u/H_ManCom

I think burnout is real, and I think people are genuinely stressed by the current social, economic climate. Employers absolutely overwork people, wages have not kept up with costs, and being constantly connected online has made it harder to mentally disconnect from work or life in general. But I also think “burnout” has become an all-purpose excuse for avoidant behavior, especially socially. At some point, we stopped distinguishing between being truly overwhelmed and simply not wanting to put effort into maintaining relationships, social skills, or basic standards for ourselves. If someone casually says “I’m OCD” because they like things clean, people immediately push back because they’re minimizing a real condition. But if someone says they’re “burned out” and therefore never leave the house, avoid social interaction for months, cancel plans constantly, or put no effort into engaging with people, nobody questions it.

I saw a thread in r/millennial or some related sub asking why it’s so hard to make friends and the sub majority stated that people are less social nowadays because of burnout. I think there is a small amount of validity there, but, but it’s also just an excuse. I think a lot of adults in their mid-to-late 20s and 30s never really learned how to socialize outside of built-in school or hometown friend groups, and now ordinary adult social effort feels exhausting to them. Instead of admitting they’ve become socially avoidant or out of practice, “burnout” becomes the more socially acceptable explanation.

Society seems to push back on being self-critical or judgmental so saying “my social battery has run out” is more acceptable than someone saying “I need to be more outgoing.” Thoughts?

Today was graduation. The faculty members that are always there were there and the faculty who never go to anything were not. Despite graduation being a “required” event, we had about 50% of full time faculty there. It was pretty embarrassing compared to some other departments in the college that were around 90%.

This represents a similar pattern in the department where there are colleagues that seemingly squeeze themselves away from every service job or be assigned a service job they never actually do anything for. Of course, this results in absolutely zero consequences for anyone except those who could benefit. For example, a colleague was assigned to chair a committee for creating a “student space” in an unused office. Nothing ever happened.

Does this happen elsewhere? Is this just how things are now?

It’s finals week. We just had our exam. 50 questions, all multiple choice. Half of the questions were taken directly from the previous exams, which students were allowed to review up until a few days before the final.

Grading now, it’s depressing. Minus a few students who always get an A on every exam, most of the class failed. I even allowed for a 5 minute “ask me anything” session before the exam and only one relevant question was asked. I even asked if they wanted me to review certain difficult topics. Silence.

One observation: campus was totally empty during finals week. Yesterday I was in my office for a few hours and only saw a handful of student. In my day, (not a super long time ago) finals week was always an intense week of everyone studying or preparing for presentations. Yes, there were classes that didn’t have finals and there was semesters where I didn’t have any. However, several students said this was the only “final exam” they had in any of their classes. I’m wondering if this is partially to explain for the underwhelming performance. Yes, exam grades have been low, but not nearly this low. It is especially less forgiving when the students basically had access to half of the exam right up until the final.

Is this just how things are now?