Sabbaticals, Reflections, and Changes
Tags: burnout, devlife
Published: 2018-11-05 02:21:56

---
title: Sabbaticals, Reflections, and Changes
published: true
tags: burnout, devlife
series: November Daily
canonical_url: https://www.anonjr.com/2018/11/Sabbaticals-Reflections-and-Changes.html
---
(This is the third of three back articles I'm republishing now that I've got an RSS feed going to my profile.)
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I've had a few versions of this post floating around for longer than I care to think about. What follows is something closer to what I'd started around the same time I was working on the "13 Years in the Valley" retrospectives. For some reason I thought I'd more directly stated just how bad the burnout was, but after looking back I apparently only had the conversation as fully and expressedly in my head.

So let's start the _reflection_ part of this endevour.

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Burnout is one of those things that's been written about a lot lately, particularly in the tech industry. If you're not familiar, the Wikipedia page on [Occupational Burnout](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_burnout) is a good overview of the subject. [Dev.to](https://dev.to) also has a [couple](https://dev.to/mary_grace/burnout-what-happens-when-you-take-on-too-much-74d) [articles](https://dev.to/wolfemurray/burnout-8hk) worth reading. While I've not quite hit [Happy to be Here](https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/21/happy-to-be-here/) territory, [Furiously Happy](http://thebloggess.com/furiously-happy/) certainly had some chapters that resonated.

If I'm being completely honest, the warning signs were there in 2014. I may even get to some of that in a resumed rendition of retrospectives. In January 2016 I reached a point where I was at least willing to admit something was deeply wrong and find out just where I was at. So I took the [Maslach Burnout Inventory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslach_Burnout_Inventory) and found the following results looking back at me:

![…ouch.](https://www.anonjr.com/img/2018-11-03-MBIResults.png "…ouch.")<figcaption>
…ouch.
</figcaption>

I tried to work within the system, I tried counseling, and in the end it just wasn't getting better. In an ideal world I would have taken more regular time off, and I would have advocated for a more balanced life for myself, and recognized when the work environment was no longer healthy.

That would have been good then, so what to do now?

I remember a long time ago reading about how [we should all take sabbaticals](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/03/18/more-on-sabbaticals/). At the time I read Joel's post I didn't really take it to heart. I'd just finished college, and was still only months into my brand new job. The idea that I could be so tired and run down that an extended time away was needed … I just couldn't comprehend it.

Now I get it. _Time to take a sabbatical._ December 15, 2017 I stepped down from full-time work and moved to a per-diem teaching position. The end of 14 years full-time work at Cape Fear Valley. Teaching was a nice way to keep up professionally, and get myself out of the house from time to time. Unfortunately, it was also still too much. So in June I quit completely.

To get ready for the sabbatical, in September 2017 I started working part-time at the local Music and Arts. I added the earnings to my current savings and pumped up what I was terming my "sabbatical fund".

Knowing that given my energy levels were what they were, I kept the job to make sure I'd get out of the house and actually engage in the time honored tradition of verbal communication with actual humans.

![Jabba, illustrating my energy levels.](https://www.anonjr.com/img/2018-11-03_JabbaRelaxing.jpg "Jabba, illustrating my energy levels.")<figcaption>
Jabba, illustrating my energy levels.
</figcaption>

This is where the _changes_ part was supposed to go, but I've run out of steam. Definitely to be finished before the month is up.