Narrator: You're listening to the humans of DevOps podcast, a
podcast focused on advancing the humans of DevOps through skills,
knowledge, ideas and learning, or the SK il framework.
Colleen Verriest: Especially if now there's extra work at a
certain point in time, and we all live in workplaces where
certain months are really crazy, or certain weeks are really
crazy. And if we just take it all on, and we don't
compartmentalize and put certain things aside, then we're sort of
ramping up to beyond, you know, towards that burnout place.
Jason Baum: Hey, everyone, its Jason Baum, Director of Member
experience at DevOps Institute. And this is the humans of DevOps
podcast. Welcome back. It's been a couple of weeks. I hope you
enjoyed our rerun episodes that we had planned for you. You
might remember from the last Live episode that we did, I was
taking vacation. And I'm back now, obviously. But let me tell
you just how wonderful it was to finally take an actual vacation.
It's the first one for my family since COVID. It was also the
first one for me in nearly two years where I actually
disconnected for a week. And by that I mean, no phone, no
checking work, email, no work calls, no slack, nothing. I know
shocking. It's it's hard to imagine these days. I found it
to be incredibly rewarding, refreshing, and it allowed me to
come back ready to take on whatever hurdles were coming my
way. And as always seems to be the reality after vacation,
those hurdles pretty much began immediately. I'm sharing all of
this because today's episode is all about burnout. I don't think
I need to go too in depth. To set this up for you. We've most
likely all experienced burnout at some point in our careers or
lives for that matter. In fact, a study by haystack analytics
found that 81% of developers reported experiencing burnout
due to the pandemic. When I looked into this deeper, I found
out that the phrase to burnout was actually used by Shakespeare
in the 1600s. In 2019, the World Health Organization define
burnout as a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from
chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully
managed. So according to that definition, individuals
suffering from burnout are said to experience feelings of
exhaustion, increased mental distance d motivation, and
cynicism in relations to one job. It also is important to
know that burnout as defined by the WHO is caused solely by
stressors at the workplace. In 1981, Lance Morell wrote an
essay in time that was entitled the burnout of almost everyone.
And that talks about burnout as the disease of the thwarted a
frustration so profound, that it exhausts body and morale.
Burnout in advanced states imposes a fatigue that seems at
the time, a close relative of death. So and that here with
those powerful words, and introduce my guest for today,
Colleen veriest. Colleen is the founder of Whole Heart healing,
and has been nurturing change in individuals and organizations
for nearly 20 years. As a licensed clinical social worker,
and nonprofit leader. Coleen assumed several progressive
leadership positions in the nonprofit sector in the
nonprofit sector, starting as a clinical director and moving on
to Vice President and then finally to CEO, Collins
leadership is grounded in the question, what is possible. Her
focus has always been supporting the growth of agencies and
programs, but most importantly, the growth of people, those on
her team and those served. She has found that leading with
compassion, flexibility and fairness has brought success
throughout her career. What matters most to Colleen is
leading with the heart leading with intention and a good dose
of vulnerability. Colleen is filled up by just being with her
family. She loves attending sporting events, and traveling
with her fiance and son, taking a run and connecting with her
ever loving circle of friends and family. Colleen, welcome to
the humans of DevOps.
Colleen Verriest: Thank you, Jason. Thank you for having me.
Absolutely. You've already defined burnouts Well, I've got
nothing left to do.
Jason Baum: I did my research but I'm, I'm not a professional
by any stretch of the imagination. Although at times
on this podcast, it certainly feels that way. I do not pretend
to be a professional. So I'm really excited to get into this.
I've been waiting to do this episode. load, mainly because
who hasn't had burnout? I mean, it's law, much like when we did
our imposter syndrome episode. I don't think that anybody, like
the stat was 87%. And as I said, with impostor syndrome, when it
was something like 80% of people have experience, I think that
that means 10 or 20% of people are lying.
Colleen Verriest: Or you didn't talk to the right people,
Jason Baum: or you didn't ask everyone. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So
Coleen, are you ready to get human?
Colleen Verriest: Yeah, absolutely. It's my favorite
thing to do.
Jason Baum: Yeah, as as a, as a licensed clinical social worker,
I'm pretty much sure that all you do is, is get human.
