Jeremy Hutchings

I’m happy to see lots of people supporting and stating the obvious about this topic. Though I thought I’d add my 2c to the demise of this all to common evil of open offices. They are typically favoured by individuals who like to interrupt others, and also by those who look to short term visible costs. Open offices are likely the single biggest cause in companies of: The lost of human happiness The lost of team/individual effectiveness The lack of success of companies and projects I rank them in that order for importance as well, as that’s the order I’ve typically experienced them being absent in successful projects. I believe the mental state of the members of the team, and the collective teams health is a core (if not the primary) factor in successful outcomes. It’s good to see the academic community supporting (with research) what many have felt and known to be true for so long [1] , I’ve spent many years in different office environments, when I haven’t...

Unfortunately I'm not talking about the driving game, I'm talking about the all too common and serious condition experienced by many creative professionals who find themselves in situations that promote it. Who either don't get out, don't protect against it or work for an organisation that is ignorant (or even worse don't care) about it. [UPDATE : When you're done there is  Part two, preventing burnout in the first place ] What is it , how does it feel Well there are two sides to it, firstly there is what the individual experiences and second there is what others see (and how they commonly mistake it, or write it off as something else). For the individual it is wholly depressing, life robbing, exhausting and  frustrating. According to a Dutch study GPs have one of the highest rates of burnout, though I dare say software engineers are a close second ! Maslach who studied this created a Burnout Inventory that uses three measurements to identify it ...