My Trudge Through IT Burnout & Keeping it at Bay

my name's Jeff I start off by introducing our speaker go to the bathroom I suggest to do that at some point today witnesses right here minutes all the way down there I believe they're going back into the building somewhere we fantastic turnout today or exceeded our expectations we're well above 700 people here today didn't quite plan on it so it's a little bit crowded for that I will actually be courteous because there's so many people we've got food obviously at noon be respectful you know go back to three helpings make sure everybody gets a little bit of food in their center and again enjoy yourself Network don't hesitate to reach out to someone you don't know say hi any

questions one for the guys in the yellow vest with that I'll go ahead and introduce our first speaker here Eric Lee is senior technology experts architect in areas of virtualization and flour for CERN spent about twenty four years in industry in charge of infrastructure around health system market zones you know what Cerner does kind of idea what he has to deal with Travis a blow for implementation and supporters earner and with that I will turn it over thank you thank you first off the sessions gonna be a little bit different than most you see today most of the sessions are personal experiences that we need Elin the technology this is going to stay primarily on the personal side so again

about me there's a little loop over 25 years in IT I'm kind of the weird guy 19 I'm not even a lot of the sci-fi or marble or stuff like that grew up in central Kansas so I'd like to go there track racing my first 15 years in IT I'd only heard about I do burnouts y7 all the time to somebody it was in the small community that I was doing with and committed suicide okay we talked about it for a couple of weeks we made a little bit of money to the family you know you may have said some all this is terrible we need to do some about it and then within a couple

weeks what happens you go back to your daily life nobody ever thinks about it again nobody ever talks about it I see burnout was completely gone from my mom as it is with everybody else but after going through it twice it's on my mind every day but we still don't talk about this topic in the IT community as much as we should if we're going to be there for each other to talk about the technologies help each other in that way we need to talk and help each other out with the soft skills career mental health and everything so this is my journey drexel burnham I heard a busy family and two brothers I had twenty I have twenty twenty-one

cousins all of which all of them at one hundred points crazy I was a pre-arranged family so basically a rule was I to be home for dinner regular the neighborhood's bb-gun Wars kick the key in ride bikes getting it a lot of this chip as I grew up I played baseball and golf playing competitive soccer all throughout the Midwest when I got older I helped my best friend since first day at kindergarten build this race car we borrowed his dad's flatbed truck with the junkyard bought the car ride home gutted it put it all together and went racing with my little brothers in the bottom right and did the same thing to my parents got married when they were 18

an older brother in their 1922 green 25 for my younger brother we didn't have a lot we work for what we weren't rich they worked a lot of hours to write for us so they didn't show up to a lot of our activities when I graduated high school I moved to Kansas City to play soccer all of a sudden I was on my own complete down there physically mentally my dad gave me $20 for gas instead good luck son right two years I played soccer my mom once all of you played one time and that was when I played close to home she'd give me not only do I go to school full-time and I played soccer and all

the stuff that went around it I worked full-time in order to pay for grandma board and everything I was worth an IT industry a company of a string but it didn't pay for everything one year I even have eleven deputies that's kind of hard to do okay when I got through to the four-year college I even helped positions on an executive board while working 40 50 hours a week papers I was busy busy all the time okay I didn't know anything different so to me just being busy is not to burn okay even in the even when I'm busy work after college I was full-time finally at work company I work for thenbye along with four other companies in the US and

I spent the next two years you went back in assistance integration you went so well that they mean they asked me to do it again globally for the next two years so for those four years I spent 80% of my time traveling below doing backup assistance integrations I pulled the stress of getting the job done that week I could work up to 90 hours sometimes 100 hours that week to do implementations and cut overs and everything like that it was stressful but when it was done with that implementation I go home I'd have a good time with my friends I play softball and stuff like that I could but I didn't feel down I didn't feel changed in any circle and so

to me just working long hours by itself isn't during the last couple years of the project and a few years after that I noticed a cultural shift none of our internal customers were happy with us anymore my projects were no longer getting fully funded the good teammates were leaving and there was a definite morale change in the area I was not happy with work and I was actually pissed off because the manufacturing side of the company I worked at and started hiring around 90 so much that they started to point their own servers their own systems right next to ours it turns out that my boss now reported to the CFO right and in a manufacturing

company if they report the CFO my bosses compensation was directly related to how much money from the budget he state not whether the projects got implemented correctly so in order for me to get a project on I had to give it approved and then in order for him to do it by this time I worked at the company almost 11 years just over we implemented a ton of things like I said the backing systems integration and all that stuff company grew because I can see I bought it I felt like I was absolutely part of the company I didn't want to do on for the company because of these but to me not liking your boss because of how he's

