Burnout (Not the Game)

1. Easy
2. No or low stress
3. Great or decent pay
4. You enjoy it

If anyone out there has a job that meets these four criteria, please post up a comment.  I am very much beginning to believe jobs that meet these requirements no longer exist.

A few weeks ago, someone posted a comment about the length of my blogs and "+1 for down time".  I wouldn't know down time if it smacked me in the face. 

For the most part, I work a typical 8 or 9 hour day in the office.  3 or 4 times a month I will have a Board or Committee meeting that requires my attendance and I will be stuck in the office until 9 or 10 at night.  Other than that, though, I generally get to the office some time between 7:30 and 8:30 and generally leave some time between 4:30 and 5:30.  But, being in the office and doing office type work is only about two-thirds of my job.  The other third is doing fundraising and PR type stuff, which can not be done in an office.  Even on the days I know I have something to do PR wise in the evening, I work a full 8 hour day.  On very rare occasions, I will leave early, or even once or twice take a full day, when I have things to do on the weekend.  But generally, I work a 50, and sometimes 60, hour week.

Yesterday, one of my clinical staff came in to talk with me.  She is pretty good at her job and works well with the kids in our care.  She scheduled the meeting and so I had no idea what was coming.  She basically asked to be allowed to use at least half of the 250 hours of sick time she has built up to take a leave of absence.  She tells me she is burned out.  She has been to her doc and he has recommended a significant amount of time off, or for her to find a new job. 

I don't think anyone would argue with me whether or not stress and burnout are real phenomena.  Some folks just have better coping skills than others-deal with the stress better- and therefore don't see these phenomena being as destructive as they are to some people.  I know burnout first hand.  I finished my undergrad work in 1998.  I am now on my 5th job since then.  That's right.  5 jobs in 10 years.  Granted, leaving 2 of those were not by my choice and were due to grant funding cuts (both of which I was at less than a year).  But the others?  I left because I was burned out.  I even went so far as to get out of the whole social work/social services field for 2 years.  Of course, I went from that to an even higher stress (but at least it was also much better paying) line of work in working for the Federal government.  Nonetheless, I was burned out.

Going through the training I did in working for the Fed taught me a lot of things.  Many of them are in no way related to what I do now.  But one of them pays, and will continue to pay, big dividends for me.  How to deal with stress and stressful situations. 

Two of the main classes I had in that training dealt with high stress situations.  The first class helped us to desensitize ourselves to certain stressors and also how desensitize ourselves to new stressors as they are introduced.  The second class taught us how physically separate mind from body to deal with physical stressors (This class was designed specifically for learning how survive being tortured.  But, it still applies.).  A lot of what was in these two classes does not apply to what I do now, as is the case with a lot of what I learned in all of that training.  But there were some things I gleaned that I am sharing with my staff in a training tomorrow. 

I'm not even going to attempt to throw it all on here.  But I just want to remind everyone to be aware of the stress in your life.  Be aware of the sings of burnout.  If you don't know them, just do a google search.  Most importantly, develop yourself some good coping skills and stress relieving activities- a great excuse to give your significant other for more time playing the game box.  If he or she gives you crap about that excuse, tell them a licensed mental health provider and counselor told you that you have to play it more. 

Back to where I kinda started.  I really don't have down time.  But this blog is both a stress relieving activity for me as well as a coping skill- it gives me another way to think through situations, or prepare for them.  Plus, if it happens to help anyone out and they let me know it, that's a little more stress relief for me, and something I love and want to do.  Helping others.  That's what I do for a living.  I just gotta remember to help myself every once in a while.