the details aren’t super important and i’m not going to go into particular depth here but, in summary: i am on break. the burnout is quite bad. the “avalanche analogy” is pretty apt for what i’m dealing with here.

if you’ve never heard the “avalanche analogy” before, it is this: no individual snowflake is the problem, but the accumulation in an avalanche is still catastrophic.

individually, nothing i have dealt with so far―technical stuff, users, situations, arguments on here, etc.―have been issues that make me want to not use the site. the accumulation though is currently unbearable, even on this fairly small size. effectively all the time i―or any other admin, for that matter―am on here, i am being constantly paged with things to handle; people to sort out and placate; content to remove; bug issues to delegate; and all while having hundreds of people make contradictory suggestions to me i have to make sense of, balance, and generally hear nonstop while being expected to act like a service worker. it’s pretty draining!

accordingly, i have not logged in for about a week (or really done anything with the site, for that matter) and even thinking about it is exhausting. so things aren’t great. it’s pretty clear i need to extensively step back―which i’ve already been doing because i’d like to actually, eventually use the site i help co-run here again. i don’t feel good about just dipping without saying anything longer than i already have though, hence this post.

i’d ideally like to be back sometime next week, but i obviously can’t promise that. it’ll happen when it happens. please do not page me in the mean time with site stuff―it will be ignored.

thanks

  • @Parsnip8904@beehaw.org
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    221 year ago

    Hey, don’t know if you’ll see this but thank you for all the work you’ve been putting into making sure this platform is not on fire :)

    In my own life regarding similar conflict of needs and responsibilities, I’ve often found it useful to just decide what amount of time I’m comfortable commiting to a thing such that I still enjoy doing it and it doesn’t ruin the rest of the things I want to do in my life, and stick to that hard time limit, come hell or high water. This might not suit you or might not help in this situation, but hopefully it helps a little.