Colleen Verriest: Yeah, one of the things I said actually,
during the pandemic, to my team, in terms of the human services
field is like, the reason most of us went into it is because we
like humans. So when we couldn't be together, for those of us who
really thrived in that kind of environment. That was really
challenging. Yeah. So I like humans. I like connecting. And
I'm happy to get human with you.
Jason Baum: Awesome. I'm excited to do it. Yes, me too. And it is
challenging, right? So I defined burnout from a few different
people's perspectives. And I think that's the thing you could
Google burnout, and you'll get a million different answers to it.
So what's what's your definition of burnout,
Colleen Verriest: my sense of burnout, and I think you touched
on core pieces to it. But from like, a nuanced perspective, I
think for and again, you're right, I think most of us
wholeheartedly have felt this a different point in our career,
and even in our lives, you know, work is one place, but life is
another, like life holistically. So, and certainly our personal
lives can exacerbate the burnout, we feel we could talk a
little bit more about that as well, in our time together
today, but a big piece that I find is dread. You know, like
having this sense of dread. When it comes to work, that Sunday
evening bellyache, we get, you know, the that those
butterflies, the heart palpitations, the dread, of
going back to work. And that can be for a variety of reasons, but
one reason could be burnout. You know, I think also just a sense
of anxiety, worry, you know, can be a sign that something's
amiss. A lack of excitement, or enthusiasm, feeling detached,
you know, like, starting to feel like it feel as though I just
don't care what's going on anymore, you know, I'm doing the
best I can. But this is all I got. Overall, not being able to
concentrate in the workplace, feeling an effective, that's a
big piece of it as if, you know, what I'm doing is just not, I'm
just not performing at the level that I'm accustomed to, and what
I, how I would like to be performing, and not always
feeling as though we know the answers as to why, you know, not
being able to dig into that, and just a lack of satisfaction
overall. You know, those are some pieces that to me, but I
would say that feeling of dread is a big piece that I've heard
from colleagues, you know, I've experienced myself. And it's
really, the critical piece is paying attention to that, like
listening to that inner voice. You know,
Jason Baum: it's interesting, and we did say, you know, in the
reason why I had that, that quote, from time from Lance
Morrow, because I thought he said such he made it the imagery
that comes to your mind from his words. But he also went beyond
just the workplace. He actually called out. Now this was also
written in 1981. So he mentioned like, mothers and moms at home,
I would say right now, any parent, especially in pandemic,
there are elements of it, and I would just that just serve just
normal life, right? That's just that's just dealing with life in
general can cause burnout. But the way you just put it with
that that pit in your stomach on a site who has an eye, I mean,
that is such a calm, and not just for work. I think that goes
all the way I mean that can go all the way back to school and I
I know I felt it.
Colleen Verriest: Yeah. Like I remember in college or grad
school, or that break would end and oh my gosh, you know, yeah.
Jason Baum: Right. Yes. Even though you have elements of fun
and things that you'd like to do, there's still that that pit
in your stomach. Right that there's that. Ever, Hank,
whatever it is that stressor that you're going to have to
face.
Colleen Verriest: And I think exhaustion, you know, that you
mentioned that just exhaustion. Over, you know, your day could
be a typical day, maybe nothing extra is involved with feeling
white. You know, I think that's also something to pay attention
to. And just an overall sense of negativity. I mean, we will all
experience team members, colleagues who kind of think
more negatively than others. But when someone who typically isn't
oriented in that way, begins to comment in a more negative
fashion have more sort of negative things to say about the
work that's actually happening or the workplace or their
colleagues, then that's also a sign, you know, so I think it
can be a number of things, but I, you know, you're 100% correct
in, in alluding to life outside of work, and yeah, now it's just
our teams, our organizations, corporate structures, you know,
they have parents who also have kids, and at any given point,
there's a COVID outbreak in the daycare closes.
Jason Baum: Yeah, been there, okay. And I
Colleen Verriest: just had a, a team member that used to work
with me telling me that, yeah, all of a sudden, someone, a baby
in the room got COVID, or they didn't have enough staff at the
daycare, they shut it down, they shut that baby room down. So
what are parents supposed to do? So just that compounded stress
is really, you know, that's powerful, really powerful.
