As much as we learn and grow, extreme situations can
rewind us back to old habits we thought we’d broken. I’m hoping that the longer
the good habits are in place, the less likely this is to happen. It somewhat
happened today for me.
Let’s look at the positive first, shall we? I think we
should all do that when faced with a situation where we know we could have done
a little better. First let’s look at where we came from and how much progress
we have made.
At the end of the day, an emergency debugging situation
sprang up. I had to debug from a distance at first, which is just as helpful as
all you developers out there would imagine. There was a time crunch, and I had
to figure out what was wrong and fix it ASAP. Obviously, at first glance you
don’t always know what’s wrong. Non-programmers will throw in their two-cents,
but that is usually completely useless, because they don’t know how the code
operates and is organized underneath. They don’t know what touches what and
how. All they know are the very mundane, simple symptoms: “It doesn’t work.” We
programmers have to know HOW it doesn’t work. Does it present an error message?
A blank screen?
Enough about programming, and on to the personal growth.
As far as the level of stress I FELT, I handled it
extremely well. I was considerably irritated, but I was not overwhelmed with
stress, which is a HUGE improvement for me. Hooray!
However, as communication went back and forth while I was
diagnosing the problem, I got caught. I had to talk before I’d been able to
process what I’d just seen. My mindset was on, “What??! That’s odd, what did I
just see?” And I just wanted to get back to it and track down what was going
on. So I said a no-no. I was too focused on processing and solving the problem
that I wasn’t paying enough attention to my word-smithing (sarcasm intended on
the priorities here). If you’ve been following my posts at all, you know what
type of no-no it was. I worded it in an “I don’t know” kind of way. I quickly
jumped back into solving the problem. I did get talked to a little about my bad
wording. Half an hour later I’d not only figured out the problem but completely
resolved it. I’m completely capable of solving the problem – I just have to
make sure, even in odd stressful situations like that, that I don’t present it
in a way that makes people doubt my abilities. I think the context was safe
enough here, and when I was reminded how I should word things differently I was
extremely frustrated because YES I KNOW. But yeah, always gotta be on top of
your game.
It’s funny, because amongst other developers,
communicating and complaining about bugs like that is completely fine. I just
got too comfortable. You have to always remember to put your
politically-correct hat on at the right times. Drop what you are thinking and
processing and work on the wording. It’s sad, really. But that’s how it is. I
understand. I’ve BEEN working on that. I just didn’t care enough this time. I
was too focused on the bug itself. But you have to be aware of your
surroundings. Sigh.
Let’s get back to some positives. I did manage to declare
my need for space and time to those it is appropriate to say that to. Sometimes
I find myself acting extroverted in those cases, and that NEVER works out for
me. Extroverts can think out loud and come to a solution. I can’t. I’ll just
continue down the path I was on when I started speaking. If I shut up for a
second, it all becomes clear, and I see where I need to go. By talking I’m just
wasting time. Well – be careful, because that’s the attitude that got me in
trouble!
Anyways, it’s all fine now. The whole mess was over a
span of maybe one hour. But it was at the end of the day, so it left me in a
really nasty mood. But it wasn’t the stress of the situation – it was the being
called out on my wording. Because they were right, and I knew better, and it
frustrated the hell out of me. And because I know I’ll probably get more of
that lecture that I already know tomorrow.
But I can’t get defensive. I can’t roll my eyes. I have
to just suck it up and take it. How I handle this says a whole lot more about
my character. Rolling my eyes or disregarding the comment would make me look so
bad and give the wrong impression. I do know, I do understand and I do care.
Man-up and act like it.
It’s weird, when I started in the working world I was a
complete robot. A smiling, yes-man robot. Somewhere along the way I started
getting emotionally invested and having issues like this. What happened… That
will change. I’m going to find the balance. I know what it is, I know what it
looks like, and I’m going to make it happen. Just you watch.
Are there certain situations where you slip back into old
habits? Do you know what you need to do to resolve it?
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