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In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

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Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#181

Post by otp209 »

dpe82 wrote: post #123

This reminds me of a research study Google conducted on itself some years ago asking the question: “What makes a team effective at Google?”. They found the most important to be psychological safety. https://rework.withgoogle.com/en/guides/understanding-team-e... https://archive.is/fFEgI

> asking the question: “What makes a team effective at Google?”

considering "effective at Google" == projects destined for the Graveyard, I feel like they could've been asking themselves better questions

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#182

Post by BLKNSLVR »

alphazard wrote: post #57

In software, often the people are the source of stress. Building the software is easy to many in this industry, and the vast majority of the value produced came from someone who thought creating it was easy. Being surrounded by rock stars all doing something they find easy is sublime, and I encourage everyone to seek out those environments. They exist and are fleeting. The stress comes from people who are bad at what…

Sometimes "bad at what they do" is a manifestation of the environment in which they're doing the thing as opposed to incompetence. If the environment is healthy and is understanding of the asking of "stupid questions", that promotes a better exploration of both the problem and the potential solutions, which act to help form the vision of the path to the solution.

This is much easier when the relationships within the work environment are "good".

I work with a bunch of different personality types and geniunely like almost all of them. It just takes time to work out each individuals quirks and work with / around them.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#183

Post by rcxdude »

bumby wrote: post #53
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if they are just a disgruntled malcontent who will also be disgruntled and malcontent at your company. The downside of hiring a malcontent is huge. Honestly, I get much better along with malcontents than with these "annoyingly positive" people. So, tastes differ. > An interviewer can assume that most quality candidates are also aware of this dynamic and will wisely choose to represent the positive aspects of their…

I prefer positive people but can deal with complainers if they’re actively looking to make thinking better. The problem is when malcontents only bitch and rarely do anything about it. That creates a toxic environment.

Also very much depends on whether they're right or not. You can always compain about something, are they actually complaining about the things that matter?

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#184

Post by [deleted] »

alphazard wrote: post #57

In software, often the people are the source of stress. Building the software is easy to many in this industry, and the vast majority of the value produced came from someone who thought creating it was easy. Being surrounded by rock stars all doing something they find easy is sublime, and I encourage everyone to seek out those environments. They exist and are fleeting. The stress comes from people who are bad at what…

[deleted]

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#185

Post by BLKNSLVR »

neilv wrote: post #132

In the kind of "high-stress work environment" they're talking about (it's a dysfunctional, toxic kind), the only example they give for value of relationships is getting recommendations afterwards. Relationships can also help you mitigate the dysfunctional environment while you're there, with huge benefits to your health. (Don't underestimate when people say stress kills you: it's not a video game health meter that re…

I left a place that I'd been for a long time that had slowly become toxic (to me at least), but it took me maybe a year longer than it should have for me to leave, and the after-effects of the stress stuck with me for at least 6 months, possibly up to a year. My wife basically pointed out that I was "different": less of what makes me me (I'm fundamentally happy and optimistic).

Identify problems and act early, for the sake of your mental and eventually physical health.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#186

Post by spacemadness »

gdubs wrote: post #179

Many of you are more valuable than you realize and it pains me to read so many comments about how you need to frame things "just so" in an interview, or "be careful not to lose your patience ever". It's dehumanizing, and it undervalues your inherent worth and skill set. Obviously don't be a jerk. Beyond that you will really damage your mental well-being if you're constantly trying to put on a certain face or worry ho…

That was really nice to read, thanks. There's a lot of black and white thinking out there that can really get one down sometimes if you're not careful.

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#187

Post by [deleted] »

rcxdude wrote: post #183
bumby wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I prefer positive people but can deal with complainers if they’re actively looking to make thinking better. The problem is when malcontents only bitch and rarely do anything about it. That creates a toxic environment.

Also very much depends on whether they're right or not. You can always compain about something, are they actually complaining about the things that matter?

[deleted]

Re: In a high-stress work environment, prioritize relationships

#189

Post by lioeters »

ngangaga wrote: post #148
barbazoo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The stress comes from people who are bad at what they do and are trying to make it someone else's problem. They don't have vision for how they will accomplish what is asked of them. In their imagination, there is not a clear set of steps that can be burned down over the coming days and weeks to arrive at something of value. In their minds it is all chaos and uncertainty and they are desperate for the assurance of s…

Reality is always more nuanced. That's kind of reality's deal.

The coastline paradox, also known as "How long is the English coastline?", is the counterintuitive observation that the coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined length. This results from the fractal curve-like properties of coastlines.

> The prevailing method of estimating the length of a border (or coastline) was to lay out n equal straight-line segments of length l with dividers on a map or aerial photograph.

> the sum of the segments monotonically increases when the common length of the segments decreases. In effect, the shorter the ruler, the longer the measured border

> The result most astounding to Richardson is that, under certain circumstances, as l approaches zero, the length of the coastline approaches infinity.

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