Bridget Carney has seen burnout from every angle — as a family member of first responders, a former Fortune 25 executive, and a therapist who knows that being trauma-informed and being culturally competent are not the same thing. Her advice for everyone: say the hard thing out loud.

Integrations engineer Nischal Rana joins Systems Check to talk burnout in DevOps culture — why the grind gets normalized, what it really costs over time, and the one mindset shift that changes everything: stop optimizing for your best days and start building for your average ones.

Burnout is a prolonged pattern of physical and emotional symptoms that hasn’t been addressed. It’s the result of chronic workplace stress and is rarely talked about openly. Burnout has many layers, often including cynicism, lethargy, depression, and physical symptoms like headaches and chronic pain.