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There and Back Again: A Burnout Story by Three Psychologists
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In this episode, we journey through the landscape of burnout—moving from overwork to exhaustion and self‑doubt, and ultimately returning home with clearer boundaries, renewed meaning, and a wiser sense of what’s worth carrying. From Eccho’s six‑year grind of full‑time work plus a PhD, to Jenny’s constant vigilance while working in Colombia, to Duoc’s weekend‑work relapses fueled by poor management, we explore how burnout takes shape in different lives. Together, we unpack the role of boundaries, self‑care, and reframing work, and why meaningful leadership matters more than ever. Tune in for an honest, warm, and slightly spicy conversation about finding your way back to balance.
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Transcript
Introduction: Burnout in Biopsychology
00:00:10
Speaker
Hi, welcome back everyone. You're tuning into Hitting In Plainsign, Things Asian in the Workplace. I'm your host, Echo. And I'm Joke. And I'm Jenny.
00:00:22
Speaker
So this episode, we're going to be talking about a confession of three biopsychologists on a topic ah related to burnout.
Echo's PhD Experience and Realization of Burnout
00:00:33
Speaker
Echo, this was sort of based on your idea. What made you want to you know dedicate an episode to talking about burnout? Yeah, Echo. um i think we started having this conversation that was when we were talking about how we started with this stereotype of working diligently and somehow all of ourselves were actually working hard, sometimes just nonstop. And I think one time i have been telling both of you, especially during the time when I was working while i was taking my PhD study,
00:01:11
Speaker
There's no weekends for me that I spend most of my time day and nights and weekends. Everything that is um work or study.
00:01:22
Speaker
And a certain point, I feel like that's a norm for everyone. I didn't realize that's not a norm for everyone until graduated from the PhD program. But recently, I think I have this life epiphany.
00:01:37
Speaker
I suddenly feel like nothing worth my effort. Like feel like I can still do my work, but nothing from my work excites me in a way than like 10 years ago. Like I started to question why do I do my job in the first place?
00:01:55
Speaker
So that's where I started questioning everything. There's so much to unpack right there. So i I think some of the audience know this, but for those who don't, Echo was a full-time employee and a full-time PhD student. And so when you say you didn't have weekends, is that is that why you didn't have weekends?
00:02:16
Speaker
Correct. Yeah. At the time, I think I was prioritizing my work and study for the most part. During the day, I was working as a full-time employee and at night and weekends, that's where i spend most of my energy, writing up papers, read the papers, doing nap studies. And that's my that's my how I spend my leisure time. Echo, how long were you doing all this and balancing all this?
00:02:46
Speaker
I think I started the PhD program back in 2018 and graduated in 24. So that's six years. Ever since I started my grad school, I have not, you know how some people like between jobs when they are heading one job to the other, they usually have like one or two months, sometimes like even like longer break time. I never had that. End the work this week and then start the new job and then the following week.
00:03:14
Speaker
So that's always the the transition period for me. So I have not you even take a break. That does not sound sustainable. Or healthy. Yeah, or healthy. So the idea of like taking a break and like watching Netflix or binging something over the weekend didn't happen.
00:03:33
Speaker
No, i I feel so guilty. Like, why? Like, every time when I was binge watching on Netflix, I was like, wait, I just wasted the entire weekend. I shouldn't be doing this. And this feel me makes me feel worse. I should read two more papers. I should write up my paragraph on this one chapter of my dissertation. Instead, I spend, i don't know, eight hours binge watching ah like a K-drama. What's wrong with that? Nowadays, i feel at peace with it. Literally, like my weekend, I do nothing and I feel super comfortable doing nothing. So Echo, you said you were doing this for
Identifying Burnout and Existential Reflections
00:04:10
Speaker
six years. So I'm going to imagine and let me know if I'm projecting that in the beginning that it wasn't there, like you didn't sense the burnout or the exhaustion.
00:04:22
Speaker
When did you pick it up or when did you there? When were there tells potential burnout for you? What was what was it for you? Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, like at beginning.
