@8:20 - to that point the trash would get taken out by SOMEONE ELSE, while the trash man who is overwhelmed is able to recover the food would get served by SOMEONE ELSE, while the server who is overwhelmed is able to recover Customers should still expect their product. But PMs shouldn't expect ONE PERSON to make all the things 34/10 Cause there aren't 34 hours in a day nor 10 days in a week PMs need to create realistic timelines to deliver products.
yeah, it was actually a bad take. it would have merit if our workplaces were suffering from missing massive amount of employees because they declared being overwhelmed. but we have THE OPPOSITE issue. people working to the point of burnout! how many colleagues you had that claimed being overwhelmed and required stay at home? because I have 0. but I have 5-6 taking antidepressants recovering from burnout. so you know what, f that guy (author of the article). I despise that take. it's taken to an extreme which doesn't exist in reality
@@sedmidivka Agreed. I was quite sad to hear prime actually agree with it. If people are struggling with thoughts of suicide and other issues, they need to take that time. It's not about letting them have no work, but about getting the appropriate load. There is some truth to this article, but overall it feels crass and written with a lack of empathy. Sure there are people gaming the system, but by and large, like you said, people are over-worked and burnt out
I thought that the take wasnt that they shouldnt take the time off, but that you'd be annoyed at someone else for taking time off for it, but not when justifying it for yourself
America is just so extreme. Either you believe you should talk to people like Linus Torvalds... or you don't think you should even tell somebody that they messed up. Like most things, you gotta meet somewhere in between.
Linus Torvalds is just fine. He is from Finland. As a Brit who moved to Finland I see that Finns are straight speaking. They don't try to be ever so polite and mince around the bush while back stabbing you in the back. If you mess up they will just straight out say so to your face. As a Brit that was a bit of culture shock for me but I have come to appreciate it. It does not mean they hate you or what you to feel bad (well not so much) they just want to get the job done properly. It's efficient in getting everyone onboard and working together.
couldn't agree more. Being too kind can deprive someone of valuable feedback, however freedom to be as mean as possible just impairs the development of communication and critical thinking skills (in the cases where "bad code" or "bad product" is subjective), and worse - it allows abusive personalities to thrive under the cloak of being honest
@@Heater-v1.0.0 I'm a huge Linus Torvalds fan, as I am a huge Linux fan. But to say that there's nothing wrong with him saying stuff like "You should've never been born, you should've been retroactively aborted", etc, just because someone made a mistake in code.... is crazy. lol. That's extreme. And very much NOT DIRECT. DIRECT would be like saying, "This is bad code, please do better next time." Insults draw away from the main point.
@@aDaily1222 You forget to quote the rest of the message where Linus explained all the problems with the PR (apparently not for the first time). I mean, we can talk all day about his choice of wording, but can we at least acknowledge the broader context?
11:25 “[I]t plants the idea that working in front of a computer is so mentally taxing…” No. Just no. That’s not the argument at all. Working in front of a computer or on an assembly line isn’t the “taxing” part. It’s meeting unrealistic demands from management regardless of any external factors that’s taxing. F this guy and F his Straw Man. In probably > 99% of all software dev jobs, _nothing_ is life or death and nobody is going to suffer physical harm if a deadline is missed. But “business” treats deadlines and deliverables as if f’ing lives are on the line, when in fact at most, some founder/investor/shareholder might loose a fraction of a dollar/share because a deadline slipped by six weeks. If the deadline is so F’ing important, let’s see how they do when a key contributor just ups and leaves because they need a mental break before they mentally break.
Being the guy whos not going to sugarcoat what the real problem is, is likely to get you canned. Because lets be honest, the vast majority of the time the problem is the employer
There's gracefully leading people into thinking they were the ones that figured out what the real problem was because you were clear and then there's just being so frustrated you'd burst out in anger and resentment that they get shooketh over you letting go of all that mental baggage you've been holding for so many years. The latter is more likely to get canned.
@@TheodoreChin-ih7xz Sounds kind of like getting evicted from an apartment with a gas leak. Unfortunate, but you are probably better off not staying there
Meanness aside, calling code "bad code" is useless. "Bad" is a meaningless subjective term. It turns out, there's an overlap between "mean" statements, and subjective statements, because "judgments" are both mean and subjective. If code is bad, it's bad for a reason. Is it slow? Is it hard to understand? Is it more complex than it needs to be? All of these things are simultaneously more useful criticisms and less mean. I would argue that if you think code is bad, but you can't find a way to explain it in any terms other than "this is stupid", then you should examine your understanding of the problem before issuing your criticism. Not just to be nice or save someone's feelings. Because you could be wrong, or at least shouldn't trust your judgement if you don't understand it.
Yeah, "bad code" is "bad feedback". If someone told me that, I'd consider going around savaging their PRs. I can be a dick too, I just choose not to. I prefer saying, "this is not optimal", "this library isn't good because of X", "you've repeated yourself", "I don't think this is clear".
It’s simple: “I think this code will cause problems, and here is why:” That’s all a supervisor should say negatively, and then give them a starting point. It should literally just be a “hey, stop, go this way instead”
Yeah, but when there’s multiple problems with the code, listing all the problems doesn’t get the point across. Calling it bad does. If you want to know what’s bad, then you dive into that.
@@SopaDeLengua it's better to name one actual problem with the code. Calling it "bad" says nothing other than that you won't approve the PR. It says exactly nothing that simply rejection the PR or whatever doesn't say. Listing just one actual problem is better than zero. You can give information instead of judgments. Only one of those is useful, at all.
In other industries if you frame something wrong use a tool incorrectly, they laugh at you and call you a moron. And if you go to your boss and complain that they're not treating you fairly he laughs at you too.
Being honest is great, but people need to understand having some sort of personal relationship with other people on your team is also important. If the only interaction you have with someone is in the form of criticism, your team may stop listening after a while. Have that cup of coffee together and agree with each other that number one priority is shipping great code and helping each other out. This paves the way for constructive criticism. It's all about people skills.
it also helps you notice the difference between being whelmed and overwhelmed. Good management helps their people through times of being overwhelmed. Sometimes you just need to tell someone to take a day.
Only in America have we been convinced that mental health days are a bad thing and that allocating more than one or two days for it to employees is "overly precious." You get one life, one brain and have to sacrifice major amounts of it to benefit some prick at the top of the pyramid buying another yacht, while you just try and keep your boat afloat.
What do you mean "only America"? Coming to the end go my long career in England, Scandinavia, Finland I have never heard of "mental health days". I'm pretty sure most people in most of the world don't get such luxury. They either work or go hungry.
@@Heater-v1.0.0 This isn't a good faith argument, all three of those countries have 20-28+ days of paid leave according to to many sources, including government pages from those countries. That's 4-5, ie a month or more. It's not comparable- many employers offer two weeks in the US, not always even paid-time-off. This isn't even accounting for sick leave; It's not even comparable.
@@texrayvision Please don't say my arguments are not made in "good faith". That suggests I'm lying or being otherwise disruptive with mall intent. I find that rather insulting. I like to think that is not what you mean. Yes, and around here both mothers and fathers get maternity leave. Anyway, what you are saying is that the US needs some civilized working hours, working conditions and employment contracts. With that in place there would be la lot less call for "mental health days". One my visits to the US I have been horrified at the way people have to work there.
I extend that grace to literally every worker. I like how the narrative here is that it's the individual's fault and that the indivudal needs to suck it up, not that there is a problem with the lack of social infrastructure interfacing with industry. This is just a plea to put more pressure on the worker for the fruits that the company and governments get to enjoy ...off of the back of the worker. E: And yes, people need to work on themselves too and we need good outlets to help people do that. The solutions will not come from only 1 direction. However, when only the worker is discussed, it's pretty shitty and will just continue to increase pressure while everyone stands by and wonders what is going on.
It's horrible to see the lack of empathy in display here. As software developers, unless you work on something like medical equipment or scientific research, your work is meaningless. We just make our silly little applications to charge people monthly for and that's that. The world doesn't stop because a software company slowed down and gave their workers time to rest their minds Instead of taking that away because other industries don't do it, we should extend that kindness to other industries. Imagine telling a construction worker that they should tough it out and handle the pain of extreme physical exertion instead of resting DHH is just an out of touch business owner that wants to pay his workers less to work more because he believes himself to be too important not to have his paycheck be higher than last year's. It's sad to see regular workers take his perspective
The trash still gets emptied if one driver is off because of physical illness, it's still going to get emptied if one driver is off because of mental illness
Yeah that bit was quite foolish. There's any number of reasons someone could be out of work on a particular day, if the whole system falls apart because they took a day off that's their employers failure not theirs.
