8 ms·

And/or maybe Navy higher-ups, having resolutely learned nothing from the airline industry and crew resource management, pretend that there is no such thing as s

And/or maybe Navy higher-ups, having resolutely learned nothing from the airline industry and crew resource management, pretend that there is no such thing as sleep deprivation.

komali2 9y ago
Culture of self flagellation. Somehow the finance industry, Japan, and Taiwan all still haven't learned from this. From the way my investment banker roommate talks about it, they almost seem to get off to it.
- scarmig 9y ago
  Do you think tech in Silicon Valley is somehow above that, though?
  - komali2 9y ago
    Maybe? I've only been here about 2 years. First half was a bootcamp, which while intense certainly allowed for enough sleep (I would leave the bootcamp at 8pm, get home ~9, gives me an hour to relax, wake up at 7, and commute for an 8am arrival). Second half has been at a company with a very pro-family-time CEO, and as a bachelor that just means a lot of time to explore this awesome new city :) So I haven't yet experienced the "utter madness startup" I guess?
- CobrastanJorji 9y ago
  Same thing happens with doctors in the US. Doctors should know that after the first 12 hours, the doctor's not as good at doctoring anymore.
  - dv_dt 9y ago
    The discussion about work hours here typically seems to put effectiveness after 4-6 hours as dropping off for programming, for pilots regulations allow 8 work hours (with 10 required hours off, and at least 8 of those consecutive uninterrupted sleep). It makes one wonder at the working conditions of doctors and sailors.
    - JBlue42 9y ago
      Toss in architects, visual effects artists, kinda of whatever job you want in the US, especially if there's no history of a union. As someone else said, there's a lot of ego involved too. Given that a lot of it is "brainwork", it's the only physical way they might be able to feel they're testing themselves against something. Most of it in those jobs is just production-churn and an attempt by the higher-ups to save money on things that a) were bid low and b) have shitty margins.
  - wpietri 9y ago
    Yes. Although in talking with doctor friends, it turns out there's an interesting counter-force. A major source of errors is handoffs. I've certainly seen this when in the hospital with family; new doctors would frequently ask me for historical information, including about what other doctors had said or done. I was fine giving it, but what if I hadn't been there?
    - dx034 9y ago
      Do they work with checklists? That seems to be the number one reason why crews in aviation can work with such low error rates. Handoffs with strict checklists would probably cause lower error rates.
      - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
        Yes, they do have a lot of checklists, but it's one thing to create a checklist for an airplane with very strict requirements for validation and maintenance and another to create a checklist for a human being.
      - b4ux1t3 9y ago
        Crap, I listened to a podcasts sometime last year about how using checklists in a medical setting decreased errors by a ridiculous amount. I'm going to try to find it. But, if I don't, you got the gist of it: Have a checklist, and stick to it. Don't expect one person, or even multiple people, to remember all of the steps off the top of their head.
        Pharylon 9y ago
        If you find it, post it so I can listen.
        b4ux1t3 9y ago
        I'm having a bear of a time trying to figure out what podcast it was. It might even have been a YouTube video. I've been going through different permutations of search terms to find it. I'm worried it might have been .NET Rocks![1] They have a great podcast, but their episodes aren't indexed by Google because of their website structure. I'm gonna keep looking, and even check my home computer's history when I get home tonight, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Someone a bit above linked to a book that I'm pretty sure was the impetus behind the podcast I listened to, so it might be worth giving that a read. [1] https://dotnetrocks.com/ https://dotnetrocks.com/ EDIT: HA! I found it! It was actually in the press section on the book's web page. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122226184 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1222261...
- DontGiveTwoFlux 9y ago
  Medicine as well. Medical residents can have shifts that are 24 hours long.
  - mavhc 9y ago
    Well, as long as they only let people with jobs that can kill people be sleep deprived, it'll be ok
  - mikeash 9y ago
    I understand that medicine is tricky because the handoff from one doctor to the next can be dangerous for patients. You have to balance continuity with exhaustion. That's not to say that they necessarily have the right balance now, but it's a hard problem.
    - arjie 9y ago
      I've heard doctors say this, but they never cite evidence. But there is a wealth of evidence that says that doctor performance drops significantly with motor performance being harmed so much as to increase the number of errors and excess movements. I'll add the citation at the end, but it's not about the single study; it's about the fact that there is little evidence to the contrary and lots of evidence saying it's the case. If this were a drug, we'd be prescribing it every which way. And most importantly, know that this is not necessary. American doctor supply is restricted by the AMA. America could suck the best doctors out of many other nations if it so desired and its healthcare practitioners would be better rested, more mentally well, and far less error prone. http://www.bmj.com/content/323/7323/1222.1.short http://www.bmj.com/content/323/7323/1222.1.short
