Amazon, Microsoft, and Burnout: Mental Health in Seattle Tech
You're paid well. On paper, you made it. So why do you feel like a phone stuck at 4% battery that never quite gets to charge?
If you work in tech in the Seattle area, this feeling probably needs no explanation. Whether your badge says Amazon, Microsoft, or one of the hundreds of startups and satellite offices scattered from South Lake Union to Bellevue to Redmond, there's a particular kind of depletion that comes with this industry in this city. It doesn't lift on the weekend. It follows you home.
Perfectionism at Work: The Habit That's Quietly Draining You
Perfectionism at work rarely looks like perfectionism. It looks like rereading an email a fifth time before sending it, or spending an hour on a slide nobody will look at for longer than three seconds, and it gets called conscientiousness right up until it starts costing you your evenings.
If this is you, you probably don't call it a problem. You call it having high standards. And here's the thing — you likely are excellent at what you do. But I want to gently name something I see often in my practice: perfectionism at work is a habit that masquerades as a strength while draining you from the inside. It costs far more than it gives, and most of that cost is invisible until you're running on empty.