A candid weekly look at navigating burnout, rebuilding, and finding my next role.
(Wednesday before Thanksgiving → Black Friday)
This was my first full week of being unemployed — a sentence that still feels a little strange to write. The week started with shock, surged into relief, dipped into sadness, and eventually settled into a gentle rhythm I’m just beginning to understand.
Here’s how it went.
The Day I Was Let Go
Wednesday began like any other workday. Then I got a calendar invite for a meeting with my boss and an HR rep — and in that meeting, I learned that my time at FanDuel Sports Network had come to an end.
I won’t go into internal details, and I don’t intend to cast anything in a negative light. What I will say is that the moment the call ended and my access was cut off, something surprising happened:
I felt relief. A huge wave of it.
It was like a weight I’d been carrying for far too long finally lifted off my shoulders. The stress, the dread, the sense of burnout that had been slowly consuming me — all of it softened in an instant.
The rest of that day felt almost euphoric.
I dropped off my equipment at UPS, came home, and spent the evening feeling lighter than I had in months. I felt free. Hopeful. Energized. Ready to breathe again.
It wasn’t until the next morning, when I didn’t have a standup meeting to prepare for, that the reality began to settle in.
Thanksgiving: A Quiet Pause
I didn’t tell my family what had happened — partly because I didn’t want to add a heavy note to the holiday, and partly for personal reasons that make sharing this news complicated.
As holidays go, Thanksgiving wasn’t too bad. I’m usually overwhelmed by the stress that comes with this time of year, but this one was surprisingly tolerable. I let myself relax, tried not to think about work, and focused on simply being present.
But being around that many people — especially while carrying emotions I wasn’t expressing — was more exhausting than usual. I was grateful when the day slowed down again.
Building a New Morning Routine
Once the holiday passed, I started leaning into a new sense of structure.
It’s actually been the most important part of keeping me grounded this week.
My mornings now look something like this:
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Get up and feed the cats
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Get dressed
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Make my bottle of Zipfizz
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Eat a small breakfast
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Sit down at my desk
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Go through my RSS feeds (about 1,000 posts a day)
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Read what interests me
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Do a short meditation
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Watch some Twitch streams
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Figure out a blog post for the day
It’s a mix of old familiar habits and new comforting ones — and together, they give my mornings a sense of purpose. Not productivity. Just purpose.
After that, depending on my energy, I’ll do a couple small chores, maybe watch a .NET video, or apply for a job or two on LinkedIn. I’m not expecting much from these applications — it’s the end of the year, and hiring slows down — but I need to satisfy unemployment requirements, and it feels good to at least be moving.
Afternoons: Socializing, Small Wins, and MoveableEats
I try to get out of the house each afternoon — even if it’s just to pick up food or run an errand. Having little moments of social interaction helps keep me from drifting into isolation. Going out with a friend a couple of times definitely helped too.
And of course, I’ve been spending some time on MoveableEats (my mobile app side project).
Honestly, I might have pushed myself a little hard too quickly. I didn’t intend to dive into it as much as I did, because I want to avoid deepening my burnout. But once I started fixing bugs and testing flows, I slipped into a state of focus that felt… good.
Really good.
Progress feels meaningful right now — especially progress on something that’s entirely mine. No deadlines. No meetings. No pressure. Just creation.
GitHub Copilot certainly made some of the tougher parts easier, but even the challenging bugs didn’t drain me like I feared they would.
Black Friday: The Low Point
Normally, Black Friday is my favorite day of the year. I plan for it, I shop, I enjoy it. It’s tradition.
This year, I chose to sit it out.
Financially, it made sense. Emotionally, it didn’t feel great.
Even though I’d bought a MacBook Air a couple days before — technically a Black Friday deal — it didn’t scratch the itch of shopping on Black Friday. And skipping it brought out feelings of sadness and depression I wasn’t fully prepared for.
I spent most of the day playing The Witcher 3, listening to music, and trying to pull myself out of the funk. It helped, but the day still ended up being my lowest point of the week.
Evenings: Familiar Comfort
My evenings haven’t changed much. TV. Twitch. Some gaming. Occasional bug fixing.
The only real difference is that I no longer avoid my computer — it’s no longer associated with stress, panic, or looming deadlines.
It’s simply mine again.
Where I’m At Now
The first week has been a blend of relief, sadness, possibility, and adjustment.
Losing my job has given me space to finally start healing from burnout — something I didn’t realize just how badly I needed.
I’m slowly building structure. I’m reconnecting with myself. I’m doing what I can, when I can. And most importantly, I’m allowing this time to be what it needs to be:
the beginning of a gradual, intentional recovery.
Next week, I plan to write about my longer-term burnout recovery roadmap — the 3–4 month plan that will guide me forward.
For now, I’m taking things one day, one morning routine, one small win at a time.
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