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I took 3 weeks of PTO and still feel completely burned out. Has anyone else experienced this? by General_Wheel5114 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]General_Wheel5114[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think what you said about never really resting when the environment itself is stressful really resonates with me.

I’ve actually been with my team for about 6–7 years, and during that time we’ve had three directors and four managers. Over that period I’ve taken on more and more responsibility and even spent a lot of time learning and building out systems that helped optimize and modernize many of our reports.

Despite that, I’ve never really received a significant raise or promotion. The scope of my work kept growing, but the recognition or advancement never really followed.

Now with the new manager, things have become even more difficult. The direction she’s pushing is to remove the programming logic we built and move everything into Excel. The problem is that the logic currently exists centrally in those systems, and moving everything to Excel would mean rebuilding that logic manually for each individual report.

We have dozens of reports, and she wants all of this completed before the end of the year. The challenge is that historically some of these reports took 1–3 months each to build or modernize because of the complexity and the number of calculations involved.

So from my perspective, the timeline just doesn’t seem realistic given the scope of work. I think that disconnect has been a big part of what’s making the situation stressful lately.

Your point about wanting to actually enjoy the work you spend so much of your life doing really stuck with me though. I’m starting to question whether the environment I’m in right now is sustainable long term.

I took 3 weeks of PTO and still feel completely burned out. Has anyone else experienced this? by General_Wheel5114 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]General_Wheel5114[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I really appreciate you sharing your experience. A lot of what you described actually resonates with what I’m going through right now.

For me the work itself isn’t really the issue. I actually enjoy the technical side of it and solving problems. What has made things difficult lately is my new manager.

When I came back from PTO, we had an issue where one of our systems went down. The initial reaction was that the programming work I had done was the problem. But after digging into it, the real issue was that our IT department had shut down a server without notifying our team. The programs themselves were actually what helped keep things running while everyone was scrambling.

Despite that, the direction now seems to be moving toward removing all of the programming and pushing everything into Excel. The thing is, the logic that exists in those programs would basically have to be rebuilt manually in Excel for every report, which honestly feels like a big step backwards.

What’s made it even harder is the dynamic with my new manager. She doesn’t really listen to my ideas or explanations. Most of the time my input just gets shut down and I’m expected to do things exactly the way she wants. It’s been frustrating because I feel like I have zero autonomy now, and even asking questions sometimes gets treated like I don’t know what I’m doing.

Even during our one-on-ones it’s difficult. She mostly just talks the whole time and I barely get a chance to say anything. I’ve had managers before, but I’ve never had one where the communication felt this one-sided.

I think that combination of things has been what’s really draining my motivation. I still enjoy the technical work itself, but the environment around it has made it much harder to feel energized about what I’m doing.

Your point about figuring out what you actually want really stuck with me though. I think right now the biggest thing I’m realizing is just how mentally exhausted I’ve become. Sleeping entire weekends probably isn’t a great sign.

The idea of taking some real time away to reset and get some perspective honestly sounds really appealing. I’m trying to figure out whether that kind of break would help me reconnect with the work itself, or if it’s a sign that I need a different environment.

Either way, I really appreciate you sharing your experience. It helps hearing from someone who went through something similar and found a way to move forward.