How Can My Girlfriend Cope With a Hyper-Active Hive Mind Job?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Hi Cal, my name is Vinny

00:00:06.240 | and I'm a freelance software developer,

00:00:07.720 | but this question isn't about me.

00:00:09.240 | I'm trying to help my girlfriend,

00:00:10.600 | a high level photo producer,

00:00:12.160 | avoid ad hoc unstructured back and forth messages,

00:00:15.200 | but constantly putting out fires

00:00:17.480 | and acquiescing to last minute ultra short deadlines

00:00:19.960 | that necessitate promptly responding

00:00:21.760 | to collaborators questions and feedback

00:00:24.000 | seems to be the entirety of her role

00:00:26.280 | and the value that she brings to her clients projects.

00:00:28.840 | I suppose more generally, my question is,

00:00:30.960 | when an entire industry and your competition within it

00:00:33.720 | seem to be fully content with losing their sanity

00:00:36.400 | to the hyperactive hive mind,

00:00:37.840 | and this precise trait gives them a competitive edge,

00:00:40.520 | how can we compete?

00:00:41.680 | It often feels like it's better to give in for a few years

00:00:43.800 | and enjoy the high salaries,

00:00:45.080 | retire early and then get into a deep life,

00:00:47.440 | but years have a way of turning into decades

00:00:49.280 | and decades into death.

00:00:51.800 | All right, thanks.

00:00:52.720 | - Well, we have a lot to cover here.

00:00:55.920 | I mean, first of all,

00:00:56.760 | there's the inherent danger of this situation.

00:00:59.480 | So you're looking for advice now to give to your girlfriend

00:01:04.480 | and I can tell you there's nothing that girlfriends

00:01:07.880 | like more than having their boyfriends explain to them

00:01:12.680 | how they should live their life

00:01:14.040 | and how their work should actually be executed.

00:01:15.960 | So we're already in trouble here.

00:01:17.560 | So good luck.

00:01:19.720 | But let's look at this more abstractly.

00:01:23.480 | Let's look at this more abstractly.

00:01:25.360 | Jobs that seem to be inherently hyperactive,

00:01:29.480 | what should you do?

00:01:31.760 | And it looks like what you're asking is,

00:01:33.640 | can it be improved?

00:01:35.240 | And if not, should it be suffered through temporarily?

00:01:40.080 | And then maybe you build up a lot of money, retire early,

00:01:42.120 | or should you switch?

00:01:43.200 | I think these are good questions.

00:01:46.800 | Because all the answers are on the table.

00:01:51.160 | Let's start with this particular job

00:01:53.760 | that your girlfriend has.

00:01:55.120 | And push on the issue of whether

00:01:57.600 | it can be made less hyperactive.

00:01:59.400 | And if we decide in the end it can't,

00:02:01.160 | then we'll look at these other two options.

00:02:03.560 | All right, there are a lot of positions

00:02:05.760 | that seem fundamentally hyperactive

00:02:07.440 | that you can actually do a lot of work to pull that back.

00:02:10.400 | So when you're in a situation where it seems like

00:02:13.880 | hyperactive communication is necessary,

00:02:17.240 | often what that means is,

00:02:19.080 | given the existing agreements and structures

00:02:23.080 | for interaction that are in place,

00:02:24.640 | there's no way to do this work without just being on demand

00:02:27.440 | and being able to answer things all the time.

00:02:29.080 | That's often what that means.

00:02:31.200 | Because often the exercise someone will do

00:02:34.080 | is they will say, well, what would happen

00:02:35.600 | if I just stopped tomorrow

00:02:37.480 | checking my email all the time?

00:02:40.240 | What if I didn't look at my phone all the time?

00:02:41.800 | And they say, oh, it'd be a disaster

00:02:42.920 | because this is when things come in and they're urgent

00:02:44.680 | and things would get missed.

00:02:45.520 | And that's true.

00:02:46.340 | But the question is not what would happen

00:02:47.800 | if I stopped tomorrow checking email or checking my phone.

00:02:51.120 | The question is, is there work I could do right now

00:02:54.560 | that would make it possible a month from now

00:02:57.320 | not to be checking my email or phone so much?

00:02:59.020 | That is, if we change the fundamental agreement

00:03:01.600 | and structures for how interaction actually happened.

00:03:04.860 | There's probably a lot more leeway here

00:03:07.000 | than you might expect.

00:03:09.320 | The big principle I always come back to

00:03:11.600 | is that when it comes to external communication,

00:03:14.720 | clarity trumps accessibility.

