[HN Gopher] Anxiety in product development
___________________________________________________________________
Anxiety in product development
Author : fidrelity
Score : 387 points
Date : 2020-06-04 12:52 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (andreschweighofer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (andreschweighofer.com)
| Tade0 wrote:
| _It highlighted how it can surface in atypical symptoms such as
| anger._
|
| This caught my attention, because out of all the men and women I
| know who experience anxiety, this was the most typical way the
| former expressed it.
|
| Who is the benchmark for how anxiety is expressed?
| war1025 wrote:
| When all of this Coronavirus stuff was kicking up I found
| myself having a much shorter temper with my kids and in general
| more angry outbursts. My heartrate also kept popping up into
| the 150bpm+ range. I think it was like 177 one time I checked.
|
| Didn't really connect it all together until after the fact, but
| it was very much related to the anxiety and uncertainty of a
| rapidly changing situation.
|
| About a month later, I was feeling pretty relaxed and checked
| my heart rate again. 50bpm.
|
| I think I read somewhere that people have a hard time focusing
| if their heart rate gets above 100 or 120 bpm (I don't remember
| which). Definitely proved true for me. I couldn't think
| straight for most of March.
| wsantas wrote:
| CBD, Meditation, self-care, reduction of social media usage,
| reduction of news watching...
|
| CBD is a highly effective tool for the toolbox, imo
| MattGaiser wrote:
| The industry term for this is Scrum.
| gtm1260 wrote:
| As a new developer, I think I fall into this trap a lot! I always
| don't want to touch other people's methods or introduce bugs, so
| I only make tiny, tiny little changes before thoroughly testing
| everything. It really slows me down.
| chooseaname wrote:
| Good! You should be slow. Slow and deliberate. Break stuff (not
| in production!) and watch how it breaks. Learn from your
| mistakes. Right now you're laying the foundation of your
| confidence as a developer. That confidence is built upon your
| failures and your successes. Have fun newbie!
| onemoresoop wrote:
| You should be slow with other people's code. I bet that if you
| work on something solo you'd be much faster and that is because
| you're intimate with the code, you know what could go wrong,
| where, etc..
|
| Second, the slowness comes from the fact it takes a lot more
| time to read and understand code that to write it, let alone
| trust that it is doing what is doing correctly. If you don't
| introduce bugs and are very careful you won't have nightmarish
| surprises. Keep up.
| haolez wrote:
| The author's blog is incredibly good. I'm binging some articles
| right now :)
| fidrelity wrote:
| Thanks! If you have anything you particularly like or dislike
| please let me know. I'd really appreciate any feedback.
| haolez wrote:
| I'd like to make a fan request: what do you think of this?
|
| https://riskfirst.org/
|
| I read this a few weeks ago and some things there made a lot
| of sense, but I still can't envision the whole development
| process with Risk First being a protagonist.
| fidrelity wrote:
| Hey! I also saw that page not long ago on HN and I quite
| like it. I think under certain circumstances it makes sense
| to view software engineering processes mainly under the
| lense of risk. There are a few thoughts I have about this
| though: it reminds me of the saying that if your only tool
| is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.
|
| I think what it really is about is managing _uncertainty_
| and talking about risks is one of many tools for that.
| crucialfelix wrote:
| I'm also binging. This article in particular describes the
| team and workflow problems we have and that I want to fix
| right now
| sradman wrote:
| I've often thought that pair programming and daily stand ups work
| because they align with our natural social behavior. This could
| be fear or anxiety driven but it doesn't have to be. Do
| scientists have a non-intrusive and accurate mechanism to
| continuously monitor the endocrine/nervous system response over
| hours/days? Working on a software project is often an emotional
| roller coaster ride.
| openfuture wrote:
| Funny, to see this pop up finally.
|
| I've been talking (with my friends) about how all development is
| 'fear driven development' for quite a while now.
|
| Of course I don't mean just software development, but the way it
| manifests in software is instructive.
|
| The different fear responses range from formal methods to FOMO
| but in general we latch onto something as a source of comfort.
|
| Conway's law expanded to how you communicate with yourself.
| pogorniy wrote:
| > development is 'fear driven development' for quite a while
| now.
|
| Do you have examples of fear-driven and non-fear development
| approaches? And what flavors of "non-fear" development are
| possible?
| artsyca wrote:
| Yea dude it's supposed to be a fun learning experience. We
| got into software so we wouldn't have to work, not to be
| driven and crunched to death by self serving management
| culture.
|
| Look at all the early software pioneers do they look like
| they were suffering from constant anxiety vis how productive
| they have been for decades?
| HPsquared wrote:
| I think he's saying there is no such thing as "non-fear-
| driven development".
| dboreham wrote:
| Consider the moive "Silence of the Lambs": Lecter was able to
| get his cell neighbor to swallow his own tongue just through
| his powers of persuasion.
| sjg007 wrote:
| > Conway's law expanded to how you communicate with yourself.
|
| Can you please clarify?
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Not OP, but I'll give it a go:
|
| _Conway 's law is an adage stating that organizations design
| systems that mirror their own communication structure._
|
| In a sense, your own self is an organisation whereby we
| communicate with ourselves in fearful and anxious ways, so
| the systems we build can only be a reflection of that fear
| and anxiety.
| ImprobableTruth wrote:
| Classifying formal methods as a 'fear response' strikes me as
| asinine in the same way that calling safety belts a fear
| response would be. If it's software where failure can cause a
| lot of damage, why wouldn't fear be a natural response?
|
| Frankly, I'd be outright horrified if say the people
| responsible for autonomous driving weren't anxious about
| mistakes, since I'd either have to assume that they just didn't
| care or - perhaps even worse - do not realize the potential
| consequences of their actions.
| alexheikel wrote:
| Do whatever you can to move forward. Every time you start getting
| anxiety, stop. If you can do it harder, while taking care of you,
| do it harder. If you are doing your best, but still thinks its
| slow, don't try to force the situation. Sometimes negative
| results lead to better results. Just keep trying.
| maximum_stress wrote:
| It's funny this came up because I was about to create this
| throwaway account and post an Ask HN for advice anyway.
|
| Me and my team are in the process of delivering a new
| infrastructure provisioning system that will bring 9 figures
| worth of equipment online this year. For the most part we're on
| time modulo the usual bobbles that come from a year-long project
| this size.
|
| My upper management regularly says We're in a new safe space and
| there's room to fail, we're trying to be more like Silicon
| Valley, etc. My new manager told me in our last 1:1 'If you don't
| take your application stack you're delivering and turn it into a
| service in the next 60 days, I'll eliminate your job by year
| end.'
|
| So we're right back to Go Big or Go Home pressure that the
| company has always exerted on people despite lip service to the
| idea we've shed our bad old ways. At least it feels that way to
| me. Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe I should look for another job.
| LOL.
| gav wrote:
| How I think about a situation like this is that your new
| manager has given you new information that you need to decide
| what it means.
|
| Either:
|
| 1) You've never been in a safe space with room to fail, you've
| just been operating under this misunderstanding.
|
| Now you know this, you can correct course and change the goal:
| instead of trying to deliver the best system possible, your
| team should focus on delivering the minimum required to meet
| the goal of having it in 60 days. You can cut scope and reduce
| quality to meet that goal. They are prioritizing the minimum,
| not the best long-term option for the company.
|
| You also now know a new fact about the organization: you don't
| want to be there because it's the type of organization that
| will change the rules on you and fire you for not meeting (what
| sounds like) unreasonable goals. You now have a new goal: find
| a new job. Your manager has helped you re-prioritize, this is
| priority #1 and your project is relegated to #2. Even if you
| don't get fired in 60 days, you risk being fired in 65 or 90
| days, you don't want to be there one day longer than necessary.
