Category Archives: Burnout

Australia and New Zealand Cruise, and Finding Joy

Posted on by
Reply

I recently went on a cruise to Australia and New Zealand with my mom, and it was full of (not my) issues! In chronological order:

  • On the flight to Phoenix, I experienced my first “Is there a doctor, nurse, or medical professional on board” announcement (person I guess was fine because we didn’t divert and there weren’t medical personnel waiting when we landed)
  • On the cruise, a passenger had a medical emergency that required a helicopter medivac between Australia and New Zealand (I have photos of them taking down string lights and clearing the deck, but they closed off the deck for the actual evac, which makes sense)
  • We had a few other more minor medical incidents (with other passengers) that resulted in paramedics boarding the ship, or people being medically disembarked while we were in port (including one where two crew who were hosting an event had to run to assist)
  • A sprinkler in a cabin (not ours) decided to go off at 4 AM, resulting in a crew alert from the captain because the bridge thought it was an actual fire (apparently the medical disembarkation ended up being crutch here because the ship was sold out, but they were able to relocated the affected passengers because of the disembarkation, while they replaced everything in that room including the carpet)

Okay, and one thing that was my issue:

  • We had 2 hours scheduled for our international-to-domestic transfer at SFO, which turned into 110 minutes because we were late getting in, and then the checked bags took literally an hour to come out… we missed the transfer bag drop deadline, so I ran the bags to the regular checkin desk and made their deadline by literally 90 seconds, and then we ran through security and made it to the gate just as they started boarding… I have still never missed a flight or a transfer, but this was the closest I’ve ever come (and AA please schedule more than 2 hours for international transfers, since that includes immigration and customs and bag drop and security)

But the cruise itself was *amazing* and I am super sad that it’s over. New Zealand is an absolutely gorgeous country full of really nice and welcoming people. Australia is… a place. The crew and entertainment on board were fantastic. The food was plentiful and satisfying. Very yes.

Have some photos.

Picton, New Zealand I think is my favorite (scenic) place in the world now. It’s so beautiful there.

We had some gorgeous sunsets on the trip.

Milford Sound is really pretty, even when the weather is horrible and rainy.

Melbourne is okay, I guess. It has a nice river and greenery, at least.

We sailed into Sydney at 1 AM (to make it under the bridge at low tide), but it was worth getting up for.

I’ve been bad at actually processing photos onto my photos site recently, so… these may make it there? At some point?

Also… I’ve been doing enough stuff that we’ve passed another 25k photo threshold already, and we’re actually not unreasonably far away from another 25k threshold. Given that Carnival is coming up this week, it might push me over, so I’ll wait to do stats until we hit 575k photos (!!).

In other other news, I realized I hadn’t written much about life and activities recently (and I’m sure people will ask), so maybe it’s time for a bit of reflection on the past 5 months of unemployment?

One of the biggest things I wanted out of this period in my life was a relative lack of structure and relative lack of obligations, because I’ve spent my entire life having school or work obligations and having to schedule around them.

However, to prevent myself from just stagnating and “wasting” the time, I established three rules for myself (with the help of my therapist): every day I have to be intentional about cooking and eating, I have to make it out of the house at least once*, and I have to have one accomplishment for the day.

So far I have managed to follow those rules every day (*I’ve since modified “out of the house” to “away from my computer for an extended period” to account for days when it’s miserable outside, and I’ll do something like read on the couch instead). “Accomplishment” here can be as simple as “spend time with a friend and be mindful about it” or “bake cookies for my in-laws” or “successfully fly to New Zealand to start the cruise”.

And… it’s worked. I was describing life to my therapist as “slower, but in a good way”… I’m now able to take extended trips to the grocery store to browse (because I love looking at food, and grocery shopping brings me joy) instead of rushing in the 30 minutes between meetings… I’m able to plan meals and spend time cooking (because I love cooking and baking for people)… I’m able to schedule creative sessions with (other unemployed) friends (where we sit on a video call together and just write or code)… I’m able to have quiet afternoons listening to music while I sew… I’m able to keep up with the housework without it being a source of stress.

