was going, requesting status updates, or if they could help (they could not - see the previous bullet).
  • I worked day and night.

Strictly speaking, I was not fully burned out; I was able to get out of bed, but my entire body was shaking, I was unable to sleep, was annoyed, body temperature was fluctuating between too hot & too cold, and I had anxiety.

My stress threshold was significantly lower for a few years (and still is) and these experiences have made me have a deep respect and compassion for people dealing with burnout. Getting out of it is slow and painful. What makes matters worse, you can’t work yourself out of it.

These experiences have also had a large impact on my career and the way I approach work ever since:

I no longer accept being the only person who knows something. I build teams, I share knowledge, I pair/mob/ensemble program, I document things, and I work in small increments such that someone else can take over at any point in time.

I no longer accept being the sole person having access to something. My northern star vision is for everyone on the same team with the same role to have the same access permissions. There can be exceptions during onboarding, but that’s about it.

I practice saying “no”. It’s hard, but I will not accept the alternative fallout of getting burned out.

I respect a “no” from other people much more.

I try to support people in stressful situations as much as I can. This also makes me a much better teammate, and generally a more compassionate person.

About a year ago, I was in a similar position with a project. This was at least four years since my last encounter. I was annoyed and stressed. After a day or two I realized the project had all the similarities with my previous two occasions of burnout. With the support of a great manager, I said no, and moved out of the project to a supporting role.

I guess my near-burnout still lives in my body.