They told us to stop reporting burnout. They should have given clearer instructions.

They literally said, “Stop reporting about office burnout.” So I stopped. Meticulously, cheerfully, and in writing.

For four weeks I complied like a model employee in a dystopian HR training video: weekly status emails titled “Burnout: None to report,” a column in the shared spreadsheet filled with the word NO, and a calendar block labeled “Self Care (Do Not Notice).” It was the exact opposite of a complaint — an immaculate paper trail proving that nothing was wrong.

The fun part (for me; less fun for the company) was how quickly silence stops being evidence and starts being a policy. The suggestion that folks should just clench and stop talking about exhaustion turned a real problem into an administrable checkbox. Which, as one helpful commenter put it, is when you realize HR never gave you EAP resources — they gave you plausible deniability.

So yes: hope you’re okay now, OP — and to anyone whose manager thinks quiet equals healthy, congratulations. You have successfully institutionalized denial. Enjoy your spreadsheet; it’s very neat.