      - brownbat 9y ago
        > I've heard doctors say this, but they never cite evidence. Seems pretty well researched by a quick google. Maybe they're eliding the support not because it's an assumption, but because it's so thoroughly established they take it for granted? http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1405556#t=articleBackground http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1405556#t=article... https://psnet.ahrq.gov/primers/primer/9/handoffs-and-signouts https://psnet.ahrq.gov/primers/primer/9/handoffs-and-signout... ... > But there is a wealth of evidence that says that doctor performance drops significantly with motor performance being harmed That's true too, but I worry you're trying to rebut (X & Y) with evidence for Y. If we find ourselves slipping into a battle of emphasis, maybe we face a problem of optimization?
drblast 9y ago
My experience in the Navy made me lose all respect for the "leadership" there. It's a place where careers are established by doing everything except that which involves any actual thought or problem solving. The culture is risk-averse to a fault, but at the same time have nearly zero capability to accurately asses risk or fix problems beyond punishing people when things inevitably go wrong. Official "risk assessments" are performed before every dangerous undertaking, with numbers that are pulled out of someone's ass, along with additional "risk mitigation" numbers that are also pulled out of someone's ass so that leaders have cover when an accident happens. "We performed all the necessary risk assessments and were still a go." Let me give you an example. Underway replenishment is when one ship will pull alongside a supply ship and transfer fuel and supplies from the supply ship. It's very dangerous because the ships are within 300 feet of each other for hours on end. A risk-assessment is done and briefed the night before. Those are a PowerPoint presentation with a grid of things that can go wrong on the Y-axis. There are two columns, "risk" and "mitigation," and in line with each disaster are the probability conflated with the severity of that happening. Not actual numbers, just words like, "severe," "marginal," "likely," etc. Those are color-coded between red and green. One of those things is always "crew preparedness" or similar. The risk of having an unprepared crew that didn't get a lot of sleep is shown as, for example, "severe" and colored red. The briefer will say, "well this is a severe risk, so we're making an announcement that everyone needs to get plenty of sleep tonight and that mitigates that risk down to "tolerable." Actually this is more technical than what actually happens most of the time, which is that you'll hear things like, "we've mitigated the yellow risk down to a green." The entire ship's company of NCO's and officers will watch that presentation and nod their heads along. There is never one of these that results in a decision not to do something. And there you have it. I've taken you through the entire risk mitigation strategy for the Navy, that happens nearly every day. Does anyone know the actual probabilities of disaster? If so, they're not saying. Are they changing existing procedures or spending additional money to fix problems based on actual numbers? Hell no. Really severe problems are dealt with in the following manner; a "zero tolerance" policy for that problem existing will be created, and when disaster strikes, it's a career-ending event for whatever scapegoat is standing there. Problem solved! By the way, don't join the Navy. EDIT: Also, the "too much technology" portion of the article is laughable. Part of the problem is that technology that the rest of the world uses to avoid these sorts of things is seen as anathema to the luddite SWO community, and rather than embrace anything that could help automate error-prone tasks, they pay lip service to it and continue doing extraordinarily stupid things for tradition's sake. Aircraft carriers are driven by issuing voice commands to (mostly undertrained) helmsman in an environment where any additional noise could result in a misunderstood command and disaster. Or the helmsman gets tired of standing for a five hour watch every day and accidentally turns left instead of right like she's told. Imagine driving a car by telling the driver what to do from the passenger seat. Not just a "turn left up there," but "turn the wheel 15 degrees to the left, ok, now turn the wheel back to center, ok, now turn it back three degrees to the right because you oversteered..." It's insane.
bdunbar 9y ago
They forget their own history, too. A battle in 1942 was lost, badly, because the USN crews were zonked from a routine that gave them almost no chance for sleep.
- arethuza 9y ago
  Speaking of WW2 I've seen claims that one of the factors that helped the RAF win the Battle of Britain was there culture of pilots taking time away from the battle to rest up, relax and generally recover in between periods of intense fighting. e.g. "Talking shop" was definitely frowned on in a culture of apparent gentlemanly amateurism. The Luftwaffe was more "professional" and worked their crews much harder and didn't take time to relax and had a culture of focusing 24 hours a day on the job.
  - bdunbar 9y ago
    Interesting. I'm not sure I could do that: I'd want to talk shop, badly. I read - years ago - that the most active combat was in the area around London. Not a small area, but it allowed RAF to move squadrons to lower threat areas for reconstitution and rebuilding before rotating them back to a hot area.

