February 15, 2012 at 9:46 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Too Tired to Work Smart
February 16, 2012 at 2:56 am
Would anyone admit that he is too tired to work smart?
:->
Good point, the article, especially for getting conscious of the state you're in.
I just miss one important consequence and some suggestions for a solution.
Take care of your health, otherwise not only your body suffers, but also your reputation. Which results in less jobs, perhaps lack of money, sorrows grow and body suffers even more.
Be smart and limit your daily work time. One hour break or private time. A specialist is effective for six hours a day; two more she or he needs for communication. AND THEN GO HOME!
If you need to educate yourself: Don't even try to do it in the office. Other people won't let you.
If people stay more then ten hours a day in the office over more than a week: PM failed. And they try to solve their problems by spoiling their resources...
________________________________________________________
If you set out to do something, something else must be done first.
February 16, 2012 at 4:05 am
You are so right! Everyone sometimes or other hits this phase. When mind is tired and can't think of anything new or it cannot see what is the problem.
We need to give it a break like they do on TV.
Just relax. Go far a small walk. Fool around do whatever it takes for you to relax.
Once your mind is relaxed and it knows it's free. it doesn't have to solve that problem, then and only then it suddenly feels free and suddenly you'll know the solution and running back to machine to implement or try out the new found solution!
Keep up the good work.
Love,
Jack:-)
February 16, 2012 at 4:08 am
Watching your breath also helps you relax quickly.
February 16, 2012 at 7:27 am
I recently said that I was too tired to continue during a project planning meeting stating that my input at this point would be flawed. It was a pretty informal meeting but I had been working 12 hours solid* without a break except the necessary and to the drinks vending machine a couple of times. The same was true for another couple of guys there. The response I got from the most senior team member was "OK" then he carried on regardless. "Brilliant" I sarcastically thought. We then produced a whole set of estimates which were later found to be underestimating the effort required. The most senior team member has now had to take indefinite leave due to stress and the project has now been canceled.
I'll leave it to my fellow forum members to draw their own conclusions.
* I used to be able to do more without breaking into a sweat but ho-hum.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
February 16, 2012 at 8:02 am
Sometimes a short break can do wonders, but sometimes you just need more.
I remember working on an update team for a large system. Our team was spread across our state and I was the only DBA. There were multiple large databases in excess of 500 GB and these were mirrored to that application's SQL DR server. I had stopped mirroring on all of the databases and created database snapshots prior to the upgrade. The upgrade failed and I had to restore from the snapshots.
It was already after 3:30 AM and I had been up since 6 AM the previous day. I recognized that I was too tired to be effective and might actually become a liability to the process. My sight was failing and I had a difficult time reading my display. (Being diabetic does not help either.)
I used the "tag team" approach. I contacted one of the other two DBAs, explained the situation and he was able to finish things up.
Do I wish I could have handled the entire operation myself? Yes. But there was a high probability that I would have made a mistake. In this case I was lucky enough that a team member was able to jump in and assist.
-----------------
Larry
(What color is your database?)
February 16, 2012 at 8:18 am
Been there, done that, wore out the t-shirt years ago!
One problem with calling the "too tired to think straight" issue is that you're too tired to think straight, and lose part of the ability to judge your own level of impairment. Same thing happens when people hit a certain level of drunkenness - they think they're fine as they stagger into their car and drive off the wrong way on the highway. (Sleep deprivation doesn't usually go that far, but it can after a few days. Different tollerances for different people, of course.)
I used to have tricks for dealing with sleep deprivation issues when I used to routinely do 3 and 5 day shifts regularly. (It's a long story why I was doing those.) Nowadays, quite a few birthdays later, I can barely stay up past about 4 AM without getting so mentally foggy I can't operate.
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
February 16, 2012 at 8:33 am
Well.... now you know why Mickeysoft is shipping American jobs overseas to China. They pay them dirt and work them until they fall asleep. Check out this link if you don't believe it. Good ole Mickeysoft! 😀
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266643/Microsofts-Chinese-workforce-tired-stay-awake.html
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
February 16, 2012 at 8:43 am
There is no real reason to work long hours until you are exhausted. Several serious studies done independently -- the latest one by the British BAE Vickers, if I remember correctly-- show that after two weeks of overtime your productivity falls and you will get done no more than you would get done in eight honest hours with rest.
