In 2009, two US professors set out to study zookeepers and aquarium workers in an effort to discover what kept them motivated at work.
The YouTube stars heading for burnout: ‘The most fun job imaginable became deeply bleak’
Why are so many YouTubers finding themselves stressed, lonely and exhausted?
Universities on Fire: Higher Education in the Climate Crisis
Scientists agree that we are on the precipice of a global climate crisis. How will it transform colleges and universities?Winner of the Frederic W. Ness Book Award by the Association of American Colleges and UniversitiesIn 2019, intense fires in the San Francisco Bay Area closed universities and drove afflicted people to shelter at other campuses. At the same time, extraordinary fires ravaged eastern Australia. Several universities responded by promising material and research support to damaged businesses while also hosting refugees and emergency response teams in student residence halls. This was an echo of the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Katrina on Tulane University in 2005.In Universities on Fire, futurist Bryan Alexander explores higher education during an age of unfolding climate crisis. Powered by real-world examples and the latest research, Alexander assesses practical responses and strategies by surveying contemporary programs and academic climate research from around the world. He establishes a model of how academic institutions may respond and offers practical pathways forward for higher education. How will the two main purposes of education—teaching and research—change as the world heats up? Alexander positions colleges and universities in the broader social world, from town-gown relationships to connections between how campuses and civilization as a whole respond to this epochal threat.Current studies of climate change trace the likely implications across a range of domains, from agriculture to policy, urban design, technology, culture, and human psychology. However, few books have predicted or studied the effects of the climate crisis on colleges and universities. By connecting climate research to a deep, futures-informed analysis of academia, Universities on Fire explores how climate change will fundamentally reshape higher education.
When one can work no more: The effects of burnout on your body
Continual stress is often associated with emotional problems, but it can also have major physical consequences, including heart attacks
I'm addicted to being useful
When I get together with my friends in the industry, I feel a little guilty about how much I love my job. This is a tough time to be a software engineer. The job was less stressful in the late 2010s than it is now, and I sympathize with anyone who is upset about the change. There are a lot of objective reasons to feel bad about work. But despite all that, I’m still having a blast. I enjoy pulling together projects, figuring out difficult bugs, and writing code in general. I like spending time with computers. But what I really love is being useful.
Burnout in Open Source: A Structural Problem We Can Fix Together ✸ Software Stewardship Lab
Burnout is affecting the entire Open Source ecosystem. Here's what we could do to make things better.
From moms to medical doctors, burnout is everywhere these days
This state of emotional, physical and mental exhaustion seems to be everywhere. But there are ways to fight it.
When Contributing to WordPress Full-Time Leads to Burnout
As a distributed worker, one of the toughest obstacles I face is burnout. It’s one of the reasons I took a month off from all things WordPress. According to Merriam-Webster, burnout is, ̶…
‘Find Your Passion’ Is Awful Advice
A major new study questions the common wisdom about how we should choose our careers.
Teacher spends two days as a student and is shocked at what she learns
'Teachers work hard, but I now think that conscientious students work harder. '
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
A young woman walks into a laboratory. Over the past two years, she has transformed almost every ...
Burnout Phase Transition - meri's missives
Modelling chronic stress effects on my mental health and the end of monopolies
Becoming a stranger in my own field
There is a difference between making scientific work more accessible and changing what institutions recognize as valuable scientific work.
Unintuitive Things I’ve Learned about Management (Part 1)
I first started managing people seven years ago, three years after I graduated and got my first design job. At the time, I was woefully…
What Happens When Your Career Becomes Your Whole Identity
Many people with high-pressure jobs find themselves unhappy with their careers, despite working hard their whole lives to get to their current position. Hating your job is one thing – but what happens if you identify so closely with your work that hating your job means hating yourself?Psychologists use the term “enmeshment” to describe a situation where the boundaries between people become blurred, and individual identities lose importance. Enmeshment prevents the development of a stable, independent sense of self. While identifying closely with your career isn’t necessarily bad, it makes you vulnerable to a painful identity crisis if you burn out, get laid off, or retire. Individuals in these situations frequently suffer anxiety, depression, and despair. By claiming back some time for yourself and diversifying your activities and relationships, you can build a more balanced and robust identity in line with your values.
