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This is an interesting perspective, but it may not be necessarily true that: 'If you aren't the sort of person to feel any sort of "delight" about good tools, t

This is an interesting perspective, but it may not be necessarily true that: 'If you aren't the sort of person to feel any sort of "delight" about good tools, then the job probably isn't a good fit for you because the responsibility of the job is to build tools.' A professional can be perfectionist (in a good, not procrastinating way) and hold high standards to their work about creating good tools. Perhaps this is captured by 'delight,' but the language seems phrased in a way that 'delight' means showing positivity, bright energy, and explicit enthusiasm for work. I think it's better for both the individual and the organization when there's a certain level of detachment with the work (so there's commitment to perfectionism but not super high enthusiasm that can be lead to burnout and health problems), but still high standards to ship a good product.

nfw2 5y ago
In my own experience, I've struggled the most with burnout specifically while on a DX team. The team was managed and entirely comprised of engineers transferred from other departments, most of whom had little-to-no interest in HCI, human factors, or design. Every decision was made according to some arbitrary dogma about consistency or some other abstract CS principle. The manager was explicitly against sourcing any feedback from the teams we served when determining our priorities and roadmap. The result was tools that were essentially unusable, and endless refactoring from one tech stack configuration to another without actually solving any real-world problems. For me, burnout was the result of clocking in every day to do what felt like meaningless work. I agree with the general consensus that delight is an awkward word to use here, but it does at least signal that the team is run with a user-first mentality.
- openknot 5y ago
  Thank you for sharing, I see more of where you’re coming from. > burnout was the result of clocking in every day to do what felt like meaningless work This is a lesson I was grateful to have picked up from HN about a year ago. The thread is at [0], and the quote from the submitted article was: “Don’t half-work just to put in the hours. It’s better to give full effort half the day and then be done. Cultivating an ass-in-seat mentality is harmful to myself. When needed, give full effort all day, exceed expectations and demand compensation.” This helped motivate a personal decision to leave a job where initiative and extra effort wasn’t noticed or rewarded (despite planning to stay a while due to inertia), and only seek work where I’m empowered to do the best work I can. I plan to avoid mistaking my identity for my job position at a company, but I would like to similarly aspire to be a professional who cares about doing good work for the user (versus just clocking in). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27328705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27328705

nfw2 5y ago

In my own experience, I've struggled the most with burnout specifically while on a DX team. The team was managed and entirely comprised of engineers transferred from other departments, most of whom had little-to-no interest in HCI, human factors, or design. Every decision was made according to some arbitrary dogma about consistency or some other abstract CS principle. The manager was explicitly against sourcing any feedback from the teams we served when determining our priorities and roadmap. The result was tools that were essentially unusable, and endless refactoring from one tech stack configuration to another without actually solving any real-world problems. For me, burnout was the result of clocking in every day to do what felt like meaningless work. I agree with the general consensus that delight is an awkward word to use here, but it does at least signal that the team is run with a user-first mentality.

openknot 5y ago
Thank you for sharing, I see more of where you’re coming from. > burnout was the result of clocking in every day to do what felt like meaningless work This is a lesson I was grateful to have picked up from HN about a year ago. The thread is at [0], and the quote from the submitted article was: “Don’t half-work just to put in the hours. It’s better to give full effort half the day and then be done. Cultivating an ass-in-seat mentality is harmful to myself. When needed, give full effort all day, exceed expectations and demand compensation.” This helped motivate a personal decision to leave a job where initiative and extra effort wasn’t noticed or rewarded (despite planning to stay a while due to inertia), and only seek work where I’m empowered to do the best work I can. I plan to avoid mistaking my identity for my job position at a company, but I would like to similarly aspire to be a professional who cares about doing good work for the user (versus just clocking in). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27328705 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27328705