|
| 2) You are in a safe space, but your new manager is rogue. Even
| if this is the case, trying to discover that this is the case,
| and trying to remedy the situation if it is, has a huge
| personal risk to you with little benefit.
|
| Your best bet is to look after yourself, not the organization,
| and start looking for a new job. If you go to upper management
| and they don't fire him, you're going to have somebody that has
| power over you that is going to be working against you.
|
| --
|
| It might hard advice to hear, and hard to follow, but you
| should be less stressed about the situation. You now have a
| clear understanding of what you need to do.
|
| Sorry for the long-winded reply. My contact details are in my
| profile, I'm happy to be a confidential sounding board if that
| helps.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I've had a few engineers who struggled with the issues mentioned
| at the beginning of the article. They were skilled engineers who
| typically knew the right thing to do, but felt they needed
| permission or approval to do the things.
|
| And the solution I took was to gently encourage them, but also
| let them be just a little bit uncomfortable. They need a safe
| environment they can fail in with no repercussion, but also need
| to practice overcoming the unknown and being willing to take on
| some risk.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Well, you're probably training them to be autonomous just like
| I'm training my dogs to use the dog door.
|
| They're still uncomfortable doing so because they're used to me
| letting them out, but every so often I let them do their own
| thing and they eventually find their way out.
|
| Soon it will become habit and they won't depend on me so much
| anymore.
| war1025 wrote:
| Serious question I've had about dog doors:
|
| How does a dog door prevent rodents and other riffraff from
| coming in?
| asdfman123 wrote:
| I'm not sure. I live in the city where everything is dead!
| Plus it's extremely hard to get into my backyard (gated
| complex and high cinderblock wall).
|
| I don't think rodents and bugs are typically a problem
| though. People, maybe, but if someone wants to break into
| your house it's not hard to do so and the lack of a dog
| door isn't going to stop them.
| Guest0918231 wrote:
| They make some where you attach a device to the dog's
| collar, and it unlocks the door when they approach.
|
| That being said, I grew up in an area completely surrounded
| by trees and every animal imaginable (squirrels, rabbits,
| coyotes, raccoons, opossums, deer, etc). We had a dog door
| (a simple plastic flap) to our barn. I saw raccoons and
| squirrels with nests literally 10ft from the dog door.
| Nothing ever came inside. The barn even had food (dog food,
| plus a fridge and cupboards with snacks). It was even
| heated during the winter. Nothing came in. I don't know the
| reasoning, but that little piece of plastic kept everything
| out.
| rurp wrote:
| I would guess that the smells and activity from the dog
| would keep a lot of the critters out. Most wild animals
| avoid dogs and don't want to risk getting trapped in an
| unknown space with one. Not that it will always work, but I
| bet the critter traffic is vastly less than if the house
| was left empty with a dog door.
|
| Somewhat related, many of my neighbors have had issues with
| rats. I have seen them on the edges of my yard but never
| seen or heard one inside. I haven't done anything to
| prevent them except for having two indoor cats. These are
| fully domesticated chubby cats that probably couldn't catch
| a wild rat to save their life, but I suspect their presence
| deters rodents for the most part.
| cutemonster wrote:
| > never seen or heard [any rat] inside ... two indoor
| cats ... chubby
|
| > ... couldn't catch a wild rat
|
| I'm seeing a possibly different reality
| cjfd wrote:
| Fear is just a source of information. The emotions we have we
| have because they provide information in one way or another. Much
| like the senses. One cannot let oneself be paralyzed by it,
| though. If one doesn't dare to refactor anything because of fear,
| something needs to happen. E.g., one needs to be able to test
| more effectively or something like that.
| hammock wrote:
| Fear is not raw intelligence, and rather a type of intelligence
| assessment.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Yes, but what leads to anxiety? Toxic team dynamics. Google did a
| study and found the number one predictor of strong teams was a
| feeling of "psychological safety."
|
| > Within psychology, researchers sometimes colloquially refer to
| traits like ''conversational turn-taking'' and ''average social
| sensitivity'' as aspects of what's known as psychological safety
| -- a group culture that the Harvard Business School professor Amy
| Edmondson defines as a ''shared belief held by members of a team
| that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.''
| Psychological safety is ''a sense of confidence that the team
| will not embarrass, reject or punish someone for speaking up,''
| Edmondson wrote in a study published in 1999. ''It describes a
| team climate characterized by interpersonal trust and mutual
| respect in which people are comfortable being themselves.''
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-lear...
|
| My takeaway is you need to be nice, be respectful, and fire toxic
| people even if they do jump through all the right hoops.
| gramontblanc wrote:
| I wonder if the same effect holds true if a team is made up of
| mostly confident/brash people, or if safety-to-project-yourself
| can be trained and elevated independent of any other aspect of
| social environment.
|
| Maybe improv classes or subsidizing employees to exhibit art or
| publicly perform music?
| asdfman123 wrote:
| False dichotomy. You can be confident, brash, and rude to
| each other all day long, as long as everyone is in on it and
| everyone is socially intelligent enough to know each other's
| boundaries.
|
| The problem is when people tell themselves "that's just how I
| am" and don't have a high enough EQ to notice that they're
| coming across as jerks.
|
| Everyone is different and everyone requires a personal touch.
| It's important for people to understand how to get along with
| those who aren't exactly like them.
| gramontblanc wrote:
| Didn't mean to assert a dichotomy, more wondering whether
| the size of the effect of importance of emotional safety
| for expressive freedom varies with some kind of external
| measure of confidence
| cutemonster wrote:
| > Maybe improv classes or ...
|
| Some ppl have a whole life behind them with insecurities and
| bullying and traumas, and
|
| ... Itll be hard for improv classes for a week to have much
| effect compared to that
|
| But still it's an interesting idea, I suppose if the more shy
| ppl in the company got to do impro, that'd be good for the
| company (and them too)
| gramontblanc wrote:
| If it has an effect it could be worth pursuing just to
| measure the size of the effect. If perfection isn't needed,
| "good enough" might be better.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I loved the Permit A38 (too much specification and process)
| description.
|
| I once came into an app project that was really bogged down. The
| team was good, but inexperienced, as was the management. The devs
| weren't doing anything. When I came on they said they told me
| there were no specs for what they should work on. I found a
| folder with several folders with ten, twelve page documents for
| individual features for the app. They would include nice mock
| ups, documentation including back end features, analytics hooks
| and so forth. And we are talking features that were generally
| changes to a screen or a UX widget.
|
| "Why don't we do some of these?" Answer: They needed to go
| through some executive review meeting. Or, they weren't really
| specific enough because some lazy team member could say all the
| edge cases weren't defined. The key was convincing the team that
| as capable people that if the intent was clear, and important
| details specified, they were smart enough as a team to figure out
| the rest. And they were.
| codr7 wrote:
| I've spent around 34 years writing code so far. My last project
| was an online order system for a lunch restaurant. To get an idea
| what kind of problems they're dealing with, I started by working
| two weeks in the restaurant.
|
| To my surprise I found that I actually enjoy delivering food more
| than writing code. As long as the customers get the food they
| ordered delivered in time, everyone is happy. And once I'm done,
| I'm done. No more lying awake at night going back and forth over
| some design decision and worrying about consequences from choices
| already made.
|
| It's not as mentally stimulating, and I earn way less money, but
| I'm finding it harder and harder to find the motivation to go
| back to writing code.
| jmhnilbog wrote:
| Good for you! You can always go back if you get the itch. Most
| tech changes too quickly to catch up with only at the cosmetic
| level anyway. For evidence, see any of the cycles of coders in
| new stacks rediscovering patterns from two stacks ago "for the
| first time".