Jason Baum: If your listener, you know, I have shared it many
times, I constantly share about being a parent. I have a four
year old daughter, she's lovely. She is in preschool. And I can
tell you just in the pandemic a lot we we had her out of school,
and then we put her back in, you know, for it just got to a
point, right, where what's what's worse, being at home or
going to, and, and just since being back, I mean, they've
closed I don't know how many times too many to count. She has
joined me on conference calls. I mean, it's there's only so much
bluey they can watch.
Colleen Verriest: So true. I would like to be watching blue
instead of working. You know, it's true. It's true. Yeah,
you're you're one, you know, you're not alone. That's the
truth. I mean, I've been, I mean, I was held holding board
meetings. And my son would come in and say goodnight in his
pajamas. You know, so everybody got to know each other's
families and newlon in new and exciting ways, that's for sure.
Jason Baum: Yeah, in some ways, I think it sort of made it less.
It wasn't, there was like, no shame to it or anything. It
wasn't, yeah, not a taboo, like it would have been maybe early.
But yeah, it is, we're all on the same boat here. So it almost
lessened it. So I don't know if it necessarily cause burnout,
but the fact that you are on as a parent, and as whatever you
are in your career, whether you're a developer or coder,
whatever it is, oh, my gosh, you have all this going on.
Colleen Verriest: And you're not turning it off, and you make
that whole work from home. And I think most people I speak to
feel the same as that. Work was home, there was no separation.
So you know, that same table you were eating at, is now your
desk. You know, if you didn't have the workspace that, you
know, that's the luxury to have workspace in your house, you
know, so that really, I know, for myself, I had to be really
careful about that. Because I could you know, and you have
these phones that have your email on it, and you know,
those, they're always there. You know, at one point when my son
said, I want to throw that phone out the window. I want to break
your phone. I was like, Okay, that's a sign. Yeah, that's
enough. That's enough. So there are things that we can do.
Personally, you know, to combat I would say burnout that's
coming from our personal and, and work lives, you know, and I
also believe that management and leadership have a role to play
in all this as well. I think personally, some of us have
characteristics that lead us more or less towards burnout,
right. So if we are of the personality type that puts a
tremendous amount of pressure on ourselves. Okay, we're not good
delegators that can, can contribute to burnout.
Especially if now there's extra work coming in at a certain
point in time, and we all live in workplaces where certain
months are really crazy, or certain weeks are really crazy.
And if we just take it all on, and we don't compartmentalize
and put certain things aside, then we're sort of ramping up to
beyond, you know, towards that burnout place. If we, if we are
the type of personality where we really need a tremendous amount
of reassurance, or, you know, a pause now, not to say, that's
not positive and workplace to be giving sort of kudos out. But
there are some times where the leadership is, is also swamped,
and they just may not be thinking in that way at a
certain time. So if we have staff, and team members who are
really need that constantly, and you're not getting it
constantly, you can start to feel as though you're not
getting recognized. Why am I doing this? Why do I bother, you
know, and having more of a controlling a need to control in
environments where things can kind of be unpredictable? Right?
Those are things that also can contribute, I would say, the the
critical piece around our personality traits, and burnout
is knowing who we are. Who am I being honest with ourselves?
Okay, am I more or less like this? You know, and there's no
shame in that. It's just knowing ourselves. And knowing that,
what do we need to do to mitigate that part? In the
workplace, like who we are in the workplace? And I, I would
say in that, in that DevOps world from, like, in preparing
for today, and looking at that, you know, the burnout in this
area 81%, you know, that was specifically DevOps. Right, what
you were thinking?
Jason Baum: Yeah, I think it was sad developers. Yeah. Developers
that work. Okay.
Colleen Verriest: So when you think about the pandemic, and
then just having to take it and development and support to it to
the scale that no one was anticipating prepare for, I
mean, the whole world was working remotely. Right. So and
not having the resources or the planning to prepare for that. I
can't imagine what that felt like for developers, you know,
Jason Baum: and it's already an industry that I think is
synonymous with burnout, because coders all you ever think about
I think about the the movie, The Social Network, and you look at
the they had like the like a glimpse of what it was in the
early Facebook, and you're thinking about the Silicon
Valley startups. And you think about all these software
companies, and they're so cool, because they've got the ping
pong tables, and this and that, but really, what they're what
they're doing is creating an environment where it's normal to
be at work all the time. Yes. Right. And I don't know if
that's very healthy.
