zlacker

>>todsac+(OP)
I tend to consider bullshit any point that finds somehow acceptable thinking that people is lazy, in this society, in this world, on this planet, ffs we have to work 40 hrs per week per decades and rest after reincarnation, and you want to talk about laziness? Let's talk about how any bit of mental energy is extracted to built other's wealth and then when you are too old to do nothing other than watching work in progress they just spit you out

when I am supposed to fix tech debt? if every week there is another functionality going out that needs to be done yesterday? Do you think that I have to do it in my free time? Why should I even bother existing

>>lnxg33+h1
That's how I burned out of software.

On a mature project in a small team, the only tickets left were hard bugs that nobody wanted. The kind of bugs where you can invest days and have nothing really to show for it except crossing out some suspicions. Or maybe incorrectly crossing one out and then going on a wild goose chase until you circle back to it in a week, flustered.

You're expected to commit all of your mental energy to these tickets day after day, and then once you finally triumph and solve the bug after coffee or amphetamine binges, you turn in the code, close the ticket, and you're expected to immediately work on the next ticket.

You don't get a real break. But you can mentally rest at the start of the next ticket since nobody expects instant results. But now it's been a couple days and people are asking you what you've been doing so far—you must be blocked, right?—but you've barely started and you're pressured to invent small lies and excuses about why you're behind, each one risking yet another slip of the mask.

And when you need some time off the most, it's when you're the most behind of all and people have begun to notice, so taking the time off doesn't even seem like an option.

>>hombre+U4
Hombre, are you me?

>> you turn in the code, close the ticket, and you're expected to immediately work on the next ticket.

Yes. That's me. And then I crash.

I used to call in sick when I go from heroically solving something unsolvable to start work on a new ticket. Then O thought, this is not sustainable. My boss is all over me for all of my sick time.

So then I started to just say to my manager, hey, Mgr, amma gonna flex this whole Monday. Don't call me. Don't frakkin even think about me. Back on Tuesday, we cool?

Turns out, we were cool.

Whenever someone requires from you to be a hero, don't. Or be that guy, then take a Monday off.

>>kreebe+Gf
This. Software engineering can be a mentally draining task, and just like with physically draining tasks your body needs time to recover its strength. Nobody would expect an athlete to last very long doing back to back events without recovery time between them - they'd end up injured. Your brain is similar.

Recognizing that and accommodating it is a sign of maturity for both an engineer and a manager.

>>dpe82+Zq
And that is why I dislike the label 'sprint'. A sprint is a short (unsustainable) extreme effort, not something that you do continuously.

>>jdswai+kx
> What kind of runner can run as fast as they possibly can from the very start of a race?

> [Audience reply: Sprinter]

> Right, only somebody who runs really short races, okay?

> [Audience laughter]

> But of course, we are programmers, and we are smarter than runners, apparently, because we know how to fix that problem, right? We just fire the starting pistol every hundred yards and call it a new sprint.

https://github.com/matthiasn/talk-transcripts/blob/master/Hi...