being compensated not liking some of the people who work with alone is that expert the stress of completing these projects were hard enough it's even more stressful when you care about the project when you care about the company you can see a benefit I didn't know how much until one day I was watching TV with my life this is pre kids and everything in my life without Furby and she said where you think about why she goes look at your hand and my left hand was shaking like this if I was trying to hold the remote there was no way I could do took a look on my right hand my reckoning had a little tremor in it as

well too so she asked me what I was thinking about I had no idea but after looking at it I could tell I was just thinking about work and all the stupid stuff going on at work I was infatuated so we started talking about it and we started looking at other symptoms over the next few weeks and these are a lot of the symptoms that I've noticed that I didn't see some of the worst is I speak sarcasm as a primary language in my household my kitchens great at sarcasm took on a different tone it took on any snarkiness right when you start getting snarky or it's snapping for the dumbest things something wrong and that's a

trigger I no longer wanted to do things that I did before yeah I'm gonna go hang out with my friends I got so wrapped up into my work and that company that wasn't looking out for my mental image as well well I suppose some of these times before what we didn't ever talk about I didn't want to be at the company anymore but I didn't want to leave because of all the work that I've put in over the years I was burned out on the job the situation ours so what did I do about actually not much or it could be a lot if you're afraid of change I just got a new job took me a little while to find

one that's nervous anybody worked at one place for a long time you think a it's a tough decision within two weeks of starting my new job though once I got comfortable with my surroundings and realized that I wasn't an impostor and actually knew what I was talking about there the Shiki went away the snarkiness went away all those symptoms went away I'm healed right wrong because what have I actually changed really so this new job works about three and a half years I had a ton of structured projects work long hours it was in the advertising industry this is about 2008 what happened recession so we had stressful things going on there as well too but looking

at myself and pay attention to looking back now there was no signs of IT burn I love the people I work with I love what I do okay so just having those symptoms or just having those things to me by themselves in the 90 burn during this time an opportunity came up to go work at a company of software developers they were starting their CI CD process they wouldn't not automate everything from start to finish that they would so I jumped at the opportunity when I started there was a lot of all the routines what was great was from the VP down they all wanted this they were all driving for it everybody is on the same page

we took a process that was mailserver builds once a week for testing process as we've done in every 12 hours automated start to finish and all the developers whatever or in their inbox for the stuff that they did it was awesome VP loved it everybody saw the benefit of it though my primary job was to look at any tool any system in architecture that would help the process go faster best job I ever had my own time you would have in a conference how's it gonna help well I think it might do this sure go right I want to go see this company about this what do you think they're gonna do I think this go it was phenomenal the

most challenging part of the job was every year put on a client conference and I was in charge of the lack of systems it would take me three to four months to get the whole lab system set up the interface the backend system everything except the content our different departments were returning the content one year we were taking the conference on the road I decided to use a cloth vendor instead of loving enough hardware trying to get it down the cloud vendor promised me that this functionality of beaded five days before the conference it still wasn't working I was getting ready leading to Orlando and I was panicking I had applied a gear Iraq networking everything get it boxed

up get it on a truck ship it to Orlando to be there in a couple days so when I arrived I could get it all set up my coworker said Eric blinked your hand I left my hand no veneer work was few years before but they are resonating we were so busy I didn't really have much time to think I once we got home early and doing a couple days I touched base with the vendor again we ran another system test they finally fix their issue everything was great all of a sudden shaky was completely gone okay skip that sorry we sat down and I talked to my co-worker who has pretty good friends minute and we

started looking at all the other symptoms that I had previously luckily I didn't have any of those so we just chalked it up to the stress of the closet or not during this time then I was being recruited by a bar they wanted me to come in and teach all their clients the CICE processes and automation and stuff that we were good I didn't really pay attention to them for quite a while because I didn't like some of the management that was there

I woke up ex-coworkers they've been there for many years they said the company changed and they were really recruiting so I thought was a great opportunity anyway the first nine months was phenomenal I have fitted really well my account managers I've fitted a great book a lot of the customers I helped some customers transition and pave the path to where they are now it was awesome I'll see you well some of the people I didn't care for all of a sudden came back practices I didn't like started showing up more often off-the-cuff decisions were made that a lot of people felt were detrimental things were being published to all sales staff that I thought was not proper to do it was

really weird and then I got blasted across an email across the whole entire company for two things I had nothing to do with waiting it was found out that I had nothing to do with it I never got an apology for many of those people at all then I lost half of my accounts because they hired another person without telling anybody who's ever been in sales when you lose half your accounts but your quota doesn't change basically at this time I two kids I was a sole provider in my family and when you're in sales and you're not going to make any of your bonuses off your quotas that's a huge hit to your hand so that's very

very stressful all I could think about that was I left the best job I ever had for this craft over and over ever so well this type of impression was sitting in I was burnt out on the technology that I was working with I've grown so much of the company I was responsible for teaching the other people and my swimlane those technologies but I was not giving benefit every time I needed to write a statement of work or teach somebody something all I could think about was I left the best job

