the.com/burnout
The point where caring about the job finally runs out of fuel.
means A state of physical and emotional exhaustion caused by prolonged stress, especially from work, where you're running on empty and nothing left to give.
from Literal first: a fire or fuse burning out until it extinguishes itself, or a rocket motor that stops firing once its fuel is spent. The psychological sense caught fire (pun intended) in the 1970s, popularized by psychologist Herbert Freudenberger to describe the collapse he saw in overworked staff at a free clinic — people who'd given so much they had nothing left to combust.
- WHO status
- Classified as an occupational phenomenon, not a medical condition
- not just tired
- Rest fixes fatigue, not burnout, which needs real change
- three signs
- Exhaustion, cynicism, and feeling ineffective at work
- word origin twist
- Freudenberger first used it to describe drug users crashing