14 ms·

I used to have the equivalent job for a Rock'n'Roll lighting company. I always went to work with my passport in my pocket, and more than once hit the airport fo

by niccl 3y ago

I used to have the equivalent job for a Rock'n'Roll lighting company. I always went to work with my passport in my pocket, and more than once hit the airport for a trip that would last a week with nothing more than a toolbox and a credit card: clothes and toiletries you can buy once the show has started. That sort of service was one of the reasons that people bought this company's equipment. There's quite high stress when having to fix something so that the 15,000 punters waiting outside can actually get to see the band they've paid for. Fun though, in retrospect

neilv 3y ago
Those high-stress business situations, in which you're the one person who has to urgently make something big happen, often with uncertainty about the situation and solution, are... high-stress. But you can play it as Astronaut Mode. Analogous to the spacecraft that will run out of air in a few hours, and you have to remain calm and sharp and fast-thinking, and in command and coordinating with others, maybe a touch of humor, to make a miracle happen. And somehow it comes together, sometimes more creatively than others. Stressful, but doable, and invigorating and rewarding. The stress that I think kills you much harder is when when it's a year of mind-boggling pathological big-corporate dysfunction, and you just aren't allowed to make things happen. (The spacecraft has a few hours of air. Various roles in mission control are misaligned, don't know what they're doing, secretly want that mission to fail, random people getting on the radio to countermand, etc. Even Capt. "Ice" Borland will despair when they realize.) Hence, do your own startup, or find a place you're similarly empowered to make the occasional stressful situation come together, without deadly Type BS stress.
- pjerem 3y ago
  Yep, short term stress won’t do anything to you, it will even let you have a lot of dopamine during and after the stressful situation. Stress will kill you when it becomes chronic, that is when the stressful situation never ends. If I understood correctly it’s because instead of getting some cortisol then flush it from your organism once everything is okay, you will add up cortisol over time and this hormone is inflammatory. So chronic stress is physically harming you.
  - neilv 3y ago
    Good point about short-term vs. long-term. I think I conflated that in my example, with an additional factor: degree of stress. Such as I'd guess differs between when you can rise to the challenge successfully, and when all your efforts are thwarted.

by niccl 3y ago

neilv 3y ago

Those high-stress business situations, in which you're the one person who has to urgently make something big happen, often with uncertainty about the situation and solution, are... high-stress. But you can play it as Astronaut Mode. Analogous to the spacecraft that will run out of air in a few hours, and you have to remain calm and sharp and fast-thinking, and in command and coordinating with others, maybe a touch of humor, to make a miracle happen. And somehow it comes together, sometimes more creatively than others. Stressful, but doable, and invigorating and rewarding. The stress that I think kills you much harder is when when it's a year of mind-boggling pathological big-corporate dysfunction, and you just aren't allowed to make things happen. (The spacecraft has a few hours of air. Various roles in mission control are misaligned, don't know what they're doing, secretly want that mission to fail, random people getting on the radio to countermand, etc. Even Capt. "Ice" Borland will despair when they realize.) Hence, do your own startup, or find a place you're similarly empowered to make the occasional stressful situation come together, without deadly Type BS stress.

pjerem 3y ago
Yep, short term stress won’t do anything to you, it will even let you have a lot of dopamine during and after the stressful situation. Stress will kill you when it becomes chronic, that is when the stressful situation never ends. If I understood correctly it’s because instead of getting some cortisol then flush it from your organism once everything is okay, you will add up cortisol over time and this hormone is inflammatory. So chronic stress is physically harming you.
- neilv 3y ago
  Good point about short-term vs. long-term. I think I conflated that in my example, with an additional factor: degree of stress. Such as I'd guess differs between when you can rise to the challenge successfully, and when all your efforts are thwarted.