Reliability gets vastly harder to achieve as the components become less reliable. Going from people taking an average of 2 unplanned days off a year to 10 actually does make a substantial difference in how much slack capacity is required. As with any other service outage, planned is much easier to deal with.
@@FireStormOOO_ If your employees suddenly start taking 400% more days off with mental health issues, it's probably time to start looking at what changes you can make to your organisation
And there should be social infrastructure in place interfacing with that kind of industry or really any kind of industry to take the blow for these kinds of things. We need to be creating society around ourselves.
If I get bad service at a restaurant because the server is (over)whelmed or dealing with something stressful that feels like *more* of a reason for a reasonable policy that allows employees to take care of their mental health. I'll remember getting bad service at that restaurant long after I've forgotten the name and face of the server.
It's not about "not being able to say your code is bad" It's about constructive criticism. You end goal should never be to "win" a conversation in the work place, but to solve the problem at hand. Yes, if someone's code isn't good, you can't beat around the bush. But look at saying "Your code sucks and hurts my eyes" vs. "This code isn't up to our agreed upon coding standards. Here's a link to check them out. If you got any more questions, or need further training, we can look into finding those" Both say the same thing. One solves the problem. The other only makes you an enemy.
Claiming that basecamp paragraph is 'overly precious', I assume they have the statistics to tell us all how lots of staff were taking unnecessary days off or otherwise harming their progress? No? Not gonna provide even a scrap of evidence? Cool, cool... If you want to write about whats a healthy way to deal with staff, come with receipts, otherwise you are just some ass claiming tedious 'Never did me any harm.' personal anecdotes. (and of course it didnt, hes incredibly wealthy and can and does do whatever he feels like. He has no idea how most people live.) Incidentally, the book he cites does indeed point out that if you care for employees personally without challenging feedback, that its a problem... this is after a story of how harmful it is to not care about people personally, and before the conclusion of the chapter which says you absolutely should go out of your way to care for people while _also_ giving them good, even if negative, feedback. In no way does the book contradict the idea of people taking a day off like that paragraph suggests. (In fact, even good feedback without personal care is explicitly labelled in the book 'Obnoxious Aggression') I mean, Im not a huge fan of the book either, but regardless, it bugs the crap out of me when people cite sources that dont back their arguments. Either he completely missed a sizeable chunk of the book or hes just counting on nobody checking the source so he can feed you a load of completely unsubstantiated crap... to be candid about it.
If an employee is having a rough time in life and they need to take a few days, then they take a few days. My emploees take more days off than under the previous manager, but moral is improved immensely. People have enough shit in their lives and work doesn't need to add to it. The result is people are far more invested in their work and the company so quality and deliveries have improved. Critiquing, constructively, their performance isn't a negative thing, it identifies skill sets that require development. When you're invested in your employees identifying wealness is a positive.
Striving for resilience is definitely honorable. I definitely see the POV of this article, though the antithesis of this article is every organization that goes too far the other way. I'd much rather have a lax "mental health days" policy, than a policy wherein everyone has "Unlimited PTO" but using any of it is "performance review suicide."
If you're overwhelmed at work it's not a mental health issue, it's a management issue. Find the cause and raise it with your manager. If lots of people are all feeling overwhelmed there's a systemic issue there that you need to collectively raise.
I have been overwhelmed twice at work both times I rage quit that day. Sadly was before I was a dev. Working my 6 days a week 10 hour shifts without holidays takes a toll on you. So taking a mental health day makes sense.
The trigger warnings are then so that people who may have personal reasons not to watch things don't have to. For example, a victim of rape may understandably not want to watch depictions of rape. Or a parent who's child died of a drug overdose may not to want depictions of drug use. This should be freaking obvious.
Well done for getting through that with your misses my dude. That experience was the end of the best relationship I ever had. Never stopped loving her, never blamed her, but it happened very late in pregnancy and she couldn't forgive herself. Spent a decade getting over that one. Love to the misses/kids and great to see you come through it so well.
I don't need to build extra resilience by seeking discomfort in an ice bath, I get plenty of that from just living regular life. Plenty of opportunities to suffer and build resilience without seeking it out or imposing it onto others. Humans are both fragile and resilient I don't aspire to either of those, I embrace the totality of who I am as a human being.
This article does the same thing they all do. It's a boss that's bitching his employees use too much time off and they should be at work, working... yet provides no data on the productivity loss, organizational stress, etc. Why does no one invest any time or effort into looking into how productivity is affected by policies at work? Magically, this data never makes it to the light of day which makes me think it shows little to no impact on actual productivity (or maybe even a net positive, but management has their head up their ass so far that they can't accept it). What are the short and long term ramifications? How does it affect employee retention? etc.
"This is bad code", "I don't like it" is a shitty feedback anyway because nobody cares what you think personally so why even say that. Feedback has to be specific. The code may be missing unit tests, might be too long to comprehend for most people, may be too dependent on another piece that's probably temporary, may be too memory-intensive at scale etc. And there can be legitimate reasons for all of that. E.g. if a PM allocates a 1hr slot to help with some large feature you bet your ass my code won't have tests or be split nicely.
> "This is bad code", "I don't like it" is a shitty feedback anyway because nobody cares what you think personally so why even say that. If the feedback is given by someone who actually pays you money for your work, you better start caring pronto or pack your shit and gtfo.
@@YaroslavFedevych Start caring what the boss thinks on a personal level? You're kidding me? Hard disagree, that's a weak mindset. Technical experts have a responsibility to guide business people and tell them what technical stuff needs to be done to achieve their goal, but if they pressure you to do stupid shit they have no possibility to have knowledge about YOU tell them to gtfo and change the company. Your boss is not your friend. Do not ever care on a personal level. That being said that doesn't happen in reality anyway. Code reviews are performed by team members or tech leads max and they have nothing to do with your employment. If they don't give you specific feedback, you report that fact up the ladder. Or tell them to get their shit together directly if that works - depends on person.
@@YaroslavFedevych Why you think being rich is any goal? He is right, "this is bad code" is terrible feedback. Tell me exactly what is bad here and why its bad, and what would be better solution in specific case. If you cant argue your opinion then "pack your shit and gtfo."
If people at your company constantly need to take mental health days then the problem is your sweatshop of a company, because most people don't just skip work just because they want to, even if there's no consequence.
I literally only started watching Primeagen regularly because I watched one video and he did that text selection thing and it drove me insane so I watched more videos to see if he did it in more of them bc I was personally under the impression that he was doing it to generate engagement. Well it got my engagement and now he's addressed it so I feel complete. Thank you Prime, my mind can rest now.
Sounds like DHH has never been overwhelmed at work. Honestly, if y’all got more paid time off, maybe I’d agree. But the American allowance is so pitifully low that overwhelm is bound to happen at some point…
I have no problem when someone say that my code is shit, as long as they give me logical reasons why. If they only tell me that it is shit without being able to specify why then I get upset since they are just wasting my time.
You don't grow muscle by treating it as badly as possible, you tear them. The way you grow muscle is by exerting it close to the breaking point, but never above it; and by taking breaks strategically. I think that emotional regulation works the same.
no one wamts a strong team anyway in the muscle analogy. You want endurance. And the way to build endurance is not to stress the muscles anywhere close to its maximum capability, it's to operate for long periods of time of like 20% capability, enough to keep the muscle in shape, but more stressing the surrounding support for it (aka MANAGEMENT) to the max. If you want an organization thst lifts heavy for short periods of time you spend 90% resting.. no company runs like that.
This is the most braindead take ever, to actually grow muscles you need good rest and more nutrients as well but I guess let's just throw these two out of the window 😂
The real problem is the ambiguity of "feeling overwhelmed." As Prime points out, that can mean anything from "I just didn't feel like I got anything done today" to "I just lost a child." The company can still help you with the former problem, but not with the same resources that they would use for the latter.
