I work a rather demanding job and I’ve constantly been feeling tired and underperformant compared to my colleagues for the past few months. I keep evading responsibilities or putting them off until the last minute.
Many people would kill to be where I am. Yet, I show up every day unmotivated.
There were several stressful years leading up to my current job and I’m wondering if I’m burnt out at this point or if I’m just not pulling my weight.
Edit: Thank you all for your support and guidance. I haven’t given too many details here, but personal life has been moving along smoothly, chores get done, etc. But I definitely need to reconsider where I’m going with my job.
What going on is I don’t feel like doing it LOL.
I worked with a former autoworker, his job was inspecting roof seal adhesive and hitting the button for next car. He said he sat in a chair and read a book and would push the button with his foot. I asked how he could see roof glue, he said “I could not see it, I just pushed the button” . Too me that is the essence of a lazy person. It was not related to physical or mental overload, he was a sports guy etc. He just didn’t want to inconvienece himself with getting out of the chair or interrupt his book reading.
That’s not mental overload, it’s the opposite. It’s a job without mental stimulation, boring, repetitive and requires very little cognitive processing. And people doing jobs like that seek stimulation to escape perpetual boredom.
Give that guy a job that didn’t bore him to tears, and the picture would have been very different.
As I said, it’s always about hitting a threshold, and boredom is a threshold. And if an employer cares about quality, rather than the appearance of quality, they’d have designed that job differently.
We worked in a high paced Engineering office together, after the auto job, he would put his feet up and pile boxes near his desk to avoid working and read a book. There was more than enough stimulation available, he would just rather do what he wanted than work. Not everthing is the employers’ doing, some people just make poor choices, even given opportunity.