Getting Burned Out

by Carolyn
(Columbus, OH)

When I first started running a social services agency, I told myself I would do my job until I was not able to stand in the shoes of people I was trying to serve. It was a wonderful job and there were many things I loved about it, but it was also a 24/7 job since I was the boss and we were a residential service. Also, because we were underfunded, my job consisted of a lot of duties, from writing grants to doing the clinical work with our clients.

I learned an enormous amount at that job but eventually I got burned out. The death of a family member started me on an emotional spiral downward and between that grief and the normal job stress, I was well on my way to burnout. Yet I did not want my emotional state to hurt the people I was serving.

I decided to go to graduate school with the intent of becoming a professor. My father had been a professor, so I knew this lifestyle really well and knew it would suit me. Also, being a professor has many things in common with social services, in terms of connecting with other people, but without so many crises, so this job addressed my desire to have some kind of positive role in the lives of other people.

I teach people who are going to be teachers and based on my own experience with burnout, I tell them to take the risk to do something different if they feel that they are getting burned out. Burnout is a normal reaction to stress. The healthy thing to do with burnout is to change jobs so that no one gets hurt from it.