Said It Here

How to handle severe work burnout and zero motivation

Severe burnout leaves professionals feeling mentally blank and unable to process complex work, making it impossible to care about daily tasks like reviews and compensation. This exhaustion is compounded by an endless stream of disjointed requests and out-of-scope tickets that make staying focused completely unmanageable.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Taking a sick day
  2. 2
    Using AI to handle tasks outside of one's area of expertise
  3. 3
    Doing the bare minimum required or letting tickets gather dust
  4. 4
    Looking for a new job or planning to collect severance before leaving

In their words

Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.

r/sysadmin2 people · September 2026

“lately I'm so burnt out that I no longer understand anything.”source ↗

“I get SO MANY REQUESTS! And nothing has to do with anything else anymore”source ↗

“Now I get 20 tickets that are completely out of my area of expertise”source ↗

dk1988 · r/sysadmin · 95 upvotes

“Burnout is real, at least you know you won't get paid more for the overwork.”source ↗

carcaliguy · r/sysadmin · 1 upvotes
r/Accounting1 person · September 2026

“I have zero motivation to go to work and finish these reviews and comp. i just dont give a sht anymore”source ↗

Cool_Paramedic_9068 · r/Accounting · 1 upvotes

Where this came up

People with this problem also raised