survey of mental health studies and it's relation to devops

1. Mental Health and
Devops
Karthik Gaekwad
@iteration1
@iteration1Devopsdays Seattle

2. Who am I
I’m Karthik Gaekwad
NOT a DBA
https://cloudnative.oracle.com/
Cloud Native Evangelist at Oracle Cloud
Past: Developer on the Oracle Managed Kubernetes Team
@iteration1Devopsdays Seattle

3. Who am I
• Been around for a while…
• Love building, teaching and community.
• Organizer: Devopsdays Austin, Container Days, Cloud Austin.
• Chair: All Day Devops Cloud Native track.
• LinkedIn Learning Author for a few cloud native courses.
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4. Burnout
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5. Everyone has a journey
• Been hearing from people that they are
“burned out”.
• Just figured that they were just tired.
• Didn’t really hit me until I noticed it with some
close coworkers and friends.
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6. Talk Goals!
• Findings in other communities.
• Measuring Burnout
• What you can do for yourself.
• What you can do for others.
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7. So what is burnout?
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8. There is no standard
definition...
What is burnout?
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9. Burnout
“A state of physical or
emotional exhaustion that also
involves a sense of reduced
accomplishment and loss of
personal identity.”
- Mayo Clinic
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10. Burnout
“Loss of enthusiasm for work,
feelings of cynicism and a low
sense of personal
accomplishment.”
- Medscape
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11. Burnout Origins
•Coined in the 1970s by the American
psychologist Herbert Freudenberger.
•Used it to describe the consequences of
severe stress and high ideals in “helping”
professions.
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12. Is this unique to
DevOps?
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13. No...
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14. Burnout in Industry
• “Common” outside our sphere...
• Medical professions (doctors/nurses)
• Radiologists
• Teachers
• Police
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15. Medical Industry
Round One:
Medical School
• 50% of medical students experience burnout
• 10% experience suicidal ideation during medical school
Round Two:
Residency
• 27-75% of residents are burned out at any given time
Round Three:
Private Practice
• approximately 1 in 3 doctors are experiencing physician
burnout at any given time
• some studies show physician burnout prevalence as high as 60%.
https://www.thehappymd.com/blog/bid/295048/physician-burnout-why-its-not-a-fair-fight
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17. Teachers
• Over 1/2 million teachers quit or move every
year
• More prevalent with high poverty schools
• Feeling stuck and not being able to do what
you started
• https://all4ed.org/reports-factsheets/path-to-equity/
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18. In Society
Statistics Netherlands
Study from Statistics Netherlands (CBS) & the Netherlands
Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO)
“In 2017, 16 percent of employees between the ages of 15
and 75 indicated they experienced work-related mental
fatigue at least several times per month.This percentage still
stood at 13 percent in 2015.”
https://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2018/46/more-work-related-mental-fatigue
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21. Measuring Burnout
• Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI)
• Job Diagnostic Scale (JDS)
• Utrech Work Engagement Scale (UWES)
https://ada.com/signs-of-burnout/#diagnosis
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22. Dimensions of
Burnout
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23. Dimensions of Burnout
• Emotional exhaustion
• Cynicism
• Personal efficacy
• Research from Dr. Christina Maslach
• Talks: DOES 2018, Velocity 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRPBkCW0R5E
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24. Dimensions of Burnout
• Emotional exhaustion
• Mental- “I’m tired of work.”
• “Case of the Mondays”
• Procrastination- “I’ll do this later.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRPBkCW0R5E
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25. Dimensions of Burnout
• Cynicism
• “That was a terrible talk; I could have
done it so much better”
• “My company sucks because…”
• snark snark snark snark…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRPBkCW0R5E
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26. Dimensions of Burnout
• Personal Efficacy
• “That presentation I gave was awful.
I could have done x/y/z better.”
• “Am I a good enough engineer?”
• Imposter syndrome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRPBkCW0R5E
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27. Measure of Burnout (MBI)
• Measure each dimension:
• Emotional exhaustion
• Cynicism
• Personal efficacy
• Scale of 0->6
• (0) Never, few times a year, few times a month,
once a week, multiple times a week, every day
(6)
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28. Measure of Burnout (MBI)
Exhaustion Cynicism Efficacy
High High High Burnout
High Low Low Exhaustion
Low High Low
Over
Extended
Low Low High Ineffective
Low Low Low Engaged
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29. What about
Tech Culture?
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30. What about tech culture?
• We have a lot of self doubt…
• We love to doubt others…
• We like snark…
• We internalize issues…
• We don’t really listen…
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31. WTF should I do?
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32. WTF should I do?
• Self Level (for me)
• Self Level (for others)
• Institutional Level
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33. WTF should I do (for me)
• In the case of a SEV 1
• See your primary care provider
• Take a leave of absence
• Find another job that’s more fulfilling
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34. WTF should I do (for me)
• Basics:
• Do you have a hobby?
• Do you do something outside of technology on a
regular basis?
• Do you eat healthy?
• Do you exercise on a regular basis?
• Do you meditate?
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35. Take a
vacation!
State of vacations
is actually pretty
bad in the US…..
https://www.ustravel.org/research/state-american-vacation-2018
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36. WTF should I do (for me)
• Moar:
• Say “no”, learn how to prioritize.
• Figure out how to do moar of what you
enjoy and less of what you hate.
• Lean on peers, have a mentor
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37. Industry Anecdotes
• Exhaustion (Physical)
• Cynicism (Emotional)
• Efficacy (Spiritual)
https://www.thehappymd.com/blog/bid/290248/physician-burnout-pathophysiology-and-treatment-of-burnout
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38. Industry Anecdotes
• Step 1: Measure how you
are doing in these areas?
https://www.thehappymd.com/blog/bid/290248/physician-burnout-pathophysiology-and-treatment-of-burnout
@iteration1Devopsdays Seattle