00:04:34
Speaker
Oh, first of all, I think the study is way much harder, like my time spending school. Every course, every paper, every project sounds way harder than the work itself. So I wasn't even like a mentally challenged by doing the work work. And i think that was during the last year when I was writing up my dissertation, all of a sudden i was like, okay, what's the meaning after this? what's What are the things that I should be doing after this? That's the time I started to question the meaning of doing anything.
00:05:07
Speaker
Now you mentioned this, there was a famous research paper out there. They were studying the factors that drives burnout. And ah whether this person feel like they were doing meaningful work is one of the very important driving factors for it. Because you can see there's some people working day and night, like from like a third person eyes,
00:05:30
Speaker
They were probably like is this like person like overloaded or something? But they don't feel that way. They feel very happy. They feel like mentally satisfied. They don't feel the feeling of burnout.
00:05:41
Speaker
I think for me, I actually see that as one part of the driving factor for me feeling that sense of a burnout is I don't find the work I do is meaningful anymore. Wait, can we take a step back real quick?
00:05:54
Speaker
I feel like Echo got a chance to share really spill their heart out her burnout. Jenny, have you experienced any burnout yourself in any of the jobs that you've
Jenny's Burnout in Colombia
00:06:05
Speaker
had? Oh, so we're sharing now? ah Oh, yeah.
00:06:11
Speaker
Absolutely. ah the burnout that I experienced was when I was in Colombia, in South America. country. And I would say the burnout wasn't really ah because of the work itself, like the professional work.
00:06:24
Speaker
I think the burnout that I experienced was... just like the exhaustion, the mental and cognitive exhaustion from always having to be on. I think I talked a little bit about this. It was a very toxic environment for me professionally. And then outside of work, you know, when you're just going about your day, you always had to be on because people were always trying to, know, angle, swindle, cheat, lie and steal from you. And so because that was my experience living in Colombia,
00:06:51
Speaker
I think having to be on at all times, you know, whether it's getting into an Uber and checking the route, making sure that the driver is not taking me on a roundabout long ass route to charge me more or, you know, making sure that I'm counting every single money because people are trying to you know always swindle you.
00:07:08
Speaker
i think that's when I experienced burnout, um similar to what Echo was saying, where I just, I would wake up and I just could not motivate myself. I felt like emotionally exhausted, just mentally taxed out and tapped out, and I just didn't want to do anything. And that lasted for, I think the last like six to eight months I was there.
00:07:29
Speaker
But since then I haven't experienced it. So that's my, that's, I guess, when I experienced burnout. Okay. What about you, Deb?
Doug's Early Career Strategies Against Burnout
00:07:36
Speaker
Oh, you know, Echo, I was having um relapses when you were talking about weekends and doing weekend work.
00:07:46
Speaker
And I would go into work with all my materials on the weekend when i was in New York with the hope that I would do work.
00:07:58
Speaker
But you know when you're there and no one else is there and Netflix is very easy to find and you end up finding Netflix or I ended up up finding Netflix a little bit more easily than I thought. and But then I felt guilty after doing that. And there was a period of, I think, when I was finishing up the dissertation where I felt that I want to say earlier in my career when I first became a manager of people,
00:08:24
Speaker
and I wasn't trained properly and I wasn't given the resources and I'm expected to do certain things. I found the work meaningful. For me, I feel like there are different things. i just didn't have the resources to do the the work that i wanted to do And I just felt like I wasn't set up for success. I think there's some other times in other jobs where I felt that way, but I didn't wait until it got too bad. I got up and I...
00:08:48
Speaker
left because i know I knew from past experience that the job and or the organization and maybe management as well too was going to burn me out and it wasn't worth my time or effort. So I guess when I saw the signs, it was time for me to find an exit and get on out of there.
00:09:06
Speaker
But I think like for me, sometimes it it depends on the job and where I was. Sometimes it was just numbness or cynicalness. And other times it's like, I just feel like the resources just wasn't there for me other times it was a I just don't have enough time to do everything. And i think looking back on it now, Echo, I am with you that on the weekends, when I tell people I did nothing, I am actually very happy and content.
00:09:34
Speaker
I did nothing. So, um yeah, a couple episodes of, you know, burnout here and there. But I don't know, i would I would say that I'm just perpetually recovering from all those sessions of burnout too.
