this is the art of network engineering podcast in this podcast we'll explore keys technologies and talented people we aim to bring new information to expand your skill sets and toolbox and share the stories of fellow network engineers welcome to the a1 poetry hour i call this one life in the stubby you awaken fright need to pick that routing protocol that's oh so right you pinch yourself because you can't believe that reality would yield a network that's brand new oh yeah they call that a green field there will be sites everywhere distributions cores and access oh my you calm yourself down and state i need a plan i can't do this on the fly sure you could go manual static route after static route but anytime you needed to make a change it'd be enough to make you want to shout you build your pro con list for hours burning through pen after pen you argue with yourself so much that you feel like you just can't win then after pulling out almost all your hair you step back and it's i'm going with ospf is what you declare you're invested now you feel like you've joined the club asbr's abr summarization and of course even an area that's a total stub okay this has gone on for too long is that aj's head hitting the desk that i'm hearing we'd better go check on him because this is the art of network engineering oh my god another masterpiece introduction by tim yes absolutely nailed it wow just wow i i don't even know how to follow that up anymore i mean just just when i think tim can't top the the intro from last week he goes ahead and he does it and he just kills it that was beautiful tim thank you so much you're writing poetry now tim i mean this is amazing well i think uh you know that was my my first and only attempt so i'm gonna go ahead and retire from from poetry i'm just gonna hang it up cold turkey there you go that's strong next week is a haiku i can't wait for the country song oh don't don't please no all right i guess i pushed it too far all right you heard tim i am aj murray at no blinky blinky here we are again back another wonderful episode of the art of network engineering thank you tim for that wonderful intro i really do love them and you know what the fans do too because they're shouting out about it on twitter we're hearing about it in the discord uh everybody loves the intro so i'm just glad we're all having fun with this guys oh man been awesome so much fun andy at andy laptop how you doing andy hey oh i'm good i had a day of technical confidence today i feel good about myself today and that has been rare lately so i'm just walking with my head held high today i feel like i understood a couple things today and i'm implementing some kind of big deal tonight and i feel good going to know it nice is it just is it multiple pieces that are starting to come together andy i saw you tweeted something out about uh ansible and a few other things today is it is it just the big picture coming together yeah so you know i've been on here crying about my new job my new group i don't understand it and i spent a good amount of time the past couple of days kind of digging in mpls a bit and all the things that kind of the underlay and the overlay and rsvp and signaling and lsps and costs in the underlay which it's kind of crazy uh and i was overwhelmed by it and i thought i was the only person on my team that didn't understand it but um you know yeah i got with some guys and uh things are starting to come together i guess that's the quicker way of of of putting it and i i have to connect the data center to this mpls backbone we built and i've been terrified thinking about having to do that someday and i feel pretty good about it so yeah so i answered your question aj but i kind of didn't feel like an imposter today for the first time in a while so so is part of the revelation there that you're not the only one struggling with this that this is you know yeah that was helpful you know there's there's there's another guy on my team that's that's brilliant and he was asking a lot of the same questions that i was unsure of on a on a technical call so uh yeah it's new to a couple of us which is nice yeah you know we have a couple guys who are the mpls gurus right and then there's now the rest of us kind of have to get up to speed because we're going to be responsible for putting everybody on this thing so yeah just it was just a good day and then i was i was working with auto macho a lot with um with you know an automation pc put together which is going to touch like dozens of devices for me which i'm just blown away by i don't know how i would have done this without automation there's like 30 devices that have to be touched and it's just too many crazy yeah yeah what a way to learn though i mean you got a use case right there in front of you don't have to try to like sit there and guess like how am i going to use automation you know how you're going to use it yeah and you know i don't create automation so that's something else i kind of learned with this whole automation journey like there's people who create automation tools and like and then there's consumers of it so like right now where i'm at i'm a consumer of it i'm not writing playbooks i'm not writing python scripts but i'm consuming the platform that's that's being built and so you know i'd like to be further along eventually you know i want to write some playbooks and scripts but just to be able to consume automation and understand what it's doing and like how do i back all this out if i have to is is good that's wrong yeah so when you go into this thing tonight andy this big multi-site thing are you in this on your own or do you have people that are standing by waiting to help or people doing it with you yeah we we there'll be people around so i mean i'm it was a sign to me i'm responsible for it i'll be the one pulling the levers but uh everybody on the super team has said like hey man you know i'm going to be up you know they're either working and they're like hey hit me up if you need me or i'm going to be watching basketball man just you know call me on my personal you know i can hop right on which yeah it's that's a good feeling yeah i i can tell you that i would not i keep running into these people and these teams that are just so generous with their time and and they want to help me succeed i would not have got this far i'd be doing something else if people didn't help me you know so yeah i'm good how you doing aj i'm doing well um but before we jump to me i want to jump to tim burtino the mastermind behind uh these introductions he is at timbertino on twitter if you're not following him go follow him uh tim how are you doing i am well once again there will be no more poetry so i hope i hope everybody got their fill that's okay we recorded that so we can play that back as many times as we need to did you have a bongo what were you that was amazing like what were you playing i had a children's toy um it is it is it is actually a a tambourine um and it's got it's got the little uh the little symbols on the side and my my wife yes i've pulled her into this as well she was kind enough to uh tape the symbols down so they wouldn't so it would sound more bongo-ish if that's a that's a word you can get a glimpse of of uh behind the and your wife is helping it's it's that's that support system yeah she gave me the the you're lucky you're cute kind of thing which i think she just has to say that i don't know if she really believes it that's fantastic no things are things are going good um i'm i'm really glad i mean things are going good with me but i'm really glad to see um how well you guys are doing aj i'm glad it sounds like you got a kind of a home stretch lately you were on the road for a while and and uh burning the midnight oil putting in a lot of work and and andy what you posted on twitter the kind of the revelations you've been having there at work with uh automation and pulling stuff together it's it's really good to see i know we've all had some some rough times over the last year and it sounds like uh things are really coming together for a lot of people even you know in our community as well we'll get into the winds here in a minute uh it's just things are going well yeah things are going really well and to andy answer your question uh pretty pretty proud uh vermonter here this week um our state hit a massive milestone on the road to recovery we have now vaccinated 80 of the population in the