If you look at people's production as a percentage of their maximum potential, then we can all accept that no one will operate at 100% all of the time. If we were to accept that a normal number would be 80-85%, then we can say as long as they are in the 80+% range, then they are good to keep going. And we can all accept that someone who is working at 50% probably needs something significant to change (time off, different work responsibility, counseling?, etc.). Organizations, far too often, undervalue the idea that someone who falls into the 79% range could fix their issues and return to 90+% with a day off or a small tweak at work. We just watch someone hit 79... 78...77...73... 70... 65... and then only when they're so clearly broken does anyone do anything about it. But you've had weeks/months of reduced performance. Is that really good for the company? Surely not. To be clear, I'm not advocating I have the solution. I'm just suggesting that organizational efficiency and workplace productivity studies are not often cited when we have these discussions. "I feel workers take too much time off" is basically what a lot of execs/VPs say. They *feel* it... and then the workers feel it even more.
The company should not care about the specific reasons someone is overwhelmed, that'd be policing somebody's mental health. Where's the line? How bad should a situation be in someone's life for it to qualify as being overwhelmed? How would you feel if you asked for the time off that was promised to you and it was denied because they concluded that your situation wasn't bad enough?
@@daliareds So nobody ever does this on the Internet, but I thought a lot about your reply and I think you're right. I wouldn't want a company to dictate the severity of my own mental health to me. But I have also solved a lot of work-related anxiety just by seeking the help of senior coworkers. Time off wouldn't have solved that issue because it wasn't time I needed, it was advice. So, while I would want the employee to be in control of what to do about the problem, I would not want to provide that employee with only one way to solve that problem.
17:53 "Liberty is not being about to do whatever you want: liberty is the ability to exercise your will." Based. Never thought about it that way, but this finally makes my own experiences with freedom make sense.
It isn't The Company's job to make me a resilient person, that was my parent's job and now its mine. That doesn't exclusively extend to my career, however. People who only focus on their job are boring.
The reason "this is bad code" is a bad thing to say is because it's unhelpful. Why is it bad code? What part is bad code? You can get your point across without saying someone is "bad" and more often than not the times I've been told that my code is "bad" is because the person reviewing it doesn't understand why I wrote my code in such a way, the limitations I was facing when I wrote the code, or they just don't agree with how I format or style my code. If they have a real point, I have no problem with it, but telling people to put up with pedantic jerks that inhibit them from pushing a feature is annoying and bad.
Just pointing out for consideration that this is very much an American thing. People leaving for the day or places being closed because the employees took the day off or cut it short. Or went home because they're feeling particularly stressed out. That's normal in loads of nations. Other nations don't let businesses have nearly as strong of a stranglehold on people's lives. It's fairly normal in those nations to find loads of places are just closed for weeks during the Summer. They actually do get to check out from work. Maybe we are overwhelmed. We're just so used to it, that we think it's just whelmed.
Trigger warnings are not there to "prepare you" for a topic. It's there so that people who can't deal with that topic can make the decision not to engage.
No they're described as doing both, although obviously they don't allow someone to avoid engagement with a topic because the trigger warning mentions the topic itself. Really it's just a sad attempt to bend the universe to protect self-obsessed people from things that can't hurt them in the first place.
I take issue with this article. Personally, I read mental health days as burnout management days. Sometimes you have alot of work to do and often its not all that fun work. When thats the case burnout is a constant issue and managing it appropriately is essential for maintaining productivity. However, if you ask me to use my personal leave in order to maintain work productivity I'm obviously not going to do it.
Great rules to live by: 1. Be direct about the code 2. Figure out the understanding of the problem together if you're both not on the same page 3. Don't just hand someone the answer; offer benevolent guidance 4. Don't be personal about the code 5. No personal attachment to specific pieces of code: do what you can to solve the problem, even if that problem changes over time
it's all fun talk until you have your first ever real mental breakdown, powerless to do anything, like even getting out of bed and your hands shake while holding things. for many people sitting behind computer can be taxing because they overbear responsibility of what they do, leading to constant stress even when their code is fine and they meet every deadline. thats where "overwhelming" comes from
@@JamesSmith-cm7sg You don't know what an actual breakdown looks like, or feels like. I'll give you a hint. I've had one in my entire life, and it laid me out for two weeks. I've had multiple shoulder dislocations and a blood infection and I would sooner have both of those then ever experience a mental breakdown again. It was like having brain flu. I couldn't move. I was completely useless. I couldn't think, couldn't cook, I couldn't finish a sentence. And fuck me, man, I was kickboxing, I'd finished a PhD. Seriously. It breaks you. Hard. I don't think I've ever gotten the resilience back. I know my limits now. EDIT: I actually reread this. The shaking hands is the really hard bit to deal with. For the first two days I just kept spilling stuff over myself. I lost 8kg that week.
People are BEGGING for good honest constructive criticism in my experience (the folks that aren't don't develop and wind up sucking/getting fired). My work introduced the "What went well->even better if" it's a format that works best for presentations where things are easily felt personally. But ultimately it's probably too "kid gloves" for code review. (Also worth noting, "bad" code doesn't always need to be fixed, and senior devs doing code reviews should have the professional maturity to make that call (maybe throw a comment in so you know it isn't Chesterton's Fence when you run into it later)
I rather a person be good, not kind. Sadly people see that as the same. A good person would let you know why something is bad and help you make it better (true feed back)
In a professional environment, telling someone their code is "bad" is rarely helpful despite the fact you might truly think it. I also think prefacing every code review with an obligatory "Here's whats good about your code" is infantilizing and equally as unhelpful. It's ok to think some code is bad, but expressing it in a way that is precise, technically competent and professional is what most emotionally stable professionals expect. Cut sharp. Cut clean!
14:40 i found running to do a similar thing for me - it sucks, i have to mentally prepare for it every time to start it and requires me to develop the willpower to push through the pain to finish the run. Tough but worth it.
I don't like the comparison with manual labour, I don't think that makes sense. If I hurt my foot I can still work, but if my mind is cooked I can't or just do some busy work, whereas Garbage pickup requires (comparatively) little abstract thoughts and focus but doesn't work with a hurt foot. And I don't necessarily think the work is automatically the main exhausting factor, maybe I'm "just" going through a break up, just as my foot may get hurt in recreation e.g. playing soccer.
I was working in a department where it was very common for the workload to be overwhelming and people going out sick because of it. One day we decide that something had to be done. We look at all the process that were being done and found a few that were braking down in some cases adding to our workloads. We start to revisit and refine all the processes. It took months to address all the different issue but the work flow became so stable the departments throughput nearly double and still no one was going out sick for being overwhelmed. At one stage we had cover for holidays come in from a different department, they could not believe how busy we were but our response was that it was the normal level busy. By the end of the two weeks you could see their stress levels raise. The point being not only did improving the processes help solve the problem, through the process we became better at dealing with the stresses.
It’s interesting what you say about *kindness-oriented* people being the biggest d1ck5. I’m a math, science and engineering teacher. I constantly walk a fine line between crushing the weaker students and motivating the tougher ones. I’ll read “Radical Candor” and see how much I can improve my effectiveness parameters. As a bit of turnabout I’d recommend you look at Carol Dweck’s* “Mindset” and Jo Boaler’s “Mathematical Mindset,” books. (*even just looking at her TED talks is interesting-she definitely thinks we can be honest without crushing people.)
Being overwhelmed happens man. The garbage man is a stupid analogy because taking out the garbage doesn't add to him being overwhelmed. When I did service jobs it was like a mental break from coding. If someone is too overwhelmed to work they probably have life stuff they need to sort out which an extra day off will help. If its SOLELY because of work, then that's a failing of the company to not burn that employee out and a mental health day can signal that too. We've all talked about burn out and managing burn out and we've somehow morphed it into a stupid article about being honest. By the way, I'm being extra rude in my comments because the article told me so.
love the ending about freedom and liberty. Never thought about it that way. I honestly come here more for life advice because you drop gems out of nowhere. thank you
Truth. If your annual review surprises you. It's your managers failure to properly communicate all year long where you were at, especially if it is negative. Now, a solid upside surprise on the old annual review is always appreciated when it is earned. But there are extremes. There is "constructive" and "reductive" where the goal appears more to attack the person and reduce them to rubble... I remember having an interview and the young lady left crying. I might have pushed a bit hard, but I got this sense from her "I usually HIDE on the teams, and do the stuff nobody wants to do. I make sure we pick good places for lunch, and morale his high!" (So I gave her a "scenario" involving the main server crashing, the owner is running into her office... What's her first response, then what is she doing...) Apparently I was a bit too intense. But she was clearly not cut out for the position we were hiring for. In my defense, it's bad form to chase a crying female down to confront her about what's wrong...