I would sit around experience space it would take me forever to get back on the projects I was fading into a portable so let's talk about what I to burnout is to me in the simplest terms it's any combination of all of these things that causes you to stop being who you really are okay because that's going to give something different to each and every individual right just because you go that IT burnout doesn't mean you're directly going to go into suicide or anything like that right everybody has different levels of where you're going to be but the simplest form you're no longer going to be who you normally are and that should be your first trigger

that something's not right and let's talk about suicide for a second maybe people are saying he's up there talking about IT burnout and I haven't heard suicide until just now well I spent many a night many of hours in parking lots parks staring out in his face thinking about no longer being here thinking about a good bed it could be better for me to no longer be here I wouldn't have the stress my wife wouldn't have to deal with me my kids who were being affected by the way I was acting and feeling but I related to this they were short thoughts but no real plane on how I would do it and I was

related to see I want to go there but never getting on Expedia Travelocity and actually looking to see how many boats and planes and everything else I never thought about exactly how I would do it it was more about the lineup I shouldn't so let's talk about the trigger how did I get out of the depression today luckily I had some good friends in the community you notice did they pull me aside and they wanted to talk about but growing up I never talked about anything back there grew up in a whole bunch of boys you didn't feel good mentally you need to go get some chores done you'll feel better when you're Lynette so I

would be more later sure right so one day I was with a very good friend of mine and we were at a bar drinking a lot and he was jabber not ask me question and I was just so fine I gave it in full said of the best job I've ever had in my whole entire world for this crappy job and this was a response you don't like to attract sometimes you just need somebody to call it the way it is to keep you in the bus to get you have to do I had to come up with some strategies I've started off slow with wine I've gradually out of these over time and we'll go through these pretty

quick first I have set up my support system I had to get rid of the negative nancies in negative Nellie's whatever you want to call people that just complain about everything including on Twitter and social media you don't need that your life you hear it over and over again you get one of those okay I also had to talk to my boss and this is very very important and very very hard to do I think it had on the same pages I wanted him to understand when I got into this some of these environment or what the triggers were that would get me there so that he can help me an advocate for me and help try to dispel some of that I

also when I didn't know how I like parades and how I like criticism so that it wasn't giving it to me in the wrong way second I had to get organized started using to do with got everything out of the inbox I use inbox zero for this so I'm not constantly looking at all the things I have to do another it's called the Arnie and the other thing is my wife's a teacher I had to get her to use a shared encounter it was the hardest thing to do she's used to that paper under burns with two kids and activities going on for all of us wasn't working third I had to make time for

myself and this is the hardest thing to do when you have kids okay you have vacation time use it I go on trips to go see races and stuff we go click off get away build something whatever you're into it also means that I take the 20 minute walk every single day in no matter what whether by myself or with somebody else if it's with somebody else you do not talk about work not allow anything to work or every week I reflect on where I came from remember I talked about my parents got married when they're 18 look where I'm at now right I should be proud of that instead of thinking about where I haven't gotten

to again think about the certification to your CV think about the praise you received for completing projects keep track of those things put them in a folder and review those it helps a time fifth thing I added with volunteering I work with a group called the Rubicon 2017 I went down for her in harmony for eight days you think you got it bad and then you see people on ten cities and everything else it's a little perspective on things you come back rejuvenated and you're ready to go I've got a the last thing I did is reach out to others okay this is very very very important which is what I'm doing right now I'm presenting right

I set up recurring meetings with part of my support group happens every week I have things with a group of people we keep Fridays with another group of people I have one-on-ones with some other people that are agreed reoccurring time clocks we change up those recruiter time clocks so we don't get into that right so do this first time I presented this session I was nervous as all get-out a couple of people that were here that were there at that time people came up with said thank you so much this is I got the run of this session than any other session I've been to and then I received this email this laughs that night if you don't think you're helping

people by sharing and doing things you're wrong okay if you're a manager what can you do the biggest thing is no company resources that are available I didn't know that most of the places that work basically there's multiple therapy sessions available for free as part of your benefit package if your manager find out what's available the reporting is find out what resources you have available for your place and do some of the enclosing what can you do search for the clues in your life that are changing look very closely because it's not easy to wind them up front I know firsthand we've talked about this right try different strategies start out with woman add more take them away if

they're not working I've changed the view of them don't get complacent with them and finally like I just said we can't just rely on others to help us we're here to help each other right do what you can to pay it forward again here's the resource life from earlier if you want to reach out to me I've had my Twitter handle on the bottom for this whole entire time my dams are open I'm willing to talk more importantly I'm willing to listen if you don't want to talk to me or you don't have another group to talk with there's several resources that you can reach out to for free these are blog posts mental health and

90 there's a ton of leading some other presentations and resources to help it's really cool right this is a this is all about focusing on the things you haven't got done versus paying attention to the things you have in boxier that's helping tremendously over the years and then a couple other blog posts that have been out there about

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