3 ms·
This is pretty much analogous to urinal "stagefright" where your ability to pee (for those afflicted) goes right out the window as soon as another person steps
by abrugsch 12y ago
This is pretty much analogous to urinal "stagefright" where your ability to pee (for those afflicted) goes right out the window as soon as another person steps up to an adjacent urinal. Likewise, my ability to do anything coherent on a keyboard drops to a "uhm what was I doing?" as soon as anyone starts hovering behind my shoulder. Doubly so for interviews. I wonder if there's a correlation between those susceptible to urinal (or stall perhaps...) stagefright and inability to code on show.
- ryandvm 12y agoAmusing. I absolutely suffer from the urinal stagefright. I'm also terrible at whiteboard coding. Or playing piano in public. I recall from childhood the time my father invited me to play a song I knew by heart in front of one of his friends. I got a couple bars into it, flubbed a few keys and then the song just fell completely out of my memory. I had nothing. Pretty much any time I feel like I'm being evaluated by someone, my brain goes into an overly defensive, self-critical mode where I spend more cycles trying not to screw up than I do actually performing. It's generally a disaster. Strangely, I discovered my cure many years ago when I was able to crank out Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca in front of an entire wedding party. Under just the right level of inebriation, alcohol seems to dampen the self-critical part of my brain just before it starts affecting much else. Unfortunately, it takes quite a bit of alcohol for this effect to kick in. And sadly for me, this hack is a bit harder to pull off in a job interview situation without coming off like a high-functioning alcoholic. It certainly helps with the phone interviews though...
- abrugsch 12y agoBallmer peak then ;)