To me overwhelmed is panic attacks, flashbacks losing the ability to think/speak clearly, anything less I would call stressed out, I always found mental health days a weird concept if I can explain that I need one I'm still functioning and not overwhelmed yet
I feel this is an excellent reason to re-introduce whelmed to the vernacular. Personally I would say taking a "whelmed" mental health day makes sense if I've sat at my work station staring at the screen not doing ANYTHING for a couple to a few hours (might be an ADHD and exhaustion thing), in this case I might be able to get 30-60 minutes of work done "toughing it out" today, but I am less likely to be back to form tomorrow. But if I take the time to do something else (typically more physical) I might be back to form sooner (perhaps even before the end of the day).(I am keeping a close eye on this right now bc I want to make sure it's not a self feeding cycle that leads to being less resilient, but it's at least an example). But being whelmed isn't always going to mean you should take time off. Overwhelmed is ALWAYS a time off scenario (as we are differentiating) it's part of why bereavement leave exists.
My goto phrase I've found when dealing within something like 12:16 is "Don't mistake my comfort for happiness". It's acted as a great reminder to myself to not focus on the comforts a SWE job can afford, while putting things into more perspective for other people.
We need more challenging parts in our lifes. Today I was informed that I was going to take service duty. Additionally we had a intermediary system failure and we needed to switch for substitute one. But after that a problem, where old messages still wanted to go through main system and by that they block whole pipeline. I spend many hours trying to detour old messages to second system. After all problems were solved I was so proud of myself, cause I went hard at them and pushed through. Being thanked by my manager and main administrator felt good. There is something special in being needed and being able to help.
Money can make your life easier, fill my stomach so I can survive for the next day, having access to the internet, learning new stuff, finding new hobbies, maintaining marriage with your loved one, paying house mortgage, and helping my future children needs. Money sure can help you find happiness.
I have a better term for "overwhelmed", I call it "actively looking for a better job", because being CONSISTENTLY overwhelmed is almost always because of a lack of support or planning. Like either you're doing multiple people's jobs OR management is dogwater. (or skill issue) Mental health days are perfectly fine, trash truck drivers can do it too, but only when you're using PTO to "reset" not a "oh nooo the business is having a rough quarter and I can't be as lazy as normal". There should be occasional stress in your role because that's usually were there is opportunity for improve on your part or the company's part lol.
The modern idea of freedom is freedom to do what you please whereas the ancient philosophers viewed freedom as an inner freedom freedom from passions. Kudos for coming to the same conclusion.
"I already think code I wrote 6 months ago is shitty, why would I care if someone else tells me my code now is shitty?" This. Honestly, I'd thank them for telling me. Then ask for feedback.
Being brave/direct in your communication is very valuable. Having diplomacy and tact is also valuable--especially if you're very brave/direct 😉. It's possible to clearly communicate "this needs improvement" while making sure it's framed in "the relationship is still valued--here's your benefit of doubt / second chance".
I also noticed your highlighting habit quite some time ago. I assumed it was due to frequently having to capture text between quotes or parentheses, so you get into the habit of stopping short of first and last characters reflexively.
I love the ending about freedom. There are many examples of how undisciplined behavior leads to natural penalties and enslavement, where discipline, organization, sacrifice, and planning lead to true liberty. Seeking truth sets you free, and that takes discipline
one issue with "constructive listening" is that people are often doing the thing that is the biggest stretch for them. They are operating on the edge of their understanding. So if you come from "above" their sphere of knowledge, they might not even understand it.
Protip for PR feedback: phrase concerns as questions. E.g., what if the requester passes a non-numeric value? Is there a reason we can't make this function private? This home-grown implementation of bubble-sort seems like it would technically work. Did you consider the built-in .sort() method which has better performance guarantees? Some cases do require things to be a little more direct, though. E.g., if the code would introduce a major security vulnerability that's also very easy to fix: "Please set 'encrypted = true' here per the security policy." Of course, things should also be structured as much as possible so that anyone who makes a forgetful mistake falls into the pit of success. in this case, if the 'encrypted' argument is omitted, it should already default to true.
we were doing this thesis project and I am literally an optimist where I keep going as long as I can but having group mates who keep telling me I deserve to rest (kinda a way to make themselves not feel guilty or overwhelmed by other people's productivity), although it was for my own good I lost this optimistic drive always thinking I have to rest or I am just "overwhelmed" and that's why I cant solve anything (I just needed to think more)
I got fired once in part for criticising a vendor. Some places are so obsessed with “be kind” that you couldn’t even say anything that might hurt the feelings of a faceless corporation.
I like to open the door by almost always calling my code bad, I write commits where it's just "my last commit was completely unacceptable", every time I rewrite something, I write it better. I am not afraid of posting out my code and train of thought to my peers and explain why my code it bad there. Even when I'm reviewing someone else's code, I choose to tell them about the time I wrote something very similar, and what we ran into from that, and what we did to fix it. I never talk about it like it's the correct or final solution either, we're going to keep iterating over it. It's very bold for one to assume they've considered literally everything and know EXACTLY what their code is doing at any given time.
It's reminding me of the Bad Therapy book I'm currently reading, but yeah, if you focus and point things out constantly people dwell on them more and fall into that emotions pit.
I really love the idea of doing ice baths regularly, however my ADHD has the actual setting up of the ice bath being the bigger barrier than getting in. Hoping to be able to get a setup that mitigates that barrier
I think I remember there was a This American Life or some NPR podcast that talked about a study on feedback on activities where people learning some arbitrary skill was put into groups where people got energetic verbal feedback, yes/no verbal statements, or a click from a clicker to indicate whether or not their work was acceptable enough or not. I thought I remember the clicker ended up having the people learn the skills more quickly? It’s been a while so I’m probably wrong on details.my takeaway was that people learn some things better when they get unemotionally charged feedback on if they’re doing something wrong, quickly
Rather than "be nice" or "be honest," I think the correct attitude is "be a mentor." A good mentor helps people see their flaws in a constructive way and how to improve. When you leave a PR comment, don't just say "this is bad," explain why, and what's a better approach.
management and coworkers have "preferences" and much of the complaints about code quality and organization are based on preferences and NOT on actual code metrics and standards in place to drive quality code ... "If it's not written down it's a preference and not a standard based on empirical data"
@8:20 - to that point
the trash would get taken out by SOMEONE ELSE, while the trash man who is overwhelmed is able to recover
the food would get served by SOMEONE ELSE, while the server who is overwhelmed is able to recover
Customers should still expect their product.
But PMs shouldn't expect ONE PERSON to make all the things 34/10
Cause there aren't 34 hours in a day nor 10 days in a week
PMs need to create realistic timelines to deliver products.
yeah, it was actually a bad take. it would have merit if our workplaces were suffering from missing massive amount of employees because they declared being overwhelmed. but we have THE OPPOSITE issue. people working to the point of burnout! how many colleagues you had that claimed being overwhelmed and required stay at home? because I have 0. but I have 5-6 taking antidepressants recovering from burnout. so you know what, f that guy (author of the article). I despise that take. it's taken to an extreme which doesn't exist in reality
or you know you could do better instead of being a whiny shit
@@sedmidivka Agreed. I was quite sad to hear prime actually agree with it. If people are struggling with thoughts of suicide and other issues, they need to take that time. It's not about letting them have no work, but about getting the appropriate load. There is some truth to this article, but overall it feels crass and written with a lack of empathy. Sure there are people gaming the system, but by and large, like you said, people are over-worked and burnt out
This. That take was blaming organizational failures on the individual worker. That's nonsense.
I thought that the take wasnt that they shouldnt take the time off, but that you'd be annoyed at someone else for taking time off for it, but not when justifying it for yourself
America is just so extreme.
Either you believe you should talk to people like Linus Torvalds...
or you don't think you should even tell somebody that they messed up.
Like most things, you gotta meet somewhere in between.
This is in every pore of America. Extremism.
Linus Torvalds is just fine. He is from Finland. As a Brit who moved to Finland I see that Finns are straight speaking. They don't try to be ever so polite and mince around the bush while back stabbing you in the back. If you mess up they will just straight out say so to your face. As a Brit that was a bit of culture shock for me but I have come to appreciate it. It does not mean they hate you or what you to feel bad (well not so much) they just want to get the job done properly. It's efficient in getting everyone onboard and working together.
couldn't agree more. Being too kind can deprive someone of valuable feedback, however freedom to be as mean as possible just impairs the development of communication and critical thinking skills (in the cases where "bad code" or "bad product" is subjective), and worse - it allows abusive personalities to thrive under the cloak of being honest
@@Heater-v1.0.0 I'm a huge Linus Torvalds fan, as I am a huge Linux fan.
