The Spiral Chronicles
Thoughts on productivity theatre, work culture, and the inevitable descent.
Updated whenever we remember. Which isn't often.
I hate my job
I Hate My Job: What to Do When the Job Is the Problem
"I hate my job". It's not a personal failing. It is an extremely common response to conditions that were never designed with you in mind. Here is what is actually happening and what to do about it.
Burnout
Chronic Work Stress vs Burnout: When It Stops Being a Phase
Chronic work stress is stress that has outstayed its welcome by several months. Burnout is what happens when the stress finally collects on the deb...
Burnout
Burnout and Anxiety: When Dread Becomes the Default
Burnout and anxiety are not the same thing but they are remarkably good at pretending to be. One depletes you until you feel nothing. The other ens...
Burnout
Imposter Syndrome and Burnout: When Fraud Meets Empty
Imposter syndrome tells you that you are not good enough and that everyone is about to find out. Burnout removes the capacity to do anything about ...
Burnout
Perfectionism and Burnout: The Trap of Getting It Right
Perfectionism and burnout are not a coincidence. The person who stays until it is done properly, redoes the slide deck at 11pm because the font was...
Burnout
Mental Exhaustion: What It Is and How to Actually Recover
Mental exhaustion is not tiredness. It is not stress. It is what happens when your brain has been working past its limits for so long that basic th...
Stress vs Burnout: How to Tell the Difference
Stress and burnout are not the same thing. One is pressure with a visible end point. The other is what happens when the pressure never lifts and th...
Burnout
Burnout Recovery Timeline: How Long It Actually Takes
Everyone wants to know how long burnout recovery takes. The answer is longer than you want it to be — and shorter than it will be if you skip the p...
Burnout
Burnout Cycles: Why You Keep Burning Out & How to Break Free
Burnout cycles are what happen when you recover just enough to go back to the same conditions and deplete all over again. The pattern isn't random....
Burnout
Emotional Exhaustion: What It Is & How to Stop Running Empty
Emotional exhaustion is what happens when you've been giving more than you have for so long that the giving itself has broken. It's not tiredness. ...
Burnout
Preventing Burnout: How to Catch It Before the System Does
Preventing burnout is possible — but the advice you've been given was written by people who benefit from you burning out.
Burnout
Burnout in Management: I Was Burnt Out for Years and Didn't Know It
Burnout in management is invisible for longer than any other role. The work still gets done. The performance holds. Here's what it actually looked ...
Burnout
Occupational Burnout: 6 Causes, Symptoms & What to Do (2026)
Occupational burnout is a WHO-classified syndrome caused by chronic workplace stress that hasn't been successfully managed. It leads to exhaustion,...
Burnout
Stages of Burnout: How It Builds and What Each One Feels Like
Stages of burnout don't arrive all at once. Each one feels explainable until the accumulation becomes undeniable. Here's what each stage actually f...
Burnout
How to Recover From Burnout: What Actually Works
Recovering from burnout isn't about rest. Here's what actually works, what doesn't, how long it takes, and what nobody tells you about the process.
Burnout
Burnout Physical Symptoms: What Your Body Is Trying to Tell You
Burnout physical symptoms appear in the body long before the brain is ready to name what's happening — and most people spend months explaining them...
Surviving Work
How to Deal With a Difficult Boss
There's a spectrum. At one end: the boss who is mildly annoying, occasionally thoughtless, probably means well, and makes your working life harder...
I hate my job
Should I Quit My Job? How to Actually Decide
Should I quit my job is not a hard question. It is a question most people already know the answer to but are asking repeatedly.
The Sundary Scaries
The Sunday Scaries: A Complete Guide to What They Are and How to Deal With Them
Sunday used to be a day off. Now it's a waiting room. You know the feeling. It usually arrives somewhere around late afternoon — a tightening som...
Burnout
Work Burnout: What It Actually Is and How to Get Through It
Work burnout is what happens when tired stops going away. Here's what it actually is, why the usual advice makes it worse, and what actually helps.
