@silverhuang @independentpen @actuallyautistic That is excellent advice! I wish someone had told me 40 years ago

@26pglt @silverhuang @independentpen @actuallyautistic

At my first full-time job, I worked myself into a burnout in a bit over one year.

Leading up to that, I had been so paralyzed at work that I barely got anything "done".

Taking a hard look at myself and my work environment, I saw that while I was definitely not doing "enough" according to my own standards, nobody at work complained.

So I basically dialed down the mental energy I put in work. And also reduced the amount of "can be done alone" tasks, opting for more "stuff done in a team".

The second thing showed me that my colleagues worked much less than I did, while I had been obsessed with solving problems that nobody had solved ever (research context).

@wakame

"...while I was definitely not doing "enough" according to my own standards, nobody at work complained."

This, so much.

While our bosses say they monitor indicators of performance and check on people when they notice a drop, and while I constantly feel like I'm idle and accomplish nothing, I have never heard from them, except a "you look tired, you should take some time off" once in a while.

@26pglt @silverhuang @independentpen @actuallyautistic

@wakame

I feel I need to add that those "performance checkups" are not done in the predatory way you may imagine (or know), but in a more... fatherly way. For people you don't see at the office (I work remote), a drop in productivity may be the only indicator that something might be wrong.

But they never come at us demanding, they're more like "do you struggle with this task, do you need help, formation, time off, new gear?"

@26pglt @silverhuang @independentpen @actuallyautistic

@wakame

My boss asked me to come to the office once in a while. I like that a lot, my coworkers are great and so is my boss, but the never ending chatter makes me unable to work in that environment.

I told him that a day at the office is a day of work lost. He said "I know. But your coworkers like you, and I like you, and we'd like to see you more often in person."

Thus, every forthnight or so, I get to go do nothing at the office!

@26pglt @silverhuang @independentpen @actuallyautistic