| mikewhy wrote:
| (I live in a country that pays living wages to waiters and the
| like, so this may sway my opinion)
|
| tbh same. I'm great at what I do, but I still very much miss
| the restaurant environment / more directly helping people.
| chefandy wrote:
| As someone who has both coded and worked in restaurants for
| over a decade each, I assume that once the novelty wears off,
| you'll a) probably get start getting frustrated with restaurant
| life, overall and b) the lower income has its own long-term
| stressors that will grate on you.
|
| I could be wrong though. If you end up just genuinely being a
| restaurant person, maybe occasionally doing some coding to
| supplement your income, that's fantastic. There are many things
| I loved about the restaurant industry.
| wpietri wrote:
| I get this entirely. And for me, this is driven by broken
| feedback loops in software.
|
| Some years back, I started a company with an excellent product
| manager, one very focused on actual user impact. One of the
| first things we did is build a tiny, cheap usability lab; every
| Tuesday we'd have 4 users in to try things out. We rigged it so
| engineers could watch the sessions remotely, and for the
| sessions we didn't watch, he'd share key bits. It was really
| satisfying to see stuff getting used, what worked, what didn't.
|
| Later, as we grew, we still kept the user tests, but added on a
| slick system for experiments. All of us were involved in
| thinking about what to test next, how we could make things
| better. My cofounder was definitely the best at that, but we
| all made contributions. We all were engaged. We all paid
| attention to what we were doing for users.
|
| And it helped that despite being a startup, we were big on
| automated testing and pair programming. When my mom got sick, I
| took two weeks off and everybody was fine without me. They
| carried on releasing a few times a day, trusting in each other
| and in the safety net we had built for ourselves.
|
| It seems to me that the average development process, which is
| generally about building whatever people with organizational
| power want, is emotionally corrosive. It wears us down, because
| it isn't satisfying on a human level. Which, IMHO, makes it way
| less efficient.
| dhimes wrote:
| How do you recruit users? Do you pay them?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Tight feedback loops that include everyone from the customer
| through to developers have been the key to success on every
| successful product I've been a part of.
|
| It's been difficult for me to reconcile these feedback loops
| and whole-team involvement with the current online push for
| asynchronous workflows. In my experience, the developers who
| want to isolate themselves at home or in their office, pull
| tickets out of a queue and submit a PR at their leisure were
| the least likely to succeed at improving the product. The
| developers who never hesitated to jump into a discussion or
| meeting with the rest of the team or get involved with the
| product planning sessions were the ones who moved the product
| forward the most.
|
| Don't get me wrong: There's a time and place for isolated,
| heads-down work. Frivolous meetings and endless planning
| sessions must be minimized in favor of action. However, the
| current online mentality in favor of asynchronous work,
| minimal real-time in-person interaction, and strict "not my
| job" separation of developer/product manager roles is
| swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction, IMO.
| Everyone, from developers to customers, tends to be happier
| when they're all included and active in the decision making
| processes.
| wpietri wrote:
| 100% agreed. This is my big fear about the shift to remote
| work: it can deeply exacerbate organizational pathology.
|
| For what it's worth, I've worked with a couple teams that
| were remote and great at this, so it's not impossible. One
| was a small startup. The developers had worked together in
| person for years and were really well bonded. Once they
| added in some remote pairing, it was fantastic. The other
| was a Mozilla team where they put a lot of emphasis on
| close collaboration. Between the two, I have a fair bit of
| hope.
| hinkley wrote:
| Screen sharing is a big deal when doing validation as
| well as usability studies. Random movement of the mouse
| and the tone of voice can tell you a lot about how the
| user is handling the new functionality.
|
| Maybe one of the silver linings of this mess will be that
| people are more familiar with screen sharing software
| after this.
| codr7 wrote:
| Definitely, I've been through all sorts of roles at all sorts
| of companies.
|
| This was freelancing though; I had full freedom to do things
| my way, which is how I ended up working for two weeks to
| learn about their problems.
|
| And I still prefer delivering food to working on the
| software. Thankfully, they're super happy with it and there's
| not much left to do.
| wpietri wrote:
| I hope that after a while you think about building some
| product for an audience you like. Your natural empathy and
| willingness to engage users make me think you'd be stellar
| at doing your own thing.
| wnmurphy wrote:
| > To get an idea what kind of problems they're dealing with, I
| started by working two weeks in the restaurant.
|
| LOVE this.
| codr7 wrote:
| And as a result, the system is a total success so far.
|
| Without any kind of specifications or design meetings beyond
| a 5 minute chat here and there.
| cutemonster wrote:
| Can I ask whose idea was it that you work in the
| restaurant? I love that and such people (who do like you
| do) I'd like to work with
|
| It was your idea? What did they say, they were surprised?
| codr7 wrote:
| It was their idea, and I was a bit surprised, but it felt
| like the right thing to do and for once I was my own
| boss.
|
| The guy who's running the restaurant together with his
| wife is/was an engineer, he hasn't done any coding but he
| knows enough to be aware of the specification problem.
| tonyarkles wrote:
| > And once I'm done, I'm done.
|
| My wife does live production (AV) for big shows and concerts.
| It's a stressful job; for a lot of it, you're on tight
| timelines and have one chance to get it right. Any mistake you
| make is pretty clearly obvious to all of the people in the
| room. You plan the shit out of it ahead of time: one missing
| item on a truck can be a (pardon the pun) show stopper.
|
| But like you said, at the end of the night, when the trucks are
| all packed up, you get to go home and never worry about that
| particular job ever again. If something went wrong, there might
| be a post-mortem the next day with lessons learned for next
| time, but it's over.
|
| Some days I am thankful that I don't have her job. Some days I
| am jealous that she gets to walk away from it all at the end of
| the night.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I'm reminded of that time I got an after-work part-time job at
| a higher-end sports store. At first they might not have wanted
| to hire me for being overqualified and leaving, but they had
| trouble hiring anyway so there I was. They provided a full week
| of training on textiles and other things I found fascinating.
| Surprisingly, it was actually quite enjoyable. I just talked to
| customers about products and things and there was really no
| preparation or follow-up after the day is done.
|
| The only stressful parts were getting there on time after work
| (because I tend to linger at work doing that one last thing)
| and the parking tickets because it was so limited and some
| spots required top-up payments (before apps). I ended up in
| tennis-wear because a mature person giving frank opinions of
| how things look on people (mostly women shopping) seems
| effective. Anyway I lasted longer than most of the younger
| hires and gave it up part way through the winter because
| driving/parking in that was just too much. Maybe something like
| that but outdoors might be a great thing to try.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| A while back (I'd guess about 15 years ago, so suddenly I feel
| old), Jack Ganssle (http://www.ganssle.com/tem-subunsub.html)
| said he was selling his embedded tooling company, SoftAid
| because after doing it for so long, he had gotten tired of
| "pushing the same bits around."
|
| At the time, I simply couldn't understand that. Sure, I hadn't
| been writing code as long as he had, but I couldn't imagine
| enjoying anything more than that. I absolutely loved twiddling
| bits and watching mechanical systems do what my code told it
| to.
|
| Fast forward to now. I still really enjoy
| software/hardware/mechanisms/coding/design etc., but if I had
| to give it up tomorrow, I know I could find something I love
| just as much.
|
| It's a really big world and there are a lot of sandboxes to
| play in.
| aeyes wrote:
| A few years ago I picked up a dumb mechanical second job at a
| rental store where I worked ~20h/month after work an on
| weekends. I didn't need the money but I needed the feeling of
| truly getting something done.
|
| When I left the store at night, every customer had been served,
| every piece of equipment had been cleaned, the money had been
| counted. I was just done. It felt great.
