 All right, so we're mostly all engineers here, right? Let's take a look at some numbers first. Europeans living with diabetes. There's about one in 11 European. I don't want to make any politics, but Europeans, just general Europe, I don't. I've been told it's a touchy subject. So Europeans living with diabetes, one out of 11. Europeans living with asthma, one out of 12. And I'm pretty sure if I ask this room here, there's maybe 200 people. So if I ask who has asthma, like there's probably, we see a few hands. So that's fine. You know, that kind of goes close to the statistics there. Arthritis. Europeans living with arthritis. There's one out of five that will eventually, usually starts at an older age. I'm starting to feel it in the mornings. It's kind of a guess I'm getting at that age. So about one in five and people living with mental illness. Also one in five. That's a little bit more of a, you know, I'd say a shocking statistic. So mental illness is one of the most prevalent chronic health conditions, but we just don't talk about it. I would have never dared asking, hey, who here lives with a mental illness? Nobody would have raised their hand, right? We don't talk about it. This big taboo. So today I'm here to talk about my own experience. I'll talk more specifically about burnout, which is one of the many mental illness that it covers under that statistic. Mental health covers a lot of different things. It covers things like depressions, schizophrenia, OCD, and so on. But I'll focus on burnout. I'll focus on my own story. Now here's one thing I'm not a mental health professional. I'm only here to talk about my own experience. So your own experience may differ. And if you have any question, I mean, don't rely on me. Just go ask a medical professional. It's very important. The reason why I do this talk, though, is to kind of help to break that stigma around mental health, especially mental health in the workplace. Like I said, we don't like to talk about it. So by doing talks like this, I'm hoping that it will help to open up conversations. Now I'm not used to talk about myself. I am, you know, you're a typical software developer introvert. I'm much more comfortable talking about containers than I am talking about myself. But we'll see how this goes. Let's give it a try. So a little bit about me. Hi, everyone. My name is Joel Lord. I am French-Canadian. That's the little charming little accent you might have recognized there. I currently live in Ottawa in Canada. And I do some talks. I work as a developer advocate for Red Hat. So I spend a lot of time traveling, going to conferences, just like this one. If you ever want to get in touch with me, Twitter is always the best way. So that's Joel with 200 scores, Lord. Whenever I have Twitter notifications, I get really, really excited. And yes, that's a gift of me, because why not? Burnout is a heavy topic for the first talk in the morning. So I thought I'd lighten up a little bit. All right. So burnout can be kind of hard to define. It's not like having a flu. It's not like you wake up one morning and you start coughing or you wake up one morning and you're not feeling well. It takes some time. It spreads along a long period of time. And it's a little bit like whenever you go to the movie theater and they slowly fade out the lights, and you only realize that the lights are out once they're actually out. But it's really hard to say at what point they started fading those lights. A little bit like that image you might not have noticed, but it was a very nice image at the beginning and slowly faded into this post-apocalyptic image. So it's a slow fade, and it's really hard to see when it actually started or not. But it's easy to see the end result, though. So for me, at one point, I woke up one morning and everything was hard at this point. I had to get out of bed and drag my body out of bed. It was so hard. I had no motivation. I had to take a shower. I said, ugh, really? And I got into the shower that morning, and I started crying. I had no clue what was going on, but I was just crying. And it was this really weird feeling, because I was completely losing control of all my emotion. I didn't know what was going on. Now, my wife, who had been incredibly supportive during that period of time, she'd been telling me for a while that something was wrong. But I'm strong. I'm not going to go see a doctor. I don't need that. I'm just a little tired. But when that happened that morning, I kind of realized that something was wrong, and maybe it was time for me to actually face it. So what is burnout, exactly? So burnout is a state of emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress, and it manifests itself in ways including anxiety, loss of motivation, confidence, and even degradation of physical health. In my case, so it kind of mimics a lot of symptoms of depression, so it's kind of hard to diagnose when you're just looking at the symptoms. In my case, I had a complete lack of motivation. Like, I didn't want to do anything, never, ever. And a lot of anxiety. I started having so much anxiety, and I started getting physically sick as well. I had a flu, but it lasted over a month. I mean, that's not normal. When your regular common flu lasts over a month, you should probably talk to a doctor. I had so much heartburns, like so much stress. I actually bought tums at Costco. I said, no, there's no problem. I'll just take more tums. Nothing's wrong. I should have put an image of that dog. It's fine. And I was having so much trouble controlling my emotion. That was actually one of the hardest part. Everything was kind of like this rollercoaster of negative emotion. I went through anger, and then sadness, and then aggressive, and then oh, super anxious, all of a sudden, and then impatient, and then discouraged. And it's a really weird feeling when you can't even control your own emotions. I felt like I was almost losing part of my mind, you know? And the lack of motivation, I've touched about it, but it was, I didn't want to do anything. Like really, my friends would call me to go and have a drink, and I'd find an excuse. I just didn't have any energy to do anything. So most of my weekend, we're just spent in bed, you know, watching Netflix. Someone once told me that a willpower or motivation is a little bit like a bucket of water