Recognizing Burnout Signs Early
00:10:05
Speaker
I want to just comment on something that you said, because you said that you didn't let it get to a point where you completely burned out. You recognize the signs and then you got out of that situation.
00:10:19
Speaker
What do you think helped you get to that point? Because I feel like a lot of us are not there. Like we're in the burnout. We experienced the burnout. We let it go on for months, maybe even years before we were like completely exhausted and burnt out. So what What do you think helped you get out of that?
00:10:36
Speaker
o Great question. i think, you know, um for myself and maybe for our listeners as well, too, first of all, it's just really an introduction of that the concept that You know, we can't always be we can't always be doing everything. And there's this deep chronic fatigue that we feel.
00:10:56
Speaker
So I would say experience is really the best teacher. But, you know, having other colleagues and learning from them and, you know, there's stuff that's in the textbooks that's theoretical and and practical that's there. You don't really, i don't know, it doesn't feel like You feel it, you understand it until it's there.
00:11:17
Speaker
um Because of this those just prior prior experiences, it felt like I was gonna get there. Now, was I gonna get there or not? I don't know, but I would say there was a pretty good chance that if I stuck around, probably would have,
00:11:33
Speaker
disengaged, gotten numb, maybe we're over, here you know, reacted or just gotten really depressed about my outlook.
00:11:44
Speaker
So when I kind of felt those things and for me, I journal from time to time ah to just get a sense of where I'm at ah historically. And when I sense that, I'm like, well, I think it's time to it's time to get on out.
00:12:02
Speaker
and do it graciously. So that's how it's worked for me. Now, granted, I think I've only done that successfully once. So don't think that this has been something I've been practicing and making work. I've done it once and I'm very happy I got to do that once.
00:12:22
Speaker
And when was this? I'm not going to say the organization, but I want to say it was, um I don't want to say it was about a year ago. that it happened. um And I recognize it, I want to say a year in and like six months ago, so really a few months into the position, i realized that this isn't going to work out. Like, it's just going to set me up for failure.
00:12:48
Speaker
going to get I'm going to get frustrated. going to fall flat on my face. doesn't matter how much work I do ah or how committed I I am to this position, to this organization. It just didn't feel right.
00:13:04
Speaker
Maybe for someone else it will, for me just didn't. How about you, Jenny? How did I recognize it? Yeah. Like, were you ever recognize it?
00:13:16
Speaker
And if how did you recognize it? I think, so if you were to ask me like, when did I ever experience burnout or something close to it, I would point to two. phases in my life. And the first phase was during the PhD program when I was kind of similar to you, Echo, working full time, you know, and managing all these jobs, all these side jobs. I think, no, I think at one point I was TAing, not just at TC, but on main campus. I was the PhD liaison. I was like,
00:13:43
Speaker
And then on top of that, the full time job, Airbnb. So it was like five or six jobs. I was also teaching at Hunter College. hustling So it was. But for me, like what what you said, Echo, it was normalized. So I didn't think, oh, this is I'm spreading myself too thin.
00:13:57
Speaker
So I would say that was the one period where I was spreading myself a little bit too thin in hindsight. And I did experience you know some stress. But then I went to Columbia.
00:14:08
Speaker
And I think that's when I really realized like, okay, this is like worse than i what I had before. I'm feeling the burnout. And I don't get out of the situation, it's going to take a toll on my health. And I i felt it in my body.
00:14:23
Speaker
And that's the first time. This is the first time I've actually felt burnout in my body when I was in Columbia. I didn't feel it when I was in the PhD program. I don't know if you've ever felt that way, like the fight or flight response, your heart is palpitating constantly, all the time, no matter whether I get a good night's rest or whether I'm meditating or exercising, it's always there.
00:14:45
Speaker
I was always like on earlier. And that's when I realized if I continue down this path, I'm gonna like, I'm gonna get cancer or something like I'm, this is not healthy for me. I think for me, it was the recognizing the signs and realizing, wow, this is not something that I experienced even when I was high stress, you know, stretched thin, doing all these jobs when I was living in New York city. So I think that was my cue to get the out.
