Sunday Edition: ADOTAT Unplugged

Well, look who’s sticking around. Apparently, you’re into this—so we’re doubling down. Turns out, I actually enjoy grilling people on-camera and off, and I’ve picked up more than a few things along the way. So, on Sundays, brace yourself for the unfiltered version—personal stories, journeys, and all the stuff you definitely didn’t sign up for but won’t want to miss.

Welcome to ADOTAT Unfiltered—where buzzwords go to die, PR fluff gets roasted, and the only spin is the brutal truth. Expect raw insights, hard-hitting industry realities, and just enough weekend wit to keep your neurons firing.

For less than whatever overpriced, pumpkin-flavored nonsense Starbucks is shilling this season, you’ll get the stuff they don’t want you to know—deep dives, behind-the-scenes scoops, and the kind of no-BS analysis you actually need.

Your Sunday inbox deserves better. Mondays can wait.

🧘‍♂️ What Burnout Really Looks Like in Adtech

Forget self-care. Try self-respect.

Let’s stop pretending burnout is about working too hard. It’s not. No one’s burning out because they gave a damn—it’s because they gave a damn for too long, in a system that rewarded them with 147 Slack channels, an “urgent” Figma file labeled “final_v7_REAL,” and a CMO who thinks “Can we add AI?” is a strategy.

This isn’t exhaustion. This is professional Stockholm Syndrome, served with oat milk and OKRs.

🧠 The Myth of Overwork

We’ve been gaslit into thinking burnout is our fault. “Maybe I just need better work-life balance,” we say, while answering a Teams message from someone named Brett at 11:43 p.m. on a Sunday. (You don’t.)

What’s actually happening?
You’re suffocating under a pile of fake urgency, performative prioritization, and tools pretending to be solutions.

🧩 Miro boards that look like FBI crime walls.
📈 Weekly KPI reviews that feel more like hostage negotiations.
💬 Slack messages that open with “quick Q” and end in full-blown existential spirals.

You're not tired. You’re spiritually dehydrated from pouring creativity into a void and calling it a media plan.

🪦 The Existential Rot, or: Why You Fantasize About Being a Florist

Here’s the part no one puts in their LinkedIn TED Talk:

👉 You’ve looked at your calendar and thought, “If I fake food poisoning right now, I can clear 6 hours.”
👉 You’ve started daydreaming about jobs with no internet access. Forest ranger. UPS driver. Person who folds sweaters at The Gap.
👉 You’ve begun referring to your Asana task list as “The Scroll of Eternal Suffering.”

You’re not lazy. You’re just watching your work be reduced to noise—measured, scored, and dissected until it has less soul than a programmatic bid request.

Burnout isn’t a personal failing. It’s a logical outcome of treating humans like CPUs that can’t throttle. The latency is real, folks.

📅 Your Calendar Is Not a Schedule. It’s a Hostage Situation.

Let’s talk about time. Or rather, the illusion that you control any of it.

Every “quick sync” eats your lunch break.
Every “let’s circle back” call steals 45 minutes you’ll never get back.
Every “internal brainstorm” you weren’t needed in? That’s your sanity tax.

By Thursday, you’ve become a ghost with Google access, haunting your own inbox.

Your “workday” isn’t bookended by deep focus. It’s a pavlovian loop of pings, decks, fake deadlines, and maybe—if you’re lucky—a 12-minute window where you remember why you got into this field in the first place. (You did, once. We all did.)

🧘‍♀️ Self-Care Is a Scam. Try Self-Respect.

Let’s be honest:
🫧 Meditation apps aren’t fixing this.
🫖 Herbal tea won’t save you.
📵 “Digital detox” is a marketing campaign, not a cure.

You don’t need a break. You need boundaries.
You need to stop gaslighting yourself into thinking it’s “just a phase.”
You need to say “No” so loudly it echoes through your quarterly planning call.

Burnout isn’t fixed by breathing deeper.
It’s fixed by saying:
🚫 “No, I won’t attend another internal metrics review disguised as a vision session.”
🚫 “No, I don’t need to be cc’d on this.”
🚫 “No, I won’t pretend your ‘real-time campaign pivot’ is anything but chaos.”

🧪 So We Made You a Test. Because Obviously We Did.

We know. You’re still going to question whether it’s burnout or just a bad week. (Hint: it’s both.)

So we built a little diagnostic tool, because it’s easier than therapy and more honest than your last all-hands.

👉 Coming up next: “Are You Burnt or Just Bored?”
It’s five questions. Zero fluff. All shade.

🤯 Are You Burnt or Just Bored?

The only adtech quiz that tells you what your HR department won’t.