39. Industry Anecdotes
• Step 1: Measure how you
are doing in these areas?
• Step 2: Decrease the
drain.
https://www.thehappymd.com/blog/bid/290248/physician-burnout-pathophysiology-and-treatment-of-burnout
@iteration1Devopsdays Seattle

40. Industry Anecdotes
• Step 1: Measure how you
are doing in these areas?
• Step 2: Decrease the
drain.
• Step 3: Increase the
deposits.
https://www.thehappymd.com/blog/bid/290248/physician-burnout-pathophysiology-and-treatment-of-burnout
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41. Industry Anecdotes
• Medical World:
• “Doctors who read literary fiction actually performed better
in theory of mind, which is actually a surrogate for measuring
empathy.”
• “When compared to nonreaders, the relative risk of burnout for
consistent readers—those who read at least one book per
month—fell by 19 percent across the emotional exhaustion
and 44 percent across the depersonalization domain.”
• https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/physician-health/battle-against-doctor-burnout-
reading-fun-fundamental
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42. WTF should I do
(for others)
• Be there for your peers.
• Learn how to empathize and walk in their
shoes.
• Other industries are better at listening than we
are.
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43. WTF do I do (org)?
• Look at upstream issues in your organizations
and fix them.
• Babies floating down the stream in baskets…
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44. Where to go from
here?
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45. Read more of Dr. Maslach’s
work
• https://psychology.berkeley.edu/people/christina-maslach
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46. Appendix
• https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/in-depth/burnout/art-20046642
• https://www.mach7t.com/resources/infographics/radiologist-burnout/
• Talks by Dr. Maslach:
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRPBkCW0R5E
• https://conferences.oreilly.com/velocity/devops-web-performance-2015/public/schedule/speaker/
203868
• https://www.thehappymd.com/blog/bid/295048/physician-burnout-why-its-not-a-fair-fight
• https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/318037.php
• https://www.ama-assn.org/practice-management/physician-health/battle-against-doctor-burnout-reading-
fun-fundamental
• https://www.thehappymd.com/blog/bid/290248/physician-burnout-pathophysiology-and-treatment-of-
burnout
• https://www.ustravel.org/research/state-american-vacation-2018