People get burned out because something in their life is causing them too much stress for too long a period. It might be the employer's fault, or it might be the combination of a perfectly fine 9 to 5 job with a bad social situation at home or a health problem.
I'm not advocating trying to ignore it, but putting it out on the internet in a way that it's the first thing a potential employer will see when they google your name will definitely not make things easier or better.
Your first paragraph now is aligned with my own statement, which is either that it's deliberate or accidental overwork. My conclusion was that people need to be able to recognize that there's a problem (either in themselves, co-workers, or employees) and be able to talk about it.
Your point is that people should keep this sort of issue hush-hush. It is in that where we disagree.
While it may be best for someone, depending on the circumstances, to not talk about such issues in public, your view seems to be that no one should ever do so. Otherwise you would have said "you need to be careful if you blog or write" rather than "you better not blog about or write".
This sort of caution happens often. I gave an example of public salary information, but I could have talked about unionization. The first person to propose unionization often has negative job consequences, despite the laws against employer retaliation. The people who want to change the statue quo often receive advice like "keep your head down", "don't rock the boat", and "know which battles to fight." But the only way to change, and hopefully be in a better situation, is to start doing it.
Your advice is to continue with the status quo, and you use language of social mores to make that advice. I strongly disagree.
> Your first paragraph now is aligned with my own statement, which is either that it's deliberate or accidental overwork.
No, your posts imply that burnout is entirely work related.
> Your point is that people should keep this sort of issue hush-hush.
You missed the "in any way that can be traced back to your real name" part. Posting a story like this under your full name, with a picture of your face, can have consequences that make things a lot worse. The same can be said of a lot of things people post on the internet, including this discussion.
My apologies. Certainly if someone could afford to quit a job and focus only on the other issues (eg, taking care of a seriously ill family member) then it's still possible to get burned out.
But given that your advice was only meaningful to those who want to get future employment, I think my assumption that - in the context of your comment - there's a strong job component to being burned out is valid.
"Hush-hush" doesn't mean completely secret. It can also mean "not openly practiced or engaged in or shown or avowed". If one has to be anonymous to discuss it, or lie or demure if asked point blank 'did you write this piece?' or 'are you burned out?', then it's a problem. Ditto for 'you try to hide it on your CV'.
Now, I may be using 'hush-hush' incorrectly, as it's mid-20th century slang, chiefly British. My original point remains, which is that your original response used language to reenforce existing social mores ("something you better not blog").
It doesn't even consider that the person who write the piece may be well aware of everything you wrote, took it into account, and still believes it's better to write under a real name.
After all, anonymous reports are often dismissed on grounds that they are anonymous, which lets the person making the report lie, exaggerate, and otherwise make things up without fear of consequences.
We're all in this together, so you can either keep up this act of lying to employers and handing out resumes that put you one position below superman, or if you're quite capable and credentialed as many of us are, we can set a precedent. Walk out of obnoxious interviews - stop pretending to be the best developer ever on your resume - answer questions about shortcomings without apprehension (because we're all human and there should be nothing to hide).
Will you make less money? Probably, but you'll make the job field easier for everyone else and at some tipping point maybe jr. level employees won't have to pretend they have 5 years of experience for a jr. level position in the future and those people won't make less money just because they refuse to pretend to be superhuman during the interview process.
I'm not advocating trying to ignore it, but putting it out on the internet in a way that it's the first thing a potential employer will see when they google your name will definitely not make things easier or better.