|
| I solve problems every day, I never get done, every day its
| something new that needs fixing. Every year that passes I feel
| more and more that I'm just not made for this kind of work :(.
| karatestomp wrote:
| I find I like lots of "menial" work a lot better than
| programming. As long as it didn't wreck my body (I like doing
| construction labor but it'll destroy you) I'd much, much rather
| do that than programming. Food delivery seems like it'd be
| great, bonus if it's bike delivery. Clerking at a small non-
| chain retail business would probably be a great time (if the
| owners weren't dicks--always an important qualifier with these
| sorts of jobs).
|
| But, money and easy to find a job.
| forinti wrote:
| As The Little Prince would say were he a coder: you are forever
| responsible for the code you write.
|
| Every new system an organization takes on requires maintenance,
| training, etc. This takes time from the coders and is
| frequently not taken into account.
| MattGaiser wrote:
| > you are forever responsible for the code you write.
|
| Developers stay at companies for 1-2 years, so it seems like
| you get frequent resets.
| war1025 wrote:
| That is highly dependent on the company and I'd guess the
| industry.
|
| I've been at the same place going on 8 years. My father in
| law has been at the same place for 30.
| war1025 wrote:
| My wife was reading our kids The Little Prince the other day
| when I was getting ready to leave for work. I really like
| that book. The movie they made for it is pretty good too.
| gazelle21 wrote:
| Im on the opposite side. I worked at a restaurant for 12 years
| and it was the worst time of my life. I would constantly get
| called into work at 3 am due to random people not showing up.
| Inventory, dealing with 20+ people who don't care about the
| job. Terrible customers, and horrible people really left my
| bitter. To top it all off I was stresseed out of my mind and
| broke. Im a dev now and its deff stressful but doesn't compare
| to my days in a restaurant,plus I have some money now.Guess the
| grass is always greener
| mjayhn wrote:
| Yeah this feels very American Beauty, rose-tinted glasses.
| Kevin Spacey goes to work in a drive thru stress-free because
| he doesn't care about the job or need the money and is sick
| of responsibilities. Same thing here. Except we needed that
| job and had to be responsible because we didn't want to make
| $5.25/hr or have terrible shifts.
|
| You're only there for 2 weeks, you know you're only there for
| 2 weeks and everyone knows you're not going to get the
| terrible end of the stick unless they're specifically going
| out of their way.
|
| I delivered a lot of different food in high school and it
| honestly was one of the worst jobs of my career, I'd much
| rather work in retail or clean pools. All of my income went
| into gas and repairing my car. If I got a tip it was a few
| bucks and back then we had the 30 minute delivery thing that
| caused so many drivers to get into wrecks I'm pretty sure it
| was eventually banned or made illegal (or they all just
| dropped it).
| codr7 wrote:
| I wish, but weed is very difficult to find around here ;)
|
| The car is provided by the restaurant, and it's large scale
| corporate customers so no tips.
|
| I make enough money to survive, a chance to make people
| happy and get free food. I've been doing this for several
| months now.
| mjayhn wrote:
| Ah this was 20 years ago for me, I'm glad delivery
| driving has changed some for bigger/wealthier deliveries.
| I worked for tiny little pizza shops so they just gave us
| a shirt and a car topper and told us to deal with car
| insurance ourselves.
|
| It is a relaxing job when it's going well and not rushed.
| I like driving around aimlessly.
| neutronicus wrote:
| I think the serenity prayer, sans unnecessary theological
| content, is relevant here.
|
| Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the
| courage to change the ones I can, and the wisdom to know the
| difference.
|
| For a lot of software products, there is no winning in the long
| run. You've got good product-market fit and customer loyalty, but
| your code base is a huge mess and the hard technical problems are
| solved by third-party libraries. Your tech is a liability and
| eventually someone with better tech will be smart enough to study
| your customers, or the students who will eventually replace your
| inevitably-retiring customers on the front lines and push
| adoption going forward.
|
| And this is okay. The advantage corporations have over government
| institutions is that they can be created and _destroyed_ with
| much less friction.
|
| If you're lucky, your growth curve looks like double-sigmoid
| table-top. Probably it looks like an asymmetric Gaussian. What it
| doesn't look like is an exponential. Understand where your
| product is in its life-cycle, and maximize ROI.
| hateful wrote:
| I've always loved that (also, sans theological content). It's
| good advice for anyone. It's strong statement because in one
| sentence it can give someone something that a lot of people may
| not have - self awareness in the face of anxiety.
| smoe wrote:
| I have mixed feelings about the quote, at least as far as I
| understand it or have heard it interpreted.
|
| Specifically when it comes to systematic change, be that in a
| code base, a companies organisation or a countries political
| system. The mindsets of people go trough the spectrum of such
| systems being as easy to change as snipping a finger (and
| that doing so is a good idea) to it being impossible or
| dangerous so you should not even try.
|
| From my perspective, pretty much anything can be changed in
| any direction. But it might take enormous effort to do so,
| way more than one could do alone and I might not even be
| around anymore when the change "finishes". While I could
| think of a hundred things that I would like to change or
| actually resist change, I only have the time and energy to
| focus on one or two at a time.
|
| So for me, having overworked myself in the past, it boils
| down to consciously think of what I should and can burden
| myself with, when I should give up something and what the
| realistic outcomes are to find a good mix between ambition,
| effectiveness and health.
| cambalache wrote:
| I love it too, but let's be honest, the devil is in the
| details, I think most people agonize because they dont really
| know if their problem can or cannot be solved with more
| action from them. I for sure accept the things I really know
| I cannot change, and work in those I clearly know are under
| my control. The anxiety comes from those things I am lost in
| the sense I dont know if I should push more or I should give
| up.
| AtHeartEngineer wrote:
| My next tattoo is representing "the devil is in the
| details".
|
| I've had so many discussions with people over the years
| where someone will say "why doesn't X company/government
| just do Y". Well, because it's very rarely that easy. Just
| use black magic, that'll solve all our problems right?
| neutronicus wrote:
| http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2009/04/have-you-ever-
| legali...
| bonoboTP wrote:
| The opposite of the "shit's easy" attitude, the "nothing
| can ever be done" is also bad. In the end, many countries
| and US states have answered all those questions and
| fleshed out the legislation to legalize marijuana.
|
| Just look around you, and you see tons of stuff that was
| done, despite the difficulty.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| On the other hand people "just do Z" every day. People
| make decisions and do stuff without infinitely agonizing
| over it.
|
| As a mundane example: "Why don't I just stand up and go
| to pee? My bladder is exploding." "Well, because you're
| kind of stupid, you should indeed go to pee." "But if it
| was that easy, I would have already done it 5 minutes
| ago!"
|
| Things are never settled and fully in balance. There are
| constantly surfacing opportunities to do something
| positive, ranging from straightforward to counter-
| intuitive.
|
| It's not good to shut down all thinking with "nope,
| surely can't be done; if it could be, people would have
| done it already".
|
| Thinking about why a company won't just do X or trying to
| put yourself in their shoes and come up with ideas is
| good mental exercise. Not everything is in a perfectly
| balanced out equilibrium. Otherwise there would be no
| profit made in this world.
|
| Why bother doing research? If something is easy to
| discover, why haven't people already discovered it?
|
| Of course I get the sentiment, you should think deeply
| before trying to revolutionize the strategy of a company.
| But ultimately the people who do decide on the strategy
| also don't precisely know what will be best. Nobody knows
| how one or another decision will actually pan out, in
| interaction with the real world with all the other things
| going on etc.
|
| At some point you have to say, I've got enough details
| now, I'll make a choice. It will never feel completely
| satisfying. Either way it pans out, there will be a bunch
| of people who will say "they told you so", even just by
| pure chance.
