Recently at work I’ve been experiencing this strange phenomenon where some of my coworkers will message me via chat to ask if they can call me. I have no idea why they are doing this and I’m pretty sure I never asked for this consideration. What’s stranger is that I’ve told several of them that there really is no need to do this especially since I rarely pay attention to chat and so their request could go unanswered for quite a while.
I’m really starting to wonder how this behavior developed. I’m sure that they don’t text their friends and loved ones to see if it is ok if they can call them on their cell. I realize that they are just trying to be considerate of my time, but this is a little extreme. Like anyone else, if I’m available to take your call then I’ll take it. If not, then leave a message at the beep and I’ll get back to you.
Posted in life | Tagged communication |
Something about Justin Thorp’s “blogging is the first draft of history” article last week stuck with me. In it, he said,
for quite a few people, the idea of writing freaks them out. They start over thinking what they’re writing and more or less take themselves out of what they’re writing.
For me this is absolutely true and I think I have identified why. Being a bit of a perfectionist I don’t like leaving things incomplete. Whether that’s cleaning the house, the code I write, or a blog post. Heck, I’ve even rewritten tweets several times so that I can better maximize the 140 character limit. So what does this say about me? It says that I can’t let that first draft go until it is exactly how I want it. Spelling and grammar are checked. Links are correct. Styles are appropriately applied. Everything looks good in the preview. etc… etc… All of this until eventually I second guess myself and put off pressing the ‘Publish’ button for fear that I’ve missed something.
Of course the real irony here is that as an agile developer I’m trained to start each task by “just make it work”. After it works (and tested of course) I can release and move on to things like making it pretty or making it faster. If I can apply these agile methodologies to my writing, well then, all should be write with the world.
Posted in life | Tagged agile, writing |