The Cost of Fixing Things | Hacker News Reader

The Cost of Fixing Things

cate.blog

77 points01CGAT13 comments

Her entire blog is a goldmine.

Consider: https://cate.blog/2019/05/08/where-do-you-start-when-a-team-...

So, take care of yourself, even when your job is to take care of others, and be aware of your limits. Makes sense to me.

I appreciated the pointers to the other aspects of burnout beyond overwork.

We should not be tied up by our work although the society thinks that it is what defines us. In that situation, the best solution is to find another job where you do not have to do 'firefighting' all the time, life is too short to be sacrificed for that.

It's kind of frustating when you care for others, but they do not appreciate your effort. Well, big corporations care about profit, not about the employees. Try to find smaller companies or do your own business.

Wish her the best

I worked with a person like that, in a Security Incident Response role where we were interesting enough that the attacks always started when 'The Americans are celebrating another of their silly holidays'. It meant working through Thanksgiving, Xmas, New Years, and Easter.

It was good that I did it...so that I can recognize the parameters and never do it again.

But the person I worked with is still there, still defined by that job, still running scared, and damn...that's just all kinds of messed up.

I remember my learning moment. I worked 96 hours in one week to desperately save a project where the team had fallen apart. I was rewarded with a t-shirt and a six pack of beer.

Never again.

This is one of those articles where a bunch of people will find solace in the fact that they are not alone, despite not actually coming away with a plan to correct it. There's no real advice in here worth taking that isn't already pretty obvious to anyone that can step back from their circumstances for a moment, and this sort of information is offered in thousands of similar articles.

I can obviously relate to the author regarding a deteriorating work-life balance, and a lot of us have become burnt out or at least experienced intense stress at work. Nothing in this piece makes me believe that she has fixed the problem, and it's not healthy to continue until you break, dropping everything and going on a "walkabout" to some distant place for awhile to pretend like you've solved a problem.

I found it telling that she claims to be a values-oriented person, and yet also a self-proclaimed atheist. People like her should actually try finding themselves again through religion. I'm not even suggesting a specific religion. You don't have to be a believer to gain value by setting aside time to reflect on your life, values, relationships, and why you are here. It also helps to associate yourself with other people that are searching for answers to these things. The lack of religion in people's life is a big contributor to the feeling of a lack of purpose and it allows you to become increasingly unbalanced in life as you prioritize work and material things over what's really important.

I have to respectfully disagree with your point about religion. Plenty of people find values and meaning without it being through religion. I think there is a tendency for anyone who has found something that makes them happy to automatically prescribe it for anyone who is unhappy, and it isn't one-size-fits-all. Kudos for not insisting on your religion of choice however.

Edit: I do think that the community that comes with religions is enviable. I wish that there were more non-religious groups around that would dedicate themselves to the same reflection, mutual support, and togetherness that religions traditionally bring to the table.

I'll respectfully agree with both of you.

For the past decade or so I've struggled immensely with finding meaning outside of religion. I've made progress, and I do believe it's possible.

But it's still an open question for me. Even now, a decade or so since losing my faith, I've not found a replacement that satisfies me. I feel I have the luxury to keep looking, but if I had kids or a significant other, I might consider some degree of religiosity again.

Having experimented with all sorts of 'surrogates' to the experience of being in a deeply religious community, I can conclude none of them so far make it work. For various reasons.

I'm not sure where that leaves me now. All I'm saying is that I've not found anything non-religious that comes close to what my religious community offered me. And progressive experience has only made me more pessimistic about this. Perhaps there are other things to focus on, or perhaps I've just not looked in the right places.

But it can be somewhat lonely to talk to people who have not shared my experience, because they just don't know what they're missing.

EDIT: I'm not saying people can't find meaning without religion. Rather, I've not met a single person who had a good, religious background who has not been left somewhat empty by the alternatives. It's mostly been those who were never religious, or who were semi-religious, who seemed to be okay with whatever alternative they found.

I read the first few paragraphs and skimmed some more. There's nothing of value to be found here, just a long incoherent rant.

Agreed, the writing is often incomprehensible.

I think there's something in there, but it's buried under a writing style that seems, intentionally or not, to draw most of its influence from long form ad/marketing copy. The stuff where it manages constantly to seem like it's about to say something but defers it absolutely as long as possible, or sometimes never gets around to saying anything at all.

This is distinct from prose that is merely drawn out or flowery, being more like a trickier, grown-up, (apparently) salable version of what a high school student does to pad out an essay or book report.

Wow. This is a really harsh assessment. I hope Cate never reads this thread.

But seriously, why did you read this article in the first place? What were you expecting? Rather than assessing this article as a how-to guide, which it seems the responses on this thread are doing, perhaps you should read this as a different genre. Cate clearly experienced some significant hardship relating to her work and she's attempting to share her discoveries on this journey with the sole purpose of trying to help others who are on the same path.

The story will be necessarily (and intentionally, as she spells out in the article) intertwined the take-aways in order to provide context for the learning.

As someone who has been through some rough experiences in life, I'm deeply appreciative of Cate's courage and vulnerability in writing this. Bad shit happens in life and when someone is willing to talk about their pain and how they're healing and what they've learned, I've found that it's best to just shut up and listen. This is not the time for critique.

Bravo, Cate.

> Bad shit happens in life and when someone is willing to talk about their pain and how they're healing and what they've learned, I've found that it's best to just shut up and listen. This is not the time for critique.

Maybe between friends this is good advice, but posting something online is fair game for critique.

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