BUSINESS ENGLISH PARIS: WORD OF THE DAY IS BURNOUT

BUSINESS ENGLISH PARIS: WORD OF THE DAY IS BURNOUT

French translation is: burnout, épuisement

Hello my darlings, 

How are you today? I hope great. I feel like I am talking to myself when I ask these questions. Nobody reads my stupid blog. 😆 Well, maybe one day I  will have a reader.

Perfect luggage for an adult with burnout

For now, I happily talk to myself....So, today is Friday and I decided to select the word BURNOUT for Business English Paris today. Why? I don't know. It seemed weirdly appropriate to select that word on a Friday in early March for some strange reason. 

I had no idea that the French also used the word burnout, though. It is yet another word that has been hijacked from English, it seems. But according to Google Translate, you can also use the word épuisement. Have you ever suffered professional burnout or anything close to it? I understand it is a real thing, a real syndrome that can sometimes be so bad, it is actually career-ending. But burnout is not limited to a professional context, I don't think. It seems to me that you can suffer burnout even if you don't have a 9-5 job. It is just about feeling overwhelmed, drained and unable to cope with demands. 

But when people think of burnout, I think most people think of it in the context of their 9-5 jobs (of course a lot of jobs go much longer than 9-5 so really, it isn't about the hours of work, it's just the work.). They don't think of it in terms of someone who doesn't work in a traditional job. I know for myself, when I think of burnout, I think of it in the context of work. 

A recent article in Forbes said the following about burnout:
" The American Psychological Association’s David Ballard, PsyD describes job burnout as 'an extended period of time where someone experiences exhaustion and a lack of interest in things, resulting in a decline in their job performance.'”

So, it is almost like they are saying burnout is not caused by your job. It just affects your job in a negative way. Burnout is when you are exhausted for a long time and then your job suffers, in other words.

So, what Business English conversation can we get from this word? Well, do you know anyone, including yourself who has ever had burnout? What was the situation? Was the person a workaholic who was destined to implode because of unreasonable demands they made on themselves? Did the person just have a difficult time with "balancing" their work life and their private life? How do you think that working professionals can avoid burnout? Do French people suffer burnout a lot? Or do you think on average they are better at balancing work and leisure than Americans? 

Americans do think that French professionals take a lot of holidays and petit weekends during the year and so we sort of look to French people to show us how NOT to burnout. But this could just be a stereotype because some of my students have said they have had burnout and also, the French don't think they are experts on relaxation. They look to the Scandinavians for that. Or maybe it's not a stereotype, I don't know. You tell me. Let's talk about this subject of burnout. What are your thoughts?

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