Dealing with Complete and Total Burnout.

[FiredandHurt]

HI

I don;t know if anyone here can relate but I am just past 40 and after getting screwed over in my job last year after giving them everything I had for nearly a decade, I am completely and totally burnt out. I feel the way someone feels when they break up out of a relationship and the last thing they want is another relationship. Well, the last thing I want is another corporate job right now. I hate the politics, unfairness, favortism, age discrimination, control freak bosses, spies, backstabbers etc etc. Just hate it.

I am lucky to be in a position where I can use my skills to manage my stock investments for some income, do taxes for some income etc. I just don;t know how to get my fire back. I was the type of person that always did everything right...started working at age 9 *paperroutes...put myself thru college, worked my butt off despite being treated like garbage in my 20s doing 2 jobs...and recently busted my butt for nearly 10 years before a jerk boss decided to start treating everyone in our department like hell in the hopes one of us quit and when that didn;t happen, scapegoated me out despite stellar reviews.

 

I am just spent overall. Any advice on how to get my passion back? Fire back? I feel so incredibly exhausted and starting over at the bottom just feels too overwhelming.

 

Thanks for listening.

[Lily04]

I feel you... you sound like an excellent employee and hard-worker in general, I'm sure you'll get that fire back.......(eek, I just realized the pun.

 

Anyway... I think a bit of a rest might be good for you. Take a week or 2 to just chill, give yourself a bit of a vacation...then start looking for jobs again. You might just need a break... and then do some reading for enjoyment. Read about issues that interest you, make you passionate...i.e. for me, if I gave up on law school, to get passionate about it again I'd start reading about legal advocacy, about really heated legal cases in the news where people have been wrongfully convicted or something and that might get my interest peaked again. You have to remind yourself of why you entered the field....what makes you love what you do?

 

If you truly don't think you can do it again, then maybe a bit of a career switch might help....you don't have to go completely left-wing and out of your field of work, but something a bit different might get you excited more about working.

 

I hope that helps, and take care. I think it's completely reasonable for you to feel the way you do, and it will take some time to get over, but I'm sure you'll be alright.

 

Lily

[Dako]

Heck yeah I can relate!

I could have written your post, albeit 12 years ago.

After giving my all to a jumbo defense contractor for 16 years, I was politicked out on my butt, also over age 40. I pointed out that my co-worker was padding her time card with impunity, and her bf, my boss, put me at the bottom of his totem pole despite my good reviews and accomplishments. I was swept away with the next housecleaning layoff. I was tired anyway, and ready for a change.

 

I took some time off to find out what happened, and made some revolutionary findings.

I'm not my job.

I'm not a job description.

My "position in the company" was in part an illusion of belonging to something worthwhile.

 

I got a chunk of money from them, put my wife through school and owned real estate, so it wasn't such a loss.

 

I found a really cool job with no politics, interesting work and better pay where I wore no badge or tie, went to very few dull meetings and was appreciated for 10 years until last month. I got riffed, 2 weeks after buying a house for myself, since I split from my my wife last year.

I thanked everyone for their help and went home.

 

This time, I had very little adjustment to make. I was stunned not by the layoff, but the timing was a schocker, on top of some other crap in the last year.

I was looking for a job when I found that one.

I'm 54.

 

Your employer is like an ex wife who owes you nothing. You can dwell on your mistreatment or look for a future opprtunity and put them out of your mind.

 

I know how people in a big company get comfy and the culture can make you believe they're your mother and father, but in the end, it's just a job. When your boss calls you in to say g'bye, they're strangers.

 

Take some time and find out about yourself, then get back on the horse.

[FiredandHurt]

Good post. You are right. They do not care about you at all. Since I am also in CA, I think the age discrimination is bad here. This is a youth culture and

these companies are flippant because so many people want to live here.

 

I don;t know. I am in a major midlife crisis right now and am ready to leave CA.

 

Thanks for your post.

[Dako]

In some ways, my currently raging midlife crisis is putting me into a life I never imagined, doing new things and rediscovering myself.

 

I was so comfy in my old life, with a big oceanview house, marriage, large network of friends and activities, toys and smug sense of security.

 

Oddly, my age seems to be an asset in some current endeavors.

Now I'm hardly the same guy, and I like the new me just fine.