4 Ways to Burn Out, Effort-Free

Bored? Dissatisfied? Disinterested? You're well on your way to burning out!

By Liz Wolgemuth

Job burnout: The phrase might conjure up images of work-obsessed lawyers sneakily checking their BlackBerrys from the front row of their kids' elementary school plays or from the sidelines of their soccer games. But it should probably also bring to mind images of desk drones mindlessly filling out spreadsheets, preparing TPS reports, and shooting spitballs toward the ceiling. Indeed, the state of being perpetually underworked may be about as exhaustion-inducing as that of always having more work than you can handle.

Work at home or communicate only through E-mail and IM. The more time you can spend in mind-numbing isolation, poking at your keyboard and reading through your spam folder, the better to reach a state of burnout. Indeed, isolating work can contribute to employee drinking, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

A sense of being isolated comes when solitary workers are not getting necessary support from supervisors and peers, says Jay Mulki, an assistant professor at Northeastern University's College of Business Administration who has studied workplace isolation among telecommuters and office workers. "That leads to stress in the sense that a person feels that he's not visible, nobody cares about him, his achievements are not known, nobody cares about whether he has done his work or not," Mulki says. "And he also feels that, most of the time, somebody may feel that he is goofing off."

Physical distance contributes to the sense of being isolated, but even employees who work elbow-to-elbow with others can experience the lonely sensation, Mulki says. It can happen if coworkers communicate solely through E-mail or instant messaging, or if a job requires such constant tasking—as with call-center employees—that it allows no time for connecting.

To combat isolation, employees need to make a point of talking about their accomplishments regularly with their supervisor. Telecommuters can seek out local mentors or find other nearby telecommuters to occasionally share their work space, Mulki says.

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