Me Ranting
The Performance Review, Translated
"Meets expectations." You are invisible and we are comfortable with that. Meets expectations is not neutral. Meets expectations is the rating giv...
Surviving Work
How to Stop Taking Work Home With You
You left the building. The job didn't. It's in the car on the way home, replaying the meeting. It's at dinner, half-listening while some part of y...
I Didn't Get the Promotion. Now What?
You find out in a meeting. Or an email. Or — and this is the worst version — you find out because someone else announces theirs. And then you have...
Office Politics: How to Survive Without Becoming the Problem
Nobody puts "skilled in office politics" on their CV. But everyone who's worked in an organisation for more than six months knows it's there. The ...
Burnout
Burnt Out on Life: When It's Not Just Work Anymore
Burnt out on life is what happens when work burnout stops being about the job and starts being about everything — and most people don't see it comi...
New Careers
I Hate My Job But I Need the Money
I hate my job but I need the money is the sentence that keeps people in the wrong place for years longer than necessary. Not because they have no o...
Things I've Said at Work vs What I Meant
At some point in your career you became bilingual. On one side: the language you use at work. Professional, and technically positive. On the othe...
The Exit Interview They'll Never Get
Thank you for taking the time to meet with us today. Can you start by telling us why you've decided to leave? I've decided to leave because I've s...
Me Ranting
What Your Job Title Actually Means
At some point in your career, someone gave you a title. They presented it with a certain gravity. As though the words themselves conferred somethi...
Surviving Work
Work Is Making Me Depressed (Plus Thousands of Others)
Work is making me depressed — if that sentence has been sitting in your head, this is worth reading properly.
Me Ranting
An Open Letter to the People Who Book 4pm Friday Meetings
You know who you are. You open your calendar on a Thursday afternoon, there's a pristine Friday with nothing on it after 3pm, and you think: there...
Me Ranting
A Day in the Life of Someone Who Has Completely Given Up
6:47am The alarm goes off. Why 6:47? Because those two extra minutes are the only act of rebellion left, and they are savoured with the intensity ...
Surviving Work
Surviving a Toxic Workplace: What Actually Helps
It didn't happen all at once. That's the thing about a toxic workplace. There's no single moment where everything clearly crosses a line. It's a s...
Burnout
Am I Burnt Out or Do I Hate My Job?
Am I burnt out or do I hate my job — both feel bad, both involve dread, and from the inside they're almost identical. But they're not the same thing.
The Sundary Scaries
How to Deal With the Sunday Scaries
You've tried ignoring them. You've tried staying busy, staying out, staying distracted right up until bedtime so there's no space for the dread to...
New Careers
Starting a New Career: What Nobody Tells You
Everyone has an opinion about what you should do next. Your partner thinks you should go for it. Your parents think you should stay put. LinkedIn ...
Work Hacks
How to Set Boundaries at Work (Without Feeling Like You Need to Apologise For It)
"Set boundaries" is the most frequently given and least frequently explained piece of work advice in circulation. Everyone says it. Nobody tells yo...
Burnout
Signs of Burnout at Work (And What to Do When You Spot Them)
Signs of burnout at work appear long before most people name them. Here's what to look for, why burnout disguises itself as tiredness, and what to ...
New Careers
How to Change Careers (Without Having a Complete Breakdown)
Changing careers feels impossible from inside the job you are trying to leave. It is not impossible. It is just harder to plan clearly when you are...
Toxic Colleagues
Toxic Colleagues: How to Deal With Them Without Losing Your Mind (Or Job)
Every workplace has one. Sometimes it's the person who cc's your manager on everything, for no reason, constantly. Sometimes it's the one who take...
The Sundary Scaries
The Sunday Scaries Are Real and They're Not Your Fault
It's 5pm on a Sunday. You were fine an hour ago. You were watching something, eating something, just existing without incident. And then it arrive...
Surviving Work
I Hate My Job: Now What?
You didn't Google that because things are going well. You Googled it in the car park before walking in. Or on your phone in the toilet at 2pm...