Burnout

Burnout can be caused by your evil boss cracking the whip, asking you to do more with less in difficult times. Or it could be self-inflicted because you are so driven to accomplish your own unrealistically demanding goals.

Most of us have been in situations where we have felt burned out. It can range from feeling a bit tired after a tough project, to exhaustion after a few too many 12-hour days, all the way to a near-death experience after an extended multi-month death march. In many of these cases you can end up being an ineffective zombie who can barely crawl into work, much less do anything productive.

Management tends to avoid the term “Death March”, preferring instead inspiration terms like “a Fast Pace” or “Crunch Time”. Too often they see an either-or choice between cracking the whip and slipping dates, and without exception slipping dates is not an option. However, this is an entirely wrong way of thinking and it points to an utter failure of leadership.

If you start seeing the signs of burnout around you, such as people coming into work later and later, circles under their eyes, listlessness and general lack of enthusiasm, it’s time to consider whether it’s the environment for you. And as obvious as that may sound, it really isn’t. Some people actually thrive in death marches, as they see it as a way to show their mettle and separate themselves from the weaklings.

My recommendation is to try and avoid organizations that are prone to death marches in the first place. Some such companies may include the following:

• Large product companies that have fixed product delivery dates. Gotta ship before the fourth quarter or the stock analysts will kill us!
• Startups, especially pre-IPOs. Famous for 80 hour weeks, but they might be worthwhile if you get significant stock options.
• Consulting firms that do fixed-price contracts. The temptation to underbid to win contracts is immense, resulting in the need to accomplish more work with fewer developers.
• Any company that stresses ‘SDLC’. This usually means the Waterfall methodology, where requirements changes are inevitable thrown in at the last minute and throw the whole schedule out of whack.

Will You Happier In a New Job?

In my last post I discussed some things that influence happiness in your job. But if you are not currently happy, would you necessarily be any happier in a new position? Unfortunately the problems I discussed in that post will generally not reveal themselves for some time after you start a new job. Hence you will be engaging in a guessing game when you interview with a new company.

Still, there are some things you can investigate about the company, either during the interview process or through your own research, that may shed some light on whether it’s a place where you'd want to work. This approach is far from foolproof, but it may help you avoid making some bad decisions.

The first question is whether the team engages in CRUD development, and whether it’s a cost center or a profit center. I’ve talked about these topics before, but they're always worth keeping in mind when evaluating an employer.

Next, is the team engaged in new development, or are they maintaining an existing system?

Do the engineers that you interview with know their stuff? Do they understand the raw technology as well as architecture and design issues? Can they intelligently discuss the system they work on? Are they enthusiastic about the work?

Next, do they use source control, and have a formal team handling builds and configuration management? Do they properly use labels, branching, and merging? Some organizations may be too small to have a dedicated build team, but they should still use sound source control practices, and they should have a configuration management specialist.

The same questions apply for production, especially in a web environment. Does the company have dedicated dev, testing, and production server environments? Do they have a controlled production process with regularly scheduled releases? Avoid companies that try to do production releases on a daily basis, unless you want your hair to turn prematurely gray.

Does the company have architects? And by architects, I mean highly experienced engineers with 10+ years of experience whose job it is to advise teams rather than do coding day in and day out. If they do, it tells you two things: 1) that they take their technology seriously, and 2) that they value technical people enough to provide a purely technical career advancement path.

Does the company have product managers? It’s not necessarily the presence of product managers that results in better code, but having someone directly responsible and accountable for feature sets and requirements can help reduce uncertainty in planning.

Finally, does the company use Waterfall methodology? If they say don’t have an explicit methodology they’re probably using waterfall by default. Some organizations do actually manage to use Waterfall effectively, but chances are most Waterfall organizations will require a deathmarch as the deadline approaches.

Are You Happy In Your Current Job?

Recruiters may ask you this question, and your own manager might ask it as well. It’s a simple inquiry, not a loaded or trick question. Still, you might not have a straightforward answer. After all, what exactly does it mean to be happy, anyway? Happy in a metaphysical or literal sense? Do you have to have a big grin on your face every time you walk into the office? Or does happy just mean that you are content, satisfied, glad to have a job in this economy? Here are some questions you might ponder to help answer the happiness question.

First of all, do you enjoy the work you are doing? Do you feel you are creating something of value, or accomplishing something of importance? Or do you wonder whether anyone will ever see, much less appreciate the results of your work?

Do you feel that you are uniquely qualified to do your job, or do you feel like an interchangeable cog in a big machine? Do you feel that your job is matched to your skills, or do you think that a trained monkey could do the work? Do you see a clear career path, or do you see yourself stuck in the same position years from now?

Do you look forward to coming into work in the morning to fix those problems left over from the previous day, and to take on new challenges? Or do you find it difficult to pull yourself out of bed in the morning and deal with the dreaded commute in to work? Do you rush through lunch at your desk so you can get back to work, or do you take long lunch breaks to escape from the oppressive office environment?

Is management receptive to feedback and new ideas? Do they listen to the developers, or just pretend to do so? Do you respect your bosses for their knowledge, experience, and wisdom? Or do you wonder how those clueless morons ever got their jobs? Are you inspired by their leadership, or do you roll your eyes every time they issue a silly directive?

