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Boring work needs tension

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Re: Boring work needs tension

#41

Post by CobrastanJorji »

truelson wrote: post #24

I disagree. Boring work needs meaning, not tension. Some times boring, done consistently, is where the truly great things come from. Tension is, imo, ephemeral. If you keep chasing it, you are chasing dopamine loops. Little good comes from this. But meaning is different. When you can remind yourself a truly great "why" you are doing something, can re-frame it, it can help. Most importantly, boredom, irritation, and a…

I think that "Boring work needs meaning, not tension" is a great explanation of bad bosses.

Any work will go a little faster when your boss puts an arbitrary deadline on it and screams "We need this by Friday, we're gonna tell the VP that it's late and it's your fault!!" But it's hugely demoralizing and stressful.

But if you say "this work will get the client's hospital equipment monitoring suite out sooner; if it works reliably, they'll be able to deploy it sooner, and it'll save the lives of some sick kids," then that'll also get the work done a little faster, and it'll make you feel good about doing it.

Arbitrary tension is a patch that you put on work that has no meaning. "We want you to go faster because it will make our metrics go up which might raise the stock a few percentage which might make our investors a few extra millions" has no meaning, which is the root problem.

Re: Boring work needs tension

#42

Post by lucketone »

wavemode wrote: post #26
dakiol wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then if you cannot work on a ticket because of prio, you cannot either work without a ticket, isn't it? I thought the point here was doing work with or without a ticket.

Without a ticket, the only people who see that you're working on that thing are the engineers reviewing your code. At many companies, this creates a lot less friction. To put it a different way: it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. Creating a ticket is like asking permission (as the project managers will see the ticket and start asking questions about why time is being spent on low-priority things). Just g…

Still…

The adult thing (hard but responsible) to do, is to create a ticket, then allocate time for feelings of the manager.

(including cost-benefit ratio comparison between “this dealing with the manager” vs “fixed thing” might be tempting)

Re: Boring work needs tension

#43

Post by josephjrobison »

I always find fun and comfort in imaging my work as part of the lore of a medieval saga. Think of being a character in Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones - no matter how big or small - and the role your actions play in the larger story. Side quests are welcome.

Re: Boring work needs tension

#44

Post by em-bee »

patates wrote: post #31
truelson wrote: post #24

I disagree. Boring work needs meaning, not tension. Some times boring, done consistently, is where the truly great things come from. Tension is, imo, ephemeral. If you keep chasing it, you are chasing dopamine loops. Little good comes from this. But meaning is different. When you can remind yourself a truly great "why" you are doing something, can re-frame it, it can help. Most importantly, boredom, irritation, and a…

> Some times boring, done consistently, is where the truly great things come from. I used to tell myself the same thing. Then one day, a customer misconfigured their NetScaler, and all hell broke loose. We had half-delivered CSS files, misfiring form handlers, random blank screens of death, and a buggy front-end library that would bombard the backend with requests if it received the wrong status code with no back-off…

i too strive in such a situation, but it still makes a difference whether the work is meaningful or not. especially when you get to sleepless nights. it makes difference if that customer is a hospital or some other meaningful industry, or it is something meaningless like an online game, other entertainment or worse, gambling. i wouldn't work overtime for the latter (unless the pay is worth it or the team is good)

i can definitely confirm that meaningless work is more boring.

Re: Boring work needs tension

#45

Post by exogenousdata »

truelson wrote: post #24

I disagree. Boring work needs meaning, not tension. Some times boring, done consistently, is where the truly great things come from. Tension is, imo, ephemeral. If you keep chasing it, you are chasing dopamine loops. Little good comes from this. But meaning is different. When you can remind yourself a truly great "why" you are doing something, can re-frame it, it can help. Most importantly, boredom, irritation, and a…

Very well said!

Re: Boring work needs tension

#47

Post by tayo42 »

kbar13 wrote: post #4

who's working at a boring job nowadays as a software dev? everywhere i see devs are wearing like 10 hats bc we have the combination of being capable yet still at the bottom of the totem pole.

Those 10 hats can be boring.

I do alot, all of it is meaningless and tied up in corporate politics.

Another poster got it right, meaningful work isn't boring.

Re: Boring work needs tension

#48

Post by fnord77 »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #3

Unless you work on a dysfunctional team and any non-tracked work is forbidden, and any work you try and get tracked requires 6 pages of justification and takes 10 weeks to get prioritized enough for someone to work on...

Disallowing non-tracked work isn't necessarily dysfunctional.

Let's say you're working on spaceflight software where lives are at risk.

Re: Boring work needs tension

#50

Post by [deleted] »

treve wrote: post #29
truelson wrote: post #24

I disagree. Boring work needs meaning, not tension. Some times boring, done consistently, is where the truly great things come from. Tension is, imo, ephemeral. If you keep chasing it, you are chasing dopamine loops. Little good comes from this. But meaning is different. When you can remind yourself a truly great "why" you are doing something, can re-frame it, it can help. Most importantly, boredom, irritation, and a…

Different people are motivated differently. My work is meaningful but it's not enough to feel like I'm having fun every day. Some dopamine is basically critical for me to function. It's always a bit wild when people feel they can generalize their own experience and assume it must be the case for everyone else. This needs more I statements.

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