00:03:16.380 | Almost always true.

00:03:19.000 | Why do people want an immediate response for something?

00:03:22.000 | Because in the lack of other clarity

00:03:24.420 | about how interaction on this subject occurs,

00:03:27.060 | there's no clarity on that.

00:03:30.460 | When I send a message to you, I am stressed out right away.

00:03:34.200 | This is important.

00:03:35.340 | I need it dealt with.

00:03:37.600 | There's nothing I can count on here

00:03:40.280 | about here's how these sort of situations

00:03:41.760 | always get dealt with.

00:03:42.600 | And so until you answer me,

00:03:44.700 | I have to keep this on my mind as a source of stress.

00:03:49.000 | In that environment,

00:03:50.720 | yes, I'm gonna want you to answer right away

00:03:52.680 | because every minute you don't answer

00:03:54.560 | is a minute that I have to keep track of this thing

00:03:56.320 | and be stressed about whether it's gonna be answered or not.

00:03:58.500 | Almost always when you see these cases of people saying,

00:04:01.700 | emailing two minutes after the first email,

00:04:03.540 | did you get the first email?

00:04:04.380 | What's going on?

00:04:06.040 | It's not because they have some sort of dictatorial

00:04:09.200 | obsession about communication.

00:04:10.560 | It's because every minute that you don't answer

00:04:12.440 | is one that they're stressed out

00:04:13.440 | and trying to keep track of this.

00:04:14.280 | So if you can have more clarity,

00:04:16.200 | this is how we deal with X.

00:04:17.280 | This is how we deal with Y.

00:04:18.400 | This is how we deal with Z.

00:04:21.400 | Clarity that takes that stress away from the client.

00:04:23.960 | Okay, I know how this is gonna handle.

00:04:25.360 | I can get off my mind.

00:04:26.480 | You're often gonna be okay with that.

00:04:29.960 | Even if the way it's handled is not,

00:04:31.440 | I will just get back to you within one minute.

00:04:34.100 | Now, I can't give you the specific solutions

00:04:36.480 | for your girlfriend's situation

00:04:37.560 | because I don't know that industry well.

00:04:39.520 | But I can talk about the type of things I've seen

00:04:41.480 | in other classically hyperactive,

00:04:44.280 | communicative segments of the economy

00:04:47.480 | where we've seen escape from hyperactivity.

00:04:51.380 | So having something like,

00:04:53.780 | here are the set times we talk every week.

00:04:56.660 | We can get through everything that's going on

00:04:58.500 | and I'll give you a written copy

00:04:59.900 | of everything we discussed and all the commitments

00:05:02.060 | so we can get that right back to you.

00:05:03.540 | That often makes a big difference.

00:05:06.020 | Office hours make a big difference.

00:05:07.740 | If there's a set time that you can get me

00:05:10.300 | every afternoon or every morning and I will be there,

00:05:12.900 | you'll just get me and you can look me in the eye

00:05:14.540 | over Zoom or get me on the phone

00:05:16.820 | and we handle what has to happen.

00:05:18.340 | That works pretty well.

00:05:19.860 | Having an assistant of some type that intakes

00:05:23.420 | all of the intaking crisis communication.

00:05:25.740 | And you have a morning and afternoon sit down

00:05:27.900 | with that assistant and the client knows this.

00:05:29.460 | The client is like, "Oh my God, there's this issue here."

00:05:31.340 | And the assistant's like, "I've got it, I've logged it.

00:05:34.100 | And Susan will be looking at this afternoon."

00:05:37.100 | One way or the other, you will hear back from us

00:05:38.900 | at the end of that afternoon

00:05:40.260 | or the end of the morning session if it comes in overnight.

00:05:43.580 | Clarity, I've sent this thing, I got a response.

00:05:46.980 | I know one day I'm gonna hear a more detailed response.

00:05:49.040 | I trust it.

00:05:50.300 | I can get it off my head.

00:05:51.300 | I'm not gonna be so stressed out about it.

00:05:53.740 | Depending on the type of work,

00:05:55.860 | more involved client extranets can work as well.

00:05:59.620 | You have a whole system.

00:06:01.220 | Here's the status of the project.

00:06:02.900 | Here's where the next meeting is.

00:06:03.940 | Here's all the documents.

00:06:05.060 | Here's the blog about what we're working on, the work logs.

00:06:07.380 | You can see what's going on.

00:06:08.420 | Here is where you register your questions and concerns

00:06:11.100 | and we can see them right here.

00:06:12.060 | And the answers come in here

00:06:13.100 | and you get those answers once a day.

