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Executive Function Theft

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Re: Executive Function Theft

#91

Post by quickthrower2 »

canvascritic wrote: post #25

Oof, this hits close to home. during my tenure as a principal engineer at a certain startup, well known and loved in these parts. Anyway I was new to engineering leadership and this big initiative came down from above to migrate to k8s. team was excited to be done with the myriad adhoc scripts and duct tape infra. But it turned out the team was very junior, and I was green as a leader and manager. every day brought a…

Oof! Too down k8s initiative :-(. Definitely should be grass roots at startup based on actual problems and evaluation of the tech and alternatives.

Re: Executive Function Theft

#93

Post by tome »

I would love to see a follow-up article entitled "Why I can't 'just say "no"'". That's what I'd do (albeit in more diplomatic language) so I am extremely curious why others don't or can't. The author does touch on this briefly, mentioning that in The No Club

> the authors found that when they turned something down, another woman — usually one with less power — was asked

So perhaps partly it comes from a desire to help those weaker than oneself. But there must be more to it than that!

Re: Executive Function Theft

#94

Post by tome »

a-dub wrote: post #23

i call it "choice-gas" and yes it does run low and is expressly frustrating when it's constantly taxed needlessly. a good example is microsoft outlook. meeting invites would pop a mandatory three way choice of "send the response now, send the response later or edit the response before sending" every time the accept button was pressed. a truly infuriating case of eft.

I’m confused. Do you mean that the choice between those three buttons is difficult? I always just chose “send response now” and didn’t concern myself any more about it. Is there some reason that doesn’t work for people who are short on choice-gas?

Re: Executive Function Theft

#96

Post by stevezsa8 »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #49
KRAKRISMOTT wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But getting rid of shallow work is the entire reason why people get executive assistants.

I don't either Cal or the author would have a problem with exec assistants - they're being paid for that. Where it can be a problem is when there are "attentive" people on a team and "inattentive" people who are ostensibly equals. Team members with higher conscientiousness tend to get lumped with an outsized share of undesirable, low impact busywork because others won't do it. This dynamic can cause problems in all s…

I can relate to this.

I'm one of those people who usually had a little too much work to do, but still felt bad when no one else volunteers for a task.

Often I'll offer to take it.

I'd end up enjoying work less & less and got a bit disgruntled until I was back to my base-line of work.

I definitely see it as a weakness in me, but also in my manager who let it happen.

As I got older, I started to work at around 90% capacity and grab a tea or chat with a colleague or do some admin for the remainder. This enabled me to jump on to urgent requests and even make extra efforts like physically walking over to discuss the matter. This also enabled me to look out for junior colleagues who seemed a bit stressed.

Re: Executive Function Theft

#97

Post by davorak »

MatthiasPortzel wrote: post #6

The definition uses "abdication...to" which I don't think is correct. I think the author means "delegation...to."

Delegation is typically from someone senior to someone more junior. It is also normally knowingly and directly communicated(both transmitted and received). The author's examples that I can bring to mind don't fit my pervious two sentences so I do not think delegation is the correct word.

Re: Executive Function Theft

#98

Post by IdAugmentation »

Two things:

The main assumption in this article is that "ego depletion" is real. It may not be, see Wikipedia [1]. Psychology is in a big replication crisis, and the ego depletion stuff is all tangled up in it. There's a real possibility that this "theft" only exists by virtue of you believing in it. I'm aware there's a lot of hedging to be done here (experiences of people with ADHD, etc.).

I don't like calling this kind of experience "theft". I much prefer the framing around community service work: boring tasks that are essential for the community's well-being. If someone is not doing their part, they are being an asshole and should be made to (or get kicked out of the community). Emphasizing the communal aspect means you stand up for everybody, not just yourself. It promotes fairness for everybody, not just for yourself. It empowers everybody in the group because you are collectively taking care of this work. And it'll be more effective in practice because the "offender" is getting shamed by everybody, instead of you just whining about your own injustice.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion

Re: Executive Function Theft

#99

Post by Zarathustra30 »

ehnto wrote: post #31
a-dub wrote: post #23

i call it "choice-gas" and yes it does run low and is expressly frustrating when it's constantly taxed needlessly. a good example is microsoft outlook. meeting invites would pop a mandatory three way choice of "send the response now, send the response later or edit the response before sending" every time the accept button was pressed. a truly infuriating case of eft.

I like that. I think the term being used in literature is Decision Fatigue, if anyone wants to google it.

Slightley different. Decision Fatigue is what happens when you run low on Choice-Gas.

Re: Executive Function Theft

#100

Post by davorak »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #16
jacknews wrote: post #2

It's not really theft though, since the 'thief' doesn't gain the thing being 'stolen'. It's only the 'deny use' half of 'theft', ie it's more like DoS.

Don’t they? This part of the article stood out and rung true to me: > The thief has chosen to prioritize their executive function over another person’s and, having found that this makes their lives easier , repeats this behavior unless it is disrupted. (Emphasis added.) By imposing the executive function-depleting responsibility onto others, they reserve EF capacity of their own which they wouldn’t otherwise specific…

Pollution is a negative externality and I would understand the gist of it if it was called theft of clean air, but hesitate to endorse the wording.

I think of theft is something that you catch someone for and punish and potentially get back what was lost or some of it. Negative externalities I think of as something that needs to regulated legally or through some other feedback mechanism.

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