From Bash to Burnout: My SCaLE 23x Talk

I gave this talk at SCaLE 23x in Pasadena as part of Open Source Career Day, and it is probably the most personal thing I have ever put on a stage.

2025 was a hard year. I lost a job I had tied my entire identity to, spent 96 days working overnight shifts at a gas station, and went through some personal upheaval I was not prepared for. I did not plan to turn any of that into a conference talk. But when I was asked to speak, it felt dishonest to stand up in front of a room full of sysadmins and IT folks and pretend I had it all figured out.

The talk covers what burnout actually looks like before you realize it is happening, the patterns that lead there, the signals I missed in my own life, and some practical things that genuinely helped. Not productivity hacks. Real stuff, like building a daily rhythm when everything falls apart, maintaining a few relationships with no agenda, and learning to separate your identity from your employer before a reorg does it for you.

I also talk about what I did right after the layoff and what I would do differently. Spoiler: I should have taken time to grieve before immediately hunting for the next thing.

If any of this sounds familiar, the recording is worth 40 minutes of your time.

Burnout is not a personal failing. It is a warning sign. I needed someone to say that to me in 2025, so I figured I would say it to a room full of people instead.