00:15:08
Speaker
out We'll that one. What about you, Echo? Because it sounds like you recently went through this arch. Yeah. I think it started when I was in the summer last year in Northern Europe after the AOM.
00:15:25
Speaker
i was like traveling while I was doing my work. I mean, most of you all know this, but for our listeners, like I love traveling a lot. I travel a lot every year. But that was the trip I feel so exhausted. i mean, like it can be tiring for people. Like I was like doing some like sightseeing in the morning and then came back and start working like around like 3 or 4 p.m. and till like midnight. But for the most part,
00:15:52
Speaker
like I never felt like, oh, I wanted to go home. I wanted to rest in my own bed and do nothing. And at that time, I was like, maybe it's because the traveling can be tiring. It can be. But also at the same time, I think I was also experiencing like, oh, my work is useless because Every time when I present something, leadership going to make a decision on something else, not based on what I have recommended and what is the point doing all this work. So I think that has contributed a lot in hindsight or in like a Rachel's back. But also at the same time, I was like, I might have this like a midlife crisis hit me at that point. point No, don't want it to do anything. Like literally like what is the big deal if I literally quit my job and not doing anything for six months? What's going to happen?
00:16:42
Speaker
But I always have this fear is once I start working and now like AI is taking over everything, and like I might not be able to find a job. So the fear is real. Echo, I want to go back to what you said. So you said that when you do a lot of work, put effort into getting this project done and then leadership doesn't do anything with it.
00:17:03
Speaker
Because I think that's something that a lot of people probably have experienced at some point in their career or maybe more frequently than others. But could you talk a little bit more about how that contributes to feeling like your work is not contributing to anything? um Yeah, I think I always firmly believe like was a psychologist. We are the one that helped the orient organization using science backed evidence to make decisions around our people.
00:17:30
Speaker
That's what I have always been strived for. I mean, like the later on, my job is more like using data to help people do that. But essentially, it's the same principle that we have been applying to the work.
00:17:42
Speaker
And that gave me sense of like a meaning to my work. And I firmly believe that. But I think over time, I realized how much Like we all deal with data. We also know like there are certain things like depends on how you describe the data, how you tell the data story. People can make different assumptions and different like a conclusion out out of it. Over the past 10 dozen years, I've seen so many stories or has so many decisions, I thought, oh, my data can help, my insights, my research can help with all of that.
00:18:19
Speaker
It's not. ah And to their defense, I'm also not trying to say like all my recommendations are like the best thing. I'm never trying to sell in that way. Like the leadership make a decision based on like a multiple dimension of the the resource, the information they have at their hands. And maybe like the information I provide is just one view. But even that, I sometimes just feel like, does that mean like my work is meaningful? Like if they can make decisions based on all those gut feelings or all the other dimension of the data or the insights, do they even need to consider what we have given
Questioning Work's Meaning and Value
00:18:53
Speaker
to them? That started me start questioning like the meaning of my own chosen profession in the first place.
00:19:03
Speaker
Let alone, like I think over the years, there's so many sociobactors that also DI work hit all those ups and downs over the past few years, like the work that we do.
00:19:16
Speaker
All of a sudden, sometimes I feel like oh very valued by the organization. And then later on, feel like, no, we're not even looking at this field anymore. So I think it's going through its own waves, like all of that adding up.
00:19:30
Speaker
I don't think this is just one moment that Echo feel like, oh, my work is meaningful or not meaningful. But it's all those small evidence like a piling up, almost like hitting a point. I'm like, I can't take it on this anymore. And that's where I start questioning like whether my work is meaningful at all. I was telling you both, asking both of you guys, like, have you ever hit this moment that you feel like your work is meaningless? Like you have almost like,
00:19:59
Speaker
Why do you even choose this work in the first place? Before we answer that question, Gouron, I just have to this is why bad leadership, people who make decisions based on gut feelings instead of the data, are shit. And that's why so many leaders fail. If only they knew how much meaning that they could give by even just factoring your work into decision making. I think that's one of the reasons why I quit corporate America, because experienced some of the things that you just mentioned, like Echo, like You work with fellow I.O. psychologists, you look at the data, look at the employee engagement surveys, you come up with all potential programs and suggestions, but then leadership will just say, I'm going to go with this direction.
