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There Are Ways To Reduce Burnout, But Managers Hinder A Good Chunk Of ‘Em
About 10 summers ago now, I worked at McKesson for the summer in Houston. It was largely a pointless job. I was supposed to help with their Intranet, but got almost no guidance on what they wanted from their Intranet, and pretty much I created a Tumblr and lived with a 59 year-old woman in Montrose and discovered Breaking Bad. My office was 20 feet from this guy James, tho, who was some type of HRBP focused on … God knows what. Every Monday at 8am until Friday at 3:30pm, James’ calendar was completely blocked with meetings. I mean, there really wasn’t even time for lunches. And none of that time was blocked by him, i.e. uninterrupted work time. It was all meetings from others that he had accepted.
I can tell you, being 20 feet from James for 12–13 weeks, that he always left around 4:45 to 5pm. So, when exactly did he do actual work? Maybe at home, I guess. Or maybe in the mornings. But all I saw was him rushing to meetings and then rushing into a new meeting, with no time to prepare for it.
I haven’t thought of James in a decade, and I’m honestly not sure I remember his last name to look up and see what he’s doing now, but I hope he’s doing more relevant and productive stuff than…
