Andrew Melder

When I set out in May to reduce my social media usage, I envisioned it was a way to focus on other aspects of my life.

With some work projects coming into play, and life outside of work throwing more curveballs; I figured the reduction in distractions would be beneficial in order to remain focused on what I needed to do.

It didn’t work.

Furthermore, it amplified the feelings of a lack of drive and motivation in various aspects; especially in regard to work. I just found other ways to procrastinate: watch videos, read books, adopt a dog (a great way to procrastinate by the way).

I’ve written about my lack of drive (and specifically purpose) in my work a fair bit. The one thing I haven’t really addressed is a little voice inside my head that was trying to tell me one reason for my increasing dissatisfaction with work that I was ignoring: I’m probably burning out.

IT Service Management (ITSM) is mentally challenging. Stress in our industry is a real issue where you are often put in a position to ensure the right outcomes, but often not equipped with the authority to make the decisions needed to get there. Being responsible for practices that other people are being asked to perform, an easy target to blame when practices aren’t being followed for various reasons and, therefore, results not what was expected.

Weirdly, I find I’m at ease the most when I’m managing major incidents; something that many others would consider a stressful event. A combination of experience and absolute certainty in my abilities as a Major Incident Manager means I tend to very easily get into a flow during an incident and feel in control and remarkably calm. It also helps that you tend to be more in control of the outcomes as a Major Incident Manager, with less questioning of decisions or directives.

On the flip side, over the past 4 years I’ve taken on the challenge of managing and maintaining a Change Enablement (Management) practice; which at the best of times is almost invisible work.

Changes managed well through the process go through smoothly, but everyone is so busy with the next thing that it’s difficult to feel like it’s a job well done, even when you specifically make note of how much may have improved over time. I remind myself and the team on the victories often; but despite this it’s still very easy to focus on the things not working now instead of the outcomes achieved throughout the journey.

While external validation is not a primary method of work satisfaction, it is also obvious to spot the difference in the response to managing a major incident to a successful resolution, versus managing a change practice to successful changes and minimal interruptions.

Resolved major incidents are a often called out for a job well done for the hard work of everyone involved to get the business back up and running. Meanwhile, the hard work by many to ensure a complex change piece is implemented without issues to the business is more of an expectation of the people involved and the practice, but is often more difficult to achieve than resolving an incident.

This is all a bit of a venting session I’m sure, but it does demonstrate the negative mind space I find myself in around work and what purpose it brings. When you know you can very easily achieve the work, but you are still struggling to do it because you don’t see the point; it maybe time to step away temporarily.

I’m lucky enough that because I’ve been with the one company for almost 14 years now, I have long service leave available to take; which I intend to do soon. A proper disconnect from the work for more than just a handful of weeks will hopefully alleviate some of the negativity I seem to have developed around the purpose and value of what I do.

I have to be careful about this though. I already have thoughts of it being a waste of leave.

The original intent was to use it to take my family to the U.K. to visit my wife’s side of the family. But when it was available to me it was 2020, so the world and a certain pandemic had other ideas. We’ve also since moved into a new house, so financially it’s not a viable option in the near future.

I also have to be wary of thinking that I won’t have such concerns about my work post-break, or thinking of goals to do outside of work during my leave. I need to put all those concerns in the back to address later and have a proper mental break.

The plan at the moment is to work an extended leave around an existing holiday planned in August. I’m hoping that would mean a July/August break, but that would depend a little on ensuring I’m not leaving the team high and dry with a sudden resource down.

As always, I share this here in order to normalise the mental issues I think many of us go through but often hide for various reasons. We’ve collectively taken great steps to reduce the stigma around mental health, but it still feels like it often takes a major event for people to get comfortable with sharing things.

I’m taking these steps now to try and avoid that major event where possible. We ride a rollercoaster of emotions almost daily; we shouldn’t feel the need to hide or minimise that process.

I’m also sharing this as a method of accountability to myself. Despite talking to my boss already around taking leave, I can already feel myself finding excuses to either take less than intended, or possibly even none at all.

Hopefully you all can be my mental health accountability buddy.