Crash & Burn

In the past few years, the term "burnout" has become ubiquitous, with more than half of us reportedly afflicted. Are we in the midst of a nationwide mental health crisis-or is this an inevitable symptom of a culture that misjudges the purpose and value of work?

- RICHARD GODWIN

Back in the mists of 2019, before any of us had heard of Covid or given much thought to the handling of pangolins in Chinese wet markets, the World Health Organization (WHO) published the 11th edition of its International Classification of Diseases. Among the additions: a new definition for the term "burnout".

Burnout is a syndrome resulting from "chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed". The document carefully defines it as an occupational phenomenon-so it's not caused by human frailty but by inhuman expectations. And it's characterised by three dimensions: "energy depletion or exhaustion"; "increased mental distance from one's job", which manifests as negativity or cynicism; and "a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment". Put simply, burnout is when you come up against the physical and mathematical limits of what The Apprentice contestants call "giving it 110%".

It was a timely addition. Looking back at a few headlines in 2022, it seems that two-thirds of small business owners were burned out; 70% of lawyers were risking burnout; one in two teachers reported having suffered feelings of burnout; and frontline workers were especially burned out, as they had to deal with the effects of everyone else being burned out while burned out. ("I think everyone is worried that the system is beginning to break," Andrew Goddard, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said last year.) Service worker burnout is "worse than ever" according to the BBC; and the situation for truck drivers is no better. "It's not a normal life for a human," one told the Financial Times. "It's like a prison, it's not a job. You do it like a zombie." While the situation is worse in low-paid jobs, managers are affected, too.