All of these things have brought me so much more satisfaction than work did toward the end. And I feel like my personal impact (particularly on the people I love and care about) has grown as well (even if I’m no longer having a broad impact, such as at work), because I’m able to properly dedicate my time and energy to the things that matter to me, now. And the list of things I want to do continues to be long. I haven’t even started on some of the items yet, like learning to draw.

And all of this is more than working for me, right now.

This may change, at some point. I may hit a point where I want that structure again, and I might start volunteering or (eventually) go back to formal employment. But for now, I’ve been happier and less stressed than I think I ever remember being.

Life continues to be amazing.

Reflections

Posted on by

I’ve settled pretty comfortably into unemployment, so I figured it was way past time for me to make a proper post about my job, quitting, and mental health. Part of my motivation is to document my experience as a cautionary tale for my future self, if/when I return to industry.

Work burnout for me wasn’t a sudden thing… it had been happening gradually over the past few years. I will say though that the current trend toward AI and rapid iteration definitely accelerated it and brought it to a head, for me. Work got to the point where I felt largely ineffectual in my role, spending the majority of my time swinging between rapidly changing priorities and having alignment conversations with other architects and senior management.

I think most engineers can probably relate to the sentiment that the best part of software is shipping, and getting your code (and product) in the hands of real users. You get a real sense of pride and accomplishment from it. Even though I’d gotten senior enough that my main output was no longer code, that still applied… I produced technical overview documents, specs, and other design documents that were consumed by engineers to build products. I felt like I was making a difference. And then, with the AI work, it didn’t feel that way anymore. Things were changing so rapidly — and there were so many asks coming in from so many different areas — that it became impossible to actually generate meaningful technical documents that could be executed on. Driving alignment became my main role, and while it’s definitely important, it didn’t feel impactful.

The other impact of AI was work hours. There were many periods where I would work 12-14 hour days just to keep up. To be clear here, this was not an expectation from management (and my manager actually kept encouraging me to work less and take time off), but I felt a responsibility to my teammates. I literally did not take a vacation (nor any time off that wasn’t “I’m travelling today”) in 2025 until I went on medical leave. I visited my mom for a week and literally woke up at 6 AM to start working and stopped after 7 every night, leaving me exhausted and unable to spend time with her. It was not a healthy situation with regards to work/life balance.

So all of that together kind of caused me to break. Following a few weeks of increasing mental anguish (such as literally crying when asked to decide what kind of tea I wanted, or having insomnia that kept me up until 4 AM every night), I had what I’m calling a mental breakdown (you might call it a severe anxiety attack, even though such a term apparently has no official medical definition) that was a wake-up call to me that I couldn’t keep pushing on and waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel. Some points I want to reiterate to myself, for future reference (and hopefully others find this useful too):

  • Doctors are your friends and allies. I went into my doctor’s appointment for medical leave filled with anxiety that she wouldn’t believe me. But it went more than well. Don’t be afraid of doctors.
  • Companies differ on what kind of medical leave they offer. In my case, Salesforce offers a combination of FMLA (federally mandated leave that means you have a job to return to afterward), short-term disability (provides pay while you’re on leave), and medical leave (as far as I can tell, the same as FMLA, except it can run longer, and protects your job), and all three of these ran concurrently for me for three months. However…
  • The requirements for each kind of leave are different. FMLA can be signed off on by many different providers (including my therapist, who is not an MD or DO, but is licensed and has a Masters), while disability pay and medical leave had stricter requirements (I believe has to be an MD or DO). For simplicity, having an MD or DO sign off on everything seems to make it easier, but the distinction between the leaves was not clear to me, and I spent a lot of stressful time (when I didn’t have the mental capacity for it) figuring out who I needed to sign off.
  • Disability pay has to be renewed while you’re on leave (whereas FMLA and medical leave can just be signed off for the entire time with no renewals needed). In my case, renewal was every 15-30 days, and required updates from my therapist sent to the leave company, who would evaluate that I was still unable to return to work. Specifics here probably vary wildly, depending on the leave company.
  • Leave can be retroactive. I didn’t take advantage of this (there’s an entire anxiety spiral I had around starting my leave that I won’t go into here), but if you’re truly in crisis, you can start leave immediately and have your doctor backdate the paperwork to support the leave. (This of course would cause me extra stress around “What if I’m on leave and my doctor doesn’t agree”, so YMMV.)
  • Meds (I was on Lexapro) can take 6+ weeks to have a therapeutic effect. In my case, I found the therapy (CBT) significantly more useful in my recovery than the meds were, although it’s of course hard to say how much the general mood stabilization effect actually mattered in the end. Also, starting a medication can make you feel like you’re seasick for a few days… be warned.
  • Go to therapy. Sooner than I did. Don’t wait for things to spill over and become a crisis.
  • This may vary by company, but Salesforce provides health insurance for the entire month after your last day. So make your last day as close to the beginning of a month as possible, for “free” insurance.

