Are You Feeling Tired? So is Everyone Else.
An essay about stress/burnout in tech and IT professionals and future professionals. Personal tips to combat these feelings.
Burn Out in the Tech Industry
Go on any campus and ask the students what are the hardest majors. You will definitely hear STEM, Business, and Law majors spewed out. As someone who had an integrated degree in business and computer science— I can definitely agree. Now, this is not to bash any other majors, however, there's a different level of stress for those who choose the "nerd life". Grueling work that takes immense brainpower with the stressors that come with working from home accompanied by general hustle culture is enough to make anyone insane. "Today the average American employee works 47 hours a week. That's almost one day longer than the normal 40-hour workweek. To make things even worse, 18% of full-time workers work 60+ hours a week." Sandra Petrova, Adeva. 61% of techies admit to feeling some sort of burnout according to a survey conducted by Blind in February 2020 rising to an astonishing 73% in May of that year as the pandemic worsened as reported by Avery Hartman, Insider. A 2021 a study showed that 57% of IT workers reporting burn out were women says Sarah White, CIO . Don't get me started with a different level of stress BIPOC experience with lack of diversity and company culture that has been heightened since the pandemic. In WSJ article authored by Te-Ping Chen and Ray Smith –Stress was listed as the main reason for over 1.4 million Americans quitting or planning to quit their jobs in 2021, now regarded as the "Great Resignation" .
The transition of working or learning at home has been extremely stressful for those in the field. The quick paced nature of this industry is cut-throat, taking an "adapt or die" approach the pressure is always on. In addition to that when the initial transition to remote working/learning people needed technology to operate more actively and efficiently in almost all aspects, heavy emphasis on video calls! How many times did you call IT this year?
Stress takes many forms and effects individuals differently. It is important that you know your limits. It's so saddening to see tech being an highly regarded industry with some of the most intelligent people getting little to no support. Tech and IT workers stated the top reasons for their burnouts are: a never-ending stream of demands from employers, the on-call nature leading to repetitive disruptions to their lives outside work, ill-defined projects with little support, limited career progression, being under valued, and impossible requests from stakeholders who just don't get it– like I mentioned before there is a different layer if you identify with any marginalized community (Black, Hispanic, Indigenous, Woman, and/or LGBTQ+).
In a survey of 600 data engineers commissioned by Wakefield Research in an article written by Owen Hughes, Zdnet discovered over 78% stated they wish their job came with a therapist to help with managing stress. 79% stated they were considering abandoning the tech industry all together. Data professionals often work overtime to bridge the gap between performance and their employers expectations. When these insanely high expectation are met they are regarded as heroes and followed up with the next project at the detriment of said "heroes" health.
With FinTech, Data Science and all things tech blowing up we need to talk about the good, the bad, and the umm– not so pretty. There's plenty of things that can change in this industry to ease some of the stress but we can keep that for another blog post. Let's talk about what you can do now.
Advice for All my Techies and Future Techies
Set Limits & Boundaries
If you are confined to your home due to the pandemic designate an area for work or studying. If you can set this area somewhere other than your bedroom. It is so important to separate work and chill, this divide is harder to recognize when both are now occupying the same place. Set timers, remember to rest, and chill time is for exactly that.
Heavy on this! Please, for the love of the motherboard, walk away from your screen. Your eyes being glued to your monitor is not going to help anything. Go touch some grass and drink some water. The problem you are stuck on will literally be there after a nap. You deserve downtime. Stressing yourself is not going to help you any. You are entitled to having a life and your sanity. Coding is hard. It can weigh down on you when things aren't going your way. Leave the problem and come back with fresh eyes.
Keep Expectations Realistic!
Set realistic schedules. You can't go from print "hello world" to AI/machine learning via 2 hours on YT videos. Expect problems or just life to come up. For the students out there, you have to make time for all your classes. Don't cram for history and give yourself 8 hours for your final project. As for the professionals be honest with your team and project managers sometimes things take time and simply cannot be done.
I am a victim of over-extending. When I started this; I had all intentions to have strict deadlines and be more consistent, however, I caught COVID in the creation process. It was f*cking terrible. I keep hearing while I have the time off, I should still be working. HELL NO! I could not breathe. Then while returning to work (a nonprofit during the holidays) I was up to my eyeballs with tasks. I had to ask myself "Now, why would you promise all this content in a week?" This was supposed to be fun, you all will get these source codes when I feel like it.
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