A story about burnouts, palm trees and people

~littlejohn

Man, burnout is insidious.

Way back in 2019 I left the $megacorp job I'd very reluctantly taken for strictly financial reason. I didn't *want* it but I needed the money so I sold my soul for five years or so, which was an extremely miserable deal, but there was no better deal available so whatcha gonna do.

By that time I was an empty shell. My soul had shrunk into a tiny corner of its consciousness, and I was numb and overstretched, like too little butter spread over too much bread.

I thought I was past it last winter. I figured I'd celebrate it with my first real project in a while -- I'd played with Gemini on and off since July 2019 or so, right after it had been introduced, and I wanted to be part of something new and exciting again. I think I was reasonably successful in that regard but boy was I wrong about the burnout. I was so not past it.

Like most $megacorp jobs, mine was a dead end in every possible way. I learned absolutely nothing in these five years, except for what I could put together when I got home late in the evening. I left with no contacts and five year-old expertise, which is basically 35 years in software years. I did leave with a great safety net, so I wasn't worried about my finances, but I was juggling two contracts in order to avoid depending on it, on top of trying to learn all the things I missed in those five years (and I know FOMO is a thing but *some* things of actual relevance happened in all this time so...) that were getting closer and closer to becoming seven years.

I bailed out of one of them when the year was up -- a risky move, but one that I think paid off. That helped, but not as much as I though: by June this year I was back to my former numb self and I was... not feeling well.

That's part of why I didn't come here too much during all this time. When I'm not feeling well I'm snarky and condescending and I've learned to keep that to myself. There's enough of that on the Internet as it is.

So back at the beginning of August I popped my favourite pill, Fukitol, and left for a beautiful place with nice people and palm trees which are like my favourite trees in the world now. I kept coding throughout this time because my one contract is still up but that wasn't much of a problem, I actually enjoy that one.

I spent two months talking to people I'd never seen before. I went to the beach and laid down on the stones to watch the rolling waves of the ocean, and I fell asleep and woke up an hour later like it was nothing. I watched football games in a tiny bar where the street sellers and garbage truck drivers came to sneak a peek at a the score before going back to work, and we cheered on together and taught each other how to swear at Ronald Koeman in every language we spoke. I ate... way too many eggs (I was in Portugal so... yeah) and I regret absolutely nothing. I passed by old houses in tiny villages on mountaintops and stared at fruit I'd never seen before, and a kind old lady offered me every single kind of fruit she had in her garden and all I managed to convince her to take in return was a small bag of candy I'd brought from home, because her grandchildren had never had candy from my home country before.

This, *this*, is what I actually missed most of all. Not working on cool and useful things, albeit that definitely helps, or feeling technologically relevant, or God knows what else. I missed being in a place where nobody knew who I was, asking for a drink that I'd never had before, and then summoning all my knowledge of a language that I barely speak to say "thank you" and "I love this". That feeling that the world is so incredibly big and diverse, and yet so small, which makes even something as trivial as drinking a pint feel like a small adventure.

And I think I'm finally past it.

Well, maybe not, if I learned anything this year is that burnout is insidious and it comes back to bite you in the ass right when you thought it was gone. But I have a feeling it won't bite as hard next time!