Colleen Verriest: I would venture to say, it isn't you,
because there is no downtime, going back to what I was just
saying, like, in terms of that downtime is almost a trick. You
know, it's like, it's tricking you to think that it's fun to be
you know, those are like, and that became like a movement.
Now, I don't think organization should shy away from bringing in
supportive things like, you know, downtime into the
workplace, self care days, you know, things that are nurturing.
But the same thing happens on Wall Street and some of the
like, I know, you know, hedge funds, and some of these offices
where people are at the office when, you know, the markets open
in Asia. And they're there till whatever time of night and
they're having food brought in and they're dry cleaning and
massage all this stuff so that people are there and and they're
there and they're there and they're working. You know,
they're at some point that takes a toll on most people. Now, some
people really thrive and this doesn't become an issue and
that's all they that they can manage that and that feels good.
But most people at some point in time, max out and burnout in
those kinds of environments. You know, in terms of the internal
peace, being something we have to pay attention to, and that
knowing ourselves there's also the external piece, you know,
what kind of environment? Are we in? What is this office setting?
What is this business setting organizational setting? Is it a
toxic work environment? You know, am I in a place where I'm
being supported? Or I can be heard?
Jason Baum: Or, you know, if you're in a toxic workplace?
Colleen Verriest: Well, that's a good question. And I think that
depends on the person. Now, if it's a person who if it's a
person who can really put on blinders, and doesn't pay
attention to what's happening, kind of goes and does their job
leaves and goes home, some people can do that. And we've
all known colleagues who are like, Yeah, I'm just here to do
my job, and I'm going home, and none of this affects me, you
know, then if you're more of a, you know, a tuned in a different
way. I mean, I think it really, it's personal, because what's
toxic to one person may not feel toxic to another. And, you know,
for for most employees, you know, having I mean, being
micromanaged can feel toxic to some people, not having a sense
of professional sort of latitude where they can make some
decisions and feeling feeling a sense of being affected. Right.
So that goes back to the micromanaging. bullying in the
workplace is certainly something that is part of or can be part
of a toxic work environment. I think something that contributes
to toxic work environments can be folks when there's change
leadership that don't, don't open themselves up to new things
and kind of hold on to the old things, and then spew a lot of
negativity against change, you know, in the, in the, how many
times have we heard well, we never did that. We never did
that before. That's not how we used to do things, you know,
well, you know, and that we're not doing that anymore, here's
what we're doing. And sometimes that train of progress needs to
move, and you either have to get on or not. So when you have
folks who kind of hold on to old ways of doing things, and resent
change that can can create a toxic work environment. A lack
of respect, you know, the inability to have honest
communication for some, you know, that can feel like a toxic
work environment. I think, I think employees are coming to
the table with higher expectations, and rightfully so
about what work should feel like, you know, and what, what
can be possible in the workplace. And, and I think that
organizations have, it's will be important for them to heed that
call, because retention will get better turnover will, you know,
you'll see less turnover, less burnout, really. And if people
feel heard, and if people feel supported, particularly when
they're starting to feel overwhelmed. And if they're
brave enough to speak up and feel like they have the safe
space to do that. And then they get the support they need, then
wow, that's a win, because you have an employee who you feel is
doing a great job, but he's struggling right now, because
they're human. Leadership responds, does what they can to
support them, hopefully, that works out and they feel heard
and seen. And then they're going to show up in a new, an even
more committed way. I've found that to be true. You know, when
people feel supported, and they're at their lowest or they
need to they need that help. You know, it's it's a win.
Jason Baum: Yeah, that's a that's a culture thing, right? I
mean, that's culture is the culture. You know, something
that you touched on earlier in the podcast. And you kind of
just said it with retention, obviously makes me think of the
great resignation that's going on right now. We'd be remiss not
to talk about it, because there is a movement right with people
go, although I've said it on this podcast, I'm not sure if
people are leaving their bad job going to another bad job. And
then someone else is taking their bad job like is that
what's happening but because where are all these jobs coming
from? But the one of the things that I've read about it is
interesting. There's, there's that piece of the great
resignation, where people are actually leaving, right? It's
gotten to the point where whatever their workload, the
culture, the toxic work, whatever the reason, because
it's often not about the money anymore. It's very much about
the environment where you're talking about. But there's
another piece of the great resignation where people are
resigning without quitting. They're kind of just not doing
their work. They're just gliding they're just I sort of just
existing without actually doing anything and kind of giving up.
