Jonathan Malesic

I'm at the end of my patience.

I feel full of energy.

I've become more insensitive to people in the workplace.

And I scored in the 98th percentile for exhaustion.

I was so proud of myself, you know?

Exactly.

You know, it's like I aced this one.

So there are three dimensions to burnout.

So the first and the one that probably everyone is familiar with is exhaustion, sometimes called emotional exhaustion.

And exhaustion is something that it has to be chronic.

You can't be burned out for a week or probably even a month.

It's a kind of exhaustion that does not improve with rest.

The second dimension is called cynicism or sometimes depersonalization.

So you treat people as not full persons that can manifest itself in anger, in gossip, a lot of frustration and so on.

The third dimension is a sense of ineffectiveness, a feeling that your work is not accomplishing anything.

In American society, we value work so highly.

We put so much of our identity and self-worth into work.

And exhaustion can be a kind of point of pride.

Even cynicism can be a little bit of a point of pride too.

The person who's highly competent, but kind of a jerk.