HO HNDSYT Original Jul 23, 2026
Career Took the promotion. Lost the part of the job I loved. My manager sat me down one afternoon, the office had that smell, someone's reheated something in the microwave, and she said the team was growing and I was the obvious choice to lead them. Which basically meant I knew the codebase better than anyone else, and that was the reason they wanted me to stop touching it. I didn't really follow that logic through. I just heard the number she said and the title and I said yes before she'd even finished. I don't think I let her finish actually.
When it happened: 40-49 #promotions #leadership #burnout It's just a different job. I knew that the way you know something before you know it. Knowing it the other way took longer.
HO HNDSYT Original Jul 23, 2026
Career Took a remote job and forgot how to talk to humans The first few months were genuinely good. No commute, no open plan noise. I thought I was thriving. Then at some point I noticed I was responding to everything with a thumbs up emoji and I could not remember the last time I had said something out loud before noon.
When it happened: 30-39 #remote-work #burnout You can optimise your environment until you've removed everything that was annoying, and then keep going until you've removed everything else too.
HO HNDSYT Original Jul 23, 2026
Career burnout nearly cost me my marriage and I didn't even notice I'd come home and the kitchen light was already off. I told myself she went to bed early. She didn't.
When it happened: 30-39 #burnout #remote-work I don't know what I took from it exactly. I do the last round now and then I go home. Most nights I'm back before midnight. That's something, I think.
HO HNDSYT Original Jul 23, 2026
Career I stayed at a job I hated for four years because I was scared Every few months I'd think, okay, next quarter. The market's weird. Portfolio needs one more project. I had this whole rotation going and I didn't really notice I was doing it. People left. People who, honestly. I'd see the LinkedIn updates and feel sick for about ten minutes then go back to whatever was on my screen.
I think I was scared of interviewing. Scared of someone saying it out loud. So I just never checked.
HO HNDSYT Original Jul 22, 2026
Career I picked the prestigious company over the good manager So me and my mate Priya both graduated the same year, same degree, same general level of clueless. We both got offers. Mine was at this company everyone's heard of, the kind where you drop the name at a party and people go 'oh wow'. Hers was at some consultancy I'd literally never heard of, small office, no real brand recognition. I remember we were standing outside the pub after she told me, and I said something like 'but why would you go there when you could hold out for something bigger'. She just shrugged. I thought I was being the sensible one.
When it happened: 20-29 #interviews #leadership #burnout You're not really picking a company are you. You're picking a person who has enormous power over whether you grow or get quietly flattened. I interviewed the company really hard. I asked basically nothing about the actual human I'd be reporting to every single day.
HO HNDSYT Original Jul 22, 2026
Career Said yes to every task and became the office doormat I started that job thinking if I just made myself useful, people would see it. And they did see it. Just not in the way I had in mind.
Someone needed cover for a client call, yes. Someone's spreadsheet needed doing before a meeting, yes. There was always someone standing at my desk with that look, the one where they already know you're going to say yes before they've even finished asking. I liked that look for a while. I won't lie about that. It felt like something.
My coffee was always cold. Every single day. I'd pour it and then someone would appear and I'd come back and it would be sitting there on my desk going cold. I don't know why I kept buying it.
I had a small notebook, blue cover, spiral bound, where I was supposed to track my own projects. For months I'd open it and there'd be almost nothing in it. A few lines. A date. Then nothing for three weeks because I'd been elsewhere, fixing somebody else's thing. I told myself I was building goodwill. I genuinely believed that. I told myself it would come back around.
When it happened: 30-39 #boundaries #burnout I did start saying no more after that. Not in some big obvious way, not a whole new me, just. I started actually finishing the sentence in my head before I agreed to things. Imagining what it would mean for my week, whether I could afford it.
My next review was better. I felt less useful in the way I'd felt useful before and that took some getting used to, that was genuinely strange. There's something about being needed all the time that gets into you, settles in somewhere. I missed it a bit. Still do, sometimes, when things go quiet and nobody comes to my desk. I don't know what that says about me. I've thought about it.
I still have the notebook. Blue cover, spiral bound. I found it in a box when I moved flats two years later. I sat on the floor of my new hallway with boxes everywhere and flipped through it. Pages and pages of other people's problems I'd sorted out, other people's meetings, other people's spreadsheets. And then near the back this long run of blank pages. Just blank. Those were supposed to be mine.