I went through serious burnout a couple years ago. It had less to do with the industry itself, and more to do with my employer at the time. There were a lot of promises made when I took that job, and very little follow through.

I was constantly having to work around disasters created by the sales guy, who was the son in law of one of the owners. He would change my system designs without telling me, slip jobs onto the schedule without my approval, and make ridiculous promises based on using product that he had zero knowledge of. To top it off, I actually made more sales than he did, yet never saw a dime of commission, nor any other form of incentive.

To add insult to injury, I'd say I was the lowest paid lead tech/system designer/programmer in the entire US.

Luckily, a little over half of those after hours phone calls would first be fielded by Mr. Sales Guy, but I still ended up having to deal with it because he never had an answer for the client.

After 4 years of this garbage, an opportunity came up to take a job as a fishing guide with my girlfriend's family's business. I knew it would be seasonal work, and winter would leave a huge income gap, but I was so fed up, I ran with it. I walked into the CEO's office with my resignation letter in hand, and explained to him that I was burned out, not on the career itself, but on the rampant douchebaggery of the organization. My exact words were "Bill, every morning when I wake up, it occurs to me that I would rather stab a f*cking fork through my hand than spend another day dealing with the crap here. I'm going fishing. You have 30 days to find a replacement. I'd like to say it's been nice working here, but I try not to lie. You may want to pay the next guy something that at least resembles a reasonable salary."

My year off as a fishing guide was fun, but we all knew it was only temporary. Once my non compete expired, I started putting things in motion to relaunch and be my own boss again. I'm always happier when working for myself. It's been just shy of a year since I opened my own shop, and despite the stresses of worrying about money during slow months, I couldn't be happier. Business has been good enough that I'm not constantly stressing. My schedule has been unexpectedly flexible. If nothing important is on the schedule, and we get a good rain, I have the liberty of throwing the kayak on the truck and paddling some elusive creek or a quick run down the big water of the New River Gorge. It keeps me sane, and content with my choice. Will this be a lasting situation? I doubt it. Business is steadily picking up, but still not enough that I won't be able to call some random Tuesday a F*ck it day and go run some class IV whitewater.