00:06:14.900 | That makes a big difference.

00:06:16.340 | Having different tools for information

00:06:18.600 | to be injected into the project

00:06:20.120 | beyond just let me put it in an email

00:06:22.280 | and hope it gets tracked.

00:06:23.360 | Some sort of collaborative project management software,

00:06:25.480 | that can make a big difference.

00:06:27.680 | All these things can make a big difference.

00:06:30.080 | Now let's say you've done all of that

00:06:31.440 | but there's these two clients that say, I don't care.

00:06:34.520 | I just want you to answer my email because that's my thing.

00:06:37.960 | Well, then you have the option of firing those clients.

00:06:40.960 | Because this is also something that comes up often

00:06:42.920 | in these situations that the malformed social instinct

00:06:47.460 | that says you have to answer me is not evenly distributed.

00:06:50.420 | And the people who have that instinct,

00:06:52.680 | you don't care about clarity.

00:06:54.020 | They like the power, don't work with them.

00:06:56.340 | Right?

00:06:58.580 | Yeah, less money, but you're going to do much better

00:07:01.460 | with the other clients are going to be happier.

00:07:02.700 | So I think all those things are on the table.

00:07:04.820 | Clarity over accessibility, clarity over accessibility,

00:07:07.180 | firing the small number of people

00:07:08.340 | who won't put up with that.

00:07:10.020 | That might get you there.

00:07:11.860 | If that doesn't get you there,

00:07:13.720 | if it's fundamental for this work,

00:07:15.120 | now it's just the way her firm runs.

00:07:16.900 | They're not going to change.

00:07:18.320 | That's just what it is.

00:07:20.180 | I would counsel against the, I will retire soon or early.

00:07:25.180 | Let me put up with it to make the high salary.

00:07:29.260 | Not worth it.

00:07:30.940 | Not worth it.

00:07:31.780 | Take your career capital, go somewhere else

00:07:33.260 | where you can set up a day-to-day professional life

00:07:36.860 | that is sustainable.

00:07:38.620 | I would do that tomorrow.

00:07:41.000 | I would do that tomorrow.

00:07:42.540 | You're not going to build up enough money

00:07:44.060 | to retire in three years.

00:07:45.100 | That's hard to do.

00:07:46.060 | You're going to spend more of it than you think.

00:07:47.540 | And you're going to land the autonomy trap.

00:07:49.280 | You're going to land in the classic autonomy trap

00:07:50.860 | of you're going to get higher and higher salary,

00:07:52.220 | get better and better.

00:07:53.060 | It's very difficult to leave.

00:07:54.360 | I'm usually very much against

00:07:57.360 | almost any professional circumstance

00:07:59.100 | where it is unsustainable

00:08:01.740 | and pulling down on your mental health.

00:08:03.940 | Almost always that is not the right place to be

00:08:08.820 | unless it really is time limited and serving a broader goal.

00:08:12.840 | If you're a Navy SEAL in buds during hell week,

00:08:18.680 | yeah, that's psychologically bad,

00:08:21.720 | but it's serving a larger goal

00:08:24.000 | and it will be over after a few days

00:08:26.000 | and then you'll have the pool torture

00:08:27.200 | and some other stuff going on,

00:08:28.040 | but then it will be done.

00:08:29.000 | Okay, I get that.

00:08:29.840 | But if it's just, this is how we do business,

00:08:32.560 | get out sooner rather than later.

00:08:35.160 | You know, life is too short, but also life is too cool.

00:08:38.180 | There's too much potential for interestingness and depth

00:08:40.680 | and everything else that could be going on in your life.

00:08:43.400 | With all of that potential out there,

00:08:44.800 | do you really want to have the dominant thing in your life

00:08:47.280 | being a day-to-day experience that is stressful and dragging?

00:08:51.200 | So if you cannot engineer the hyperactivity

00:08:56.000 | out of the position, change that position.

00:08:59.680 | And again, I'm sure your girlfriend's going to appreciate

00:09:01.480 | you figuring this all out for her

00:09:02.960 | and telling her what she should do for her job.

00:09:05.920 | And so let me just, I'll speak directly to your girlfriend.

00:09:07.840 | My apologies in advance for the mansplaining

00:09:10.380 | that's coming your way,

00:09:11.280 | but it's a good question in the abstract.

00:09:13.040 | And I think that's the way I think about it.

00:09:14.720 | (upbeat music)

00:09:17.300 | [Music]

How Can My Girlfriend Cope With a Hyper-Active Hive Mind Job?

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