Hacker News Reader

Comment by danieltillett | Hacker News Reader

I don't lose empathy, but I lose the ability to understand or speak English. If someone interrupts me when I am in deep in the groove I can tell someone is talking to me, but I can't understand what they are saying and I can't reply. It takes me around 5 to 10 seconds to context switch back into English.

Amusingly my wife assumes that I am deliberately ignoring her when she interrupts me and storms off in a huff half the time. My staff and students have just learnt that you have to say my name and wait a bit before speaking.

View on HN

> my wife assumes that I am deliberately ignoring her when she interrupts me and storms off in a huff half the time

If you are interested in tools to reduce this sort of thing, my wife and I developed protocols that help. I've rot13'd them in case you are the type of person who hates unsolicited advice and would prefer to skip it:

- Jura bar bs hf vf qevivat n pne (NXN 2-gba-qrngu-znpuvar) naq jr ner pbairefvat, gur qevire pna fnl "cnhfr" naq gung rkcraqf bhg gb "V erfcrpg lbh naq gur guvatf lbh unir gb fnl. Ubjrire, V hetragyl arrq gb fuvsg zl nggragvba gb guvf bgure gnfx oevrsyl. Cyrnfr cnhfr fcrnxvat hagvy V fnl 'erfhzr' fb gung jura lbh ner fcrnxvat, V pna qribgr fhssvpvrag nggragvba gb yvfgravat gb lbh."

- Vs bar bs hf vf qbvat be guvaxvat nobhg n guvat naq gur bgure nfxf n dhrfgvba, jr vzzrqvngryl fnl "hzzz" gb fvtany gung jr ner guvaxvat. Guvf bar unf gnxra zr n juvyr gb ghea vagb n unovg orpnhfr frireny lrnef ntb V gevrq gb genva zlfrys abg gb rire fnl "hzzz" ba gur nqivpr bs zl choyvp fcrnxvat pynff va hav.

Vs lbh guvax guvf fbeg bs guvat zvtug or urycshy, lbh arrq gb gnyx nobhg vg nurnq bs gvzr gb npghnyyl qrsvar lbhe cebgbpbyf. bgurejvfr, gur zbfg yvxryl erfhyg vf pbashfvba.

The car “pause” keyword rings true to me. When my SO is in the car and I’m driving, if I say “wait” they wait. My mother was in riding along with me the other day and did not wait and I instinctively snapped “shut up” not even realizing what I was saying as I swerved to avoid a car that turned out in front of me. She did not appreciate that.

Fyngr fgne pbqrk zhpu?

V va snpg npghnyyl qb.

Bayl bgure cynpr V unir frra guvf pbqr hfrq. V tb ol gur fnzr hfreanzr bire gurer jura V pbzzrag.

This would be great if I was able to say anything or even comprehend what was being said. I am effectively like a dog being spoken to by its owner. Like the dog I know someone is talking to me, but I have no idea what is being said nor can I say anything back - about all I can do is look at the person intently and wait for the context switch to finish.

Is English your native language? I definitely have friction switching my focus to the other person, but it's not to the extent that I can't literally understand them.

Regardless, I agree with afarrell: explain this to your wife so she can understand your behavior. If you've never explained it, she likely doesn't understand.

Yes English is my native language.

As for the wife I have explained it to her on many occasions, but she thinks this is just an excuse that I have made up to allow me to ignoring her :)

English is my native language, but I spent the first 10 years of my career in Japan.

I didn't really notice a difference with which language was being spoken.

My Japanese colleagues came up with a joke (?). They'd ask me something mundane (like: did you eat yet?), but since I was so zombie-like for several minutes, they would slap a post-it on me.

I felt bad about this, but I was managing a 2M line code base (C), and they 'only' had to manage 250k-or-so transistors.

I now believe (for me) that if you (one) is debugging a large code-base, taking a moment to relearn human is to be expected.

It's a self-serving belief, but I have found little evidence that it is wrong...

Well, the truth is that you are ignoring her, right? You're focusing on whatever you're working on instead of maintaining the ability to even communicate with her.

I had a job where I seemed to be evaluated primarily based on how I talked in meetings. After realizing this, I cut back on the effort I was willing to put into development, cause it would impair my ability to discuss stuff there. Unfortunately some management got quite mad cause I wasn't able to pump stuff out like before. Inside I was just like "you're the one setting the incentives here bruh" lol. I had much better quality of life when I was able to defend myself in meetings so I just stopped working hard.

I am not ignoring her (I will turn to her and look at her), I just can't speak or understand what she is saying. I will be looking straight at her, but I can't understand what she is saying nor reply.

This happens. It has lead to most of my workplace disfunctions. It seems that even programmers can not grok that you can't even English right now.

Almost sounds like the neurons dedicated for auditory processing have been temporarily allocated towards the visual/logical tasks, hence the delay in switching back ;)

Yes that is my hypothesis as well. I have always been able to effectively shutdown my auditory processing when I am concentrating intensely on something (I was notorious in my family for having to be yelled at to get my attention when reading).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com