state that is eligible for covenant 19 veterans that's got to be the highest in the country yeah yeah it is and so with that the governor has lifted all restrictions having to do with the pandemic so masks are optional uh they are encouraged if you're not vaccinated they uh or if you you know you have some other ailment that would otherwise you know preclude you from being vaccinated or or i guess extra susceptible to copper19 or any other illness for that matter um so it's it's kind of weird like the the doors have just flung wide open and uh you know we've got a bunch of people coming into the state for you know vacations what not tourism uh traffic has picked back up like it's never been uh in the past 18 months but uh you know it feels good at the same time you know we can go places do things and you know don't have to worry about much so i would i wasn't going to mention it but my wife and i went out on our first date last night nice in you know 450 something days however long it's been right and yeah and t and to your point we're down to like 300 seven day average in pennsylvania as an example and it hasn't been that low since the first week of this thing right so like yeah it's it's been really uh it's hard to put into words how nice it was just to take my wife on a date and to be out around people and like have it just have a normal you know you don't know what you have until it's gone or taken away right yeah and just the fact that we couldn't do that for a while it feels so good to to be able to do that again so i'm glad you mentioned that yeah yeah buddy of mine who's a bartender at a local restaurant you know restaurants have opened back up full capacity he announced you know publicly on social media like hey i'm moving on here's my last shifts you know come come visit me or whatever so i went over and did that last night and it was crazy uh the restaurant i think has had like reduced staff for a while and they weren't anticipating the surge that was going to happen with the reopening of the restaurant and and the place was absolutely packed uh and they only they basically had two waiters uh the owner another waitress um well then and then there was my buddy who was the bartender but you know he was maybe behind the bar a little bit and then uh you know running around waiting on tables doing all sorts of stuff so it was it was it was good to see but then like you you could tell those guys were like really overwhelmed with with everything going on so that's called being in the weeds i've waited yeah for five years they were in the weeds exactly yeah exactly but uh but i digress uh i definitely want to shout out to the community uh the support the feedback and everything we've gotten from our first sponsored episode thank you again opengear and uh and dan baxter for joining us last week and you know we released the episode yesterday and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive uh so so thank you thank you thank you yeah the interaction there does nothing but but help it shows shows open gear that you know we've got the the listener base that we do and not only just listeners but people that care enough to to give feedback on on socials and and all that so thank you very much yeah absolutely um i also want to thank the community because uh you know since we kind of announced that uh these podcasts are sponsored by by you the community and uh you know you can uh head over to our merch store and purchase some merch we've we've had quite a few merch sales and i have to say i think people are flocking in there for these bad boys yeah they're nice we got these good dishes wonderful art of network engineering pint glasses they came out really really nice i ordered uh some for the entire team and uh and so i'm gonna get these shipped out to all the co-hosts so we can do a little virtual cheers with that with an a1 pint glass here soon but yeah these are great uh that people in the discord have have been proud about it too you see people post what what they're getting and yeah and all that you know it's it makes us feel good that that people are having as much fun with this as we are absolutely yeah yeah and i can't wait to see because i you know i can see what people are ordering uh and i i have ever gotten like a bunch of samples you know t-shirt i think i got a hat at some point there's an accessory bag with our logo on it you can stick some sfps and cables and stuff in uh but they've added a lot of new stuff to the the teespring store uh you know the pint glasses of course is one of those items some people have been ordering water bottles there's an insulated tumbler uh some people got some tapestries with uh with the a1 logo on it so i can't wait to see who ordered that and what what it looks like kind of get their feedback on you know the quality materials and just overall see it hung up in someone's office or or in their home or room or wherever they decide to put it so excited to see people getting this stuff and it feels really cool uh to see our logo on a bunch of merch and we're gonna see more of our logo on a bunch of merch uh we've been talking to um marketing team at opengear we're putting together some backpacks that are gonna have some uh nice swag in it donated by open gear the backpack itself will have the a1 logo these are gonna be a limited run we're gonna give them all the way to the fans uh even the co-hosts aren't gonna get these these bad boys and i i know they're also going to be filled with some open gear swag some stuff from the a1 team uh and they're also going to have some training materials we've got some very generous donations from some cisco press authors uh and we're going to put more materials in there as well so um stay tuned as soon as we we you know get word that we're going to have those available to give away we'll start the giveaways and you'll have your shot to win a limited edition a1 backpack full of goodies so keep an eye out on twitter and i'm sure we'll talk about it on the podcast as those become available and also if you're so inclined please continue to support us with your merch purchases uh without further ado why don't we get to some wins andy can i get a goat screen please it's fun every time hbu i i should probably order some of those and send them to our contacted open gear and have her drop those in the back yeah yeah i'm gonna do that after we get off the recording tonight so nice uh so winning this week uh neos neos from the discord posted that he passed or they passed sorry the year they're a plus the comptia a plus so congratulations neos very nice well on your way yeah absolutely uh word do i believe was the the screen name from discord they closed on their first house hey that's a big one that is a big one congratulations tough market to be buying in good job right right uh robin canela uh our buddy that used to live on the east coast now moved out to the west coast he passed his english class and he's now like 28 to 30 done with college so congratulations congratulations it's gotta feel good and uh my brother from another mother bill murray actually that's none of that's true we just have the same last name um they passed the vcta dcv so that is the vmware certified technical associate for data center virtualization that is a certification that i proudly carry from october of 2013 when vmware first released that program it was free for a limited time and i jumped right on that train and got that cert so uh congratulations bill he said he's on his journey for the vmware certified professional in data center virtualization and kind of stopped uh to take this he got a free voucher for it to see you know how his learning is going and he and he passed it so things are going well so it looks like he's well on his way to his vcp so congratulations bill yeah bill's been on a tear lately that's cool yeah yes and uh robin as well robin's been been pretty vocal about his journey back to uh back to school to get his bachelor's so it's cool to see him get those wins yeah for sure i you know i you got to love all the wins right like i i love how you know people come together not only are they sharing the wins they're also sharing like the failures right like we got failure plaques and i feel like sometimes that channel is just as busy and as many times as people like dump a fail in there there's like 10 people right behind them to like lift them up i'm like hey it's cool we've all done