But to say that there's nothing wrong with him saying stuff like "You should've never been born, you should've been retroactively aborted", etc, just because someone made a mistake in code....
is crazy. lol. That's extreme. And very much NOT DIRECT.
DIRECT would be like saying, "This is bad code, please do better next time."
Insults draw away from the main point.
@@aDaily1222 You forget to quote the rest of the message where Linus explained all the problems with the PR (apparently not for the first time). I mean, we can talk all day about his choice of wording, but can we at least acknowledge the broader context?
11:25 “[I]t plants the idea that working in front of a computer is so mentally taxing…” No. Just no. That’s not the argument at all. Working in front of a computer or on an assembly line isn’t the “taxing” part. It’s meeting unrealistic demands from management regardless of any external factors that’s taxing. F this guy and F his Straw Man.
In probably > 99% of all software dev jobs, _nothing_ is life or death and nobody is going to suffer physical harm if a deadline is missed. But “business” treats deadlines and deliverables as if f’ing lives are on the line, when in fact at most, some founder/investor/shareholder might loose a fraction of a dollar/share because a deadline slipped by six weeks. If the deadline is so F’ing important, let’s see how they do when a key contributor just ups and leaves because they need a mental break before they mentally break.
Flip ignoring everything Prime says is very kind
Who's Flip? Never seen him on the stream
@@gund_ua Prime's editor for youtube
Flip is the video editor, he only types on stream or plays sometimes that primeagen plays on stream
ALWAYS
Maybe there is no Flip 🤨
Company: oh no, we said that employees can take mental health breaks, and instead of just praising us for it, they dared to actually take them!
It's the liberal optics gang
@@dustmighteonly messaging with nothing real behind it
Being the guy whos not going to sugarcoat what the real problem is, is likely to get you canned. Because lets be honest, the vast majority of the time the problem is the employer
There's gracefully leading people into thinking they were the ones that figured out what the real problem was because you were clear and then there's just being so frustrated you'd burst out in anger and resentment that they get shooketh over you letting go of all that mental baggage you've been holding for so many years.
The latter is more likely to get canned.
@@SimGunther Ive never lost a job for outbursts, however I have lost a job for reporting safety violations.
@@TheodoreChin-ih7xz Sounds kind of like getting evicted from an apartment with a gas leak. Unfortunate, but you are probably better off not staying there
@@TheodoreChin-ih7xz sounds like a free bonus sue them !
Meanness aside, calling code "bad code" is useless. "Bad" is a meaningless subjective term. It turns out, there's an overlap between "mean" statements, and subjective statements, because "judgments" are both mean and subjective. If code is bad, it's bad for a reason. Is it slow? Is it hard to understand? Is it more complex than it needs to be? All of these things are simultaneously more useful criticisms and less mean. I would argue that if you think code is bad, but you can't find a way to explain it in any terms other than "this is stupid", then you should examine your understanding of the problem before issuing your criticism. Not just to be nice or save someone's feelings. Because you could be wrong, or at least shouldn't trust your judgement if you don't understand it.
Yeah, "bad code" is "bad feedback". If someone told me that, I'd consider going around savaging their PRs. I can be a dick too, I just choose not to.
I prefer saying, "this is not optimal", "this library isn't good because of X", "you've repeated yourself", "I don't think this is clear".
It’s simple: “I think this code will cause problems, and here is why:”
That’s all a supervisor should say negatively, and then give them a starting point.
It should literally just be a “hey, stop, go this way instead”
Yeah, but when there’s multiple problems with the code, listing all the problems doesn’t get the point across. Calling it bad does. If you want to know what’s bad, then you dive into that.
@@SopaDeLengua it's better to name one actual problem with the code. Calling it "bad" says nothing other than that you won't approve the PR. It says exactly nothing that simply rejection the PR or whatever doesn't say. Listing just one actual problem is better than zero. You can give information instead of judgments. Only one of those is useful, at all.
In other industries if you frame something wrong use a tool incorrectly, they laugh at you and call you a moron. And if you go to your boss and complain that they're not treating you fairly he laughs at you too.
I don't know that we need yet more encouragement for people to be dicks in this social skill issue havin industry
Being honest is great, but people need to understand having some sort of personal relationship with other people on your team is also important. If the only interaction you have with someone is in the form of criticism, your team may stop listening after a while. Have that cup of coffee together and agree with each other that number one priority is shipping great code and helping each other out. This paves the way for constructive criticism. It's all about people skills.
it also helps you notice the difference between being whelmed and overwhelmed. Good management helps their people through times of being overwhelmed. Sometimes you just need to tell someone to take a day.
Only in America have we been convinced that mental health days are a bad thing and that allocating more than one or two days for it to employees is "overly precious." You get one life, one brain and have to sacrifice major amounts of it to benefit some prick at the top of the pyramid buying another yacht, while you just try and keep your boat afloat.
What do you mean "only America"? Coming to the end go my long career in England, Scandinavia, Finland I have never heard of "mental health days". I'm pretty sure most people in most of the world don't get such luxury. They either work or go hungry.
@@Heater-v1.0.0 This isn't a good faith argument, all three of those countries have 20-28+ days of paid leave according to to many sources, including government pages from those countries. That's 4-5, ie a month or more. It's not comparable- many employers offer two weeks in the US, not always even paid-time-off. This isn't even accounting for sick leave; It's not even comparable.
@@texrayvision Please don't say my arguments are not made in "good faith". That suggests I'm lying or being otherwise disruptive with mall intent. I find that rather insulting. I like to think that is not what you mean.
Yes, and around here both mothers and fathers get maternity leave.
Anyway, what you are saying is that the US needs some civilized working hours, working conditions and employment contracts. With that in place there would be la lot less call for "mental health days".
One my visits to the US I have been horrified at the way people have to work there.
I extend that grace to literally every worker. I like how the narrative here is that it's the individual's fault and that the indivudal needs to suck it up, not that there is a problem with the lack of social infrastructure interfacing with industry. This is just a plea to put more pressure on the worker for the fruits that the company and governments get to enjoy ...off of the back of the worker.
E: And yes, people need to work on themselves too and we need good outlets to help people do that. The solutions will not come from only 1 direction. However, when only the worker is discussed, it's pretty shitty and will just continue to increase pressure while everyone stands by and wonders what is going on.
article author just wanted to remove an extra benefit from his company and went on to a mid lenght rant about why it was better that way.
Yeah actually demented
It's horrible to see the lack of empathy in display here. As software developers, unless you work on something like medical equipment or scientific research, your work is meaningless. We just make our silly little applications to charge people monthly for and that's that. The world doesn't stop because a software company slowed down and gave their workers time to rest their minds
Instead of taking that away because other industries don't do it, we should extend that kindness to other industries. Imagine telling a construction worker that they should tough it out and handle the pain of extreme physical exertion instead of resting
DHH is just an out of touch business owner that wants to pay his workers less to work more because he believes himself to be too important not to have his paycheck be higher than last year's. It's sad to see regular workers take his perspective
The trash still gets emptied if one driver is off because of physical illness, it's still going to get emptied if one driver is off because of mental illness
I also was like no? By this argument employees taking sick leave crash the whole company.
Yeah that bit was quite foolish. There's any number of reasons someone could be out of work on a particular day, if the whole system falls apart because they took a day off that's their employers failure not theirs.
Reliability gets vastly harder to achieve as the components become less reliable. Going from people taking an average of 2 unplanned days off a year to 10 actually does make a substantial difference in how much slack capacity is required. As with any other service outage, planned is much easier to deal with.
@@FireStormOOO_ If your employees suddenly start taking 400% more days off with mental health issues, it's probably time to start looking at what changes you can make to your organisation
And there should be social infrastructure in place interfacing with that kind of industry or really any kind of industry to take the blow for these kinds of things. We need to be creating society around ourselves.
Company owner wants his workers to toughen up and make his property more valuable at any cost, what a surprise.
yup
If I get bad service at a restaurant because the server is (over)whelmed or dealing with something stressful that feels like *more* of a reason for a reasonable policy that allows employees to take care of their mental health. I'll remember getting bad service at that restaurant long after I've forgotten the name and face of the server.
It's not about "not being able to say your code is bad"
It's about constructive criticism. You end goal should never be to "win" a conversation in the work place, but to solve the problem at hand.
Yes, if someone's code isn't good, you can't beat around the bush.