| gav wrote:
| "If there is no solution to the problem then don't waste time
| worrying about it. If there is a solution to the problem then
| don't waste time worrying about it." -- The Dalai Lama
|
| I've spent a lot of my career working to correct projects that
| have been in a terrible state and had the privilege to mentor
| and help pull people out of bad situations.
|
| One of the big things I try to do is to get people to think
| about what they care about and how much they care. Good people
| do a lot of harm to themselves by caring about the wrong
| things: they want to be the hero in their story, but forget
| that six months from now nobody will remember the sacrifices
| they made.
|
| One part of this is to accept the amount of work that needs to
| be done is only impacted in a small way by the work you've done
| today. If you work 8 hours or 16 hours there's still going to
| be too much work tomorrow.
|
| Working longer hours generally does nothing than hide
| structural issues. By encouraging teams to cut their workload
| from 60+ hour weeks to 40, you are forcing these issues into
| the open.
|
| For those that are ever in a bad situation I'm happy to listen
| (my contact details are in my profile), sometimes you just need
| somebody with an external perspective.
| Minor49er wrote:
| If the theological content is unnecessary, then who are you
| expecting to grant you the things requested in the prayer?
| bonoboTP wrote:
| This is a surprisingly difficult question that I would have
| (5-10 years ago) totally brushed away to the side as
| irrelevant and meaningless, thinking that there is only
| rational physical stuff and that is all we are supposed to
| think about.
|
| Now, I still don't believe in anything literally
| supernatural. I don't think any quantum woo or mysterious
| psychic connection or literal sky daddies exist.
|
| The point is, our mind at its core operates in terms that can
| be best spoken to in such metaphor. Just like we don't "see"
| wavelengths or spectra, we see color. If I told you that red
| is high frequency and blue is lower frequency light, you'd
| probably believe it, if you hadn't learned the opposite in
| physics class.
|
| We see color and not light frequency, we see objects, we see
| tools, we see potential paths to walk on, we see handles to
| grab, we use tools as extensions of the body (with the brain
| actually mapping out some tools as if they were limbs).
|
| In the same way much of what we experience in terms of
| emotional/spiritual life (if you don't suppress it and are
| mature enough) is very religious sounding old-fashioned terms
| like good and evil, temptation, redemption, salvation,
| revenge, punishment and forgiveness, wisdom and
| contemplation, sin and penance, suffering and attainment,
| grace and humbleness.
|
| 10 years ago all the above words meant jack shit to me, just
| some mumbo jumbo that bigoted old people use to condemn the
| youthful because they are too old and impotent and envious of
| the youth.
|
| The thing is, the more you look into philosophy with a more
| open mind, you see that it actually has content behind it. To
| put it in more rational terms, you become aware of and able
| to discuss things that happen in the more animalistic part of
| the brain, that makes you excited, anxious, sad, joyful. It's
| easy to believe that all this is just straightforward "bad
| events -> sadness", "good events -> joy".
|
| If you meditate, if you wind down in the evening and are
| mature and have some life stories of both success and
| disappointment, you will see that a lot of that stuff is best
| processed in spiritual terms and by relating it to archetypal
| stories. I've been reading Jordan Peterson on this matter,
| and while I don't agree with his conclusions in many cases, I
| do find it to be a good bridge between the rational
| scientific endeavor (you need to know the frequency of blue
| light to create lcd screens etc.), and the personal/spiritual
| manifestation of it (the blue handle of a hammer that I'm
| already preparing to grab in my mind).
|
| It's not that the magic sky daddy gives us the stuff we ask
| for in prayer, like a vending machine. But for one reason or
| another, pretending to act out a sacrifice story or "asking
| god" why something happened can be useful.
|
| You can substitute other words if you have an aversion to
| Christian terminology, you can say you're connecting to
| yourself, your higher self, the consciousness of the
| universe.
|
| The thing is, ideas and insight doesn't come from forcing.
| Just like you don't pull on a plant forcefully to make it
| grow, you nourish it from below and with sunlight and air.
|
| Nobody can make themselves have a great idea. In our
| experience, ideas just present themselves. Obviously they are
| not magically handed to us, but it looks "as if". Of course
| it's a complex brain process that involves long term memory,
| hormones, interactions of various brain parts, etc. Knowing
| the details of this _can_ be beneficial, but just because you
| understand the brain chemistry of alcohol intoxication doesn
| 't mean you won't get black out drunk if you drink a lot.
| Similarly somehow it is deeply ingrained in us to see things
| in terms of agents and purposeful patterns. One way to deal
| with this is to label this as a thinking error, an erroneous
| heuristic making too many false positives, a mistaken
| overdrive of the empathic part of the brain, something to
| eradicate. That's how I used to think.
|
| Once you understand all this, you can be capable of
| discussing, untangling and managing your emotions and the
| archetypal/spiritual language can be a way to formulate this.
|
| However when things get intense, I like to freshen it all up
| a bit with reading Zen koans. Zen koans are somewhat like
| "serious jokes" and confront your overly analytical mind with
| freezing shocks. They are playful, non-literal, but sometimes
| literal, or hanging in the air in between.
| perfmode wrote:
| It is an appeal to one's Self.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| Oneself.
| bdamm wrote:
| That is an exercise left up to the user. It could be the air
| if that's what they decide is the granter. The point is that
| it isn't you. For some reason that flip works for a lot of
| folks.
| cortesoft wrote:
| It is more like a mantra to remind yourself.
| neutronicus wrote:
| Well if we're splitting hairs, here, I think:
|
| 1. There's Christian cultural context regarding the phrase
| "God grant..." that is necessary to understand the prayer
|
| 2. To wit, when Christians use this phrase, it is both an
| exhortation to self-reliance and an honest admission of
| personal flaws that may sabotage the pursuit of self-
| reliance.
|
| 3. There is of course also the implication that the Christian
| theological tradition is the best way to achieve self-
| reliance in spite of character flaws.
|
| My glib aside was meant to assert that 2. is in fact mostly
| orthogonal to 3.
| danielbarla wrote:
| I also appreciate this quote, because it sets up a mature way
| of looking at things, categorising, and dealing with them.
|
| However, I'm less of a fan of the opening words; it's not so
| much that this should be magically granted on to us with a
| wishing wand, it's something we need to consciously work on,
| from within. Somehow that slogging, gritty aspect is less
| represented.
| Erlich_Bachman wrote:
| That is not what praying is about. A healthy prayer is a form
| of meditation, like "meditate on how you want your future to
| look like". It is a reconnection with the higher self. It is
| already an attempt to access something from within. It is a
| technique to understand thing about oneself, to build up
| internal structure and organize inner spiritual work.
|
| But if you base your conception of prayer on a sketch from
| Monty Python or maybe a mentally ill person on the street who
| uses some christian terms for progressing their own insanity,
| then in that conception maybe prayer is a way to "magically
| grant with a wishing wand". But this is not what healthy use
| of the term is about. I assume the original poster who used
| this word is not insane and looks at the implicit meaning of
| the quote, which if looked at in that light, makes a lot of
| sense.
| wolco wrote:
| A prayer is not a meditation. A prayer is a conversation.
| Meditation is either focusing on something or nothing. A
| conversation with your higher self is probably more like a
| prayer.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| Whether it's intentional or not, saying something like,
| "That is not what praying is about," is inviting an
| ecumenical squabble.
|
| Prayer's about a lot of things to a lot of people.
| Regardless of whether you think a way that other people do
| it is correct or not, it still exists and is a thing. And
| offering strangers uninvited, prescriptive advice on how a
| religious practice should be done is a form of
| proselytization.