And/or maybe Navy higher-ups, having resolutely learned nothing from the airline industry and crew resource management, pretend that there is no such thing as sleep deprivation.

komali2 9y ago

Culture of self flagellation. Somehow the finance industry, Japan, and Taiwan all still haven't learned from this. From the way my investment banker roommate talks about it, they almost seem to get off to it.

scarmig 9y ago
Do you think tech in Silicon Valley is somehow above that, though?
- komali2 9y ago
  Maybe? I've only been here about 2 years. First half was a bootcamp, which while intense certainly allowed for enough sleep (I would leave the bootcamp at 8pm, get home ~9, gives me an hour to relax, wake up at 7, and commute for an 8am arrival). Second half has been at a company with a very pro-family-time CEO, and as a bachelor that just means a lot of time to explore this awesome new city :) So I haven't yet experienced the "utter madness startup" I guess?
CobrastanJorji 9y ago
Same thing happens with doctors in the US. Doctors should know that after the first 12 hours, the doctor's not as good at doctoring anymore.
- dv_dt 9y ago
  The discussion about work hours here typically seems to put effectiveness after 4-6 hours as dropping off for programming, for pilots regulations allow 8 work hours (with 10 required hours off, and at least 8 of those consecutive uninterrupted sleep). It makes one wonder at the working conditions of doctors and sailors.
  - JBlue42 9y ago
    Toss in architects, visual effects artists, kinda of whatever job you want in the US, especially if there's no history of a union. As someone else said, there's a lot of ego involved too. Given that a lot of it is "brainwork", it's the only physical way they might be able to feel they're testing themselves against something. Most of it in those jobs is just production-churn and an attempt by the higher-ups to save money on things that a) were bid low and b) have shitty margins.
- wpietri 9y ago
  Yes. Although in talking with doctor friends, it turns out there's an interesting counter-force. A major source of errors is handoffs. I've certainly seen this when in the hospital with family; new doctors would frequently ask me for historical information, including about what other doctors had said or done. I was fine giving it, but what if I hadn't been there?
  - dx034 9y ago
    Do they work with checklists? That seems to be the number one reason why crews in aviation can work with such low error rates. Handoffs with strict checklists would probably cause lower error rates.
    - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
      Yes, they do have a lot of checklists, but it's one thing to create a checklist for an airplane with very strict requirements for validation and maintenance and another to create a checklist for a human being.
    - b4ux1t3 9y ago
      Crap, I listened to a podcasts sometime last year about how using checklists in a medical setting decreased errors by a ridiculous amount. I'm going to try to find it. But, if I don't, you got the gist of it: Have a checklist, and stick to it. Don't expect one person, or even multiple people, to remember all of the steps off the top of their head.
      - Pharylon 9y ago
        If you find it, post it so I can listen.
        b4ux1t3 9y ago
        I'm having a bear of a time trying to figure out what podcast it was. It might even have been a YouTube video. I've been going through different permutations of search terms to find it. I'm worried it might have been .NET Rocks![1] They have a great podcast, but their episodes aren't indexed by Google because of their website structure. I'm gonna keep looking, and even check my home computer's history when I get home tonight, but I wouldn't hold your breath. Someone a bit above linked to a book that I'm pretty sure was the impetus behind the podcast I listened to, so it might be worth giving that a read. [1] https://dotnetrocks.com/ https://dotnetrocks.com/ EDIT: HA! I found it! It was actually in the press section on the book's web page. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122226184 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1222261...
DontGiveTwoFlux 9y ago
Medicine as well. Medical residents can have shifts that are 24 hours long.
- mavhc 9y ago
  Well, as long as they only let people with jobs that can kill people be sleep deprived, it'll be ok
- mikeash 9y ago
  I understand that medicine is tricky because the handoff from one doctor to the next can be dangerous for patients. You have to balance continuity with exhaustion. That's not to say that they necessarily have the right balance now, but it's a hard problem.
  - arjie 9y ago
    I've heard doctors say this, but they never cite evidence. But there is a wealth of evidence that says that doctor performance drops significantly with motor performance being harmed so much as to increase the number of errors and excess movements. I'll add the citation at the end, but it's not about the single study; it's about the fact that there is little evidence to the contrary and lots of evidence saying it's the case. If this were a drug, we'd be prescribing it every which way. And most importantly, know that this is not necessary. American doctor supply is restricted by the AMA. America could suck the best doctors out of many other nations if it so desired and its healthcare practitioners would be better rested, more mentally well, and far less error prone. http://www.bmj.com/content/323/7323/1222.1.short http://www.bmj.com/content/323/7323/1222.1.short
    - brownbat 9y ago
      > I've heard doctors say this, but they never cite evidence. Seems pretty well researched by a quick google. Maybe they're eliding the support not because it's an assumption, but because it's so thoroughly established they take it for granted? http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1405556#t=articleBackground http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1405556#t=article... https://psnet.ahrq.gov/primers/primer/9/handoffs-and-signouts https://psnet.ahrq.gov/primers/primer/9/handoffs-and-signout... ... > But there is a wealth of evidence that says that doctor performance drops significantly with motor performance being harmed That's true too, but I worry you're trying to rebut (X & Y) with evidence for Y. If we find ourselves slipping into a battle of emphasis, maybe we face a problem of optimization?

