I've been a programmer at the same company for just over 5 years. I have lately been experiencing what I believe to be burnout.[1] After a particularly anxiety-inducing unable-to-focus episode, I spoke with my supervisor about the issue, and he suggested that we make a change with regard to my day-to-day work duties. Since I am a senior at the company, one obvious path is to take on some managerial duties while reducing my programming duties. The main issue with this change is that my department doesn't necessarily need a manager at this time (my department has three people including myself, though we're trying to hire another person), so moving me to that position would most likely incur more of a drain of company resources (e.g. money). It's worth noting that I do not want to leave my company.
Questions for someone who has dealt with or is dealing with burnout:
* Has transitioning to a different set of duties worked for alleviating your symptoms?
* What would be a good set of duties to transition to from programming?
* If you also suffer from depression, do you have any method(s) for not letting your depression interfere with work?
Questions for someone with experience running / managing at a company:
* Is there a way to transition without putting a significant drain on company resources? I.e. are there any techniques for making a manager position profitable when the position isn't otherwise necessary?
I realize that answers to most of these questions would require more details about the structure of the company I work for. I'm really just looking for general tips and/or success/failure stories from people who may have been in similar situations.
[1] As a side note, I do also suffer from major depressive disorder and I take an SSRI for that. The symptoms of burnout used to wax and wane alongside the symptoms of my depression, but the burnout symptoms have lately been growing more cumbersome despite me not feeling overall more depressed than usual.
First, your specific questions:
- Burnout is a complex state, especially when mixed with depression. Depression is a scale, but if you felt burned out enough or depressed enough to write this post, I highly recommend you get a therapist. Since you take an SSRI I'm assuming you might already have one, but want to make sure. I personally know 10+ people with therapists and the majority of them say it's literally the best decision they've ever made. - A lot of "curing" burnout will involve changing both your external pressures and internal perceptions. In our experience helping others, we haven't seen a specific set of duties that correlate with less symptoms -- heck, for many programmers in early-stage startups, they get anxiety when they aren't coding. Your situation is unique, so be open to experimenting with it. - "not letting your depression interfere with work" isn't a healthy perspective IMO. Instead, think about depression as a chemical imbalance that is there and WILL interfere -- and that's ok. Instead of not letting it interfere, your goal is to reduce it's surface area, so to speak. Ironically, things that tend to help this are things like engaging in fun activities, hanging with co-workers casually, etc. You can also reduce the surface area by setting up more achievable goals for yourself, so that when you hit them, you're more happy. - As any good manager should know, investing in your employees mental health pays dividends. This isn't a situation where it's your mental health VS the company -- I'd be open with your manager about this, talk about your passion for the company, and see what they'd propose to help you get over this especially difficult time.