that you have in the morning. So in the morning you wake up, you have this full bucket of water, and it's up to you to decide how you're gonna spend that water throughout the day. So that's why they usually say, you know, all the things that you don't really like doing, like going through your emails and bill, you should do early in the morning, when you still have some energy and some willpower and some more water in your bucket. And as the day progresses, you should do things that are more fun, that don't require as much energy to get started, right? So you'll do coding towards the end of the day, because then you can really get into it and thought more fun. And some days you wake up, and the bucket might be a little bit smaller. Maybe you have young kids, and they kept you awake all night, or maybe you're traveling from Canada, and you're jet lagged, and maybe there was a social last night, then you have a beer too many, or maybe it's a mix of all of that, but sometimes the bucket is a little bit smaller. But ultimately it's up to you every day to manage how you're gonna spend that water. Now when you're burnt out, your bucket feels like it's full of holes. You wake up in the morning, and already you start thinking about all the horrible things that are gonna happen today. And already it's hard to get out of bed, because there's all that energy that just drained out. And you drag yourself out of bed, and it's like, oh, gotta take my shower, that was before I worked remotely, but oh, gotta take my shower, gotta go to work, get into my car, and stuck in traffic, and put your downturn signal on, and that fucking light is green move already. And by the time you get to the office, I mean there's absolutely no energy left to do anything else. So that's kind of how I felt when I was at the worst part of my burnout. So where does it come from? So burnout can be prevalent in organizations that promote hero culture, and where employees maintain a strong sense of duty, or feel they have no alternative in the employment market. Now that last part might not be as true. I think we live in an industry where we have a lot of chances to move, although sometimes we feel like we're kind of stuck in our job. And there's also that hero culture that we have in the tech industry. Jessica kind of touched on it yesterday, where everybody has to be the best, and somehow everybody has to be a nastier everybody else. So the tech industry tends to have that hero culture. High number of working hours is often seen as desirable as well. And when you're done with your work, what should we do? Well, we should go back home and work on a blog post based on whatever we learned today, or work on that open source project because we need that for our portfolio, and there's always something else that we need to do. At that time I was doing about 70 hours a week for my job, and it never seemed enough. I could never accomplish what I needed to do in my days, and so I started working at night, because that makes a lot more sense, because I didn't have any interruptions at night. So, and no, don't do that, please. Not very healthy. And it's also that startup culture where everything moves at 2,000 miles per hour. In my case, there was also that false sense of responsibility. I was working as a manager back then, and my manager would ask me to put together some project or put up some new processes for different things, but I didn't have any power to change anything in the organization. So whenever I tried to push something, immediately somebody else would come in and destroy all the work that I did. So this type of thing kind of leads to a toxic work environment, which is definitely not very good. So a lot of people think that or associate burnout with just being tired, that it will go away with a little bit of sleep. Well, once you reach the state of burnout, usually it's a little bit too late. I mean, you will need to recover at some point, but it's not just getting a good night of sleep that'll fix everything. So occupational burnout is considered a real disease. It's recognized by the ICD as its own ICD code recognized by the World Health Organization. And it can be diagnosed with the Mastak Burnout Inventory, which is a series of questions that you rate from zero to six. The questions themselves depend on your profession and a few criteria. Now, when you go see a doctor and because you feel like something's going wrong, be careful on how you will answer those questions. Be honest. So one other question, and I remember this clearly, the doctor asked me, what was the question there? Are you having difficulties getting along with your colleagues? So I thought a little bit, and I was like, well, today I got into a fight with only two of my colleagues. The yelling lasted about 10 minutes each time. So that's 20 minutes out of 24 hours. So rarely, no. So try to be honest. I mean, you're not, you know, you're only lying to yourself at that point. If you're unsure whether you should actually see a professional or a mental health professional, the Mayo Clinic released a quick survey that you can do to decide whether you should or not see a doctor. So those are some of the questions. Have you become cynical or critical at work? Do you drag yourself to work and have trouble getting started once you arrive? I mean, outside of Mondays, right? Have you become irritable or impatient with coworkers, customers, or clients? I have so many stories. Do you like the energy to be consistently productive? Have your sleep habits or appetite change so it can have physical effects as well? Are you troubled by unexplained headaches, back aches, or physical complaints? