Job Burnout - Apology to Dr. Beverly Potter

I got a comment from Dr. Beverly Potter, who is an authority on Burnout. Since my reply to that comment became a lil long, it can not be published as a comment and hence this new post.

Dear Dr. Beverly Potter,

When I am writing this, I don’t have any idea about whether you agree with Dr. Freudenberger or disagree. I don’t have any idea whether you two have different approach or not. Yes, you are an authority on Burnout, just like Dr. Freudenberger. I don’t have any disagreement.

You won’t believe how much happiness you brought into my life. I consider today as a special day. Somebody like YOU, an internationally reputed psychologist, mailing me is like a dream coming true. When I read that, I woke up my wife (yap, it was night and sleeping time) from sleep and told her that YOU personally wrote to me. I felt really happy and I wanted to share it with somebody. So I even sent couple of mails to my friends saying that YOU wrote to me. I just don’t care whether you are scolding me or not coz you have all the right and authority to do so. Thanks a ton for writing to me. I feel really excited.

Bur I think I better clarify on certain things.

First of all, my blog’s nature is entirely different from the site you have. I am not at all an authority to talk on Job Burnout, I know. But that does not limit me from sharing what I read about burnout (when I read science, I usually depend on universities or some reputed non profit organizations). If you go through my blog, you can find one thing, I write about so many things. politics, religion, spirituality, poems, science..most of them are some comments on current issues. Sometimes it’s just sharing what I read recently. Some are my personal views and when I borrow other’s, I give them due credit..its a layman’s blog just like the hundreds of thousands of others you can find in the net.

About diminishing comments. When we say something, it has a lot to do with our personal experience. In my case, when I wrote about sleep, last week, a person just left a web-address as comment (which I did not publish) where he keeps lots of ads and products which offer ‘better sleep’. My blog had nothing to do with ‘how to get better sleep’. When I wrote about Cholesterol and saturated fat, I received over 3000 comments (to sell their products). You won’t believe, but that is a fact. All those comments were ‘dropped’ by programs designed to do so, automatically. I had very hard time to remove those manually. All other comments I got are very much present there. Thirdly, usually I don’t get any comments!. May be its coz of my previous experiences that I did not publish your comment. I thought you were trying to sell books. If that is not true, I misunderstood you. I hardly think it has anything to do with my low self esteem or negativity.

I have no idea at all about how much you are paid for writing books. Three of my cousins are into book publishing business and I understand that they pay the authors decently. And in the internet, tons of such e-books are there for sale (for increasing height, reducing weight, to gain a 6 pack abs, speed learning, hypnotism…). As I told you earlier, am seeing this from my environment.

About stuffs we could find in internet. It’s the era of technology. Now information is available at our finger tips. Previously I used read a lot of (physical) books. These days many people read even news papers online. These days, I too heavily depend on internet for my reading, just like millions of others. I subscribe lots of newsletters and podcasts from many reputed organizations. I find it a blessing coz now I can get articles even from Harvard University, which I can only dream of, otherwise. After all, the information you are providing for free, which you left as a link and asked me to read too is through internet, we can’t ignore that.

Yes, your site is packed with contents (mostly through links). How do lots of free sites exist? Some sites are there to spy on us (for many reasons including marketing). And some sites make money when a user clicks a link. Here in my case, I know how much information Google collects from me. And if anybody clicks on that Amazon link I have kept in my site and buys a book, I will get paid. In your case, when I visited your site, what I saw is book for sale, Google ads, and so many (useful, of course) links. Usually, sites route/exchange links on business relations. They have some mutual understandings and ‘terms’, which WE do not have. Now you know why I was ‘selfish’. Your case may be different, but again, I am telling this based on my personal experiences (Some people took advantage of my innocence/ignorance and that is the reason why I lost Google ads.. When I started my blog, I too had Google ads)

Finally, I am not there to argue with you. As I mentioned earlier, in my blog, I share what I reads. It was useful to many people. Here in this case too, I read many articles on burnout, written by qualified people (doctors and psychologists). As with most of the things in our life, people might have difference of opinion; this is applicable in the scientific community too. Initially, I thought it was unfortunate that I did not read your books and articles. Now I think, it was something good, otherwise, I wouldn’t have received not even a word from you..

If I hurt your feelings or if you think that I tried to degrade your work, please understand that it wasn’t intentional and kindly accept my apologies.

Take care and God bless..

***************
The comment reads as follows:

I did, indeed, post the comment and not any web master. Freudenberger's high cost of high achievement is the typical - lower-your-expectations and accept-your-place-in-life approach. Also known as "blame the victim" view.Interesting that you must diminish my comments. Just about anything that you can find in internet research has more weight than what I wrote. This is probably due to your 1) assumption that no one of substance would comment on your site, i.e, low self esteem, and 2) your entrenched negativity.With regard to my motive being the lowly "to sell books". Hummmm, not only do you degrade any work associated with income, but you reduce me to be motivated by getting 50 cent or perhaps a dollar - the general amount that filters down to an author. Any more noble motivate - such as being a freelance educator.My what a dreary reality your create in your world - this cognitive style creates a vulnerability to burnout.I am, indeed, an authority on job burnout and for a very long time. I appeared in many media interviews with Dr. Freudenberger. And I am an expert in motivation - "social learning", behavior mod etc.My site is packed with excellent content - and, of all free - but you, rather selfishly, with hold the site address. Oh well . . . I will be gone from your reality in a few moments, but you are trapped within it - in its toxins. For your curiosity, I learned of your posting from Google Alerts.