AUSTIN, Texas — When it comes to burnout, take a moment and look at whatever is happening through 30-year goggles.

"It's so easy, as people to brush aside the people that aren't perfect (to us) but put on your 30-year goggles and pretend you're in their family and it's something totally different," said Andy Janning of No NET Solutions to the CU Water Cooler Symposium audience. "Think of them as people whose stories matter and will matter 30 years from now. You're not just impacting members today, but that family for generations."

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He illustrated the three elements of burnout: depersonalization, emotional exhaustion and a lack of personal achievement, quite vividly with a cautionary tale to never be the last appointment on Friday.

His dentist had dinner plans and the last place he and his staff wanted to be was in the office. When Janning mentioned that the local anesthetic hadn't taken effect yet he was informed he'd "just have to suck it up" as the dentist didn't want to be even later for his aforementioned dinner plans. Janning had no words to describe the excruciating pain he endured feeling every pull, twist and suture, (though images of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre that flashed on the screen behind him during the presentation spoke volumes.)

After the procedure, the dentist simply walked away without a word and the assistant escorted him to the now darkened reception area where the receptionist impatiently twirled her keys waiting for Janning and his wife to finally leave.

What made his experience worse was that the 'dentist' was really a urologist, and the 'extraction procedure' he underwent was actually a vasectomy.

"The doctor and his staff were stone faced most of the time and when they did talk, it was how much they hated being there and how what they do sucks, all while I'm under the knife," he said. "Burnout is like Fight Club. It's something that keeps kicking our butt every day but we can't talk about it. It turns us into false prophets of doom thinking that the world is bad and I don't make a difference."

 

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