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you might be experiencing job burnout. Be sure to consult your doctor or a mental health provider. However, some of those symptoms can also indicate certain health conditions such as thyroid disorder or depression. So if you feel like something is wrong and you're saying yes to at least one of those questions, well, maybe it's time to actually think about it and go talk to your doctor. All right, so what should you do if you feel like you're going through burnout? So first of all, go and see your doctor. I said it many times and it's very, very important. Actually, do so. I think a lot of, especially people my age, but we feel like we shouldn't talk about that stuff and we should be strong, right? And we shouldn't see a doctor and it's very important that you actually do so. And they might recommend or prescribe some medication. If you have any doubts, ask questions. Just ask them questions. They are health professionals. That's what they do. Ask them questions. Is that something that might be addictive? Is that a medication that I'll eventually be able to get off of? So think about it, what it is that worries you and just ask those questions. They'll probably also recommend therapy. You should do it, definitely. One thing about therapy though is and that people don't say enough is shop your therapist. It's really hard and if you wanna get some real benefits out of a therapy, you need to be with someone that you trust and you might have to shop a therapist to actually find one. All right, but what else can you do, apart from seeing a doctor? Well, do a little bit of introspection. That's always a good start. Think about what it is that put you in this position. Where is it that you get that pressure from? And don't just go and blame others. Think about it, really. And maybe it's just you that can't say no to anything and maybe that's something that you actually need to work yourself. Or maybe there are some external factors that are putting you in this situation. So do a little bit of introspection and really, really think about what it is that is causing you this stress. Take a break. Of course, not all employers will give you a full month off, but sometimes you might have personal days off, days that you can take without any questions asked. So by all means, take them. You should take them. Maybe take a long weekend. Take a Friday, a Monday off and go somewhere where nobody will bother you. I like to do canoe camping with my wife and it's in the middle of the forest, of the Canadian forest. And it's exactly like you would imagine. And there's no cellular data, no cellular connection whatsoever. And it's great because I can't answer any emails or anything. So I kind of need that. But, you know, do something like that and try to disconnect a little bit from work and other worries that you might have. Oh, do less. That's obvious, right? Just do a little bit less. But by that I mean, try to offload some of the work that maybe you don't have to do. Here's an interesting story. When I started dating my wife, you know, I wanted to impress her and I would do the cooking. And like every night I'd do dinner, prepare dinner. And she wanted to be like a traditional, you know, wife and she did all the dishes after the meals and we did that for a while until we actually talked about it. And I hate cooking. I absolutely hate it. And she loves it. So it turns out that I was able to do a little bit less by delegating that to her. Now, I know what you're thinking. I do the dishes now, right? So, but that's something that I actually enjoy doing. I find that it's a really relaxing way to end a meal, to actually just clean up everything and everything is nice back to the original state. I think it's, I don't know. I love doing the dishes. And it's, but it was an interesting discussion and when we realized that, never since, I've never cooked bitter anymore and she never does the dishes. So I'm doing a lot less because it's not as much effort for me. So, you know, try to see if there's anything that you can offload in a work environment. Maybe, maybe you can ask someone else to take on that code review that you don't want to do that today. You know what? Ask that junior in the team to actually do that code review from that senior developer because that will offload some of the work for you and it will probably be a very beneficial experience for the other two parties involved. Say no. This one is there mostly as a reminder for myself. If conference organizers ask you to fill in for a talk, you know, maybe say no. Like, no, that's not true. But you don't need to be a superhero. I mean, you don't need to justify whenever you don't want to take on a task. And you know what? Saying no sometimes actually increases the values of your yeses. So say no from time to time, it's very, very important. All right, save your fucks. I mean, you can't give a fuck about everything, right? So you kind of need to save some. If you choose your fights, you won't be able to save the world by yourself. So you won't be able to please everyone. Just pick some fights, some that you can win ideally, and bring them to an end. So you have a limited number of fucks that you can give in a day, so you know, use them wisely. Ask for help. That's a really, really hard one for me. But reach out to people. Reach out to people that you trust. Reach out to talk to your spouse, your significant other. Reach out to your friends. You know, kick yourself in the butt and just call one of your friends and go out for coffee and talk to them. Just tell them that you're going through a rough batch. No, don't need to go through the details, but you never know what's gonna come out of that. Sometimes you might find someone's unexpected support. Do some exercise. All right. Seriously, well, it's been proven like you should do exercise. It's good for you. It does endorphins and things in your brain. I'm not the exercise type. Who am I kidding? One thing that was very important for me, though, is find something that you like to do. Find a hobby. Try to find something that is completely different from your work and that you actually enjoy doing. For me, I started brewing some beer. They usually say, yeah, don't drink too much when you're going through depression or burnout, but yeah, I only brewed the beer. So I started doing that. And whenever I have, in this picture of me, my cousin and my brother and we're our brewing partners, we brew big batches of 20 gallon beers every few weeks. And those are the only morning where I actually set up my alarm at six in the morning. I get there as quickly as I can. I get very, very excited about that. And if you're not familiar with brewing beer, essentially the process is you get there, you drink a lot of beer, and you watch some water boil during a few hours. That's pretty much all you do. But whenever I have brew days, I sleep so well at night. Might be the beer drinking. But it's also the fact that I spent a full day