February 16, 2012 at 9:07 am
There have been many studies over the years showing that productivity drops after too much overtime just as your ability to learn and retain new information drops after too many hours of study. We're humans not machines and your brain can only take so much. To GSquared's point earlier though, part of losing your ability to think clearly is also your inability to realize you are at that point once you've hit it. Our stubbornness often interferes with reason...
If you're on a team and working together for long hours, and you think it's time for a break then speak up and guage the rest of the team's weariness. You'll be surprised how many others are just as tired, if not more tired, than you are. I have been on late night calls for support issues and projects that are under a time crunch where everyone thinks they need to work 26 hours straight to finish the work. Even though everyone knows that they are too tired to really be productive and that serious mistakes are likely to occur, no one wants to give up and miss the deadline or not fix the issues before business ramps up for the day. This is when people start running delete statements without Where clauses or they kick off apps that go into endless loops requiring machines to be rebooted. Simple errors that could be avoided with a couple hours of sleep.
February 16, 2012 at 9:36 am
My current manager was asking the other day why we had to work so much overtime on the first version of the product (it seems that all the overtime on the second and third version had already been forgotten). Since the manager was also a developer on that same product at the time, I was completely mystified. It seems that the manager is destined to repeat past mistakes. (Here is the formula, just in case you forgot as well: too many features in too little time with too few resources.)
Bottom line is that overtime, whether on a daily, weekly, montly or yearly (yes, yearly) basis is poison to any project or product. If you want to fail, then work the troops too hard.
We also have off shore resources that we use. It always makes me wonder why they think we here in North America are going to be sharp in such meetings when they start at 9 pm at night, especially since we've already put in a 9 or 10 hour day. Folks are winding down at 9 pm, not winding up.
I think the solution is to eliminate most management since they obviously don't get it. Don't get me wrong, I've had a good manager who understood these things. I guess 1 out of 10 ain't bad eh?
February 16, 2012 at 10:05 am
j_e_o (2/16/2012)
My current manager was asking the other day why we had to work so much overtime on the first version of the product (it seems that all the overtime on the second and third version had already been forgotten). Since the manager was also a developer on that same product at the time, I was completely mystified. It seems that the manager is destined to repeat past mistakes. (Here is the formula, just in case you forgot as well: too many features in too little time with too few resources.)
If a lot of overtime is required for completing development on each version of your product then this sounds like poor project management. If your manager is acting as the development manager and project manager then he/she needs to review the project after each delivery and determine what went right and wrong and why the labor estimates were so far off. If the development went fairly well with few mistakes or rework and the developers just gave low labor estimates then the manager should pad those estimates to extend the project timeline. This would give the developers more time to actually do their work and avoid unnecessary OT. If development was flawed and there was a lot of rework and mistakes then that could be due to a myriad number of issues which your manager would need to address (training, poor requirements, scope creep, etc). If the OT is an ongoing occurrence then it sounds like your manager probably needs assistance in the project management side of things.
February 16, 2012 at 11:44 am
TravisDBA (2/16/2012)
Yep. Just like Apple. Just like (fill in major corporation here). Just like (fill in another major corporation here). (Loop infinitely).
- Gus "GSquared", RSVP, OODA, MAP, NMVP, FAQ, SAT, SQL, DNA, RNA, UOI, IOU, AM, PM, AD, BC, BCE, USA, UN, CF, ROFL, LOL, ETC
Property of The Thread
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everyone agrees it's old enough to know better." - Anon
February 16, 2012 at 11:52 am
GSquared (2/16/2012)
TravisDBA (2/16/2012)
Well.... now you know why Mickeysoft is shipping American jobs overseas to China. They pay them dirt and work them until they fall asleep. Check out this link if you don't believe it. Good ole Mickeysoft! 😀Yep. Just like Apple. Just like (fill in major corporation here). Just like (fill in another major corporation here). (Loop infinitely).
Yep and Obama has sworn to put a stop to it too. American jobs for Americans first. Go Obama!!!!!:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 29 total)
You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply