[thelist] When life and coding are incompatible...?

Steve Cook sck at biljettpoolen.se
Thu Nov 9 07:28:00 CST 2000


I once had the dubious pleasure of working with someone who I also shared a
flat with. At the time, I in fact shared a flat with 7 people, 4 of whom I
worked with, but this particular person and I worked on the same counter at
the particular shop where we were employed. 

It meant in effect that I was with this person around 16 or so hours a day! 

Funnily enough, there would occasionally be a personal quarrel or sometimes
a work dispute that we had to try and resolve in a way that allowed us to
work out the particular problem and at the same time get on with each other
well enough to either work or live together in relatively normal harmony.

We came to the agreement that between us, we would not bring work problems
home and we would not drag private disputes into the workplace. How we
managed this is perhaps harder to explain, but at the end of the day there
must be a divide between your home life and your work life. When you walk
out the door, you have a journey to work where you can paint a mental border
at a particular point. When you cross that border (the entry to your place
of work for instance), you are a professional. It takes an effort of will
certainly, but try playing Jedi Mind Games on yourself and you should be
able to relegate that personal problem to the back of your mind during work
hours.

Of course that's not to say that the problem should be suppressed - that's
not healthy at all, but to lock it away for those 7 hours every day should
be possible and should leave you feeling satisfied at your own
professionalism and ability to cope under adversity. It should also give you
more space when you are back into your personal time to concentrate on the
personal problem at hand, if you are not worrying about how your work is
suffering.

Remember - if you slip, don't beat yourself up over it - we are all only
human after all! But don't let a slip up stop you from continuing to try and
keep your focus on your professional life once you are over that border
line.

Good luck Ben and I hope this helps a little.

.steve


----------------------------------
   WapWarp - http://wapwarp.com
 Wap-Dev - http://www.wap-dev.net
 Cookstour - http://cookstour.org
----------------------------------



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ben Henick [mailto:persist1_pdx at yahoo.com]
> Sent: den 9 november 2000 13:52
> To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
> Subject: [thelist] When life and coding are incompatible...?
> 
> 
> Let me paint for you a scenario:
> 
> You are under deadline, and while that deadline is distant your To Do
> List leaves you juggling china...
> 
> And into the middle of your life strides a personal crisis.
> 
> Just wanted to know:  how do y'all on the list preserve your 
> ability to
> drive a train of thought when this happens?  (In the past I've had the
> luxury of taking time off because I could see it coming, but not this
> time.)  Call me a wimp if you like, but in any event advice would be
> welcome...




More information about the thelist mailing list