And that sounds like someone who's went through some type of
burnout to me.
Colleen Verriest: Okay, so you're saying resigning without
quitting? So another staying in the job? Yes. Not producing not
not actually filling the objectives of the role, just
existing. But just showing
Jason Baum: up? Yes. Just showing up.
Colleen Verriest: Yeah, so that could be burnout. That could be
please fire me. For me, do for me what I can do for myself, or
pay attention? And I wonder, you know, how, how is leadership
responding to that? Organizations? You know, I find
that to be really fascinating, because I, in multiple
leadership roles could never just ignore that. Right, you
know, and, and let's be honest, not every employee of every
organization, you're not, this is the truth. Not everyone will
be happy all the time. That is the truth. You wish it were not
the case? Because you ultimately, you want everyone to
feel okay. But we're humans? Well, we're humans and normal.
Yeah. So it's not. However, if, you know, people are just
gliding. I think there's also, you know, there's this piece
where business folks that I've connected with recently have had
real difficulty hiring and replacing. So I don't know if
people are afraid to confront that sort of gliding, because
they're afraid they're not going to get someone to fill that
seat. And people have a sense of like, I'm just so tired of this.
So I'm just going to do the bare minimum. If that I guess and
see, don't roll the dice. If they're not going to get rid of
you know, I'm not sure that's a really dicey, tricky, dynamic.
Because then how do you know, there has to be some level of
accountability that that, you know, you still have to produce
whatever it is that organization or entity is producing, whether
it's human services car dealership, who knows what, you
know, you name it, I mean, you still need people show up and do
their job, you know, right. If someone's burnt out, then, you
know, ideally, from a leadership perspective, you have to be able
to confront that. And check in, you know, and create, ultimately
create a sense of trust with your team members. And I know
when I've noticed changes, and ideally, any leader that notices
changes in a team member, it's really incumbent upon them to
check in. It's, it's, it's a miss when we can and if you if
you don't feel comfortable doing it alone, do it with a colleague
that's non threatening. You know, like, Hey, call me and I'm
noticing this is not like you, you know, are you okay? And
that's the first step I believe in, in someone feeling
recognized, you know, if they're sort of showing up in a way
that's different, that can be really, it can be a little
scary, but can be very validating.
Jason Baum: Maybe that's all they need to sometimes know. It
feels like to me, right? Yeah, it opens the door, it allows
them to be like, Look, and then they can unload. It's like, I
got this, I got this, I got this somehow I got this too. How can
we don't have more people doing it? You know, they'll go off,
right? When you give them the opportunity to and at times,
that's really what they need. And then yeah, you hear him?
Right, the fact that you notice and can hear there's a problem
and acknowledge the problem is, is half the battle.
Colleen Verriest: Yeah, and I, I have seen that work in just the
way you described. And I've had a staff member where I did
notice, even in a meeting, if someone was just not presenting,
you know, and then here we all are on, you know, Zoom now and
so you're not feeling like that body language, but you can sense
you know, I think that body language and people's energy can
is can be a little bit harder to tap into. It's not impossible.
But I had a staff member who just wasn't themselves in a
meeting, I mean, just really not themselves. And I checked in and
then I asked if they were, you know, something going on because
you're just Something's off. And then I found out there was
something totally unrelated to work going on, you know, whether
these whether someone feels comfortable sharing that or not,
sometimes it can just be you know, what, the tip of the
iceberg, you know, and you're letting them know in this and it
has nothing to do with work. But yes, I have a lot going on. Then
you know, as a leader, this person has a lot going on
outside of work. How could Okay, and then the next question is,
how can I support you? You know, is there anything we can do?
Hear a shift here for the next week? Or a couple of days? You
know, it doesn't have to be forever, you're not. I think
sometimes people are afraid they're going to make
accommodations that they then have to, you know, hold on to
forever. But that's not the case.
Jason Baum: Or that there's no one like that, that no one wants
to help or that there's no, I don't think and maybe I don't
want to speak for every manager that's out there. But I don't
think there is any manager who is actively like, I'm going to
overload this person to the point where they're going to go
quit. No, no, I don't think that's I don't think that it
should be not the mentality of any manager that is out there.
