The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
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The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
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Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
#2Seems like a good solution to me if that was the only major issue.
If the underlying cause becomes an issue again, then maybe look at longer term solutions.
I’ve always had an issue with leaving light switches on. So I installed a bunch of home automation stuff. Now my light bulbs turn themselves off when I leave the house and a few turn on when I return. It’s a lot easier than trying to fix the problem of forgetting to flip switches before leaving.
Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
#3While reading, I was thinking about telling her to get rid of the hairdryer, but bringing it with you is way smarter. If there was no hairdryer to worry about the mind would likely search for something new to obsess over.
Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
#4This is a great story. I know its not related but I can't help but feel a sort of analogy to engineering work: the tension between idealism and pragmatism.
At a previous company our build times for a game client were around 5 minutes or so. Our tools team had planned some work to get this down but it kept getting pushed out. The tools weren't part of the client so I'm not sure they know how bad this was. Anyways, one of the tools engineers rigged up a solution in a day or so that got this down to a minute. Unfortunately it wasn't the nice, perfect, planned solution that kept getting pushed out so they were reprimanded by some manager. Fortunately, more were on the side of the engineer than the manager. To my knowledge they never did end up implementing the planned solution.
Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
#5Engineering is filled with "hacks" and workarounds, where the root cause isn't fully understood, if at all. I feel that if, as a profession, there was immense pressure to instead find only root causes to address issues, we'd still be working out the kinks with punch-card systems.
Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
#6The idea that the entire psychiatric community wouldn't be completely on the side of the author is one of the reasons that I have such little faith in their field.
The reason being is that the underlying condition could always be worked on after first taking the small, practical steps to dramatically reduce the impact of the problem.
I have personally experienced situations like this and it was so frustrating until I realised that I had to take personal responsibility, because help wasn't coming from within the system.
Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
#7The Gordian Knot theory of psychiatry.
Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
#8I agree that its a great solution and in a way it is consistent with any other long term medical condition so I don't understand the outrage.
You can try and try and try to treat the underlying medical condition. But at some point if it doesn't work you stop trying to treat the underlying medical condition and instead treat symptoms to make the patients quality of life as good as you can while living with the issue.
Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
#9The idea that the entire psychiatric community wouldn't be completely on the side of the author is one of the reasons that I have such little faith in their field. The reason being is that the underlying condition could always be worked on after first taking the small, practical steps to dramatically reduce the impact of the problem. I have personally experienced situations like this and it was so frustrating until I…
I’ve had the same problems with regular doctors and medical issues. A lot of my problems turned out to be a milk allergy.
Re: The Hair Dryer Incident (2014)
#10Hah, my first instinct was "just set up a baby monitor". I can totally see not thinking of the even more obvious solution.