drblast 9y ago

My experience in the Navy made me lose all respect for the "leadership" there. It's a place where careers are established by doing everything except that which involves any actual thought or problem solving. The culture is risk-averse to a fault, but at the same time have nearly zero capability to accurately asses risk or fix problems beyond punishing people when things inevitably go wrong. Official "risk assessments" are performed before every dangerous undertaking, with numbers that are pulled out of someone's ass, along with additional "risk mitigation" numbers that are also pulled out of someone's ass so that leaders have cover when an accident happens. "We performed all the necessary risk assessments and were still a go." Let me give you an example. Underway replenishment is when one ship will pull alongside a supply ship and transfer fuel and supplies from the supply ship. It's very dangerous because the ships are within 300 feet of each other for hours on end. A risk-assessment is done and briefed the night before. Those are a PowerPoint presentation with a grid of things that can go wrong on the Y-axis. There are two columns, "risk" and "mitigation," and in line with each disaster are the probability conflated with the severity of that happening. Not actual numbers, just words like, "severe," "marginal," "likely," etc. Those are color-coded between red and green. One of those things is always "crew preparedness" or similar. The risk of having an unprepared crew that didn't get a lot of sleep is shown as, for example, "severe" and colored red. The briefer will say, "well this is a severe risk, so we're making an announcement that everyone needs to get plenty of sleep tonight and that mitigates that risk down to "tolerable." Actually this is more technical than what actually happens most of the time, which is that you'll hear things like, "we've mitigated the yellow risk down to a green." The entire ship's company of NCO's and officers will watch that presentation and nod their heads along. There is never one of these that results in a decision not to do something. And there you have it. I've taken you through the entire risk mitigation strategy for the Navy, that happens nearly every day. Does anyone know the actual probabilities of disaster? If so, they're not saying. Are they changing existing procedures or spending additional money to fix problems based on actual numbers? Hell no. Really severe problems are dealt with in the following manner; a "zero tolerance" policy for that problem existing will be created, and when disaster strikes, it's a career-ending event for whatever scapegoat is standing there. Problem solved! By the way, don't join the Navy. EDIT: Also, the "too much technology" portion of the article is laughable. Part of the problem is that technology that the rest of the world uses to avoid these sorts of things is seen as anathema to the luddite SWO community, and rather than embrace anything that could help automate error-prone tasks, they pay lip service to it and continue doing extraordinarily stupid things for tradition's sake. Aircraft carriers are driven by issuing voice commands to (mostly undertrained) helmsman in an environment where any additional noise could result in a misunderstood command and disaster. Or the helmsman gets tired of standing for a five hour watch every day and accidentally turns left instead of right like she's told. Imagine driving a car by telling the driver what to do from the passenger seat. Not just a "turn left up there," but "turn the wheel 15 degrees to the left, ok, now turn the wheel back to center, ok, now turn it back three degrees to the right because you oversteered..." It's insane.

bdunbar 9y ago

They forget their own history, too. A battle in 1942 was lost, badly, because the USN crews were zonked from a routine that gave them almost no chance for sleep.

arethuza 9y ago
Speaking of WW2 I've seen claims that one of the factors that helped the RAF win the Battle of Britain was there culture of pilots taking time away from the battle to rest up, relax and generally recover in between periods of intense fighting. e.g. "Talking shop" was definitely frowned on in a culture of apparent gentlemanly amateurism. The Luftwaffe was more "professional" and worked their crews much harder and didn't take time to relax and had a culture of focusing 24 hours a day on the job.
- bdunbar 9y ago
  Interesting. I'm not sure I could do that: I'd want to talk shop, badly. I read - years ago - that the most active combat was in the area around London. Not a small area, but it allowed RAF to move squadrons to lower threat areas for reconstitution and rebuilding before rotating them back to a hot area.