If you need something done, can you talk to someone and be confident it will be taken care of? Or do people try to shift responsibility and give you the runaround? Do managers avoid making decisions and not respond to your e-mails? And are there people who try to insert themselves into the decision making process for no good reason?

Do you respect the people you work with? Are they are as smart as or smarter than yourself? Or are they idiots to whom you have to explain things over and over again? Do you find yourself learning new things from your colleagues, or do you have to show them how to perform the most basic of tasks?

Does your company provide rewards for performance? And are the rewards fairly distributed, and individuals properly credited for their contributions? Or are the rewards and kudos handed out only to a select few, the “golden boys”, while everyone else is neglected and left to stew?

Does your company provide you with the tools you need to do your job? Is it easy to order technical books and software with a minimum of hassle? Do you get regular upgrades of your computer? Do you get large or multiple monitors? Or does any procurement request have to get multiple signoffs and require lengthy forms to be completed?

Do you have a positive work environment conducive to productivity? Do you have enough conference rooms and gathering places? Does your company have any silly and arbitrary regulations? Do you have flex hours, or do you have to be in at exactly 9 am and stay until at least 6 pm? Is unpaid overtime mandatory? Can you telecommute?

All these things, though perhaps trivial individually, combine to determine your level of happiness at work.

Random Re-Orgs

If you’ve been in a decent sized organization for a number of years, you’ve seen it – the (roughly) annual random re-org. It happens with clockwork regularity at some companies; in the name of improved operating efficiency and productivity, people and boxes are moved around the organization chart like checkerboard pieces. And yet somehow it seems the organization inevitably ends up more cumbersome than before.

Senior Management often turns to reorgs because it’s their favorite tool for (seemingly) changing the organization’s direction. It’s a blunt instrument, but it’s a lot easier than sitting down and actually figuring out a real corporate strategy.

Reorgs are also sometimes seen as a solution for low morale. When you see signs of low morale, such as people coming into work later, leaving earlier, and taking longer lunches, you know something needs to change. Sometimes there will be sweeping e-mails from senior management that seem detached from all reality, describing new directions and bold initiatives. You inevitably yawn and move on to the next e-mail, but these e-mails are often followed by a random reorg.

You may be affected in one of two ways by a random re-org: negatively, or not at all. Negative results may include being moved into a position with less interesting work or less responsibility, or placed under a boss from hell, or even being RIF’ed. In the name of efficiency, strategic maneuvering, or realignment to core values (or some other such management phrase) you may end up in a new role that makes little sense.

In 99% of cases however, the shuffling will occur well above your level and there will be little to no direct impact on your day to day activities. Life just goes on as before.

Management by Crisis

I once worked at a company (only briefly, thankfully) where the dominant mode of management was firefighting. I like to call it “Management by Crisis”. Management’s attention was continually shifting from one priority to another, literally on a daily basis. The developers were being jerked one way and then another, always being pulled off of what they were doing to work on something else. Needless to say, this was terrible for productivity as well as morale.

How can you tell that a company suffers form this kind of dysfunction? One clue is if the company has high turnover, which is often associated with high-stress crisis environments. This may be the case if the hiring manager speaks ill of previous employees. Just as you as a candidate should never talk badly about previous employers, it should be a red flag if the hiring manager criticizes his current or former employees.

More specifically, check whether you are interviewing for a job that is vacant because the hiring manager has just fired the previous employee in that position. Of course people are regularly fired for legitimate purposes, but it may behoove you to inquire why the last person in the position was let go. It’s not a comfortable question to ask, but it might shed some light on what kind of a manager the interviewer is, and what expectations they have for the person in the position that needs to be filled. It’s better to understand the job requirements before you start rather than to find out later that the hiring manager had totally unrealistic expectations.

Types of Bosses

You’re likely to work for a number of different bosses over the course of your career. And as the saying goes, it takes all kinds. Here are a few:

• Micro-managers
• Hands-Off bosses
• Perpetual crisis bosses
• Bullies
• Passive Aggressive bosses
• Bosses who organize everything into bullet points

Micro-managers are the ones who are constantly looking over your shoulder or asking for constant status reports on everything. That can get annoying real fast.

Hands off bosses can be great in that they let you do your work. However, when you boss takes three hour lunches or leaves early for his weekly round of golf, you may be expected to take up the slack.

Perpetual crisis managers act like everything is a top priority that has to be handled right away; they run back and forth from one crisis to another. Most people around them are jaded enough that they give lip service to addressing the crisis and then go back about their real work. The fact is that most of these so-called crises really are not crises at all, as evidenced by the fact the managers forget about each one as new ones crop up.

Even worse than the perpetual crisis manager is the bully, who revels in conflict and in belittling their employees. Some are just sadistic, but others actually think that yelling at and stressing out their people is a great motivator -- “Toughen ‘em up” is their motto. Think Steve Ballmer.

Then there are the passive-aggressive bosses who do not provide you with the information or support you need, and express disappointment at your poor performance. It doesn’t matter that you weren’t told or consulted about the issues leading to failure; you are still responsible. After all, you're an adult and you don't need to be constantly told what to do, right?

I will discuss these managers and some of their management styles in upcoming articles. Oh, and about those bosses who have a penchant for bulleted lists? Avoid them at all costs.