Read on Twitter
I spoke to the Times about quitting my job after a year of COVID reporting. Nearly every interview featured a traumatized frontline worker, devastated family, or piece of news that spelled more death. At some point, I didn& #39;t know how to keep doing it. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/21/technology/welcome-to-the-yolo-economy.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/2...
That said, I think there& #39;s a lot to say about burnout and exhaustion and trauma that are missing from this story. And I certainly wouldn& #39;t lump myself in with anyone who described their job as "high-paying" or "cushy and stable." And I& #39;ve never been a "bored office worker."
Still, it& #39;s important to acknowledge how few people have the financial option to leave their jobs, no matter how drained and depleted they feel.
I also think there& #39;s a messy conflation here between folks who are "flush with savings" and "seeking post-pandemic adventure" versus folks who were grieving and didn& #39;t know how to get out of bed anymore and had to take time to breathe and recover, both mentally and physically
aNyWaY I& #39;ve been reporting on burnout in the journalism industry, and I& #39;ll have more to say about this when that story publishes
ah well, even if I spend the whole day getting mocked by strangers online who don& #39;t know anything about me for being a privileged baby….. I’ll be just fine!!!!!
For folks who don’t know reporting can be trauma-facing, my therapy homework *today* is to listen to a recording of me describing the time I watched three kids under 7 scream out in agony after they were flung onto the pavement in a car crash next to their father’s mangled body.
In a few weeks, I have to do this again with the time I saw a couple burn alive in a fire as their roof collapsed in on them. And then again a few weeks later, for either the time a 19-year-old was stabbed to death in front of his mother or the 14-year-old girl who was gang-raped
Simply put, I quit my job so that I could do exposure therapy for PTSD and live in a spare room in my parents’ house while I recover. It’s really not the same.
