Christmas time

Week 12  - Holiday Edition

The Iron Yard has taken a short (very short) break for the Holidays. It was a much needed time of seeing family, friends, catching a breath, and - let's be honest - realizing how much completing this and moving into this full-time as a profession really means to me.

I was happy to show my mother what I'd gotten accomplished so far on my project. ...though it was a healthy dose of 'reality check' for her tearing through and purposely causing every error to show that she could. ("thanks" mom...) Despite my explanation that I was far from done, and the testing phase hadn't even begun yet, she still took joy in seeing the wonderful red error screen of "hey, this doesn't work". ...the holidays are about giving, right? I suppose if it made her happy...

Eloquently stated.

And now I'm back in Indy. Back to working at HopCat and working on this project when I'm not there. (Though as I type this, I'm actually sitting at HopCat prior to a shift.) While I have a moment, I wanted to write a bit about something that became more apparent to me while visiting family.

Knowing how you deal with frustration

I know I've talked about how the Iron Yard isn't just teaching me to learn to code, but how it is truly changing the way I think through problems, the way I organize my thoughts, and the way I view learning and working with others. As such, I ran into something this weekend I had not before: working with people who don't work the way you do.

I suppose I should clarify - I've been in these situations, many times, before. And typically, I can work through them, no problem. ...but in this past week's case, it was with my mother. Now, I love the woman, endlessly. But we ran into issues attempting to work together to install flooring (a part of my Christmas gift to her.)

I have a tendency to get frustrated when I'm doing the same thing over and over without the results I am hoping to achieve - a common thing, I feel. And I've learned I need to simply walk away for a few moments. Nothing major, just a short lap around the house or a walk to the kitchen to get a drink and to think it out. I talk to myself over it and, after I've taken a few deep breaths, I can come back and think my way through it again. It's a newer realization - one of the many I attribute to Iron Yard, as it's a common thing in programming. You're going to fail FAR more than you're going to get things right, so be prepared for frustration, and learn how to handle it.

Now, this model works well for me, and many people - but it only works if the task frustrating you is something you can actually walk away from. Installation of flooring? C'mon, Ben, this IS something you can walk away from. ...not when you're working with your mom. And not when her style of working is to power through it, regardless of frustration. We were attempting to get a few of the pieces to line up, but as they were being tapped into place, the tool we were using was causing the ends of the boards to chip and fray, ruining the connection for the next piece. It kept occurring, despite the multiple attempts to change the way we went about it, and it was causing us to do, and re-do, and re-do, and re-do a segment of the floor. I was wanting to take a lap, and she was wanting to keep trying things and power through it.

I'll shorten this story and give you the summation - We handle frustration differently, and we both got pretty upset with one another. But this was the first time I was able to put my mind on exactly why. Knowing why allows me to adjust and make the changes needed to help the issue between our styles in the first place.

In workplaces, families, and in general, we're going to run into people who work very differently than ourselves. Take time to look at the specific methods you use to work through problems and take a moment to think about the methods of those who you don't exactly work well with.
Now, I've spent years being able to work around these situations, but I'm only now realizing the why they were happening. In the past, could I work with people who handled frustration differently - sure. But I had no idea why I didn't like working with them...I just...didn't.

I'm only now seeing that I had been subconsciously changing minor things to deal with it, rather than actively recognizing what was going on, addressing it, and working with them to ensure they could do what they needed, and they were clear on what I needed.

Regardless of if this seems like a "duh" thing for you or not, I thought it was pretty nifty, and I thought I'd share.

Back at the ol' Iron Yard...

This week, I'll be following up with the validations needed for ensuring information is properly submitted to my site, keeping up with the various issues I'm tracking through Github, and continuing to explore the world of integrating Facebook into the user interface of the site. With any luck, I'll manage to get it all running smoothly by the end of the week and I'll be able to use next week to add the bells and whistles I want, as well as taking time for the 'fun part' - layouts and design! YES.

I've also purchased my first domain. ...it felt so empowering. It will be going well with my website, which I have changed the name to "alltheswingdancing" dot com.

The saga continues...