I think this article resonates with me. I am coming from the perspective of being at the same company at least longer than three years.
I had an opinion that being indispensable was a key to _something_ better, but it isn't. It started to be unsatisfying when I saw that I was being asked the same questions, doing the same set of tasks, getting the same requests (got to be on this call about a project I am not involved in because it touches something I know, "can you go on a call with the client with us?", etc. etc.) This was my burnout. My job description is not "account manager", "consultant", or anything that remotely resembles a customer-facing position, nor did I ever want to be. At least for me, this has mostly ended after taking action on it with my boss, but I still have to push back a little bit on things that take away from the focus I have now.
I came to the opinion though, through this, in comparing multiple jobs, that when someone gets trapped into that position, it is a sign of an immature organization. Leadership needs to be constantly aware that if you are in crunch-mode, the organizational debt collects a lot. There needs to be a level of de-personalization around the tasks and projects involved and if it must be personal, people need to go out of their way, with full transparency, on how others helped them.
One role I play is to work with others to understand, improve and discover what we do while making improvements. While we would grow into the position with knowledge of what to do in certain circumstances, its probably important to continue to emphasize that the end-goal is not to create more walking encyclopedias, but those competent to keep things going while pushing forward on new projects and working on new opportunities. For software development management, this has always been to me one of the harder things to do right (and no matter how much "agile" you dump into it, it is very important to create a motivation for a strong team ethic around knowledge.) Just getting through a queue of bugs is a hard thing to do that something as critical as that can get easily ignored.
Many times, I wanted to walk away from where I work now because of this, but the grass isn't greener on the other side. It will never matter what organization you are in. When you open your mouth answering a question with what sounds like an intelligent answer, the next step has to manage the expectation that you are not working on someone else's project and that you are not owning someone else's problem. Being clear on that has helped my mental health a lot when boundaries are in place.
I had an opinion that being indispensable was a key to _something_ better, but it isn't. It started to be unsatisfying when I saw that I was being asked the same questions, doing the same set of tasks, getting the same requests (got to be on this call about a project I am not involved in because it touches something I know, "can you go on a call with the client with us?", etc. etc.) This was my burnout. My job description is not "account manager", "consultant", or anything that remotely resembles a customer-facing position, nor did I ever want to be. At least for me, this has mostly ended after taking action on it with my boss, but I still have to push back a little bit on things that take away from the focus I have now.
I came to the opinion though, through this, in comparing multiple jobs, that when someone gets trapped into that position, it is a sign of an immature organization. Leadership needs to be constantly aware that if you are in crunch-mode, the organizational debt collects a lot. There needs to be a level of de-personalization around the tasks and projects involved and if it must be personal, people need to go out of their way, with full transparency, on how others helped them.
One role I play is to work with others to understand, improve and discover what we do while making improvements. While we would grow into the position with knowledge of what to do in certain circumstances, its probably important to continue to emphasize that the end-goal is not to create more walking encyclopedias, but those competent to keep things going while pushing forward on new projects and working on new opportunities. For software development management, this has always been to me one of the harder things to do right (and no matter how much "agile" you dump into it, it is very important to create a motivation for a strong team ethic around knowledge.) Just getting through a queue of bugs is a hard thing to do that something as critical as that can get easily ignored.
Many times, I wanted to walk away from where I work now because of this, but the grass isn't greener on the other side. It will never matter what organization you are in. When you open your mouth answering a question with what sounds like an intelligent answer, the next step has to manage the expectation that you are not working on someone else's project and that you are not owning someone else's problem. Being clear on that has helped my mental health a lot when boundaries are in place.