99F in the City

I went into work today. Because aircon. The trains and the office have it, and my house doesn't. I managed to get lunch by walking slowly in shadows. Any time in the sunshine was just painful. When I got home, I spent four hours waiting for the temperature to drop enough so I could even think about sleeping.

Hottest Day of the Year. I was there!

Louis Rossmann on Giving Up

Two things: if you’re a nerd then you will really appreciate Louis Rossmann, who seems to be the King of Macbook board repair, and a general all-round self-aware person with a direct style I like. His board repair videos are guaranteed to calm the most troubled soul.

This is him talking about people who can’t solve problems, and how much freaking effort it is to solve problems in real life.


I cannot endorse these sentiments enough. Solving technical problems is difficult, experimental, full of hours of wrong directions followed by a moment of “oh, yes, I do it this way” realisation that solves the problem in five minutes. I let my emotions get involved, in the sense that I give voice to my frustration and puzzlement, and occasionally express the opinion that if I was someone really actually clever, like for instance Terence Tao, I would have solved this as soon as I looked at it. Two things to notice here: first, my idea of clever is Terence Tao, not the guy at the next desk; and second, a long time ago, I realised that the really smart people would never work at the companies I work for, and the people at those companies have no idea who Terence Tao is, let alone any way of appreciating how clever he is, so actually, in their world, I’m as smart as they will see.

I also have one actual virtue. I will not give up if it is a problem I believe to be within my competence and the scope of my tools. So I don’t bother trying to fix my work laptop when it does strange stuff because I don’t have administrator rights on it. I’m not going to tackle a problem that needs a proper programming language to fix, because the part of the business I’m in doesn’t have access to properly installed programming languages. If it’s an SQL problem, I am going to solve it. I just keep going at it: try this, try that, even read the manual.

Many of my colleagues don’t do that. They try once, see an error message and give up, or don’t get the results they thought they should get, and give up. For the longest while I have put that down to a) a lack of moral fibre, b) laziness and freeloading, since they always ask me if I can do it for them, c) tactical incompetence, where you suddenly can’t do something for someone who you suspect is off-loading the task to you because they too lack moral fibre.

Louis’ suggestion is that many of my colleagues are suffering from having a very low bar for feeling like a failure. Having various attempts fail is one thing, but feeling that you have failed, and are therefore a failure, or will feel like one if you carry on producing failing attempts, is another thing altogether. He has a high bar for feeling like a failure. So do I. Many people have a very, very low bar. A couple of tries and they are done.

It may be some kind of psychological factory setting, or it may be actual lack of moral fibre, either way when someone does the “I can’t do it, can you do it for me because deadlines”, while I continue to respect them as a human being and fellow traveller through this joyous pageant of Life, I can’t entirely take them seriously again. They aren’t One of Us, the Honourable Guild of Problem Solvers.

I feel pretty sure that Louis would think I was being unkind. And he may be right.

Un-burning - Part One

Burn-out is usually defined as a Capitalist malady: it’s the inability to be happily productive, because you can’t handle the stress of your under-resourced job in your dysfunctional workplace. Since The Organisation is not going to change, you must.

Yeah, well, screw that. The Mayo Clinic suggests:

Discuss specific concerns with your supervisor. Maybe you can work together to change expectations or reach compromises or solutions. Try to set goals for what must get done and what can wait.

Seek support. Whether you reach out to co-workers, friends or loved ones, support and collaboration might help you cope. If you have access to an employee assistance program, take advantage of relevant services.

Try a relaxing activity. Explore programs that can help with stress such as yoga, meditation or tai chi.

Get some exercise. Regular physical activity can help you to better deal with stress. It can also take your mind off work.

Get some sleep. Sleep restores well-being and helps protect your health.

Mindfulness. Mindfulness is the act of focusing on your breath flow and being intensely aware of what you're sensing and feeling at every moment, without interpretation or judgment. In a job setting, this practice involves facing situations with openness and patience, and without judgment.

If you could do the first two of those, the chances are you would not be feeling burned out. One reason burnout happens is exactly because we can’t trust or find support from our “colleagues”.

Yoga, meditation and tai chi are not support mechanisms for improved post-modern Capitalist productivity. Anyone doing any of those seriously would become more aware of, and less inclined to accept, the BS that is making them feel burned-out.

Exercise. Sure. I do that already. One’s motivation to hit the gym tends to slacken when one is feeling stressed.

Sleep. I do that just fine. Telling someone who is stressed-out to sleep more is like telling someone who is living near a main road to enjoy silence.

And anyone who suggests or sells “mindfulness” is not your friend. “Mindful” in English means “Watch what you are saying and doing, you are not among friends”. Seriously. That’s what it means. “Mindfulness” is sold as a "spiritual practice”, but it is in fact a warning to self-censor your reactions and feelings - which is what "facing situations with openness and patience, and without judgment” means.

So that was useful.

What does a practical man of action do?

We admitted we were burned out, that our lives had become unmanageable. (Where have I heard that before?)

I had two thirty-minute Thai massages a week for a couple of weeks. The ones where she holds on to the bar on the ceiling to balance and walks on me.

I got back into the gym: Saturday and Sunday mornings, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. At this stage, simply showing up and hefting any amount of iron will do.

I have one Americano in the morning, with breakfast, and espresso after that. No tea, unless it’s the afternoon and I’m at home. Something about hot water and milk wasn’t helping.

I’m parking the car at the station in the morning. At twenty-five past six there are spaces. Pay by the Ringo App. It’s half the price of parking at Richmond. I feel so much more relaxed at both ends of the day. I kinda knew I resented that walk from the station to where I’ve been parking the car, but I didn’t know how much I resented it.