it you know kind of thing so just absolutely love the community so all right that that is the end of the wins for this week so andy let's let's get another goat scream in there hot buttery udders for the scream the goat who shall not be named the name we do not speak was a movie or something i don't know nice nice all right so this week we are talking about uh two two different things but two very similar things we're talking about burnout and rust out so uh earlier this week river from the discord uh started this conversation and great conversation went on for quite a while um i think everybody's kind of familiar with burnout uh but then he he kind of brought up this concept of rust out where you know burnout you're getting stressed out by being you know overworked and it goes on for this extended period of time you don't really have time to like recharge and it's very stressful it really really stinks uh and you know the kind of opposite of that or the other end of the spectrum of that uh would be rust out where you're not really being mentally challenged you're just kind of like coming to work every day going through the paces and and sometimes that can be equally frustrating and and so um you know we definitely wanted to touch on that we think it's a really important set of topics and in our industry and i'm sure you guys are both familiar with with burnout i'm sure nah i don't know what you're talking about right right that was that was a really neat conversation to see because it was really organic and i had actually never heard the term rust out before so it was cool to see that defined um and how you can you know suffer from it and come out of it another thing that i wanted to mention before we got too deep into here to the listeners is that we actually had a different topic picked for tonight but because of that discussion in the discord and everybody jumping in and and contributing to the chat uh aj decided hey let's talk about burnout and rust out instead and people were really receptive to that so so here we are it just goes to show that your uh your involvement matters in this yeah and that's not the first time that we've like decided to change the topic at the last minute because of what was going on in the discord uh it was just a couple weeks ago before we recorded with with opengear that we uh recorded another episode because it was a topic that was brought up or suggested in the discord it's like yeah that's a really great idea we should definitely you know have a conversation about that so keep talking to us yes uh and that reminds me um with the 50th episode upon us this is episode 49 by the way guys 49. so so next week we're recording episode 50 and we're still looking for your questions we've gotten a lot of great questions uh people are you know sending us dms they're just tweeting out the questions in response to some of our posts we actually got our first video recorded question today uh so we'll be able to add that into the episode and play that for everybody um and we're just getting some really really good questions um i wanna i wanna kind of tease them but we're not going to answer them now okay so no don't don't give me your answers but uh i'm going to pull them up here in real real time so is this to give people ideas of some things they could ask because they're not spoiling the fun right by reading them now yeah yeah absolutely absolutely um so what experience made you realize you wanted to get into networking and what makes networking interesting to you that's a very good question very good question if money was not an issue what would be your dream job um what's the favorite thing that we've accomplished so far and uh you know the one that really hit me that i i'm still not quite sure how to answer but uh do you realize just how much of an impact you have had on so many people's lives uh with the podcast and the community that we brought together i'll answer that i regret nothing nice so yeah so some really good questions coming in keep them coming in uh again you can uh you know shout out us out on on social media uh send us an email if you're feeling so inclined you can record yourself on audio and or video and we will edit you into the episode while you ask your question for everybody to see and or hear so as a listener you can be on the show apps will see and hear you absolutely that is cool and we are uh we're we're playing with a new service tonight that we've recently signed up for that um if it works as advertised and we believe it will it will give us a chance to have live studio audiences while we're recording the show so we're gonna get our feet under us with uh with a couple of recordings and once we're feeling comfortable uh we're definitely gonna open up the session to a public audience we'll let you guys know when we record and uh you can jump in watch us listen to us live uh and um you know i think we'll have definitely some opportunity to invite people onto the show in real time to ask questions provide input uh and all that fun stuff so we're getting to know this tool this is our first night using it but we'll see how it goes and hopefully we can welcome you into our homes and onto a live quote unquote episode of the art of network engineering so wait not only could they watch the episode be created they might be able to interact with us absolutely yeah i mean absolutely by chat and then uh it looks like there's a way that people can like you know call in while we're recording it ask a question a call-in show what have we done right just for the for the listeners here andy has been bringing up the concept of a call-in show for probably well before i've been on here so he he was pretty excited when when aj mentioned that this is quite the evolution fellas we're like we're like big kids now yeah you know it's been really fun to to like if you go back and like listen to an episode or just look at like the content like where it's come from in the last 50 almost 50 episodes so uh it feels good taking the next step i love it all right since i'm burned out from poetry now let's get into that all right so so let's start with this what is burnout what what is burnout to you guys right like have have you ever been in a situation whether it's you know work related or maybe while you're in college or you know at some other point in your life have you ever experienced burnout what is burnout to you timmy have any thoughts on that um first off i i think that burnout is just kind of a i say just but it's a it's an exhaustion right an emotional a mental and even physical exhaustion of it could really be anything it doesn't have to be work it could be any factors in your life and it can come on strong and it's really how do you deal with that is is the biggest thing because while it's good to prevent burnout from happening if it does happen i think it's important to to first recognize that and then figure out how to handle it one of the things i was thinking prior to the show aj was how do you how do you know or what are kind of some of the warning signs that that you might be suffering from burnout and and that's a that's a real question to you guys i i mean i know for me it's just like exhaustion and this overwhelming feeling of like i don't want to go deal with this thing that i have to deal with you know it's it's definitely a lot of stress in there um you know and i think sometimes it can present itself in different ways because you know you might not realize that you're stressed out about something and and you know everybody's different right so sometimes stress presents itself differently for one person you know uh stress and anxiety uh will present itself differently in one person than it might for another so it's not like there's these definite markers that are you know dead giveaways right and that makes it tough right yeah oh yeah yeah that's one thing that's really scary to me because um i've really enjoyed working in tech in in multiple different facets even pre-networking and that was one thing that i've always kind of said to myself is when it comes to be the time where this this isn't fun anymore that's when i know that you know it's it's time to take a hard look and right and i've been really fortunate and lucky that that hasn't happened it's it's been to this point you know still an adventure every day but yeah it's i think i've said it on here before it's not uh super happy fun time every day uh