doing something that I really enjoyed with people that I really love and I don't have to worry about anything during those days. So find something that you actually like doing and pursue that. All right, so if you see people going or if you wanna help people that might be going through burnout, so what can you do to help? Well, there's a few things that you can do as an employer for starters. First of all, you might wanna enable remote work. There's a lot of controversy around that, but remote work can definitely help people if they need to take an appointment with a health professional during the day, they might bless you. They might not have to justify that or they might not have to feel like they have to justify that. Offer some personal time off is very important. Let your employees take some days off without asking for a justification or asking for a doctor's note. Just let them take some days off. Have an employee assistance program. Those are very, very important. If you're not familiar with an employee assistance program, it's basically just a phone number where you can call and get all kind of help, whether it's from mental health or even sometimes legal stuff. Now, if you have an employee assistance program, be really careful on how you promote it. I used to work at a place where it was a very nice open floor office, right? And right in the middle of this floor, there was this big column and there was a poster and the phone number for the employee assistance program was right there in the middle of the room. Now, for some reason, go figure. I never saw anyone actually go up to that post and take a phone number and note and give them a call afterwards. No, you wanna put that in a place where people will have a little bit of privacy. Good places are maybe in the bathroom stalls so people can actually just take the number and note and then they'll be able to call later. So be careful on how you promote it. Make sure that it's available and that people don't have to be shy of taking that number as well. Train people to the mental health first aid kit. So there's a program called mental health first aid, kind of like the regular first aid programs, but aimed towards mental health so you can take a look at that. And there's the mental health in tech guidelines for mental wellness in the workplace, which was published by OSMI. I'll come back to OSMI later, but you might wanna take a look at this. As a manager, all managers here, lead by example, that is so important. Don't send emails at two in the morning. I don't care if you think they don't have to answer at until seven in the morning, just don't send them. Schedule them for eight or nine in the morning. If you don't need an answer now, don't send the email now. End of story. If you send emails at two in the morning, your employees will feel like they actually have to answer back at this time. Take some days off, take your vacation, especially in tech, where we have this unlimited vacation policy. You know, take your days off and make sure that everybody knows that you actually do. And talk about mental health in your workplace. Now as a colleague, there's a few things that you can do as well. Mainly language matters. Be careful on how you address different situations. Don't call people crazy and things like that, which might not be very good. There's a great guide that was published by Bell Canada. They have a program every year, which is called Let's Talk. The link is there, as you can see. They'll all be, I'll publish everything on Twitter afterwards. And dekind, mostly just, you know, don't be an ass. Listen to people, don't jump to conclusions. Things like, ah, you'll get over it or just relax. Usually don't help. You know, ask instead or say, I'm sorry, you're not feeling well. Ask how you can help. And break the silence. Talk about mental health in the workplace. That's very important. So the talk is called Post Burnout Thoughts. So what now? So I've been through that. And I found out that it wasn't only negative. I mean, sure, when you're in the worst part of your burnout and you feel like everything is dark and it's not a good place to be in. But you know what? Things will get better. It'll only get better from there the moment you start talking about and the moment you reach out for help. So it's what helped me to find this job. That was a very good output for me. So I took that time to do some introspection. I thought about what is it that I like doing? What is it that I actually enjoy in my work? And what is it that I don't like? So everything management out the window and a lot of things like mentoring and coaching people are things that I like to do. So that's why I do what I do right now. And it brought me so much closer to my friends and family. I got to recognize who was my real friends. They were there to help me out whenever I needed. A lot of times without me asking, they just knew I was going through a rough patch and they'd reach out to me and help in various different ways. So now I live a much better balanced life. So I think overall the output was very positive. Sure it wasn't a lot of fun when I went through it but now that I think of it and that I look at it it's the result is a lot more positive. So I'll leave you with this quote from Christopher Norring, a friend of mine which actually lives in London here. And he said something along the lines of if you don't get burned out by working for you you get it by working with for someone who doesn't appreciate your work. So make sure that the extra hours that you're putting in are for yourself. So if you want to write that blog post after you're done with your work sure go ahead but make sure that you do it for yourself. If you want to learn that new shiny framework that they've been talking about at the conference today sure but make sure that you actually do it for yourself and not because your employer expects you to learn about it next week. So I talk about this. I do a little bit of volunteer work for the open sourcing mental illness group. So you might want to take a look at their website. They have a lot of very good reference there. So I'll leave you with the final resources. So the OSMI website, Mental Health First Aid Kit Belkanada Let's Talk and everything will be published in one single link at the end. So with this, thank you very much.