🔥 Burn-out / Max-out: Do you think you played a role in your colleague’s?

In the workplace, no one really works entirely on their own.

We’re part of a team, a department, a unit.
And burn-out? Research is still debating causes and factors, but meanwhile…

Everyone contributes to the objectives set by management.

When a project succeeds, everyone applauds.

But when you join that 7 p.m. celebration instead of going home, what you’re actually celebrating is:

• That Sabine sacrificed her evenings.

• That Kevin answered emails on Sunday.

• That Jean-Claude kept managing the project from Mauritius.

It’s brushed aside as inevitable.

The result: the project gets delivered, and everyone self-congratulates.

But what if that success is built on the exhaustion of one—or several—individuals?
What if it’s when Thomas, Sofia, or Delphine smile in meetings while being completely drained?

What if it’s when people keep saying, “I love my job” while slowly killing their family life?

👉 It has a name: Max-out.

Max-out isn’t about an “extraordinary” high-performing employee.
It’s the invisible exploitation of their so-called fulfillment.

A system where self-regulation and “engagement” become management’s best tools of alienation.

Unspoken exhaustion turns into the sacrifice of the devoted employee.

They give everything—without saying it, without showing it enough—like that top student pretending they never studied.

⚠️ And here, everyone shares responsibility.

Some more than others.

Your colleague doesn’t need applause. They need your support to escape the matrix.

When you call them at 7 p.m. during their kids’ dinner rush—or on weekends to talk work or gossip—you’re not helping. (ungendered example)

But the worst? All those management consultants, team-building experts, HR professionals, “well-being at work” coaches, and even mental health practitioners who choose not to see, not to think about it, and who keep reinforcing the very system that feeds on this.

Because deep down, everyone is focused on their own survival.

Wake up.

👉 To finally understand the real causes of professional exhaustion—and to read the case of Jean-Claude (a true story)—it’s free and open-access here:
https://zenodo.org/records/16790124