You’re not burned out; you’re just crispy

I admit it! I am burned out.

I am burned out on books about burnout.

There is “Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle” by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. And “Beat Burnout: How to Reset and Get Back on Your Feet After Burnout and Keep It That Way” by J. S. Muller. And “The Burnout Epidemic: The Rise of Chronic Stress and How We Can Fix It” by Jennifer Moss. And who knows how many more?

Not me. I’m too burned out to find out.

You know what burnout feels like, of course.

Remember the enthusiasm you felt when you started your job? How you’d leap out of bed in the morning, so excited to get to work that you’d catch yourself bursting out your front door in your pajamas? Now it takes dynamite to get you out of bed.

You used to be a perfect employee. Now you’re a perfect mess.

Fortunately, there’s an easy antidote to burnout. You can read all the books mentioned above, or you can take off for a wonderful summer vacation, leaving work and worries behind.

Unfortunately, the vacation cure doesn’t work. Or so say Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy in yet another broadcast from the burnout zone. I refer to their recent article on themuse.com, “4 Tips to Prevent Burnout Before It Gets Bad.”

“A vacation will not prevent — or cure — burnout,” write Fosslien and Duffy. “A few days off isn’t enough to keep the tide coming in or to turn it back around.” It’s something to think about while you’re sitting on the beach, wondering who is calling your work number and all the terrible things that will happen if you’re not there to call back.

What to do? Let’s review the four tips and see if they help you get off the burnout bandwagon.

No. 1: Recognize the early warning signs.

Fosslien and Duffy suggest that an early symptom of burnout is that you “find everyone and everything irritating.”

The problem with being irritated at “everyone and everything” at your work is obvious: They are, and it is. The solution here is to stop paying attention. You could spend your days with a cardboard box over your head, but a paper bag would certainly be acceptable. Just be sure to cut air holes so you can breathe, or, if you’re going into a big meeting with your manager, maybe not.

No. 2: Not all burnout is the same.

If you’re in a meeting and find it difficult to raise your enthusiasm — or your eyelids —you have exhaustion burnout. If you find yourself being quick to criticize management, you have cynical burnout.

If you believe “you’re never able to do a good enough job,” you have ineffectiveness burnout. This is a particularly dangerous type of burnout, since you’re probably right.

No. 3: Take the time to break the stress cycle.

If going away on vacation won’t be enough, why not bring your vacation into the office on a year-round basis? Bring in a truckload of sand and spread it out under your desk. Don’t forget the sand fleas! They’re about the only creatures on earth more annoying than your managers.

Not a beach person? No reason you can’t bring in a few hundred pounds of leaves and twigs. Turn your cubicle into a fairy tale forest. Dress up as a witch and cook up a bubbling cauldron of soup with the mushrooms you grow under your desk. Or put on a wizard hat and put spells on your co-workers. ( Don’t bother with the Human Resources Department. They’re already cursed.)

No. 4: Learn to draw — and respect — your own lines.

“It takes courage to say no and stick with it without feeling guilty,” say Fosslien and Duffy. That’s why I recommend you say “yes, I will” to every workplace request, no matter how odious. Everyone will like you, at least until they find out that “no, you won’t.”

While there certainly could be negative repercussions from burnout, don’t forget it does have positive aspects, too. Seeing a permanent black cloud over your head will make your co-workers feel better about their own burnout miseries.

Burnout can also motivate you to quit your miserable job and get a brand-new job — a job about which you will be totally enthusiastic and motivated ( for about two days).

After which you’ll be burned out again, but you’ll be burned out about brandnew stuff and different people, and wouldn’t that be a refreshing change?

Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at