I'm sure there's probably some some some bad managers there. Of
course, there are. But I don't even think for them that the
mission is to get someone to quit because why now you're now
you're down in a, someone to help with I mean, now you have
the workload on your on your back to write. So I think maybe
it is just hearing it and understanding what what is on
their plate under and then working towards how you can
divvy up the work past it, maybe some things aren't necessarily
as high priority as as, as they thought, you know, there's so
many
Colleen Verriest: things, right, helping someone prioritize, I
think can be really effective. And sometimes, in the midst of
being overwhelmed and burnt out, in a sense, it can be about
looking at something, reframing something, you know, taking
whatever those items are within someone's work life, let's say,
and being able to look at it with a fresh set of eyes. And I
think sometimes we're just in it, and we don't see it clearly.
And sometimes just having that conversation with a peer
sometimes who's not maybe you're not so threatened by can be
helpful, like, Hey, am I looking at this correctly, maybe you
don't have to go to your supervisor, if you're feeling
less comfortable doing that initially. And sometimes appear
a colleague can say, you know, can give you a suggestion. And
it can kind of open up a new paths, a possible way of
handling something or prioritizing something and I
think, you know, monotony at work can attribute to burnout,
you know, certainly I would imagine, in the developing
world, that monotony, you know, and, and this sense of like, is
having a feeling of impact like is what I'm doing really having
an impact. Feeling that sense of, again, it goes to efficacy,
you know, and, and, depending on what it is, that fills us up as
individuals like what energizes us, what satisfies us in the
workplace, and if you can find those things in your day, day to
day, where you can kind of get to those sooner and know that
you can maybe prioritize those things that energize you. And
then realize that the other things may be necessary parts of
your job. But you know, if you can shift them to like a later
part of your day, or knock them out in the beginning, but kind
of looking at your, your work life, your work day in a way
where you can recognize the things that actually you do
enjoy, I think that's important. And then realizing I'm not going
to love every part of my job, you know. And then being able to
kind of carve out those times, so that maybe you bookend your
days with two energizing parts of your work if you have the
luxury of like scheduling your own time.
Jason Baum: Yeah. And I do want to there's this word that just
keeps coming to my mind constantly as we're talking. And
it is. Boundaries. But before you before we get into that, I
do want to ask, before we get into that as part of this, it's
hard. Part of the same question is, you know, how do you avoid
burnout? And is it even avoidable? Because it sounds
pretty normal. But then the other piece for me because I'll
just speak about myself. I set it in the beginning when I went
on my vacation, I shut everything off. For really the
first time in two years I did that I've really been working on
boundaries. And I think for myself, I have seen improvement
in my own sense of when I am feeling burned out regardless of
where it is in life. I have the ability to say no. And not like
impolitely like nope, not doing it. But but you know, but But
thinking of alternatives, but also saying no. or delegating
like you said earlier trying to figure out how I was a bad
delegator before took too long and too much on you have heroes
right? You have the people who want to play hero you have
people who are like, I'll take it I'll take it I'll take it
out. And then And then we talked about that. So is burnout
avoidable? And, you know, how do we combat it?
Colleen Verriest: Yeah. I think burnout is something we can
mitigate. I don't know that we can avoid it altogether. At
certain times, you know, and maybe it's elements of burnout.
Maybe at one point in time, you may have the exhaustion piece,
but you may not be so pessimistic about work, but you
may have elements of it, right. So I don't know that anyone
feels burnout. 100%, for sure, but I think we have elements of
it that we can mitigate. And boundaries is a key piece.
Pausing, taking breaks, are critical. So just let's speak
about the boundary piece. And you mentioned it, Jason. So one
of the things that I think can feel really uncomfortable is
setting new boundaries, it can be uncomfortable for the person
and uncomfortable for our colleagues, because we've now
sort of created a new pattern of behavior that those are those
around us are accustomed to, say, responding to email after
6pm. And they want an answer after 6pm. So use an example of
I'm going to stop checking email at 6pm. Because it's so easy on
our phones, and etc. So, a colleague of mine started doing
that. And the response was, are you okay? Is everything okay?
You haven't been getting back to me? Are you sick? Are you going
for treatments, you know, that kind of thing. And in reality,
that person was really okay, and actually doing something really
healthy. So, when you do that, you have to be prepared for
people being uncomfortable, and not all the people in your life,
but some people because some people will never turn it off.