|
| I think, in this case, it's more useful to recognize and
| observe the context. For example, I _am_ inclined to agree
| that the "God grant me the..." at the start of that
| particular prayer is typically understood, at least in the
| community where I grew up, as more of an idiom than an
| actual request of God. Very much like how neutronicus put
| it in a sibling comment. Even atheists will use it that way
| without any sense of dissonance. But there are also plenty
| of Christians who understand God as being a lot more hands-
| on about things, and that would support a different
| understanding of the prayer's connotations, which is every
| bit as valid.
| neutronicus wrote:
| IMO your point is implicit in the Christian cultural context.
|
| You don't say "God grant..." before sure bets; it's implicit
| that there's some risk of failure and you're gonna need to
| meet the Big Man halfway.
| pastorhudson wrote:
| Don't be afraid of the theological content. It's a good prayer.
| God believes in you even if you don't believe in him.
| stormdennis wrote:
| Sad that you get downvoted just because your views aren't "a
| la mode". I'm not religious any more but I see no need to be
| anti-religious
| justincredible wrote:
| I wouldn't downvote, but grandparent's comment is quite
| patronizing.
|
| Edit: I can't downvote
| xnyan wrote:
| OP didn't say he was afraid, but that it was unnecessary
| which is objectively true - I don't personally have a belief
| in gods, you have a belief in a particular god but we can
| both get value out of acceptance and serenity.
| regulation_d wrote:
| The differences of opinion here on the topic of the
| necessity of the theological content suggest that it is
| not, as you say, "objectively true".
|
| Just because it is not necessary for you does not permit
| you to project your opinions on the rest of humanity.
| koheripbal wrote:
| I find that emotional compartmentalization is a critical skill.
|
| A couple years ago, I faced a very tough time in my life. My
| business was collapsing, my family's finances were in jeopardy,
| and there was a serious health issue going on.
|
| The emotional stress was incapacitating. I couldn't sleep, let
| alone focus enough to fix my problems. It was the downward
| spiral nightmare scenario.
|
| If I didn't have dependents (wife + 3 kids), I might have
| withdrawn into depression. Instead I was forced to fix my
| emotional state...
|
| I constructed a personal prayer... I am the
| man in the dark room. In here, I am my loves, my
| principles, and my ideas. Who I am cannot be changed by
| circumstances outside this room, My loves are my legs
| which carry me to life outside this room. My principles
| are my shield from the burdens the world assaults me with.
| My ideas are the sword with which I shape my life. When
| I return to myself in this room, the world remains outside, and
| I evolve to be better prepared tomorrow.
|
| I found that even just stopping to say "I am the man in the
| dark room" was often enough remind myself that I wasn't defined
| by my circumstances.
|
| To sleep, I found I could play the audio from old familiar TV
| shows to drown out the worries to fall (and stay) asleep - it
| was a surprising turn-around.
|
| These two things changed my life. Hope this helps someone else.
| dgb23 wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this powerful prayer/mantra.
|
| I too had to go through a time like this, for different
| reasons, but I lost and fell into depression. I didn't have
| dependents unfortunately and my self-esteem was completely
| shattered.
|
| I recovered and became productive again since a while now.
| But I'm still haunted by anxiety sometimes.
|
| I'm in a state of extreme productivity and self-confidence
| right now, but part of it is feeling chased by my failing in
| the past, as if I have to (or could) catch up.
|
| At the same time I know that patience, focus and time are key
| to do the right thing(s). This is also being addressed in the
| linked article.
|
| My strategy is to talk, be open about my feelings (which I
| had to learn the hard way) and to take time to meditate and
| appreciate silence, deep focus, my loved ones and the beauty
| of nature.
|
| Mantras and prayers are like magic tricks: You condition
| yourself to focus on a positive, powerful thought and with
| time you can activate that state with little effort as you
| described.
|
| Ill be contemplating some of the thoughts in your prayer.
| Some of the phrases are very powerful, tangible metaphors.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Wonderful. Stoicism in action. Thanks for sharing!
| aswanson wrote:
| Awesome mantra. Been through similar circumstances and came
| up with a similar (though not as explicitly stated) coping
| mechanism. You come through such trials so much more
| emotionally resilient. Salute.
| blitmap wrote:
| This is a really wonderful way to reframe your perspective.
| cmehdy wrote:
| It's pretty useful for most day-to-day things, but (1) who
| you are can absolutely be changed by external circumstances -
| see TBIs and other long-lasting traumas, and (2) there are
| medical illnesses where you can be mostly robbed of your
| ideas - which by this mantra leaves you powerless to change
| your world.
|
| I'm not saying that to take away anything from the well-being
| brought by this interesting personal prayer, because it holds
| some insights about resilience. Only adding some context for
| the people out there whose depressive disorders,
| schizophrenia, or brain injuries, could leave them on the
| curb when it comes to these thoughts. Those people might need
| surgeries, medical treatment, or external support, before
| being able to strengthen themselves with this sort of
| thought.
| anon_13571113 wrote:
| You're right about that. I was in such a situation: I had
| strong feelings of anxiety, sadness, low self esteem. I
| went to a psychologist & psychiatrist and got a bit anti
| depressive medication, many books to read, meditation
| exercises, mindfulness. All these things were good and
| helpful, and I guess in most cases it's what's needed.
|
| But nothing of all that totally helped; I still had this
| sadness and anxiety and lack/absence of self confidence.
|
| Then many years later turns out I have an illness,
| hypothyreosis, that causes this. And medication
| (levothyroxine) made all this go away, and I'm a different
| person nowadays.
|
| > _who you are can absolutely be changed by [...]
| circumstances [...] illnesses_
|
| That's very correct. I've been two different personalities
| -- one sad, anxious, withdrawn, another happy and social.
| It's weird what hormone levels can do to the brain and who
| one ... who one is? one's personality.
|
| Anyway, if someone has depression and anxiety feelings, and
| meditation and self help books won't make that go away --
| then, a blood sample test, it's just 5 minutes. (Well, plus
| bus / subway / something to the health clinic.)
| koheripbal wrote:
| > who you are can absolutely be changed by external
| circumstances
|
| I believe the point of the last sentence is exactly that
| your experiences in the external world _can_ change you.
| But the difference is that _you should decide_ how it
| changes you. _You should decide_ how you can bring smarter
| nuance to you principles to avoid the exhausting emotional
| drama in the world, and _you should decide_ how to alter
| your ideas /strategy (the sword) to better shape your life
| to meet your life's goals and serve the people you love.
|
| This is the ideal - it is often not a reflection of our
| very human reality. ...but it is, through years of
| practice, something that can be closely attained. The
| prayer is the acceptance that we are flawed emotional
| humans - and it is just a simple tactic to remember to
| aspire to being in control of our emotional state - rather
| than letting it control us.
|
| We can identify our self-worth according to who we are
| inside (our principles, thing love we have, and the goals
| we have), rather than passively allow the world to beat us
| what it finds useful.
|
| Mental illness falls outside the scope of this prayer. If
| someone has mental illness, then this (or any) prayer isn't
| going to solve their problems and they should seek
| professional help.
| [deleted]
| pathseeker wrote:
| >who you are can absolutely be changed by external
| circumstances
|
| Yes, but that's focusing on the very unlikely external
| circumstances and defeating the point. 99.99% of the daily
| stuff that seems important actually is not and it's
| healthier to live a model assuming it's not important
| rather than worrying that everything could be that
| devastating brain tumor or IED taking out your bus.