But look at saying "Your code sucks and hurts my eyes" vs. "This code isn't up to our agreed upon coding standards. Here's a link to check them out. If you got any more questions, or need further training, we can look into finding those"
Both say the same thing. One solves the problem. The other only makes you an enemy.
Claiming that basecamp paragraph is 'overly precious', I assume they have the statistics to tell us all how lots of staff were taking unnecessary days off or otherwise harming their progress? No? Not gonna provide even a scrap of evidence? Cool, cool...
If you want to write about whats a healthy way to deal with staff, come with receipts, otherwise you are just some ass claiming tedious 'Never did me any harm.' personal anecdotes. (and of course it didnt, hes incredibly wealthy and can and does do whatever he feels like. He has no idea how most people live.)
Incidentally, the book he cites does indeed point out that if you care for employees personally without challenging feedback, that its a problem... this is after a story of how harmful it is to not care about people personally, and before the conclusion of the chapter which says you absolutely should go out of your way to care for people while _also_ giving them good, even if negative, feedback. In no way does the book contradict the idea of people taking a day off like that paragraph suggests. (In fact, even good feedback without personal care is explicitly labelled in the book 'Obnoxious Aggression')
I mean, Im not a huge fan of the book either, but regardless, it bugs the crap out of me when people cite sources that dont back their arguments. Either he completely missed a sizeable chunk of the book or hes just counting on nobody checking the source so he can feed you a load of completely unsubstantiated crap... to be candid about it.
If an employee is having a rough time in life and they need to take a few days, then they take a few days. My emploees take more days off than under the previous manager, but moral is improved immensely. People have enough shit in their lives and work doesn't need to add to it. The result is people are far more invested in their work and the company so quality and deliveries have improved. Critiquing, constructively, their performance isn't a negative thing, it identifies skill sets that require development. When you're invested in your employees identifying wealness is a positive.
I don't know. I'm not convinced by the article. It reads like telling depressed people to just be happy. It's kinda ridiculous.
Striving for resilience is definitely honorable. I definitely see the POV of this article, though the antithesis of this article is every organization that goes too far the other way.
I'd much rather have a lax "mental health days" policy, than a policy wherein everyone has "Unlimited PTO" but using any of it is "performance review suicide."
If you're overwhelmed at work it's not a mental health issue, it's a management issue.
Find the cause and raise it with your manager. If lots of people are all feeling overwhelmed there's a systemic issue there that you need to collectively raise.
I have been overwhelmed twice at work both times I rage quit that day. Sadly was before I was a dev. Working my 6 days a week 10 hour shifts without holidays takes a toll on you. So taking a mental health day makes sense.
The trigger warnings are then so that people who may have personal reasons not to watch things don't have to.
For example, a victim of rape may understandably not want to watch depictions of rape. Or a parent who's child died of a drug overdose may not to want depictions of drug use.
This should be freaking obvious.
Well done for getting through that with your misses my dude.
That experience was the end of the best relationship I ever had. Never stopped loving her, never blamed her, but it happened very late in pregnancy and she couldn't forgive herself. Spent a decade getting over that one.
Love to the misses/kids and great to see you come through it so well.
I don't need to build extra resilience by seeking discomfort in an ice bath, I get plenty of that from just living regular life. Plenty of opportunities to suffer and build resilience without seeking it out or imposing it onto others. Humans are both fragile and resilient I don't aspire to either of those, I embrace the totality of who I am as a human being.
"This film contains drug use" is a content warning. A "trigger" warning is for common ptsd triggers, such as depictions of s3xual violence
This article does the same thing they all do. It's a boss that's bitching his employees use too much time off and they should be at work, working... yet provides no data on the productivity loss, organizational stress, etc.
Why does no one invest any time or effort into looking into how productivity is affected by policies at work? Magically, this data never makes it to the light of day which makes me think it shows little to no impact on actual productivity (or maybe even a net positive, but management has their head up their ass so far that they can't accept it).
What are the short and long term ramifications? How does it affect employee retention? etc.
Because data is against their ideology.
That is why a boss will never use it unless is ideologic aligned with their interests.
his analogy about truck drivers is also bogus. i don't want tired, underslept truck drivers on the road.
"This is bad code", "I don't like it" is a shitty feedback anyway because nobody cares what you think personally so why even say that.
Feedback has to be specific. The code may be missing unit tests, might be too long to comprehend for most people, may be too dependent on another piece that's probably temporary, may be too memory-intensive at scale etc.
And there can be legitimate reasons for all of that. E.g. if a PM allocates a 1hr slot to help with some large feature you bet your ass my code won't have tests or be split nicely.
> "This is bad code", "I don't like it" is a shitty feedback anyway because nobody cares what you think personally so why even say that.
If the feedback is given by someone who actually pays you money for your work, you better start caring pronto or pack your shit and gtfo.
@@YaroslavFedevych Start caring what the boss thinks on a personal level? You're kidding me? Hard disagree, that's a weak mindset. Technical experts have a responsibility to guide business people and tell them what technical stuff needs to be done to achieve their goal, but if they pressure you to do stupid shit they have no possibility to have knowledge about YOU tell them to gtfo and change the company. Your boss is not your friend. Do not ever care on a personal level.
That being said that doesn't happen in reality anyway. Code reviews are performed by team members or tech leads max and they have nothing to do with your employment. If they don't give you specific feedback, you report that fact up the ladder. Or tell them to get their shit together directly if that works - depends on person.
@@AmonAsgaroth If you're so smart, why ain't you rich? If you're so wise, why work for a boss at all?
@@YaroslavFedevych Why you think being rich is any goal? He is right, "this is bad code" is terrible feedback. Tell me exactly what is bad here and why its bad, and what would be better solution in specific case. If you cant argue your opinion then "pack your shit and gtfo."
If people at your company constantly need to take mental health days then the problem is your sweatshop of a company, because most people don't just skip work just because they want to, even if there's no consequence.
That's not true at all. People skip work all the time just because they want to. In my country it's called "pulling a sickie".
I literally only started watching Primeagen regularly because I watched one video and he did that text selection thing and it drove me insane so I watched more videos to see if he did it in more of them bc I was personally under the impression that he was doing it to generate engagement. Well it got my engagement and now he's addressed it so I feel complete. Thank you Prime, my mind can rest now.
Sounds like DHH has never been overwhelmed at work. Honestly, if y’all got more paid time off, maybe I’d agree. But the American allowance is so pitifully low that overwhelm is bound to happen at some point…
I dont know any developers who dont get at least 3 weeks off, plus a ton of holidays.
I dont know any developers who dont get at least 3 weeks off, plus a ton of holidays.
@@-Jason-L Three weeks ? Here we get five, and that's the legally mandated minimum. Most people get more than that.
8:30 feels like projection. Work a service job. Pretty easy way to feel empathy there.
I have no problem when someone say that my code is shit, as long as they give me logical reasons why. If they only tell me that it is shit without being able to specify why then I get upset since they are just wasting my time.
Being honest is not a ticket to be an ahole. Lots of engineers are honest with their critique, but not all are good at being constructive
Thank you. Most of my company gives everyone great feedback.
Also, everyone is nice. They're not opposites.
You don't grow muscle by treating it as badly as possible, you tear them.
The way you grow muscle is by exerting it close to the breaking point, but never above it; and by taking breaks strategically. I think that emotional regulation works the same.
no one wamts a strong team anyway in the muscle analogy. You want endurance. And the way to build endurance is not to stress the muscles anywhere close to its maximum capability, it's to operate for long periods of time of like 20% capability, enough to keep the muscle in shape, but more stressing the surrounding support for it (aka MANAGEMENT) to the max.
If you want an organization thst lifts heavy for short periods of time you spend 90% resting.. no company runs like that.
This is the most braindead take ever, to actually grow muscles you need good rest and more nutrients as well but I guess let's just throw these two out of the window 😂
The real problem is the ambiguity of "feeling overwhelmed." As Prime points out, that can mean anything from "I just didn't feel like I got anything done today" to "I just lost a child." The company can still help you with the former problem, but not with the same resources that they would use for the latter.
If you look at people's production as a percentage of their maximum potential, then we can all accept that no one will operate at 100% all of the time. If we were to accept that a normal number would be 80-85%, then we can say as long as they are in the 80+% range, then they are good to keep going. And we can all accept that someone who is working at 50% probably needs something significant to change (time off, different work responsibility, counseling?, etc.). Organizations, far too often, undervalue the idea that someone who falls into the 79% range could fix their issues and return to 90+% with a day off or a small tweak at work.