you gotta take take the good with the bad and everything and again that's not just work that's all all facets all facets of life and just trying to get through it do you do you think that um just because of and i'm asking this because how i am with with routines and everything and i'm a creature of habit do you think that it's important to uh focus on maintaining a balance and maybe keeping a routine to to keep your mind busy because that's one thing that i've always done and i i still don't know yet if it's it's a healthy or unhealthy habit but i i find myself the happiest when i'm when i'm keeping my mind occupied right and i think for me that's like one of the signals that um you know this the stress is coming or the burnouts coming because you start to give up you know your routine to make more time for work or you know whatever it is that's burning you out you know when you make the choice or when maybe it's not even a choice right like you have to work on this other thing and give up you know things that you like to do you know albeit temporarily uh you know that's that's when it becomes more of a chore not so much fun and it turns into burnout real quick andy what do you think um i've been doing a little googling so i just want to throw out a couple terms and definitions just to level set myself because as we were talking about this episode i started thinking like well i think i know what burnout is but like how do you know if it's just stress and like you know there's some gray areas and um so what i like about this definite i'm just on google right psychology today it was like the first hit on google for like burnout but um you know feelings of not in control mental and physical exhaustion health problems um cynicism depression lethargy but like how to identify it right what's the difference between like stress or sense of dread about work like to me because i i can think of one you know period of burnout for me and yes it was just an an intense sense of dread like i can't believe i have to do this you know again and and the difference between stress and burnout i'm again i'm looking at this is that you know stress is temporary but if it's if it feels like it's never ending oh start you're starting to get into the burnout territory extended periods of stress and a lot of feelings that come with it it seems like uh you know hopelessness irritability anger like depression and um and i guess i'll just jump right into it like you know i think we talked about it before and i don't know how deep i got into it but you know the the whole uh covet experience and work um i was basically trying to maintain the same level of productivity prior to covid you know after it hit and the big difference were the kids coming home full time they were going eight hours a day at daycare and that allowed me to concentrate on work eight hours a day you know three and six years old i mean that's not going to happen it's just it's a handful and they're there and and my wife also has a career so it wasn't like hey you know you go take care of him that he's got to work um so i was working um as much as i could i'd get up early in the morning and work which used to be study time or workout time i'd work as much as i could all day i'd work through lunch instead of sitting with my family having lunch like my wife and i used to sit and have lunch together um you know prior to covet and then as soon as the kids were in bed 7 30 at night i'd be back at it working until at least midnight and that went on i don't know if it was months but it just seemed like forever but i was just working every second i could and what's interesting is the shift in mindset for me was everything that wasn't work was in my way of working and it made me so irritable the kids interrupting me or like just you know you name it like guys you gotta you gotta leave me alone and and it was unrealistic i didn't handle it well i mean i could have managed it better but i had never lived through a global pandemic and you know i don't know how to have a two-career family with kids home but i definitely dreaded work um i was definitely irritable i was definitely depressed the the article also talks about mental and and physical problems and that's when i developed and was diagnosed with migraines i wound up a migraine medication and you know it was really uh was that within the last year yeah it was that was during cove but we we were literally there was a six or eight week period where i was on this podcast in such bad shape i don't know if you've ever had a migraine but like it's you almost don't even know your name the pain so bad and i'm just sitting here like because i love the podcast i love getting together with you guys and i refuse to like but you know i was burnt out at work it was what it was like um had you ever experienced anything like that before no i had never i don't think i mean i think back to i was trying to think other times in my life like my senior year and or my my last semester in college i had 18 credits while i was doing an internship while i was working full-time waiting tables oh my gosh but i wasn't burnt out i was just super freaking busy and i had to be really strict with time management and like you know that's probably the busiest i've been prior and i wasn't burnt out um so yeah i believe that was my one and only burnout that i can you know say and and it looking back i mean it came down to a decision that i made like i am going to i was fearful for my job at the time too two companies merged people i used to work with disappeared didn't work at the company anymore i kind of felt like uh oh i better show them what i got i need this job um so i made a decision that i was just gonna keep my head down and try to keep being as good at my job as i was prior with everything that that happened at home and it was it was my fault right i made that decision but it was just a recipe for disaster it was it was awful and the end of it was me exploding on my boss he asked me how i was he said i sounded a little snippy on a call and uh i remember saying like let's not have this conversation just please let's talk about what we need to and move on because i do not want to open this volcano how did how did he handle that did he i don't want to say push the situation but did he did he want you to open up he did he wanted to know what was going on he's like no i don't you know i want to i want to see if i can help you man i just the floodgates opened it was just months of just pen up you know and to his credit he i'm not i'm not exaggerating if i tell you i went on for 30 to 45 minutes of a tirade of just you know how i felt and all the things i was going through and to his credit he handled it very well and he helped me and he put me in touch with his boss who really helped me and since then my relationship with my job slash career has changed because you know there were it's it's kind of funny but like there were times in my life where i was very broke and didn't have much i could barely pay rent like as a younger guy like so for whatever reason those experiences are kind of lingering like i feel like i have to keep going and keep improving my career and getting better and better now i got a family and a mortgage and kids like the thought of me working less because the kids are home because of covid just didn't compute in my brain because i you know what if i lose this job this is the only job on the planet what if i lose it and then we'll all be homeless like in my head that's where it goes is you know don't work as hard lose my job we're all homeless it's ridiculous and that's a that's a scary place to be in your head right yeah you know i mean so i mean fortunately like we've talked about before i'm in therapy i talk to her we refrain that like stop it it's ridiculous like but you know just based on experience as a young guy struggling you know that that's kind of where it went so that was a long answer your question but yeah that's that's kind of my burnout experience and and it was awful it was really awful i never want to do that again yeah andy i just want to tell you that i really identify with that last part that you were talking about about because that's that's kind of like exactly what happens to me as soon as stuff like starts to go south right like that happened to me very early on in the pandemic because i've had a really good couple of years you know like there was a point where