There’s always that moment when you look around the office—or the virtual meeting grid—and suddenly realize something feels… off. Someone who used to crack jokes is eerily quiet, another who used to answer emails at lightning speed is now mysteriously “circling back tomorrow,” and the team’s once-bubbly energy feels more like a week-old soda. Burnout rarely kicks the door down dramatically; it sneaks in quietly, wearing a polite smile and carrying a laptop. And while everyone thinks they’re hiding it well, burnout is one of the worst undercover agents on Earth.
If you know what to look for, you can spot it long before your coworker spontaneously combusts into a stressed-out cloud of Slack notifications.