However, once we do that, I think it gives permission to our
colleagues, like, Oh, if that person does it, then maybe I can
do that too, and create sort of a culture shift. So I love the
idea of boundaries. And I'm a big proponent of that, you know,
stop checking it six, or 530 or five, whatever your number is,
you know, and then nothing is going to change that's life
threatening. With between five and nine or five at 8:35pm to
8:30am. If you needed to be contacted for an emergency, I'm
sure someone would figure out how to get in touch with you.
And most things can wait 24 hours, most things. So being
able to sit with that. And in I think because we're all really
wired now, you know, anything, we want to look up any answer we
want, we get it whenever we want. I see it in my son just
Google that for me or ask Alexa, you know, so we have to like
trick ourselves and start working with ourselves to take
that break key key. Because especially if we're not happy in
our jobs, why would we want to spend more time engaging in a
job that we're not happy in after hours, it's just going to
make that feeling of dread worse, and dissatisfaction
worse, because you're resenting all the time you're spending
working, when you don't like your work, or you're feeling
disconnected. So it's sort of a vicious cycle. I also think, oh,
go ahead. Did you want to say something? Jason?
Jason Baum: No, please go ahead. I was just gonna add something.
But yeah, please go ahead.
Colleen Verriest: You know, and I also think, in that when you
take time off, you take time off, this is just another piece
of the boundary that when you're on vacation, and for some of us
who've had different roles or leadership roles, you understand
that you're taking on certain things at certain times. How,
however, if you're on vacation, and this is quality time that
you've now designated, and gosh, we need to unplug, we all need
to unplug, you know, kudos to you for doing that. That was
awesome to hear that, you know, and then the impact
Jason Baum: comes at a breaking point, though. It shouldn't get
to that but yeah, right.
Colleen Verriest: Right. You know, it also, and I've seen
this, as I said before, it really does give permission to
your staff. If my staff saw me answering email my entire
vacation, what did you think? What message are you sending?
You know, I'm sending a terrible message. And it's not it's
ideally not what I want my staff to do all you so you have to
walk the walk. And I think as leaders we have to walk the walk
and also don't penalize anybody. If they actually do that, you
know, on your team. It can't be like, Oh, well, we're calling
goes on vacation. We never hear from her. No, you don't, you
know, no, you don't, you know, let the people on your in your
circle now. And really take advantage of that break, because
that will help. It will you will feel refreshed, you will feel a
sense of separation from the workplace, which then can help
with burnout. Ultimately,
Jason Baum: there are so many studies that have been done
since the pandemic, even just just specifically about what you
just talked about this time, right? And the fact that we do
need to have time to disconnect and that you're, I mean, just I
so many businesses are now implementing it. Not enough more
need to but you know, mental health days or an extra day
holiday a month or I've seen the four day work week starting to
really take off in many companies. I hope that's the
thing. I'm going to say out loud and proud. I know. Our CEO
listens. I'll say it now it's public. No, I've cuz I'm a
believer. And I've I've also read up on it's not just oh, I
want a four day work work week. There. There are proven studies
on companies that actually have four day work weeks, where
productivity actually improves. Oh, for sure. And it's because
the weight load is not you know, they're not people aren't
carrying all this for so long, and they get a breather and you
come back refreshed, just like I did on my vacation and told my
entire staff, you got to do it. Now you got to go on vacation,
you need to do something for yourself and unplug. So, yeah,
unfortunately, we're running up against time. I would love to
continue this conversation. Perhaps we should.
Colleen Verriest: I would love to. There's more to be said
there's more to be said.
Jason Baum: Absolutely. Colleen, thank you so much for joining us
today. This is an absolute pleasure to have you and talk on
this subject.
Colleen Verriest: Oh yeah. Thank you so much, Jason.
Jason Baum: And thank you for listening to this episode of the
humans of DevOps Podcast. I'm going to end this episode The
way I always do, encouraging you to become a member of DevOps
Institute to get access to even more great resources just like
this one. Until next time, stay safe, stay healthy, and most of
all, stay human. Live long and prosper.
Narrator: Thanks for listening to this episode of the humans of
DevOps podcast. Don't forget to join our global community to get
access to even more great resources like this. Until next
time, remember, you are part of something bigger than yourself.
You belong