| cmehdy wrote:
| In the US alone, for TBI alone, there were almost 3
| million TBI-related emergency department visits in
| 2014[0]. One in 4,000 babies born in the US have
| hypothyroidism[1]. At the lower bound, there is 0.25% of
| the US population subject to schizophrenia[2]. If we go
| and look at things like Generalized Anxiety Disorder
| (GAD), 2.7% of US adults have had it in the past year,
| 32% of which had serious impairments associated with
| it[3].
|
| I would invite you to seriously challenge the formulation
| of your idea: it's not that 99.9% of stuff "seems
| important and it's not", it's that not 99.9% of people
| have the ability to deal with it through just the one
| therapeutic aspect of self-talk. Moreover, there is a
| propensity to share these words because they are
| inspirational, yet there is very little put forward for
| the people who do need more than that - and who, in turn,
| tend to suffer from ailments which in many cases could be
| alleviated if as a society they were more acknowledged.
|
| If you re-read my message, I hope you do see that I am
| appreciating the original words, and simply highlighting
| additional options to people out there who need more than
| that. That's all.
|
| [0] https://www.cdc.gov/traumaticbraininjury/get_the_fact
| s.html
|
| [1]
| https://www.rightdiagnosis.com/h/hypothyroidism/stats.htm
|
| [2] https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/schizophre
| nia.sht...
|
| [3]
| https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/generalized-
| anxie...
| jka wrote:
| I believe you and hear you. Not all events are under our
| control, and not everyone is able to lead a pain-free
| life. The general audience here may have some skewed (and
| perhaps limited) experiences.
|
| Those of us fortunate to have good health and the ability
| to improve our circumstances should be glad for those
| opportunities, not take them for granted, and try to
| extend them to others.
| anon_1357111317 wrote:
| Nicely written : )
|
| > Those of us fortunate to have good health and the
| ability to [...]
|
| And it's not easy to see from the outside if that's the
| case for another person -- I think often they'd want to
| hide things like anxiety and depression. Or me, when I
| had those anxiety and sadness problems -- I spent most
| time at home alone
| [deleted]
| anon_1357111317 wrote:
| Among women, about 5% have hypothyreosis, and
| depression/sadness and anxiety are some of the
| consequences (varies from person to person). And 2% of
| the men.
|
| @pathseeker wrote: _" very unlikely external
| circumstances"_
|
| But it's not just 1 - 99.99% = 0.01% that needs
| medication and other help than "just" meditation. Looking
| only at hypothyreosis, it's more like 2% or 5%.
|
| @cmehdy it seems to me that you 1) work with health care,
| or 2) you have something like hypothyreosis or GAD
| yourself or people you know? or 3) you're a researcher?
| or 4) TBI happened to someone you know? (If it's too
| private then obviously no need to reply : ) And best
| wishes with your work)
| cmehdy wrote:
| Without getting into the details: kind of a combination
| of things, indeed :)
|
| I just think it's time we as a society accept and
| understand that having support and medication for things
| that relate to our mental health is fully part of the
| toolbox of healing, and not a fringe thing that remains
| on the sidelines for an insignificant proportion of
| people.
|
| Most people will spend some amount of time in a hospital
| or clinic in their lives, for a broken bone, a disease,
| or some functional change to their teeth, or whatever
| else. It's all pretty accepted, nobody thinks that it's a
| fringe thing.
|
| We should accept that the way we look at psychiatry or
| targeted support for mental illnesses should be similar
| to surgery for broken bones: if you have a sprain just
| take good care of things at home with basic knowledge,
| but if there's a chance you have a fracture you won't
| make your bones heal well by praying or by finding a blog
| post, you need professionals for however long that
| situation lasts. And there are way more mental fractures
| out there than people like to admit to themselves and
| each others.
| dennisy wrote:
| Great mantra, very Stoic!
| munificent wrote:
| This is such a good mantra. I will remember this. Thank you.
| david_draco wrote:
| The intersection of people understanding both Catch-22 and Permit
| A 38 is probably pretty small.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| It probably looks like a circle containing people who know
| about Permit A 38, because I assume everyone who reads things
| on purpose knows what a Catch-22 is.
|
| Maybe you could call it "what would happen if Heller and Kafka
| tried to co-write a novel."
| albntomat0 wrote:
| For those, like me, wondering what Permit A 38 is:
| https://asterix.fandom.com/wiki/The_Place_That_Sends_You_Mad
|
| I wasn't familiar with it before, but might start using it, as
| it's unfortunately relevant at work.
| manmal wrote:
| I think OP is from Austria (like me), and we all grew up with
| those movies. The scene with Permit A38 is especially
| memorable (to the point of becoming a kind of meme), as it
| perfectly describes the helplessness one feels when dealing
| with overly bureaucratic processes.
| bdefore wrote:
| I discovered that the full animated film (in English) can be
| watched here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOhRhq6Pr6g
| abegnoche wrote:
| I want to add, the permit A38 part starts at 40:20
| https://youtu.be/JOhRhq6Pr6g?t=2420
| nautilus12 wrote:
| Its a little known secret that managers deliberately promote
| anxiety driven development because it keeps workers at "peak
| productivity". A couple of the major things i've seen companies
| do in the past over and over again to myself and to others I
| worked with:
|
| 1. Ambiguous or no deadlines, frequent check ins, "crunches" when
| their deliberately poor planning doens't work, keeping an air of
| uncertainty around everything.
|
| 2. Giving the same tasks to multiple groups and deliberately
| pitting them against one another in a kind of unhealthy
| competition. Constant fear of obsoletion.
|
| 3. Little or no positive feedback, only give feedback when things
| are wrong. Deliberately vague about future career prospects or
| growth, holding the carrot out but with no promise to deliver.
|
| The problem is that each of these are tied into natural "sources"
| of anxiety that are likely to happen with or without the company
| actively promoting it, but the company promoting it can make
| people work even more frantically. The problem is they don't
| realize people produce their "best" work when they have creative
| freedom from anxiety.
| thorin wrote:
| 1. They don't keep an air of uncertainty on purpose most of the
| time, generally it's because a lot of businesses are uncertain
| and a lot of the time product/project managers don't have a
| good idea of what's going on!
|
| 2. Again this could be incompetence rather than cunning
|
| 3. Most great bosses and a lot of rubbish ones aren't great
| with positive feedback. Have you read Steve Job's biographies
| or Shoe Dog? Not much praise there. One guy I really respected
| once told me I wasn't a great programmer, but I got the job
| done and that was probably the nicest thing he said about
| anyone...I was pretty happy with that!
|
| I agree with all of your points, but maybe not your reasoning
| behind them.
| nautilus12 wrote:
| No I actually agree with you on all these points, Hanlon's
| razor applies to all of these which is why I made the last
| statement. However, I DO think there are managers and I've
| certainly run across them, that deliberately push on all
| these natural stressors to try to juice productivity.
| kulig wrote:
| Are you implying steve jobs was a great boss? He was an
| insane narcissist.
| mikegioia wrote:
| I agree with this a lot, but I would add one thing. I don't
| think it's deliberate, I think they're just bad managers.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| They're wrong though. It keeps their developers at peak churn,
| not peak productivity. They fill a great amount of tickets, and
| make a great amount of critical mistakes that become fires to
| put out later because everyone's focused on covering their own
| butts than making a great product.
|
| Key developers leave the project for greener pastures, and
| business people wonder how the project failed despite the fact
| everyone was working so hard.
| jmhnilbog wrote:
| While I agree with this framing of the problem, it feels like
| another expression of dysfunction in development increasing as
| direct interaction with clients and users decreases.
| w-j-w wrote:
| This post more than describes the phenomenon. It explains why
| it happens and gives actionable advice other than "talk to the
| client more"
| fidrelity wrote:
| Author here. I think you have a point here. Anxiety can
| certainly stem from the point you mentioned. But I also think
| anxiety from other sources can affect your development
| negatively.