In any case, as I started transitioning out of work, there were surprisingly many benefits that I started losing, some of which I hadn’t really considered. In no particular order:

  • Health insurance is the most obvious one. Fortunately that can be replaced with insurance through the exchange, although it’ll cost significantly more than what you were paying through work. (You can also of course elect COBRA any time up to 60 days following the termination of benefits, and it’s retroactive to the termination date if you do.)
  • Life insurance. The insurer had the option for me to continue coverage myself, but it didn’t seem worthwhile.
  • Travel insurance. My company provided (limited) international coverage that worked even if I was travelling for pleasure rather than business. It’s something else I have to think about now when planning international trips.
  • EAP and similar. I intentionally chose not to go through my company’s EAP for therapy, but if you tie your recovery to that benefit, you may need to start paying out of pocket to continue, if the benefit is still available at all.
  • Discount programs. I made a few purchases using company discounts while still employed, but if you regularly use an ongoing discount (like a specific rental car company), this can cause sticker shock after you leave.
  • Direct deposit. Many (traditional) banks will waive their account fees if you have direct deposits, and/or offer money for opening an account with direct deposit. Leaving your job means you’ll no longer have direct deposit, and may start incurring account fees.
  • Daily social interactions. Even though it’s work, and you’re talking to people about work (most of the time), it’s still hard to replace that daily dose of human interaction.

In any case, despite all of the above, I have no regrets about leaving. My goal is to take some time for myself to continue my recovery, and also to see where/how AI settles in the tech industry. After that… we’ll see.

Photos and life have been updated (on time), so I’ll end this huge wall of text with a photo that makes me happy: all of my coworkers at my farewell party in San Francisco.

Life is good.

Changes

Posted on by

Well, a *lot* has happened since my last post, so I suppose it’s time for an update. This was originally going to include some photo stats as well given quite a few phone changes (acquiring of an iPhone 16 Pro, acquiring of a moto g power 5g, and loss of my work iPhone 14), but I’ve fallen behind on photo tagging, so that will have to be a future post.

As to not bury the lede: After almost 18 years at Salesforce, I quit my job in November.

There are a lot of things I could get into about why (and maybe that’ll be a future post), but the TL;DR version is: I burned out in June badly enough that I got three months of medical (mental health) leave from my doctor, went to therapy (with an amazing therapist), and decided that I couldn’t stay in the tech industry for now.

So… freedom!

In lieu of work, I’ve been pursing creative outlets: Baking, writing, and sewing for now, and I also want to take up drawing at some point. I’ve also been scheduling (and executing) a bunch of travel plans, starting with a San Francisco/San Diego/Phoenix trip we just got back from.

One thing I regretted from leaving rather unexpectedly was not getting a chance to really say good bye in person to my teammates, some of whom I’ve worked with for almost all of that 18 years. With my therapist’s blessing, I booked a trip to SF to meet my teammates the first week of December (during release planning). My manager (and his EA) threw me a farewell party during that time, which was amazing and one of the most gratifying experiences of my life.

It was also a good chance to see SF friends for the last time in a while… now that I’m no longer employed by a San Francisco-based company, I’ll have much less reason to travel there in the future.

Afterward, we did the “usual” hop to Phoenix, with a bonus (slightly too) quick trip to San Diego. They were both extremely enjoyable, although they also both just reinforced how much I’m glad we can walk everywhere in Pittsburgh (and don’t need to own a car). Also, having the ability to really enjoy the time without the looming prospect of a return to the usual work week felt really nice.

Photos from all of this will be up on my photos site eventually. Now that I’m home again until the next significant travel plans (early next year), hopefully I’ll actually catch up on all the photo tagging and processing that I’ve been neglecting.

Life is good. :)