you know we were selective about what bills we had to pay and you know when exactly we had to pay them and you know picking and choosing when to do certain things and now we we don't have those worries like we we pay all of our bills do we go on like lavish vacations do we have expensive vehicles do we have a lot of no we don't you know like we're we'll we'll take a trip somewhere in new england we don't all hop on a plane to go somewhere tropical that's just not us it's not you know we can't afford to do that and quite frankly i don't think we want to do that um but you know at the beginning of the pandemic like i had a book full of projects and one by one all my projects are starting to cancel and all i'm thinking is just like i'm going to lose my effing job like and then i'm going to lose my effing house and then but it was crazy to think because the entire world is going through this pandemic you know they're not going to like foreclose on everybody's house like i just but that's that's where my head went i mean i identify with it so much with what you're saying yeah and the amount of weight behind how that affects your loved ones you know what i mean when i was young and broke and wasn't sure where my next meal was coming from sucked but then when i look at my wife and kids and we depend on you know my salary there's that's a different type of weight on your shoulders right like right yeah right yeah so i want to shift the discussion over to aj for a minute because i want your perspective on this i think many of us have worked with value-added resellers with post-sales teams and in my experience uh those teams have been incredibly busy they go from project to project they're balancing things so from that aspect do you think stress and burnout comes more from the amount of work or the gravity of work or is it a combination it's definitely a combination right like you know i i'm on a particular project right now it's the only project i have and it at times has created a significant amount of stress and burnout you know like the the customer can at times be very demanding um the there's kind of this like maybe slightly unreasonable expectations but you know i only say that because i think there's a perception that the customer has that might not be reality the customer is always right aj yeah exactly exactly uh and so that there's there's a bunch of things about the project that make it you know challenging and uh and so yeah there's there's definitely been periods of burnout and i think it it's mainly to do because of the workload you know like there's just so much to do uh there might not be enough people enough resources uh allocated to the project for a number of reasons right like it's summertime people are on vacation so when people go on vacation we got to pick up someone else's workload you know we don't want someone to miss a vacation because that's the time to unwind recharge and come back with a clear head you know like that that's how you escape the burnout is relaxing and so we want to make sure everybody has that time but there's still a workload that has to shift and sometimes it shifts on to other people that already have a full plate but we got to do what we got to do kind of thing right and i guess how how do people communicate that um because you said that you've got this this big project when we've talked about it before and that's kind of the main thing that you're working on right now uh how was that decided was that you voicing that to management saying hey this is what it is and this is what i need to focus on or is that management seeing that that's the case and they're shifting the workload what's that balance been like so i i will say you know a lot of times when you encounter a problem in life it's amazing what a simple conversation will do for you um and you know it to andy's point too you know he sat down he had that discussion with his boss uh and and life changed for him and so um we the the engineering team thought that we had communicated like hey from where we sit the way things are going this is not going to work you know something's got to change and some things changed but not the right things changed and it finally got to a point where you know we're getting deployed for two weeks at a time three weeks at a time we're away from our families it's stressful you know we're not home to help take care of the home the kids or whatever the case may be um while we're on the road because of certain circumstances you know um there's there's only so much customer issued laptops you know we can't connect to the network unless we have a customer issued laptop right like it's very common whether it's commercial government whatever the case may be very very common to not be able to connect to customer gear without a customer issued secure laptop kind of thing so it leaves the people that have those uh holding more in the bag right like we're doing the install stuff at night and then the next day we got to do post install support so i'm working until 11 12 sometimes 1 o'clock at night doing the install with the installation team and then the next morning you know people are coming back to work and stuff's broken not working and so i got to be online remote in do some some changes and then come one o'clock we're starting to cycle back all over again so it leads to working like a you know 14 15 hour day and that can lead to burnout very quickly that's a recipe for burnout yeah see that that's the thing is you just said it right there aj you said that that can bring in burnout quickly and so i think you need to be extra cognizant of of your daily habits to to be able to sense that and see when you when you need a break and i think we've brought it up in the soft skills episode and i think again in the on-call episode about communication and and really up until now the communication we've been talking about is is more on the technical side providing updates letting people know status of projects what things are broken what the eta is to get it fixed but the story that both of you have just told show that that uh that's just as important on the the mental health the emotional side as well to communicate uh and and hopefully you're in a culture that's good enough uh that management's good enough to to work with you to understand to really care about your health because in all honesty they should because it's only going to reflect on your work and uh what you're bringing to the table for the company so yeah communication is not just for the technical side not just for the the day-to-day the work side it's definitely just as much for for your mental health because i guess i should ask you andy i don't want to put words in your mouth but i got to think you felt at least a little bit better after that 45-minute talk with your boss right it was a relief of a pressure valve okay um you know you know and i felt heard um yeah the communication is huge and i don't know if it's a guy thing right but like i feel like we sit like in our pain and don't communicate it like you know like man up right like you're a kid and you're told to man up like don't cry man up like so to to communicate you know that you're in discomfort and need help isn't really something culturally at least you know in the west that's sure that's fostered so you know yeah you got to ask for help right you got to communicate like hey i'm drowning over here and that and i'm pretty communicative but i really didn't do that until it was almost too late you know i i wanted to ask aj how does how does burnout manifest for you like do you like do you get snippy with the wifey kids are you just tired like you said you got burnt out with this crazy project i mean how does that start to invade like your personal life yeah i i can definitely have a sense of like having a not a short temper but just like a short tolerance like right you know normally my son being like hey dad hey dad hey dad you know like it's fun we go back and forth we have questions and sometimes i'll go back to him like hey hey hey stop that i don't like that but but uh you know when i start to sense it like oh wow this is this is maybe you know rubbing me the wrong way and normally i don't mind it you know kind of not as patient right yeah yeah when i start to lose my patience with stuff that's that's when i can tell that like i'm getting stressed out yeah that's that's that's a good indicator yeah for sure and you