00:20:40
Speaker
And that's not based on science, not based on any of the data. And I saw that happen and that also made me wonder, am i really going to be able to add value with my PhD training here? no I hear you both in that being experts in the field know what good looks like, what best practices are, and should we need, we can do research to figure out what some of those best practices are moving forward.
00:21:07
Speaker
it is I'm with you and in that it is frustrating when we put it out there and management or upper management doesn't go with it. For me, I've been trying to find buffers in between this. And I think, Echo, you alluded to this earlier in that maybe there are other constraints that we may not be fully aware of in the position that we're in.
00:21:35
Speaker
And for me, I try to remind myself, like, I'm one person in this X amount of people organization. And it's a nice reminder to kind of humble myself that I am this one small cog in this much larger organization, in this much larger system, that we are trying to make big systemic changes and The fact that it's one person or two or small group of people in an organization trying to make these monumental changes. feel like the fact that when we do, we forget to count these wins.
00:22:14
Speaker
But I think as just human beings ourselves, we count our losses a lot more. And it can be detrimental, detrimental, depressing to know that, hey we put a lot of hard work into this and it's coming to fruition.
00:22:31
Speaker
I would say the fact that organizations that have psychologists like in our positions are in a much better place than without. So I want to just reposition us in that the fact that we're here, we make a difference.
Reframing Perspectives on Work
00:22:47
Speaker
I guess what I'm was saying is there's a Hawthorne effect in with us being in the organization, that they're just better because they know we're here.
00:22:56
Speaker
And then hopefully our expertise extends to everything else as well too.
00:23:12
Speaker
It's interesting because, Doug, you said something about reframing. And I think that's a very healthy, like in terms of like how do you deal with burnout? How do you deal with feeling disillusioned when you are working in a large institution, corporation, and understanding that sometimes the work that I do or the projects that i my team does might not make a dent and sometimes you just have to deal with that. And and so sometimes having a healthy way to reframe that. I mean, I think I sort of use that too in academia. You know, I, of course I work on the project that I want to, but at the end of the day, ah publication gets published. Did I change the course of scientific discovery? Probably not. You know, so I think it's it's ah just matter of like reframing it and figuring out ways to to make it more palatable to you.
00:24:03
Speaker
But was it difficult? Was it hard? And it was not achieved by a lot of people and took a lot of hard work? Yes, absolutely. And did you brag about it on our WhatsApp chat? Yes.
00:24:15
Speaker
Oh, yes, yes. I took the moment to brag about published chapter. ah Jenny, how long did it take you to do all that work from start to finish? I mean, I know you do. I'm going pick on Jenny for this moment.
00:24:28
Speaker
For that particular chapter, that was probably two years of work. Yeah, going back and forth with my co-authors, back and forth with the publication. But for this one, it was a lot easier because it wasn't peer reviewed. It was just a book chapter.
00:24:43
Speaker
Book chapters are a lot easier. Period. All right, wait, wait. going to stop you there from the discounting. The discounting. I'm going to call. You just started from bragging all the way to, no, no, no. I'm not going to, you know, like this is not peer review. Oh my goodness. Okay. See, see. Yeah. This book was like 50 chapters. I was only one chapter in this 50 book chapter. Yeah. You know, not everyone is even eligible or qualified to have a book chapter. And that's not even like a peer review. Like people can sub submit it shit for peer reviewed articles. That's true.
00:25:22
Speaker
But not everyone can have a book chapter. Okay. but I have great friends who keep me honest. Thank you guys. See, this is reframing right here. We just put this to practice.
Professional Identity and Self-care
00:25:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:36
Speaker
Echo, can you talk about reframing a little bit yourself? Have you done it in the past? I know it's a powerful technique, but find I have used that less often in my professional work. I probably done that more for my like a personal like relationship stuff, like reframing.
