21–30 of 96 posts
OK, those things can be upsetting, and create some unexpected chaos in your life. But if that's the worst you ever have to deal with, you aren't really doing too bad.
"It could be worse" can sound like small comfort, but really, it could be worse.
Learning to deal with frustration is probably one of the most important skills one can acquire.
I wish I could be more honest with my failures, but people have abused my trust so many times I have lost count. at some point you just have to cut your losses and keep it to yourself, or to a few select few.
Right here with you. At my last company, I tried to get the team comfortable “I don’t know,” “that didn’t pan out,” etc. I couldn’t get the lead on the other team to catch on. He’d bullshit an answer over a few minutes in a meeting, and Product and Management would eat that shit up. That team was no better/worse at failure than anyone else, but apparently non-engineers can’t be bothered with the truth of humans: we’r…
> we’re failure machines looking for the right answers because we just can’t know everything.
Yea this is a real problem. I wish stats and probability were more emphasized in high school. And it really doesn’t matter if people understand the math, the primary goal should be to get students at least familiar, and hopefully comfortable, with the concepts of chance and randomness. And having students internalize the concept of a confidence interval could help form a mental model of how to go about making assertions and the danger of overstating things.
The overstating things part is definitely ingrained in the American culture at least but I feel that this could really chip away at that
I am pretty open about my past failures with others but I definitely understand why people aren't. There is a stigma associated with failure that society still hasn't accepted. My last job I held the title of VP of Engineering. It was a small company and during my time there I recognized that the title was outsized for what I actually did. I was actually more of an Engineering Manager. All of my direct reports were I…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right here with you. At my last company, I tried to get the team comfortable “I don’t know,” “that didn’t pan out,” etc. I couldn’t get the lead on the other team to catch on. He’d bullshit an answer over a few minutes in a meeting, and Product and Management would eat that shit up. That team was no better/worse at failure than anyone else, but apparently non-engineers can’t be bothered with the truth of humans: we’r…
What changed since then? Asking for a friend ;)
About how grappling with and learning from failure starts with the language we use around it.
What is defined as failure for one, is success for another. Failure detection is skewed by "the loudest voice" and "the strongest arm." Morals, ethics, scientific standards, and social hierarchy all fighting for a chance to define and redefine failure. What one person can happily do without question could be the kryptonite for another. Not to mention gender roles.
The weird part, at least for me, is that people are not consistent. What is a failure in one aspect is a success in another; it's not objective. There's almost always a spin. Probably autism a bit but, at least be consistent and honest.
Failure is a complex issue for many of us (me def included). While I do think it's really important for us to be able to openly talk about failure, I think it's just as important (if not more) to frame failure as not just part of the process but as a good thing. Mistakes is how many of us learn and even if we can learn other ways, making mistakes can be a fantastic teacher. I've found that learning from them dulls th…
I was enjoying the 1 minute I could read of this until something popped up asking to do something and I just clicked away!!!
I was enjoying the 1 minute I could read of this until something popped up asking to do something and I just clicked away!!!