| jmhnilbog wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Anxiety can also be expressed as a realization that what's
| being worked on is useless, adds negative value, or just
| personally unfulfilling or unimportant. Cops firing teargas
| at peaceful protesters a few blocks away has cause me a good
| deal of that flavor of anxiety, which I don't think is
| necessarily a negative outcome. Do you have any insights
| along those lines?
| fidrelity wrote:
| Although I have never been in a situation like yours, for
| me personally A Guide to Rational Living (https://www.goodr
| eads.com/book/show/22673.A_New_Guide_to_Rat...) and
| meditation with the Waking up app helped tremendously.
| jmhnilbog wrote:
| Do you think instances of anxiety are inherently
| irrational or unhealthy? I know of the effect of
| sustained stress on people, but I was trying to bring to
| light potential positive effects of anxiety bringing
| clarity or insight into ways to relive that same anxiety.
| It seemed like your post was something born out of such a
| thing.
|
| I've encountered so many younger people in tech, making
| $200K+ in places that support lifestyles that need less
| than a quarter of that for comfort, who complain about
| their jobs and the golden handcuffs that keep them there.
| They seem to be locked in much stranger and fantastical
| anxieties than those I understand.
| wsantas wrote:
| I have a theory that the massive amount of data at our
| finger tips an inability to control social media lack of
| self care (or read awareness) has cause an inability to
| focus and a hyper active brain.
|
| This habitual scroll, scroll, feed, feed, dopamine,
| dopamine cause the brain to be over active and thoughts
| hard to control. People get heightened without even being
| aware. Never-mind if you dont carefully curate your feed.
|
| But that's just something Im mulling over lately.
| karatestomp wrote:
| Relatedly, I found my "night owl" tendencies, which were
| "natural" and just about impossible to fight, went away
| completely when I limited myself to a few dim candles for
| light after sundown, and _no_ glowing screens of any kind
| --no TV, no computer, no phone, period. You can still do
| a _ton_ in low light--board and card games, reading,
| playing music, listening to music (small exception to the
| no-screens thing may be a practical necessity to get an
| album or playlist started or whatever if you don 't want
| to go for physical media, but no fiddling with the
| playlist), writing. A very low candle power electric
| light (think nightlight, most of which are still brighter
| than what I was using and I could see just fine for most
| anything) would probably do. Obviously you might need a
| bit more if you're older and your eyes are getting worse,
| but you really do adjust to lower light levels than one
| might think. Dozens to hundreds of times lower than
| typical nighttime lighting, for sure.
|
| I only did it for a couple weeks but soon found whole-
| room artificial lighting at night obnoxiously and
| needlessly bright. A candle for the room and ~2 candles
| per person (or equivalent from small electric lights--
| it's actually hard to find them this dim, though) provide
| entirely enough illumination to do just about whatever
| you want, and, crucially, _let you get tired_.
|
| I _strongly suspect_ a huge proportion of people who are
| "naturally" very active at night or just "can't" have a
| normal sleep schedule are in fact suffering from the
| availability and use of particular technologies.
| danjac wrote:
| One good "tell" is when the organization requires more and more
| metrics, tracking, analysis and "data-driven" solutions into
| user behaviors. Not that these things are necessarily bad in of
| themselves (assuming user consent) but sometimes it feels like
| an indicator that the organization has grown so large or added
| so many layers the management no longer have a gut instinct
| about their users' needs and so they increasingly rely on the
| numbers.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| One of the things about fear, is that it is not a useless
| reaction.
|
| Fear isn't really an "emotion." It's a "reaction." It's a
| temporary state that we are designed to engage when we are in
| danger, and exit when the danger is past.
|
| And it works very well. When we are scared, our adrenaline amps
| up, our capillaries expand, our blood pressure increases, our
| senses sharpen, etc. There's been a gazillion studies on the
| physiological manifestations of a state of fear.
|
| Our thinking also gets affected. It becomes fairly "binary."
| Stand very still, or run away. Don't just stand there thinking.
| Make a decision. Do something. No time to evaluate. No grey
| areas. It's either good, or bad.
|
| Anger is really a manifestation of fear. The reactions are quite
| similar.
|
| They are both reactions that are designed to be _temporary_.
| Being in either a state of fear, or anger, for extended lengths
| of time, is corrosive to our health; both mental and physical.
|
| But the really dangerous thing, is that the "binary" thinking is
| bad; especially in areas where we are making long-term decisions.
| If we need to make a decision to run, we don't look further than
| the next bend. That's why a squirrel runs in front of a car,
| escaping someone walking down the sidewalk (happened to me a
| couple of days ago. The squirrel was fine, because the driver saw
| them, and jammed on the brakes).
|
| Many managers work on fear. They like to keep a state of anxiety
| going. I won't dwell on the reasons, but I feel as if it is a bad
| thing, for engineers, because it encourages us to take tactical
| shortcuts and "patch" fixes, as opposed to considered, strategic
| reasoning, and long-term, "holistic" fixes.
|
| I was a manager for many years, and I feel that one of my most
| important jobs was to shield my team from the immense pressure
| that was piled onto me.
| wolco wrote:
| I live by this. Anxiety fuels increased work speeds. Without
| unnecessary anxiety I wouldn't have gotten anything done.
|
| Mixed with weed driven development it seems to get positive
| results but awful for meetings.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| The article is talking more about making product design
| decisions that are fueled by anxiety. While it's not directly
| stated, it's clear from the examples that the author is
| particularly concerned about the phenomenon _slowing you down_
| by causing you to waste effort on building features that you
| don 't need.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| The key for productivity is finding the right amount of
| anxiety. Just a little so you're not comfortable sitting
| around, but not so much that it's crippling.
|
| Minor amounts of anxiety when properly channeled isn't a bad
| thing -- maybe that's just another word for "motivation."
| _pmf_ wrote:
| > "t highlighted how it can surface in atypical symptoms such as
| anger."
|
| That's only atypical if you consider women to be the default,
| right people.
| darepublic wrote:
| this probably manifests itself not just at the product level, but
| in the minutiae of team programming dynamics.
| [deleted]
| sebringj wrote:
| The good bit I get out of this is to provide value but in a way
| that isn't making you into a commodity. A way I do that is have
| some area of the business that I know very well that someone
| cannot just know with skills alone and then have some set of
| ownership of code that I created around this. Then repeat that in
| other areas to increase that value etc. You can also think of it
| as entrenchment...meaning if you don't know the point of what you
| are doing and don't have ideas on the roadmap and improvements
| etc., you probably are less important and can be replaced without
| much issue.
| carapace wrote:
| > Awareness is the first step
|
| Literally. This is _another_ reason why meditation is important.
|
| Anxiety is always accompanied by patterns of muscle tension. It
| can be relieved by mechanical relaxation of the tissues.
| Relaxation is achieved by awareness, which is fostered by
| meditation.
|
| A calm, clear mind flows from a calm and relaxed body.
|
| - - - -
|
| In my career I've observed that business is a kind of theater for
| people's ego trips to play out within, and the form and methods
| of a business reflect the _karma_ , if you will, of the people
| running it. It's one of those things that sounds trivial once you
| type it out.
|
| Anyhow, it reminds me of Conway's Law.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law
| circlefavshape wrote:
| I read Keith Johnstone's "Impro" earlier in the year, and
| realised that almost all human group interaction is theatre. I
| never really understood "all the world is a stage" until now
| [deleted]
| jpm_sd wrote:
| A professor at MIT once told me "Fear is the only motivator."
|
| Fear of poverty. Fear of shame. Fear of loss.
|
| Maslow's hierarchy suggests there might be a few others, but fear
| is a big one.
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