00:25:59
Speaker
Care to provide examples? I want these learning opportunities. I if it's appropriate here, but yeah, I do think like reframing is helpful. I think oh um over time, i think I always like a branded myself as like IO psychologist in the workplace. And sometimes I feel like maybe I just need to reframe myself like that identity as someone who can help the organization to solve people problem.
00:26:30
Speaker
I think that sometimes gives me different perspective because that also requires me to think in my stakeholders shoes. I'm like, okay, this is a problem that I'm dealing with.
00:26:41
Speaker
How can I solve this? And then all my IOS psych background is just the resource I have. But I can also be an HR person. I can also be an employee. I can also be a manager. like Let me think about this perspective. I probably nowadays put behind all my, what you call it, identity or credibility, weigh them less than I have before, which is actually healthy for me to get out of this like a burnout cycle. like At the end of the day, I'm just being hired by this organization to solve whatever the problem they're dealing with.
00:27:17
Speaker
I can leverage my professional training, my professional knowledge to help them to solve all this. But I'm not putting this too much of my weight, but too much weight on this. Therefore, i have this high expectation how this should go. And later on, that contribute to my own like a burnout. Like these days, I'm shutting down my laptop at six o'clock.
00:27:40
Speaker
There's an emergency situation. I'm not going to get to it till like the next morning. No one's going to die. Nobody's going to die. I'm not doing like brain surgery or anything. Like that's the type of attitude I had.
00:27:54
Speaker
But I think as I was reframing this to be like, oh, I can help this organization solve my so their problem. But first of all, I need to take care of myself. When do you think you made that switch? Because making that switch from, hey, I'm someone that checks my emails at 8 p.m. and will send off an email at 10 p.m. to, you know what? I am closing my laptop at 6 p.m. That's a huge difference. How did you make that switch?
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I learned from my own relationship status or like my own personal life because I realized I can only take care myself. I can only love myself first so I can take care of other people and I can love other people.
00:28:36
Speaker
And I think the same thing applies at work. I think I wasn't treating work as this other object that I'm having a relationship with. It's a work relationship I had with my company, with my team, with my boss, with my work. I was seeing the work as part of me.
00:28:54
Speaker
And that's where like, yeah, of course, like if your body feels something wrong, like at eight o'clock, then of course you're going to fix this thing by 10 PM. But nowadays it's, I still, I'm the me that I need to to be taken care of first.
00:29:09
Speaker
If I really think about like the the transition period, that that was something that got me thinking. How should I deal with the relationship with my work? I love that you both brought this up.
00:29:19
Speaker
And something I've been using lately is that i remind others and myself included that I am saving Word docs, PDFs, and PowerPoints and not lives. Yeah.
00:29:36
Speaker
See, there you Duck's sense of humor showing up right there. that's That's a very good point. We're not saving lives. No one's going to die. We're just saving PDFs. Jenny, getting back to your other point, I was curious about how you separate work from the work that you have to do. And it's time to, you know, time to relax and just kind of just be Jenny.
00:29:59
Speaker
What do you do? ah Part of it is very much similar to what Echo mentioned, which is feeling good physically. So if I get to a point where I'm sitting in front of the computer and nothing is coming out, you know i can't produce, I can't think, then I'm just wasting time.
00:30:17
Speaker
And so when I get to that point, that's when I go, you know what, I've been sitting for seven hours, I'm gonna take a break, or it's 3 p.m., I'm shutting down my laptop. And so I'm very, very good about separating that, especially because I work from home. And I don't know about you, when you work from home sometimes, it just blends in. So you could just say, you know what, I'm just going to work a little bit more, a few more hours, a few more hours here.
00:30:41
Speaker
I don't know about you guys, but sometimes when I'm in a flow, I just sometimes I'll even forget to eat. No, I don't forget that. That happens. And and that's huge for me because I love to eat. My meals are like pretty significant milestones in my day, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So when I realize that I'm working way too much, I'm, you know, my meals are slipping, my workout schedule is off. That's when I realized this is, this is not healthy.
00:31:08
Speaker
And if I'm not healthy, I can't take care of my work. So plus I also have a dog and I think keeps me pretty honest. Cause I have to take him out three times a day. yeah so that helps.
