CADDManager on January 31st, 2007

Continuing on with comments on “Extreme Jobs – the Dangerous Allure of the 70 hour Workweek“, Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce found from their research that people with extreme jobs may not always experience burn out, but rather what they call “Brown Outs”.

From the perspective of Van Halen – it means no brown M&M’s backstage. Brown outs from a point of view of electricity are another thing. A power outage may be referred to as a blackout if power is lost completely, or as a brownout if the voltage level is below the normal minimum level specified for the system. (check wikipedia).

A Brown Out, from the authors perspective, is when a worker reduces the level of effort or output because they are overtaxed. They state the 45% of extreme workers experience Brown Outs on a weekly basis. This can happen with CAD Managers if they are pushed too far in too many areas. You cannot work at a breakneck pace for very long. Keeping so many balls in the air can physically exhaust a person.

Have you ever experienced a brown out? Have you had days when you just could not think straight? Have you been running too fast for too long? Time to rethink some things?

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