get you got me thinking when you guys were just talking like i guess it's a function of the hour's work right like can you burn out working eight hours a day okay like can you i mean i guess you can right like that's where that's where i think it comes into the the gravity of the work and what it is you're doing because yeah i mean aj i don't know since you've been home how many hours you've worked but you've mentioned that this is the main project you're working on so even if you are dropped down to eight hours a day from 15 hours a day the the stress and the gravity of that project i would think could be you know just as uh as hurtful as is working 12 14 hours a day yeah i i mean totally like you know i'm home now i'm not working 12 to 14 hours a day i still continue to work like eight to nine hours a day um and and just the kind of like kind of almost pending doom right like i know the work that's ahead of me some of it i can do right now and i do it right now other like you know i'm waiting on other people we're waiting on the customer uh it's just like you know the next site is coming and and then you know that's going to start to cycle all back over again where we might be deployed for longer hours and stuff like that we are trying to work out a plan where we're not gone as long but you know some engineers are taking vacation rightly earned you know no qualms with that i myself have some pto coming up which i'm uh looking forward to uh but but at the same time like i know that me not being there is gonna put more workload on to somebody else um so even even when i want to try to relax like i i get a little stressed out about that because i know that you know some team members can be working harder in my absence kind of thing so that being said let's turn this around a little bit we've talked about uh how we notice burnout and how we handle it within ourselves what are some of the things we can do is you know people who care about other people what are some of the things we can do to help others or to sense that people are having issues and and just try to help them either back on the right track or just be an ear i mean what do you think we can do so i i would say before we jump to how do we help other people how do you help yourself true you know like and for me and i think the whole airplane uh bag yeah face mask thing right put yours on before you help anybody else that was the first thing i felt like ultimately you're responsible for yourself and like i don't think somebody else can manage your right balance right like and i can't you know exactly that point right like i can't help somebody else manage it if i don't have it managed for myself and sure and for me it's it's the the being healthy thing right like making healthier choices like you know for for a long time i had time to do exercise at home then go out for walks go for a jog whatever the case may be but then this project got so overwhelming and i i felt like i was glued to my desk like i tried to step away but then i'd get hit up on chats like oh hey you know customer needs help it's like well i'm not at home you know now i gotta run back to my house and get on the customer laptop and be able to assist them it's not something i can you know do remotely unfortunately so um you know self-care is a big part of stress management if you're not doing the self-care then that just makes the stress even worse and that's the first stuff to go right when you don't have time like oh i'll just you know i i won't exercise today or i won't go for that nice walk or you know i won't walk the dog or and it may not seem like a big deal in the moment but choosing to do that you know to let go of that for a period of time it just it builds up right yeah what do they say it's like the death of a thousand cuts like you you start to give up little things you know little by little you're trying to get some time and i don't even know i've heard people say i know what happened to me too like you don't see burnout coming there's just a moment that you're in it and you're over what like people that are in burnout aren't aware they're in burnout they're just miserable and overwhelmed and dreading it and again for my from my experience fortunately for me my boss poked at me to find out he said something was going on so maybe that's the answer to your question tim i mean at least if you're a manager you know be aware pay attention and if you see somebody suffering get involved right i guess that's what he did he got involved and so if he could help you know which i really appreciate so so i've got an example of that um when we were deployed a few months ago back in march there there was four of us you know we all had rental cars we're all going different places uh different days driving around attending to different sites you know taking care of stuff right uh and and we get to this one site that we all have to go out to it's like you know 90 miles away from where we were operating and one of my team members was gonna you know do the usual thing buy a bunch of red bull hop in the car and drive out to the site and it's just like not today dude i am not letting you do that because we have a very long drive ahead of us you look exhausted and i don't want to risk you you know driving a rental car with nobody else around out to this remote location working all day and then having to make that drive back i would feel a lot safer if you rode with somebody else uh and you know they weren't happy they were about to you know jump in the car anyway and i said hey look i i'm i'm gonna pull rank here and be firm on this because i fully believe that this is like a safety thing you know that like your safety your safety depends on me making this decision and and i was absolutely right because when we got out to the location we were working for the day he curled up in the back seat of the rental car took a three-hour nap and he needed it and we let him do it you know like it was it was safe right it wasn't like a dog in the car we cracked the window for him it wasn't too hot it was march uh but he got in a nice three-hour map nap and and uh he was able to function he felt a whole lot better we need to look out for each other right yeah you got it and i think you know that that then rolls into the question or to answer the question right like what do you do for other people like at the time all of us were in the shit together right like it's kind of like being at boot camp you form a special bond with people and and i i'm saying that on a whim right like i've never been to boot camp but it's it's i've heard people like one of the guys that that's on the team was in the air force and he likened what we were going through to being in boot camp you know it was it's a unique experience everybody's in a shitty situation and that's where you kind of form that tight bond kind of thing and you know the the four of us the the engineers on the on the project we get along great we have a good time and we just kind of recognize that we're like we're in the shit together so we look we look out for each other uh we take care of each other and just when we spot things like that um we make sure like we'll step in and um i don't know answer questions for other people when we know like hey he's he's burnt out we don't want him to like say the wrong thing in front of the customer or we don't want the customer to get a sense of what's going on with us or whatever i you know i'm just making stuff up at this point but um you understand what i'm saying we look out for each other yeah and i think there's really simple things you can do too one thing that i try to do from time to time is i'll just somebody will pop into my mind and i'll just send them a quick text hey just want to check in how you doing you know because i think it those kind of things can just trigger that open up of of uh emotions and and communication that that people may need and it's back to the the whole thing about noticing burnout i think it's one of those things that by the time you really notice what's going on it's already too late um so to just have those you know those people that are just kind of reaching out it doesn't have to be a long drawn out conversation just i mean that that works for me too when when people just check in out of the blue saying hey we're just thinking about you how you doing um that kind of thing it i think it can really turn things around or at least