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Comment by war1025 | Hacker News Reader

I think this might be somewhat tangential to what the article has to say, but I think there is a fair amount of mindset to the "busyness" thing.

Some people seem to think that "busyness is next to godliness", so they make sure never to let anyone see them idle. They don't so much focus on what they are doing, just that they are doing something.

I've always taken the opposite approach. I go out of my way to make it look like I'm never busy. "Make it look easy." It's just a different sort of personality quirk.

It's fun to come across people from the other camp. We find each other very peculiar... :)

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You are the embodiment of one of my favorite words. Sprezzatura "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it" and also more briefly "studied carelessness".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura

> Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

--Michael Caine

There is a very good cafe and roastery beside an old client of mine in KL called Sprezzatura. I as least assumed it was a made up name! It’s actually an exceptionally good name for this type of business.

Originally from the very readable Book of the Courtier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_Courtier

Nice word!

I have a bit of that, I'm "busy" even when procrastinating. I think I developed this as a defense mechanism in my teens - when I seemed busy or said I was busy, people bothered me less with random nonsense and "win-lose delegation"[0]. I had huge problems saying "no" to people when younger, so whenever I felt overwhelmed, I would instead present myself as super busy to avoid paying the social costs of refusing a request for assistance.

[0] - asking me to help with something which would take them a small fraction of the time and effort it takes me. Wasting an hour of someone else's time to save yourself a few minutes is something I consider an extremely disrespectful thing to do.

I’m the busy sort, and I have really interacting with people like you who I have found a connection with.

I think these sorts of polar opposites can be deeply entertaining / enjoyable.

I think its borne of insecurity - if you cant be good at your job at least look like yoy care about your job

You read that wrong. OP never said s/he wasn't good at their job, nor did they say they didn't care.

They said they do it in such a way as to make it seem easy.

I'm in that camp as well. I never get flustered. I never get overwhelmed. I never get bothered to run around like an idiot or panic over everything, like so many other administrators in my field do.

And it's all on purpose. I never get flustered, because I want everyone around me to understand and believe that I'm doing what comes naturally to me, and that I'm the best at what I do because of it.

No, I think you and a few other people read me wrong.

You see these people going around in a flap, all heat, little light. Meanwhile there's other people in the office quietly getting on with things. The noisy one is compensating for inability with visibility.

Ah! Then I would argue that your original sentiment is too vague to be understood that way. How I read it was that the poster who doesn't look disheveled doesn't look like s/he cares about his job.

For what it's worth now, I agree with you 100%. The loudest person to talk about how useful they are, generally are the least useful.

Yeah sorry I might have made some mistakes with my emphasis. A sense of grammar shaped by years at the codeface ...

Empty vessels make the most noise, or so the saying goes ...

> Some people seem to think that "busyness is next to godliness"

"Idle hands are the devil's workshop." ...

There are entire ideologies based on this kind of thinking.

Interestingly, both Protestant work ethic (which some argue gave rise to capitalism) and communism (because in communism the value of a product arises from the work put into it rather than its market value) are centred around this idea.

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