If you grew up in South Africa, like me, you will know theCreepy Crawly. For everyone else: imagine a slow-moving pool cleaner that hisses and clicks as it inches along the bottom of a swimming pool, vacuuming up dirt. Most of the time, it is just part of the background. You hardly notice it. Until you accidentally step on it while swimming. Then your body jolts, your heart races, and you shoot to the surface in panic—only to realize it is harmless, familiar, and always there.
Burnout is like that. It moves slowly in the background, almost invisible, until one day you “step on it” and get a fright you cannot ignore. What looked like resilience suddenly feels like collapse. What seemed normal was actually warning you all along.
Burnout begins with micro-stresses. You stay late “just this once.” You skip rest to finish a project. You reply to one more email before bed. Each action seems small, even rational. Over time, they stack up. What started as an exception becomes the new normal. Just like the Creepy Crawly circling silently beneath the surface, burnout builds quietly. You adapt to it. Until one day you bump into it head-on.
High performers are most at risk because they mistake endurance for strength.
Many attach identity to being the one who can carry more, last longer, or push harder. Exhaustion feels like a challenge to overcome, not a signal to stop. So we say,I am just busyorthis is only temporary. We re-frame red flags as proof of resilience. By the time we realize otherwise, the body forces us to the surface.
There is a cruel irony in physiology. At first, stress sends clear warning signals: racing thoughts, restless nights, irritability. But when stress becomes chronic, the nervous system adapts. Cortisol and adrenaline become the new background hum. Just like the Creepy Crawly’s clicking noise fades into the rhythm of the pool, the body normalizes overload. You stop noticing the very signals that should alarm you.
If personal blind spots were not enough, workplace cultures often reinforce them. Many organizations still treat over-extension as commitment. Staying late, answering emails at midnight, taking on “just one more project” are praised as signs of loyalty. The early symptoms of burnout—fatigue, withdrawal, cynicism—get mislabeled as hard work. The Creepy Crawly is celebrated as proof of a clean pool, even as it becomes a hazard to swimmers.
The last trap is cognitive.
Burnout rarely announces itself. Its symptoms look like something else: forgetfulness gets blamed on age, low mood on the weather, irritability on deadlines. Each piece is explainable in isolation. Only when you step on the Creepy Crawly—the fright moment—do you see the whole picture. Unfortunately, that recognition usually comes at breaking point.
The lesson is simple: burnout is not an event. It is a trajectory.
You do not fall off a cliff—you slide down a slope. Like a Creepy Crawly, it is always there in the background, moving quietly, until one day you collide with it.
The smarter question is notAm I burned out?butAm I moving toward burnout?Leaders can help by shifting the culture from praising endurance to normalizing recovery. Individuals can help themselves by treating energy like a resource to manage, not a badge to prove.
If you wait until the fright, it is already too late. The Creepy Crawly is always in the pool. The challenge is to notice it before you step on it.