start a conversation so it doesn't have to be something drawn out planned out it can be just something as simple as starting a conversation right yeah because having that conversation can sometimes be enough of a relief you know exactly feeling heard and getting some good feedback might be enough to like help drop some of the stress because sometimes the stress is like self-induced right like you think you under you're under so much pressure and there's no other option well you know having a simple conversation may say like oh hey like if you're stressed out about that particular deadline like you know maybe we can push that off a little bit to give you some breathing room kind of thing you know that's the thing man because i my my old boss you know if if you give me a deadline i'm going to deliver it i don't know what's wrong with me but i just feel like that's what i got to do right and i used to really stress about it i remember being on a call with my old boss once and we're talking about this project and i'm like yeah you know we're i don't see how we can make this date it's just too many unforeseen things happen and he goes don't worry about it man we'll push it out and i was pissed so i'm like wait a minute like wait that's a thing like we can because you told me this has to be flexible yeah like you told me this thing has to be done because reasons and i'm like okay my head's down i'm gonna do it i'm a good soldier and i make myself sick basically over it trying to get to that date and i realize we're not going to and he's like i don't worry about i'm like what the hell have i been working so hard for this whole time like you know what could so but again that was kind of like news to me like oh like okay somebody sets a date it's not the end of the world for some reason i take it very i don't say take it personally but if there's a deadline if like to me i feel like integrity is very important and if i say i'm going to do something i do it and you can count on me and i'm reliable right and yeah i take that i take it too far you know you give me a deliverable date and i'm like yes no matter what which is ridiculous and then you get it's not a good place to you know to go yeah i see where you're coming from andy if if you you feel like if you're going to put your name on something it's going to be gold it's going to be something that you would recommend you can count on me you know but i i guess you know don't take things so yeah it's not that important right like we're not my wife likes to say like we're not solving world peace here right like okay like so this this thing gets pushed out a couple weeks whatever like no you know nobody's people aren't dying there's no way you said aj like it's one of your things like did anybody lose tim can't say that so have you ever been burnt out tim have you been able to like avoid that in your career i i think i'm i i struggle with um with putting a label on anything definitely have dealt with and deal with with stress on a daily basis my what i'll call problem or one of my problems is that i'm very much that same way andy if there's if there's a date on something i'm gonna stress about it um i'm a very all or nothing personality i feel like if my name's on it i gotta do it i gotta do it right and and when um so yeah i've dealt with that stress uh luckily i i didn't have to deal with the level of burnout what i'll say that that you had to deal with last year because my wife is home and was able to to handle the kids and handle the school from home lucked out on another front because she is a teacher by trade wow so um i think she has dealt with much more burnout than i have in the last year um did you see that in her like she was definitely oh yeah for sure yeah yeah for sure uh but you know she's the the kind of personality that that she is gonna fight that to the end she's gonna go through it and uh and push through and that's where it's important where her and i just take that time uh in the evenings when the kids are in bed and you know we check in on each other and make sure things are good and yeah the stress is there burnout can get there you know you got those big projects where you know we got we've had weeks of uh one or more maintenance windows in the evenings and and that can wear on but i do benefit from culture of management understanding the time we're putting in and being lenient on you know getting some sleep sleeping in that kind of thing that's not a big deal and again it comes all back to communication for me because i think if if you have those big projects or big issues that you're working on and you don't think you're going to meet a deadline or something's not right to me it's so much better to speak up earlier than later um if you're weeks out from from a deadline and you already don't think you're gonna make it uh and you're not gonna deliver on time i think you need to start speaking up to management at that point and not getting days before and go oh yeah there's no way we're going to do this i usually don't speak up and then the anxiety just snows it just eats it it does yeah it does like we're never going to be able to do this but i'm not going to be the one to say it right and then yeah it really eats you up it's smart to communicate it earlier yeah definitely so i i don't want to rush us on to the the other part of this episode i but i do know that you guys have some maintenance windows tonight real quick before we get the rust out i just want to again looking over at this nice little google thing but i think it's we've already hit on it is drawing boundaries at work is probably you know self-care you know so how to put a bow on it right how do you avoid burnout like yeah yeah reach out to each other help each other but someone that we didn't talk about was like boundaries like you know know when to say no and and can you say no and um because if you just keep taking homework and you're overwhelmed you just keep taking homework and it's it's a it's definitely a learned skill saying no and and and a tough one if you're not but yeah yeah because nobody wants to hear no right i mean people ask you to do something because they want something done and you're getting paid right and it's a boss and his job is to give you stuff for her job and you know hey you know i got to give you this thing like but but then you know when you're working on a team you don't want to sit there and say no i'm sorry i can't do that uh because everybody else is doing it yep uh and you know that like if you don't do your part then maybe it's just going to fall to somebody else kind of thing so there's so many pressures on it but you're absolutely right regardless of the situation like you got to draw lines you know when you when you can't handle any more you get you got to say that right because you're a resource for the project or you know your team if if you commit to doing something you can't do anyway you might as well tell them i'm sorry i can't do this right maybe it's not a wholesale no maybe it's like i can't take it now can right you know can it sit a week or two sure probably in a week or two i can't you know a little little little give and take yeah that's just i i just wanted to wrap you know no i appreciate that that was nice to put that bow on it so what's that other term we're unfamiliar with so the other end of the spectrum is is rust out so um the way river explained it in the discord and he did it really well was was just you know maybe it's not you're you're not sitting around but you're you're not being as stimulated at work you know you're kind of maybe doing the same or similar things you're not really being challenged you're not learning new things uh you're you're letting your skills like literally rust away that's a problem uh as it were and and i i don't know about you guys but i have ever experienced that and there's there's two cases that come to mind where i experience rust out working for uh you know these these particular companies and so uh in one instance i was working at a help desk it was a new help desk you know they had kind of hired me on to help you know start the help desk because i had some help desk experience so um there was supposed to be you know a time of just in grade and then i would be given more permissions on the network and you know help out projects and stuff like that and so you know it never came right like i worked there for like a year and i had