It’s Not Burnout
Burnout is overused, misapplied, and has become an excuse for ongoing poor management.
First, let me say that burnout is very real and has significant consequences for those affected by it. Real, true burnout (in employment) is when an individual no longer derives meaning and sufficient satisfaction from their work tasks. The job itself doesn’t provide a sense of pride, or impact, or just contentment with the benefits provided. For many of us, work consumes upwards of 25% of our total daily hours, so feeling like we’re wasting that is a pretty bitter pill to swallow.
These situations are NOT just burnout:
A nurse afraid to go back to work at the hospital after receiving multiple concussions from the same violent patient, who will not be restrained because the hospital management is concerned the family might view it as “degrading” and sue.
A doctor barely speaking to anyone and making questionable decisions in the 35th+ straight hour on the job, not because of emergency but because these are the shifts the hospital expects everyone to work.
A salaried employee, paid only for 40 hours per week regardless of actions, crying and apologizing for not being able to work more than 60 hours each week to help other staff.
A social worker repeatedly chastised and given no support by upper management for not finding a free, Spanish-speaking, psychiatrist/psychotherapist combo clinician, available to do housecalls between 6pm-9pm, with transportation and babysitting resources - along with a portable, free pharmacy - for a client family.
Staff members not allowed to take one single vacation day for over two years because management changes the rules for how time off can be requested each quarter (every three months). All leave requests must be filed a minimum of five months in advance, and all incomplete requests are immediately rejected.
Managers expected to call in from funerals and the hospital for weekly status meetings because it’s “too hard to reschedule” and all meetings are mandatory.
A police officer arriving to a home where one parent is screaming profanities at the officer and threatening to sue for showing up, while the other parent is screaming profanities at the officer and threatening to sue for not immediately arresting and removing a child from the home.
Client-facing staff afraid to answer the phone because multiple clients and/or frequent callers are notorious for launching into vicious tirades, while management says, “that’s just part of the job.” (I don’t recall seeing a job posting with responsibilities of “Must smile brightly while being verbally abused and berated daily.”)
Teachers having suicidal thoughts after months of being berated and physically attacked by teens in the class, followed by the parents attacking the school for their own children being undisciplined and getting poor grades. School administrators respond by reducing pay and putting the teachers on report.
All of these situations are real, ones I have direct knowledge of, and sadly common enough that they’re not even identifiable to any one person. These are not unfulfilling jobs, this is abuse.
Why do we call it burnout then? Because it’s easy.
Calling it “burnout” shifts the responsibility. If an employee is burnt out, that’s their fault (and problem). “They just weren’t up to our expectations,” completely ignoring the fact that the expectations themselves are absurd. Now the solution is “just hire someone else” instead of “we need to fix our system.”
In a classic line from The Simpsons, Lunchlady Doris quips, “The cafeteria staff is complaining about the mice in the kitchen. I wanta hire a new staff!” The problem isn’t the unsanitary and unsafe conditions, it’s the people complaining about it. Just hire new people who won’t complain.
Even better, get the trainers of those people to teach them that it’s their own fault if they don’t like the abusive conditions. While not naming names, just google “burnout” and see how many top names obfuscate the meaning of the term, spread a narrative that it is your fault (you’re working too hard or you don’t care enough), and provide simplistic tips (“build your resilience,” “be more social,” or “walk for 30 minutes”).
Nurse training programs, just picking one example, include “self-care” and awareness of burnout in their curriculum. Proposed solutions to getting repeatedly kicked in the stomach - while pregnant - is to get a 2-minute shoulder massage…eventually. This hopefully sounds ridiculous to you, as it did to me when I heard it actively suggested in a university class recording.
The problem is that a pregnant woman is being put into a situation where she is repeatedly kicked in the stomach by an angry patient. No amount of “self-care” is going to fix that. The system allowing and normalizing this needs to be corrected.
“But that’s hard,” is the constant refrain. That woman should know better, she should take a different job, she should etc, etc, etc. A parent does have the responsibility to protect their child, but are we really saying it’s ever OK for someone to expect to get kicked in the stomach repeatedly as part of their job (outside of MMA or the like)?
Your first instinct, probably much like mine, is “go somewhere else.” Except it’s not always that simple. There are only so many hospitals within a meaningful travel distance, and personnel policies are surprisingly uniform.
I’ve picked on the nursing profession, but this problem spreads into plenty of others. Most regions don’t maintain numerous police departments, or school boards, and there are a limited number of hiring companies. Pensions, 401K plans, pay rates, travel distance, family medical needs, moving costs, school districts, available jobs, and thousands of other factors all play into the ability to “go somewhere else” - and there’s no guarantee the next place will be any better.
Writing these issues off as “burnout” is insulting to the person, counter-productive to the business(es), and ultimately harmful to society. Many of the jobs most vital to our society - nurses, doctors, police officers, teachers, military personnel, social workers, counselors - are the most at-risk for these false “burnouts.”
We must correctly identify the problem if we are to properly solve it.
