Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Boring work needs tension

iaziz786.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 77 posts

Re: Boring work needs tension

#61

Post by Nathanba »

CobrastanJorji wrote: post #41
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 wo…

Yes arbitrary tension is one of the most infuriating things that some agile people and bosses do. It's like they treat you as an unthinking machine that merely needs to constantly be prodded and poked to perform. Of course if you have any ability to think you will instantly figure out that it was fake pressure and who doesn't love it? I don't know why they think that this is going to work out for them. Well I do know actually, it's because many people do very little without being poked and asked constantly. That's the other side of the coin but frankly, that's a hiring problem. Such people shouldn't even be in the company.

Re: Boring work needs tension

#64

Post by gexla »

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…

He does sort of mention "story" several times. The story is the meaningful part. It's just that he says meaning follows tension. Maybe you don't agree with that either (not sure I do) but he does mention this.

Re: Boring work needs tension

#65

Post by sfink »

tra3 wrote: post #8

I feel like "tension" has negative connotations. Maybe it's just me. I like "friction" better in this context. There are so many opportunities for improvement, I'm never bored. My aim is to leave this place better than I found it. Even tiny improvements compound over time.

It's a callout to the concept of "dramatic tension". See also all the talk of stories, movies, etc.

https://fiveable.me/key-terms/introduction-creative-writing/... is as good a source as any.

To me, friction is more negative. It's always there and it only serves to slow things down (by definition!) Tension can be released, and in fact creates anticipation for the release.

Re: Boring work needs tension

#66

Post by hdjrudni »

Bolwin wrote: post #52
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

Most people already aware of the meaning of their work though, it's not something you can deliver updates on. Whereas tension is easy to manufacture

> Most people already aware of the meaning of their work though, it's not something you can deliver updates on.

It isn't always. I did use to write health care software. It was used by "SLPs" and dozens of other acronyms I barely understood what they meant. Their clients had "FASD" and abuse victims and all sorts of things.

I was given a spec, we need this, it needs to have these fields, and these words, and I made it happen.

I never saw our software used in the wild. I never spoke with the clients that used our software, I never saw the difference that they made in childrens lives.

The more time we could save the clinicians and therapists and others, the more time they could spend helping their clients.

It was meaningful, but I never saw any of that. Maybe once or twice a year our boss would come in and explain some of that stuff to us. It was nice to hear.

Re: Boring work needs tension

#67

Post by Jare »

liquid_thyme wrote: post #60
CobrastanJorji wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

>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. The problem is that the smart ones will easily figure out that 'this next version will save lives' is a total lie. If you…

> As they say, the best way to ruin something you love doing is by making it your job.

As someone who made a job and career out of what I always loved, it's far from ruined. Your relationship with the thing changes, and like anything that changes, sometimes it will go well and sometimes it will go bad, often both in succession like a rollercoaster.

> IMO people who chase some higher purpose and meaning are destined to be forever unhappy at their job.

I can 100% agree about people like that being forever emotional and passionate at their job. But to label it as unhappy is terribly reductive. "Unhappy" is a part of it, but there are plenty of other emotions you will go through: happy, scared, hopeful, dubious, frustrated, satisfied, elated, etc. Much like emotions that play out for us in "real" life events and relationships.

Re: Boring work needs tension

#68

Post by cleartext412 »

em-bee wrote: post #44
patates wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 c…

So it is essentially all about money, and meaningfulness of the job is just another bonus, along with medical insurance, prolonged vacation period and anything else that might make you choose less paying job.

That said, I can imagine people taking pride and joy in building an online game and making sure it works reliable even as audience grows way past anticipated level.

Re: Boring work needs tension

#69

Post by ramon156 »

DJBunnies wrote: post #18
ramon156 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My team isnt dysfunctional but I always get hit on the head for doing work and not making a ticket. I don't get it, if I see something bad I'm not going to search which ticket would best fit this issue. Just reviw my PR ! Also, so far most of our projects start simple but end in chaos and deadlines on the minute. I feel like we could always do better.

It takes like two seconds to write a ticket and then tag your commits with it. You get credit for fixing the issue, avoid giant fix-along-the-way PRs, and future credit for people (maybe even you) understanding why you those changes were made.

Creating the ticket takes two seconds, the estimation and writing the ticket doesnt :)

Re: Boring work needs tension

#70

Post by ramon156 »

data-ottawa wrote: post #20
DJBunnies wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes like two seconds to write a ticket and then tag your commits with it. You get credit for fixing the issue, avoid giant fix-along-the-way PRs, and future credit for people (maybe even you) understanding why you those changes were made.

I use MCP for this now. A crappy form filled ticket by an AI is slightly better than no ticket.

Gonna try thism ty lol
Post reply on HN