To think some “burnout” is just people realising they hate their jobs?

[TheTidyShark]

Burnout gets talked about like it’s purely workload. But isn’t it often a sign people don’t even like what they’re doing? AIBU to think “burnout” sometimes masks job dissatisfaction?

Hmmm sometimes maybe. But often it’s because their job involves a lot of emotion labour and vicarious trauma. But they still love their job nevertheless and just need more time to recharge perhaps than in other, less traumatic work.

Burnout is caused by long term stress, and you don't need to be in a job you hate, or even a job at all, to experience it.

It's not that people hate their job. I was a social worker in child protection, high case load and high stress. Burnout is real. It's also very common in social work.

Burnout is being misused by all the people who don't feel able to say they hate their job. Burnout implies they're working so very hard, opinions on that may differ.
Real burnout is a whole different kettle of fish.

No. I experienced both previously, they are two different things (but hating the job may be a starting/contributing factor). It takes a lot more to suffer a burnout though.

It's definitely related. Doing something you hate day in and day out is horrendously demoralising. It will feel more than it is. Time flies when you're having fun, work feels much harder when you're miserable.

I read once that one of the biggest contributers to burnout was being underappreciated at work.

Burnout Syndrome is recognised by the WHO. I am struggling with it currently. Here are real mental and physical changes. I'm reading a book called The Burnout Doctor which is excellent and I'm hoping will help.

I think often it goes hand in hand with anxiety and perfectionism.

For me, its related to the traumatic, horrific and unimaginable day in day out situations that over time becomes harder and harder to “put away in a box”. It layers upon layers until you feel like you are drowning in devastation and human destruction.
There is no break from it, it keeps on coming.

The toughest most resilient colleagues I have had the privilege of working alongside side were struck down eventually.
Love our job, couldn’t do anything else, but the human trauma is extremely difficult to deal with for anyone.

Whats bought this about op? Is this about you or colleagues? I've only known people to have it in jobs where youd expect it.

I love my job, I'm a social work manager. But I've been close to burnout 3 times. All times because I simply had too much high risk work to manage and my mind couldn't hold it all and manage the stress. Each time I took some time off and my workload was adjusted, and I was fine. Hating your job isn't the same thing as burnout. Burnout actually comes from caring about the work too much and doing too much.

Well I thought I was suffering burn out due to my job, turns out I had a massive issue with my bowel that left me unable to hold my poop and pee, sorry TMI.

I honestly thought it was stress of job and having a small child, turns out that it was actually a serious medical issue that requires surgery and extensive time off and hoping to regain function.

I don’t doubt there are many unrealistically high demands put on people but sometimes you may actually have an underlying illness or problem which is highlighted when you dislike the job.

NOPE. I worked on an acute psychiatric ward for about a decade and was totally burnt out by the end. Its not because I didnt like it, I LOVED my job and even now I look back and miss it at times but its an intense and emotionally draining job that personally I dont think anyone should do for more than 10 years without a career break. I have many very fond memories of patients I helped and wonderful conversations I had with them but the emotional toll it took on me was immense after that length of time and I simply couldn't do it any longer.

This. I love my job. But it is very intense and the workload is too much. If it wasn't for thr holidays, I'd have burnt out years ago (I'm a teacher).

Is there a lot of vicarious trauma in teaching? Honestly not trying to be goady at all. I understand the poster who spoke of working in a psychiatric ward and other similar stories - I really didn't expect teaching to be considered 'traumatic work' (to use the language of the poster you're replying to).

Yes, but I don’t think this is earth shattering. Surely, it’s obvious you’d be burnt out if you were miserable with what you were doing every day.

I went out on sick leave at my previous job due to stress and burnout (2 months into sick leave I also got diagnosed with an aggressive stage 3 cancer, so that was that, my contract ran out 6 months later without me ever returning to work). My burnout was actually probably partly exhaustion because my body was trying to deal with metastatic cancer. But it definitely wasn’t because of my workload. I wasn’t overworked. It was because the awful job and my bonkers gaslighting line manager had sucked the life out of me.

That didn’t mean I didn’t love the type of work I did. But it did mean I hated my life every day because of my job.

It is a term I hear much more now. Is it different to work-related stress?

Children destroying a room at school (either a classroom or a dedicated safe space type room) is not all that unusual now. I can see dealing with that every day could really affect someone. It's the unpredictability and volatility.

Yes, stress is the stage before burnout. Stress can be lived with.

I'm not doubting that things like that happen. I do doubt it's a daily, or even weekly occurrence, though.

In any case, absent any exceptional circumstances, I don't think teaching can be described as traumatic work. I think describing it as such is almost an insult to those who truly have traumatic jobs; think paediatric surgeons who see children critically ill and dying, or social workers who witness neglect day in day out, or those in the armed forces.

Not to say that we can't all experience stress in our jobs. But let's not erode the meaning of the word traumatic. We've already eroded the meaning of so many others.

I think you're naive if you don't think it can happen weekly and at times more than that. The teacher upthread didn't actually mention the word traumatic and I don't think anyone would class teaching as such. I didn't know burnout was specifically related to trauma - I asked if it was the same as work related stress.

We'll agree to disagree on the frequency of pupils destroying their classrooms.

Re the teacher mentioning trauma; if you look at the quote history, you'll see her comment was a direct reply to a poster speaking of those who have traumatic jobs and how they need time to recharge.

I also don't think burnout is related to trauma. Again, my comment was very specific to the chain of comments you'll find if you collapse the quote history.

"Not trying to be goady" 😅

I was actually referring to the emotional labour bit ... I'm sure many teachers do have traumatic experiences. Thankfully, I don't feel I have experienced trauma from teaching. Thanks for asking 🙈

I hope you're a little more thoughtful in your responses to pupils and colleagues who might ask you a fairly innocuous question. Perhaps then you'll have to expend less of that emotional labour.

I think it was a fair assumption to make that you were drawing an affinity between trauma and teaching, considering that trauma was the crux of PP's comment. I was of course intrigued to learn how the two were linked. Thank you for the clarification 🙂

I hope you're a little more thoughtful in your responses to pupils and colleagues who might ask you a fairly innocuous question. Perhaps then you'll have to expend less of that emotional labour.

But still... "Not trying to be goady". Mumsnet cracks me up sometimes 🙈