00:31:20
Speaker
What about you, Doug? How do you, how do you manage that? um I'm totally with you on the whole hybrid remote thing. Of course, that happened quite a bit during the pandemic.
00:31:32
Speaker
I wasn't good with it, ah with remote work, because it did bleed into just regular life. The same thing with hybrid, because it's hard to really say when does work and in my life.
00:31:48
Speaker
personal time begin. i would say I have a 10 minute commute to work now and that's my time to get in. Now, do I log in a little bit earlier, do some things I need to in the morning because I'm just not going to show up in the office at six o'clock in the morning? Yeah, I'll do that. But then I'll shut the laptop down, drink my coffee, wake up, you know, do whatever.
00:32:12
Speaker
And then that walk, that 10 minute walk helps me separate home from work and also on my walk because I'm in this downtown area, I'm looking out for homeless folks and make sure I'm not getting knocked out going into work.
00:32:28
Speaker
There's other things on my mind when I'm walking to work that literally preoccupies it. So that is a nice distractor, I guess. I didn't ever, I didn't ever framed it that way until now.
00:32:40
Speaker
So that commute is that barrier for you. It is, yeah. And I would say like in other jobs, you know, when I was in New York City, it was a 45 minute commute and that was a nice buffer because we all lived in New York City and you have to be very attentive when you're walking up and jumping on the right train.
00:32:59
Speaker
If not, you'll just go to the wrong one and it'll your commute will be a lot longer. Echo, do you think that you're traveling over the past several years, those experiences contributed to the epiphany you're having now?
Travel's Impact on Work-Life Balance
00:33:13
Speaker
Oh, always. Yeah, absolutely. Like this time i was traveling in Spain, southern Spain. Like I literally like doing the same thing as I did in last summer, which is like during the day I was out and doing some side things and come back three o'clock and start my day of work. That gave me a new perspective. Plus, European general has a higher higher life quality. Yeah, like I felt the difference. I felt like, oh, the work is work, but I still have a life outside my work.
00:33:43
Speaker
ah Versus like when I come back to New York, I think because the time is like when you wake up, you need to go to work. And then when you come back, ah like six o'clock and then during the day that then before you go to bed, there's only like four or five hours of this time that to yourself. So I feel like my life is being divided versus like if I, because of that time zone difference in Europe, then after I shut down my laptop from the time I go to bed all the way till like three o'clock when I turn the laptop on, I have this entire 10, 12 hours to myself.
00:34:21
Speaker
That feels a difference. I didn't realize that until there was one moment I was like, wait, why I feel like I have a lot more time, more a lot more free time when I was traveling versus like when I come back, I was like, wait, crap, the nights are already out, the day gets dark and time to go to bed. Like I did nothing today other than my work.
00:34:41
Speaker
Yeah, the the Europeans definitely have a better work-life balance. I think they don't make work their identity the way Americans do. Absolutely, yeah. Oh yeah. Work isn't everything. You're not gonna, unless you're like a surgeon or a doctor, no one's gonna die. So prioritize yourself. I really loved what you said, Echo, about like, if I don't take care of myself, like how can I take care of others?
Conclusion: A Haiku on Combating Burnout
00:35:03
Speaker
Yeah. Making ourself as the priority. Yeah. Number one in your life should be you. Okay. Well, do we have a haiku to end our episode today? Yes. This is from Gemini, not ChachiBT.
00:35:16
Speaker
Actually, this is from ChachiBT. Okay, we're back. yeah Quiet signal home. Meaning steady wearing hands. Work rests, life breathes free.
00:35:30
Speaker
I asked GPT to write a haiku on a podcast episode that ah we talked about combat burnout. We mentioned how to detect size early, how to find the meanings in work, how to keep the work life separately and all the different tips.
00:35:46
Speaker
um So that's why it gave us the the signals and the the steady meaning. I'll give that a solid 8 out of 10. Okay, I can do that. Okay, well, thank you for tuning in to another episode of Hidden in Plain Sight, your podcast for all things Asian in the workplace.
00:36:03
Speaker
We'll catch you on our next episode. Bye, everybody. See ya. Bye, everyone.
00:36:15
Speaker
Bye.