Yep. It’s pollen time again. Back comes the Beconase. When my eyes start itching, I take a couple of snorts.

I’m easing back my negative self-talk. No more “what’s wrong with me / I’m too old for this / I can’t keep this pace up” and the like. This is the first thing that Mike Cernovich talks about in Gorilla Mindset. I thought I had that one down when I read it.

“Be nice to yourself” I say every now and then.

Since the Doddle at Liverpool Street closed, I haven’t had anywhere convenient to get Amazon deliveries. Then I noticed my local Homebase has an Amazon locker. I experimented with a delivery: the locker broke down for a day, but Amazon sent me a mail when it started working, and I collected the book I’d ordered. I will be using that again. A lack of Amazon delivery turned out to be a little thing that itched.

At work, I recognised that SQL-cutting is monotonous and requires focus. So I’m slowing down a little. I’m taking the pressure off me to cut fast and cut once, because that always works well. I should have learned by now, but, hey, nobody’s perfect.

I move around the office a bit, so I’m not sitting at the same place all day.

I make sure I do something for me during working hours. I’m not the only one at work who gets to the end of the day and realises they haven’t done X, where X is “collect the dry cleaning” or “make a reservation” or “collect the prescription”.

Staircases and Highwalks - London Wall

Last year I was Mr Highwalks. Then I got tired of them, and now walk along the pavements along with the ordinary people. Every now and then, I have to have some fresh air and sunshine, because the office is dull and the aircon is, wait, we have aircon? Anyway, this fell in front of my lens, so here it is.

The X-Bow, Amsterdam

This is the Polarcus Nadia, an oceanographic ship currently laid up at Amsterdam. That weird bow - roughly the reverse of the shape the bow "should" be - is called an Ulstein X-Bow. It's supposed to make the vessel much more stable, stop it hammering up and down in heavier seas, and thus let the crew get more rest. I thought it was an icebreaker at first, but what the frak do I know about ships?

What A Suburban Railway Station Should Look LIke

This is what a suburban railway station should look like. Notice that the track and the trackside are clear of weeds. Nor has it any litter. The surfaces are clean. There are no tacky advertisements - though there are a couple of small covered billboards by the entrance.

It's in the Netherlands, outside Utrecht. It belongs to the Dutch national railway company.

Why can't UK railway companies keep their tracks clean and weed-free?

No profit in cleanliness. And no pride to do it just because.

St Pauls From Watling Street

Watling Street is a narrow alley between St Paul's and Bank. I go there for cooked meaty goodness from Porterford Butchers where at lunchtime there is always a queue of other men also wanting cooked meaty goodness for £5 a shot. Stand in the line and look up and directly in front, and this is the view. St Pauls dominates your visual field. From other angles it's big, or noticeable and dome-y, but from Watling Street it dominates. This was the first time I really got a sense of how BIG it is.

Why Jo Ellison Is Wrong About Why I Wear Noise-Cancelling Headphones

I went in to the gym Saturday morning and picked up a complementary copy of the FT. I read it Sunday. This bit of improvised twaddle from Jo Ellison caught my attention...

While the presentational parent [reading loudly to her child on the train] assumes herself to be worthy of an audience, to shut out the world around you assumes a different kind of arrogance - the kind that suggests nothing worthy of attention. The noisy adult on the train is a violation of one kind of social contract, the one in which we consider out impact on other people’s lives. But the widespread use of [noise-cancelling] headphones symbolises another social ill. The death of the community - where you are attuned to the nuances of life around you and moderate your behaviour to fit in.

Noise-cancelling headphones are worn by commuters and people who work in open-plan offices. Why offices? A fully-loaded commuter train is quieter (around 40-50 dB) than an open-plan office (around 55 - 65 db when it fills up). I have a noise meter on my iPhone, so I know. Regular commuters know not to talk during the journey. The newbies who do talk, bursting with excitement at what may be their annual early morning trip to the Big City, are regarded as public nuisances, whom we hope will get out at Clapham Junction and take their wittering nonsense with them. I wear noise-cancelling headphones because I prefer the sound of my music to the sound of even a quiet train.

I can’t work with 65dB of multiple conference calls and miscellaneous chatter. Especially when it has nothing to do with anything I’m working on.

In a modern open-plan office, each of us works on our own tasks, related at best by being two different parts of a “process” which nobody can help us with, because we are all specialists.

There are no relevant nuances of life around us.

It’s not that I am arrogantly assuming that there is nothing worthy of my attention: there is actually nothing going on around me that needs my attention.

Everything comes in by e-mail or whichever IM service we’re using this year. That is how the modern workplace is designed.

And on some days, I may be entirely surrounded by day trippers from foreign lands like “Marketing” who chatter away until they disappear into a meeting, and then re-appear to chatter some more before packing up their roller-cases and departing for the 16:25 from Euston. Or wherever.

My noise-cancellers are a valuable productivity tool at work, and a means of keeping me from dozing off and missing my stop on the train.

And for the ten thousandth time… Just how disconnected from the real world can you get than to think that a commuter train, over- or under-ground, is any kind of freaking “community”? Or a Starbucks? Or any other public place where people go in the expectation of privacy from the strangers at the next stool at the counter? If a man in a cafe talked to Ms Ellison, she would Tweet a #MeToo in an instant. These are not “communities”. There are no freaking “communities” except in the rhetoric of social workers and architects.

Ms Ellison concludes by saying: for all the shouting, no-one’s listening anymore

They never were, Ms Ellison. They never were.