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Ask HN: How do you deal with work pressure?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with work pressure?

#11

Post by kucing »

runawaybottle wrote: post #4

I can give you a protip for dealing with this. No guarantees, but often the poker hand that leadership has is an ‘ok’ hand. Maybe two pairs, maybe one pair, sometimes just a high card, sometimes just two face cards. To translate, their hands are often not as good as you think. You may believe they have a three of a kind, or a straight (you will be fired), but the bet you have to make is most likely they got a modest…

This is really interesting. I never really think of it from their perspective. And the case of:

- either you can, just be calm and act rationally / work within reasonable limit, focus on overall productivity.

- or you won't be able to catch up anyway

makes the case much clearer. I think there would be a category "you might or might not be able to survive, depending on how much work / luck you have" might exist, but the chance to fall on that sweet spot is quite slim.

I like your idea regarding the mind game about hiding/boasting the pressure.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with work pressure?

#12

Post by Graffur »

muzani wrote: post #7

Ideally it's good to give it 110% and then take a lot of rest. This is how you improve. But there needs to be trust there. So find a job which you can trust, and which trusts you. Your colleagues and boss should have your back, like a military squad would. If one of you needs to be away, you'll cover up the workload for them or they'll cover for you. If your leader feels you're tired or overworked, they'll try to pus…

It's impossible to give more than 100%

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with work pressure?

#13

Post by tra3 »

Graffur wrote: post #12
muzani wrote: post #7

Ideally it's good to give it 110% and then take a lot of rest. This is how you improve. But there needs to be trust there. So find a job which you can trust, and which trusts you. Your colleagues and boss should have your back, like a military squad would. If one of you needs to be away, you'll cover up the workload for them or they'll cover for you. If your leader feels you're tired or overworked, they'll try to pus…

It's impossible to give more than 100%

That’s not how we think at awesomesoft; there’s no “I” in team. We always give 110%!

This kinda attitude is gonna land you in the bottom 10% of stack ranking.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with work pressure?

#14

Post by muzani »

Graffur wrote: post #12
muzani wrote: post #7

Ideally it's good to give it 110% and then take a lot of rest. This is how you improve. But there needs to be trust there. So find a job which you can trust, and which trusts you. Your colleagues and boss should have your back, like a military squad would. If one of you needs to be away, you'll cover up the workload for them or they'll cover for you. If your leader feels you're tired or overworked, they'll try to pus…

It's impossible to give more than 100%

Say, your record is 10 push ups. You try to do 11. That's how you improve. You might actually be able to do 40 in a group session or 131 if your life depended on it, but there's no record of that.

But that way you end up targeting 211 in a month which at some point becomes impossible.

If you aim for 100% you'll never improve so it's only natural that all managers put you above expectations. However, instead of pushing you to that 40, some learn that by triggering your survival instincts, they can push you over 100. They think it's growth but it destroys you long term.

The other problem is some people know they can do 10 tasks in 8 hours then take on 11 tasks, and end up doing it 9 hours. This leads to some kind of expectations creep and before you know it, you're working day and night but your ability isn't improving.

So the survival mechanism is to do 8, which the manager pushes up to 9 or 10. So to achieve balance, you have external forces pulling you up while internal forces pulls you down. But this wrecks you internally, and you become dependent on external pressure.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with work pressure?

#16

Post by throwaway24124 »

Spend as much time as possible prepping for interviews and the minimum amount of time you can at your current job. Hope that you don't get fired within the first 6 months and begin actively applying for other roles as soon as possible and when you are ready. The expectations of your current role sound impossible for anyone to maintain. Working hard at your current job will only leave you burnt out. You should put all your energy into interview prep so you can land a job that will not leave you exhausted like this one.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with work pressure?

#17

Post by Graffur »

muzani wrote: post #14
Graffur wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's impossible to give more than 100%

Say, your record is 10 push ups. You try to do 11. That's how you improve. You might actually be able to do 40 in a group session or 131 if your life depended on it, but there's no record of that. But that way you end up targeting 211 in a month which at some point becomes impossible. If you aim for 100% you'll never improve so it's only natural that all managers put you above expectations. However, instead of pushin…

If 10 pushups is 100%, then you won't make 11. If you do 11, that is 100% of the pushups you can do, not 10.

I didn't say you can't improve but the way I see it is that 100% is the max you can give. Improving doesn't make it 110% otherwise we're all giving 1100000% from when we started our career.

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