We just watch someone hit 79... 78...77...73... 70... 65... and then only when they're so clearly broken does anyone do anything about it. But you've had weeks/months of reduced performance. Is that really good for the company? Surely not.
To be clear, I'm not advocating I have the solution. I'm just suggesting that organizational efficiency and workplace productivity studies are not often cited when we have these discussions. "I feel workers take too much time off" is basically what a lot of execs/VPs say. They *feel* it... and then the workers feel it even more.
The company should not care about the specific reasons someone is overwhelmed, that'd be policing somebody's mental health. Where's the line? How bad should a situation be in someone's life for it to qualify as being overwhelmed? How would you feel if you asked for the time off that was promised to you and it was denied because they concluded that your situation wasn't bad enough?
@@daliareds So nobody ever does this on the Internet, but I thought a lot about your reply and I think you're right. I wouldn't want a company to dictate the severity of my own mental health to me. But I have also solved a lot of work-related anxiety just by seeking the help of senior coworkers. Time off wouldn't have solved that issue because it wasn't time I needed, it was advice. So, while I would want the employee to be in control of what to do about the problem, I would not want to provide that employee with only one way to solve that problem.
Guess my girlfriend's burnout just got cured
17:53 "Liberty is not being about to do whatever you want: liberty is the ability to exercise your will."
Based. Never thought about it that way, but this finally makes my own experiences with freedom make sense.
It isn't The Company's job to make me a resilient person, that was my parent's job and now its mine. That doesn't exclusively extend to my career, however. People who only focus on their job are boring.
The reason "this is bad code" is a bad thing to say is because it's unhelpful. Why is it bad code? What part is bad code? You can get your point across without saying someone is "bad" and more often than not the times I've been told that my code is "bad" is because the person reviewing it doesn't understand why I wrote my code in such a way, the limitations I was facing when I wrote the code, or they just don't agree with how I format or style my code. If they have a real point, I have no problem with it, but telling people to put up with pedantic jerks that inhibit them from pushing a feature is annoying and bad.
Just pointing out for consideration that this is very much an American thing. People leaving for the day or places being closed because the employees took the day off or cut it short. Or went home because they're feeling particularly stressed out. That's normal in loads of nations.
Other nations don't let businesses have nearly as strong of a stranglehold on people's lives. It's fairly normal in those nations to find loads of places are just closed for weeks during the Summer. They actually do get to check out from work.
Maybe we are overwhelmed. We're just so used to it, that we think it's just whelmed.
Trigger warnings are not there to "prepare you" for a topic. It's there so that people who can't deal with that topic can make the decision not to engage.
can’t deal with a topic… how light skinned are you people? wtf?
No they're described as doing both, although obviously they don't allow someone to avoid engagement with a topic because the trigger warning mentions the topic itself. Really it's just a sad attempt to bend the universe to protect self-obsessed people from things that can't hurt them in the first place.
0:13 lol Flip's additions to the comedic gold in Prime's videos via his editing are always loved. He's like Charlie in a Garand Thumb video.
I take issue with this article. Personally, I read mental health days as burnout management days. Sometimes you have alot of work to do and often its not all that fun work. When thats the case burnout is a constant issue and managing it appropriately is essential for maintaining productivity. However, if you ask me to use my personal leave in order to maintain work productivity I'm obviously not going to do it.
Great rules to live by:
1. Be direct about the code
2. Figure out the understanding of the problem together if you're both not on the same page
3. Don't just hand someone the answer; offer benevolent guidance
4. Don't be personal about the code
5. No personal attachment to specific pieces of code: do what you can to solve the problem, even if that problem changes over time
it's all fun talk until you have your first ever real mental breakdown, powerless to do anything, like even getting out of bed and your hands shake while holding things. for many people sitting behind computer can be taxing because they overbear responsibility of what they do, leading to constant stress even when their code is fine and they meet every deadline. thats where "overwhelming" comes from
Go to a doctor then.
@@JamesSmith-cm7sg You don't know what an actual breakdown looks like, or feels like.
I'll give you a hint. I've had one in my entire life, and it laid me out for two weeks. I've had multiple shoulder dislocations and a blood infection and I would sooner have both of those then ever experience a mental breakdown again. It was like having brain flu. I couldn't move. I was completely useless. I couldn't think, couldn't cook, I couldn't finish a sentence. And fuck me, man, I was kickboxing, I'd finished a PhD. Seriously.
It breaks you. Hard. I don't think I've ever gotten the resilience back. I know my limits now.
EDIT: I actually reread this. The shaking hands is the really hard bit to deal with. For the first two days I just kept spilling stuff over myself. I lost 8kg that week.
People are BEGGING for good honest constructive criticism in my experience (the folks that aren't don't develop and wind up sucking/getting fired). My work introduced the "What went well->even better if" it's a format that works best for presentations where things are easily felt personally. But ultimately it's probably too "kid gloves" for code review. (Also worth noting, "bad" code doesn't always need to be fixed, and senior devs doing code reviews should have the professional maturity to make that call (maybe throw a comment in so you know it isn't Chesterton's Fence when you run into it later)
I’d never say “be kind”, I only say “Just don’t be an asshole.”
17:50
Discipline is your greatest path to freedom.
Liberty is not being able to do whatever you want; but the ability to exercise ur will.
You know you've reached a high proficiency when you dislike your own code when you look over your own PR _before_ it gets merged
I rather a person be good, not kind. Sadly people see that as the same. A good person would let you know why something is bad and help you make it better (true feed back)
In a professional environment, telling someone their code is "bad" is rarely helpful despite the fact you might truly think it. I also think prefacing every code review with an obligatory "Here's whats good about your code" is infantilizing and equally as unhelpful.
It's ok to think some code is bad, but expressing it in a way that is precise, technically competent and professional is what most emotionally stable professionals expect.
Cut sharp. Cut clean!
Seeing 37signals mentioned right after the Veritasium's "Why is this number everywhere?" made the number even more interesting.
14:40 i found running to do a similar thing for me - it sucks, i have to mentally prepare for it every time to start it and requires me to develop the willpower to push through the pain to finish the run. Tough but worth it.
I don't like the comparison with manual labour, I don't think that makes sense.
If I hurt my foot I can still work, but if my mind is cooked I can't or just do some busy work, whereas Garbage pickup requires (comparatively) little abstract thoughts and focus but doesn't work with a hurt foot.
And I don't necessarily think the work is automatically the main exhausting factor, maybe I'm "just" going through a break up, just as my foot may get hurt in recreation e.g. playing soccer.
I was working in a department where it was very common for the workload to be overwhelming and people going out sick because of it. One day we decide that something had to be done. We look at all the process that were being done and found a few that were braking down in some cases adding to our workloads. We start to revisit and refine all the processes. It took months to address all the different issue but the work flow became so stable the departments throughput nearly double and still no one was going out sick for being overwhelmed.
At one stage we had cover for holidays come in from a different department, they could not believe how busy we were but our response was that it was the normal level busy. By the end of the two weeks you could see their stress levels raise. The point being not only did improving the processes help solve the problem, through the process we became better at dealing with the stresses.
Ice baths (and showers) make me irrationally angry (I know it's a stupid response which is why I call it irrational)
This guy became my favorite programing content creator, fucking love this channel. I can't be in his stream because of time but this channel is a gem.
It’s interesting what you say about *kindness-oriented* people being the biggest d1ck5. I’m a math, science and engineering teacher. I constantly walk a fine line between crushing the weaker students and motivating the tougher ones. I’ll read “Radical Candor” and see how much I can improve my effectiveness parameters. As a bit of turnabout I’d recommend you look at Carol Dweck’s* “Mindset” and Jo Boaler’s “Mathematical Mindset,” books.
(*even just looking at her TED talks is interesting-she definitely thinks we can be honest without crushing people.)
Being overwhelmed happens man. The garbage man is a stupid analogy because taking out the garbage doesn't add to him being overwhelmed. When I did service jobs it was like a mental break from coding.
If someone is too overwhelmed to work they probably have life stuff they need to sort out which an extra day off will help. If its SOLELY because of work, then that's a failing of the company to not burn that employee out and a mental health day can signal that too.
We've all talked about burn out and managing burn out and we've somehow morphed it into a stupid article about being honest.
