Worn down at work

Work has been really draining lately. It’s not the quantity of work so much, though there has been a lot of it, but more so it’s the nature of the work that’s the challenge. Trying to promote someone, and deciding not to promote others who strongly deserve it but who we just don’t have budget for. They’re going to be very disappointed when I tell them. Fighting to fire someone because I believe it’s the right thing to do, while fighting to not fire someone else because I believe it would be wrong. Negotiating with an HR department that seems suddenly more adversarial than normal. Playing a game I thought I knew, but where the rules have clearly changed and are not being shared. Burning emotional calories grinding against the machine with little progress to show for it. Day after day after day. I’m feeling some signals of burnout: fatigue, detachment, self-doubt. I got teary-eyed when an LLM told me I was doing a good job. That’s not a great sign. I need to hang in there for another…