the same permissions that i had started with day one and i could feel myself getting snippy like it got to the point where like people would call in and be like i know how to fix your problem but i can't so i have to transfer you now you know oh yeah yeah and that's what i would tell you and because like i wanted them to know that because the the team that i was transferring them to like their whole thing was just like well we need a help desk because you know we're taking on too much work and it felt like most of my calls were getting transferred up to the other team and it's just like you know this isn't as effective as you guys maybe think it is because if you had given us more permission on the help desk we could take care of more issues you know kind of thing um and so after a year of that it's just like i don't think this is gonna change i've voiced my concern you know many times like hey i'm i'm more capable than the permissions you give me i could take this workload off of you if you just let me do it and and the response was well we'll consider it or it was a hard no you know and then there was never any good explanation as to why not you know like so um that that was one situation another situation was i worked at another place as a sysadmin and um they sent me to a week-long boot camp on a new version of windows server and i learned about all these great new features that were coming out i couldn't wait to get back and kind of implement them you know because we we could certainly benefit from all that stuff and and this wasn't like the first instance from only instance of that like i did a lot of training on new technology and i'd get back and it was just always like oh yeah you know here's what i learned and you know i think this is what we can do and none of those projects ever came to fruition and after a while it's just like why are you sending me to training you know if we're just gonna do it the way we've always done it and not benefit from the training that you just paid you know hundreds or thousands of dollars for like what am i doing here yeah you're only taking it halfway at that point yeah yeah and after a while it just gets frustrating you know you like you like to feel like there's opportunity for growth you like to feel like you're useful you know like you have these skills you bring to the table if you can't contribute to the fullest extent like you want to it gets boring and i think that's where the rust out comes from yeah we're where rust out is scary for me and again thank you river i i didn't even know that was a term uh before you brought that up i mean i get the idea behind it but i had never heard it called that term before you brought that up in the discord what's scary to me is i i look at how i spend my time both at work and outside of work trying to better myself as an insurance policy what can i do to better myself uh so that if for whatever reason i get up one morning and um i'm not at my current employer anymore um and i gotta go find something else what do i do to to better myself to get there and so i i think that you can do that even if you're you're working in a position uh that is just kind of the mundane same thing day after day i think while you skill up you can stay in that you just have to you have to take that upon yourself to to know that it's going to take time and and that kind of thing and and you're going to need to invest your your own time into it but yeah that that's what's scary to me is that being at some point in a place where i'm not skilling up or continuing to to perfect skills and then that day may come where i need to be marketable and maybe i'm not as much as i as i could right so i again i've been fortunate ever since i've gotten into the networking field that i've been in a place where it's evolved so much that there is always something new and there is always that drive to learn the new things but i can definitely feel where people are coming from that they do feel like they're in those situations where they just aren't moving and i mean how do you how do you combat that other than by you know joining our discord and learning with like-minded people three yeah i mean i'm just gonna say three years into being a cable guy it happened to me yeah i was i was top i was a top rate i had basically seen everything there was to see i knew what the problem was before i got there i knew what i was gonna have to do to fix it so i wasn't challenged anymore but the the scarier part and i don't like being bored and like when i feel like you know you spend what eight hours a day at work let's say and if for me if you just feel like you're just going through the motions and kind of like groundhog day and like it just i almost feel like my life's starting to waste away when you do that because you spend a lot of time at work but also you touched on the skills i mean yeah i i had been skilled up i was at this top rate like there was nothing else to learn and i didn't see a path you know and and that was my only skill i had at the time so i'm like what do i do this forever you know which which is when i got introduced to the ccna and here we are but um it wasn't um i wouldn't say it was as painful or uncomfortable or terrible as burnout but i i think i must say equally destructive but you know if if i stayed in that job i would have gotten snippy like you aj like that you weren't enabled where you were like another idiot who's you know can't figure out their cable remote like really you know what i mean you don't know how to press the on demand button to get to movies like i'm here again you know you're not challenged then it's the same thing like oh my god so yeah um fortunately for me somebody said hey check out the ccna thing and now i'm exhausted from all the new skills and i think that can be a fine line that you need to be careful to not cross too it's it's back to the the balance thing because you could you could definitely take that to the extreme and say okay i'm going to do my my normal everyday work and then i'm going to get up early in the morning i'm going to stay up late at night and i'm going to skill up so i can do that next thing so i think you need to be careful too and find that balance of being able to maybe train on the job or if you are looking to something else you know finding out when it is the right time to go after that next thing so you're not getting into a point to to your point earlier andy that all you're doing is is working you're you're living to work versus working to live or no backwards you gotta do you know what i mean don't yeah yeah do as i do as i mean not as i say yeah it's it's it's back to balance balance and communication i think are the things that i say in every single episode yep yep yeah man excellent guys well uh you know i want to thank the discord again for having these great conversations and and kind of sparking the idea i think these are conversations worth having if you have uh ideas for you know either comments you want to add to burnout or rust out please shout out the discord if you have ideas for an episode please absolutely shout that out we have a a channel called uh a1 fans a1 fans drop into that channel give us a shout out we'll respond back to you and you know let us know your idea for the topic we would love to hear you know you're our listener if you want to hear about a certain topic we want to hear from you uh and you know if it's a a good enough or an exciting topic we'll uh we'll bump something else out of the way and make room for it any uh any last-minute thoughts guys before we wrap and you guys gotta go uh work on a maintenance window and cut your arm off i gotta go write some more poems yeah man always a pleasure absolutely i love hanging with you guys yeah me too excellent well uh that's a wrap uh tim's gonna go write some more intros and we'll see you next week on the art of network engineering see you hey everyone this is aj if you like what you heard today then make sure you subscribe to our podcast and your favorite podcatcher smash that bell icon to get notified of all of our future episodes also follow us on twitter and instagram we are at art of netench that's art of n-e-t-e-n-g you can also find us on the web at art of network engineering.com where we post all of our show notes you can read blog articles from the co-hosts and guests and also a lot more news and info from the networking world thanks for listening you