By the way, I'm being extra rude in my comments because the article told me so.
love the ending about freedom and liberty. Never thought about it that way. I honestly come here more for life advice because you drop gems out of nowhere. thank you
17:52 good take. Liberty is more about a state of mind than it is a set of circumstances.
Be kind, rewind.
Give a hoot! Don't pollute!
Truth. If your annual review surprises you. It's your managers failure to properly communicate all year long where you were at, especially if it is negative. Now, a solid upside surprise on the old annual review is always appreciated when it is earned.
But there are extremes. There is "constructive" and "reductive" where the goal appears more to attack the person and reduce them to rubble...
I remember having an interview and the young lady left crying. I might have pushed a bit hard, but I got this sense from her "I usually HIDE on the teams, and do the stuff nobody wants to do. I make sure we pick good places for lunch, and morale his high!" (So I gave her a "scenario" involving the main server crashing, the owner is running into her office... What's her first response, then what is she doing...) Apparently I was a bit too intense. But she was clearly not cut out for the position we were hiring for.
In my defense, it's bad form to chase a crying female down to confront her about what's wrong...
To me overwhelmed is panic attacks, flashbacks losing the ability to think/speak clearly, anything less I would call stressed out, I always found mental health days a weird concept if I can explain that I need one I'm still functioning and not overwhelmed yet
I feel this is an excellent reason to re-introduce whelmed to the vernacular. Personally I would say taking a "whelmed" mental health day makes sense if I've sat at my work station staring at the screen not doing ANYTHING for a couple to a few hours (might be an ADHD and exhaustion thing), in this case I might be able to get 30-60 minutes of work done "toughing it out" today, but I am less likely to be back to form tomorrow. But if I take the time to do something else (typically more physical) I might be back to form sooner (perhaps even before the end of the day).(I am keeping a close eye on this right now bc I want to make sure it's not a self feeding cycle that leads to being less resilient, but it's at least an example). But being whelmed isn't always going to mean you should take time off. Overwhelmed is ALWAYS a time off scenario (as we are differentiating) it's part of why bereavement leave exists.
If you have a fever you only take a leave if you pass out? What is wrong with you brain? You should check that out.
"this is bad" isn't good feedback. "this is bad beacuse..." this is fair
Why the fuck do people fight so much for worse working conditions and quality of life
I've been fired for this mentality one too many times
"I don't even like my own code" 😂😂😂
My goto phrase I've found when dealing within something like 12:16 is "Don't mistake my comfort for happiness". It's acted as a great reminder to myself to not focus on the comforts a SWE job can afford, while putting things into more perspective for other people.
We need more challenging parts in our lifes. Today I was informed that I was going to take service duty. Additionally we had a intermediary system failure and we needed to switch for substitute one. But after that a problem, where old messages still wanted to go through main system and by that they block whole pipeline. I spend many hours trying to detour old messages to second system. After all problems were solved I was so proud of myself, cause I went hard at them and pushed through. Being thanked by my manager and main administrator felt good. There is something special in being needed and being able to help.
If I'm whelmed by things, I do tend to take a day off. But I do that as a vacation day. That's the sort of thing vacation days are for.
Money can make your life easier, fill my stomach so I can survive for the next day, having access to the internet, learning new stuff, finding new hobbies, maintaining marriage with your loved one, paying house mortgage, and helping my future children needs. Money sure can help you find happiness.
I have a better term for "overwhelmed", I call it "actively looking for a better job", because being CONSISTENTLY overwhelmed is almost always because of a lack of support or planning. Like either you're doing multiple people's jobs OR management is dogwater. (or skill issue)
Mental health days are perfectly fine, trash truck drivers can do it too, but only when you're using PTO to "reset" not a "oh nooo the business is having a rough quarter and I can't be as lazy as normal". There should be occasional stress in your role because that's usually were there is opportunity for improve on your part or the company's part lol.
You are just packed full of wisdom that people need to hear these days.
The modern idea of freedom is freedom to do what you please whereas the ancient philosophers viewed freedom as an inner freedom freedom from passions. Kudos for coming to the same conclusion.
Watching this on my second monitor while playing Helldivers... on Linux.
"I already think code I wrote 6 months ago is shitty, why would I care if someone else tells me my code now is shitty?" This. Honestly, I'd thank them for telling me. Then ask for feedback.
Being brave/direct in your communication is very valuable. Having diplomacy and tact is also valuable--especially if you're very brave/direct 😉.
It's possible to clearly communicate "this needs improvement" while making sure it's framed in "the relationship is still valued--here's your benefit of doubt / second chance".
If a statement about overwhelmed makes you feel overwhelmed, then literally you'd feel anything anyone tells you to.
I also noticed your highlighting habit quite some time ago. I assumed it was due to frequently having to capture text between quotes or parentheses, so you get into the habit of stopping short of first and last characters reflexively.
Aren't these "mental health days" what used to be called weekends and vacations?
I love the ending about freedom. There are many examples of how undisciplined behavior leads to natural penalties and enslavement, where discipline, organization, sacrifice, and planning lead to true liberty. Seeking truth sets you free, and that takes discipline
one issue with "constructive listening" is that people are often doing the thing that is the biggest stretch for them. They are operating on the edge of their understanding. So if you come from "above" their sphere of knowledge, they might not even understand it.
Protip for PR feedback: phrase concerns as questions.
E.g., what if the requester passes a non-numeric value?
Is there a reason we can't make this function private?
This home-grown implementation of bubble-sort seems like it would technically work. Did you consider the built-in .sort() method which has better performance guarantees?
Some cases do require things to be a little more direct, though. E.g., if the code would introduce a major security vulnerability that's also very easy to fix:
"Please set 'encrypted = true' here per the security policy."
Of course, things should also be structured as much as possible so that anyone who makes a forgetful mistake falls into the pit of success. in this case, if the 'encrypted' argument is omitted, it should already default to true.
we were doing this thesis project and I am literally an optimist where I keep going as long as I can but having group mates who keep telling me I deserve to rest (kinda a way to make themselves not feel guilty or overwhelmed by other people's productivity), although it was for my own good I lost this optimistic drive always thinking I have to rest or I am just "overwhelmed" and that's why I cant solve anything (I just needed to think more)
I got fired once in part for criticising a vendor. Some places are so obsessed with “be kind” that you couldn’t even say anything that might hurt the feelings of a faceless corporation.
I think Prime secretly loves DHH and just can't admit it (to himself or to us).
I like to open the door by almost always calling my code bad, I write commits where it's just "my last commit was completely unacceptable", every time I rewrite something, I write it better. I am not afraid of posting out my code and train of thought to my peers and explain why my code it bad there. Even when I'm reviewing someone else's code, I choose to tell them about the time I wrote something very similar, and what we ran into from that, and what we did to fix it. I never talk about it like it's the correct or final solution either, we're going to keep iterating over it. It's very bold for one to assume they've considered literally everything and know EXACTLY what their code is doing at any given time.
It's reminding me of the Bad Therapy book I'm currently reading, but yeah, if you focus and point things out constantly people dwell on them more and fall into that emotions pit.
That's just code to scrub all neurodivergent out of work, instead of figuring out what's the real issue
I really love the idea of doing ice baths regularly, however my ADHD has the actual setting up of the ice bath being the bigger barrier than getting in. Hoping to be able to get a setup that mitigates that barrier
I think I remember there was a This American Life or some NPR podcast that talked about a study on feedback on activities where people learning some arbitrary skill was put into groups where people got energetic verbal feedback, yes/no verbal statements, or a click from a clicker to indicate whether or not their work was acceptable enough or not.
I thought I remember the clicker ended up having the people learn the skills more quickly? It’s been a while so I’m probably wrong on details.my takeaway was that people learn some things better when they get unemotionally charged feedback on if they’re doing something wrong, quickly
I'm confused. I play Helldivers on linux without issues and with my friends that have windows. Is there an issue I don't know about?
Rather than "be nice" or "be honest," I think the correct attitude is "be a mentor." A good mentor helps people see their flaws in a constructive way and how to improve. When you leave a PR comment, don't just say "this is bad," explain why, and what's a better approach.
It's a job, it's not supposed to be easy. You get money for doing it because it's hard. If it was fun, it'd be a hobby, and you'd be paying to do it.
management and coworkers have "preferences" and much of the complaints about code quality and organization are based on preferences and NOT on actual code metrics and standards in place to drive quality code ... "If it's not written down it's a preference and not a standard based on empirical data"
Hylomorphism mention! Let's go!!! (Materialists and Nominalists in shambles!)