Let’s face it: You’re either flirting with burnout or doomscrolling through mediocrity. There’s no in-between. Take this painfully accurate quiz to find out whether you’re one Slack ping away from quitting—or just emotionally disengaged with a side of sarcasm.

1. When someone says “data-driven,” you...

A) Nod like a polite hostage
B) Feel your soul crawl into a corner and light a cigarette
C) Black out and wake up Googling “off-grid cabin WiFi options”

2. You opened a dashboard this week and thought…

A) “Let’s optimize.”
B) “Who designed this hell portal?”
C) “If I die right now, please clear my browser history.”

3. Your most-used Slack emoji is…

A) 👏 (The corporate tap dance)
B) 🧠 (For pretending there’s strategy behind the chaos)
C) 😵‍💫 (The emoji equivalent of whisper-screaming into a pillow)

4. You were excited to write this week’s QBR because…

A) You live for insights and wear a KPI as jewelry
B) You’re contractually obligated to care
C) You replaced the entire deck with ChatGPT-generated haikus and no one noticed

5. You told your therapist…

A) “I’m fine. Just the usual launch stress.”
B) “I haven’t felt joy since programmatic became a word.”
C) “I fantasize about deleting Google Calendar and becoming a bartender named Fern.”

📉 Results Breakdown:

Mostly A’s:
✨ Still climbing the corporate jungle gym.
You're optimistic, caffeinated, and probably still believe a “quick sync” can be quick. Stay hydrated—and maybe…don’t.

Mostly B’s:
😐 Teetering on the edge like a half-loaded DSP report.
You haven’t snapped yet, but your “Haha sounds good!”s are getting slower and more loaded with menace. One more AI rebrand and you're switching to interpretive dance.

Mostly C’s:
🔥 You’ve left the building, spiritually if not legally.
Congrats. You’ve reached existential adtech nirvana. Next stop: opening a taco truck, starting a Substack, or selling artisanal click-through rates at a farmer’s market. Anything but another deck with “Q4 alignment” in the title.

This quiz was powered by three breakdowns, one iced coffee, and a total loss of corporate patience. 🧃

🛋️ Sunday Reset: What Actually Helps (According to Burnt Ad Folks)

Spoiler: It’s not a gratitude journal or a Peloton subscription.

Let’s be real: the usual burnout advice is written by people who’ve never stared into the dead eyes of a programmatic campaign report at 2 a.m., wondering if the word "performance" still has meaning.

You’ve read the LinkedIn fluff—“Just meditate! Set intentions! Drink chlorophyll!”—as if the problem is your vibe, not the soul-sucking marathon of back-to-back Zooms, KPIs no one believes in, and 17 versions of a deck that will be forgotten before it's even presented.

So, we did something radical: we asked actual adtech survivors what pulled them back from the brink. Not execs trying to sell a productivity app. Not influencers doing yoga in front of ring lights. Real, burnt-to-a-crisp, formerly-optimistic professionals who once cried in a WeWork bathroom.

Here’s what they told us:

💬 “I turned off notifications for an entire weekend. Monday felt illegal.”
Because nothing says rebellion like not being enslaved by a Slack ping at 7:12 p.m. on a Saturday. You don’t need digital detox. You need permission to be unreachable without a corporate wellness disclaimer.

💬 “I told my boss I needed to take two real days off. She blinked like I’d just spoken Latin.”
And that’s the state of it, isn’t it? Asking for rest is treated like a foreign language—because we’ve normalized burnout to the point where “not being constantly available” sounds like a scandal. Take the days. Force the awkward silence. You’re not asking. You’re stating.

💬 “Honestly? I started saying ‘no’ more. No to the brainstorm. No to the ‘quick deck.’ No to toxic optimism.”
This one’s the killer app. Not a SaaS tool. Not a Notion template. Just the raw, defiant power of No. No, I will not join your 4:30 p.m. “blue-skying session.” No, I will not pretend this half-baked “pivot” is inspiring. No, I will not be guilt-tripped into fake enthusiasm for the 9th campaign rebrief this quarter.

🧠 The Challenge: A Simple Rebellion

Next week, don’t just breathe deeper or install another mindfulness app you’ll forget in 6 days. Say "no"—like you mean it.

• ❌ Say no to one unnecessary meeting (you know the one).

• ❌ Say no to one fake deadline set by someone who forgot you're not a robot.

• ❌ Say no to one task that brings no value, just noise.

If you’re feeling brave, say no without a smiley face emoji. That’s the real power move.

Burnout isn’t fixed with bubble baths. It’s fixed with boundaries. With turning off the noise. With giving fewer polite nods to bad ideas. You don’t need to quit your job and move to a goat farm—unless you want to. (Honestly? Tempting.)

You just need to start treating your energy like budget. Because if adtech’s going to keep draining your soul, the least you can do is stop offering it up for free.