Comment by ToucanLoucan
1 day ago
You've put into excellent words what I have done my whole life. Intent matters but it isn't sufficient. If you "meant to be on time" but weren't, you failed. Simple as. You don't need to lash yourself about it but too many folk are ready to give themselves a pat on the back for good intentions, or trying but failing, etc.
If you say you're gonna be somewhere, show the fuck up. Anything short is a miss. Failing to account for that makes you an asshole, IMO.
If you’re interested in the subject and want to read more, the concept is commonly called “outcome oriented” vs “process oriented”.
A LOT of workplace conflict arises out of outcome oriented ppl having to work with process oriented people.
I did ceramics for a whole and noticed a common trend.
The creator judges the product compared to their imagining of what they wanted to make. Yhe piece invariably falls short (because our imagination is better than our skillset.)
Everyone else simply looked at the piece objectively. It was either beautiful or not.
I started to look at programs the same way. The criteria for judging my program differs to the criteria for judging other programs.
So for my software I care about architecture, clean code, the language I used, how clever it is.
I judge others by their UI, documentation, support, correctness, intuitiveness etc. I hate when their UI constantly changes. Even small (cosmetic) bugs turn me off.
But my stuff has no docs, the UI is butt ugly, there are some rough edges, but if you avoid the bugs it gives you the right answer (very fast) while consuming less ram, disk, or cpu. And I used new-framework or popular-new-language and runs on any OS etc.
From Ira Glass:
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste.
But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you.
A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.
And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
2 replies →
I personally feel this distinction does not apply at the granularity of people and this difference is unrelated to the issue of people who aren't observant.
I am very process-oriented about drawing. The simple act of drawing is fun and I never have a specific goal. I try different mediums and subjects for fun with no actual purpose, but I still gradually improve because of it. But I never have any idea of what I’m going to draw next.
However I am very outcome-oriented about engineering. I enjoy it but nowhere as much as drawing. If something I built has problems, I keep that in mind for the next system. I pick up new things for the sole purpose of being up to date.
But in either way, I won’t repeat something again that never seems to work. That’s the same whether I’m being process-oriented or outcome-oriented.
Well, you must have tried it a few times before making the judgement that it never works, right?