Are You Close To Burnout?

It may sound like a harmless buzzword, but burnout is debilitating and on the rise. Learn how to tell the difference between a bad day at work and the flames of a serious problem so you can extinguish stress for good

- David Ferry

Steve Blank realised that he was in trouble during a Friday-afternoon sales meeting. He had been dividing his time between two Silicon Valley tech roles: one for a company serving the defence and intelligence communities, the other for a microprocessor producer called Zilog. He was putting in 16-hour days, six or seven days a week, but he was good at both jobs – necessary, even. So he accepted the intense schedule.

At the meeting, a colleague reminded Blank about some classes he was scheduled to teach. “The devil’s in the details,” the colleague advised. Blank nodded and launched into a “defence contractor joke”: “I’ve got it under control,” he said, “as long as the devil coming at me isn’t an SS-18.” (He was referring to a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile dubbed “Satan”.) Expecting a chuckle or two, Blank received only uncomprehending stares. Then it hit him: these weren’t his defence contractor co-workers. He wasn’t even at his defence gig. He was at Zilog and, to his horror, he realised he had no memory of driving there, no recollection of greeting his colleagues, and no idea how he had got through most of the afternoon without even knowing where he was. Blank later left the meeting and sat at his desk, confused. “Take it easy this weekend,” the vice-president of sales told him. “You look a little burned out.”

The Great Leveller