6. Physical and Mental Fatigue at Work | Social Exhaustion

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Show note

• 0:00 intro and work fatigue
• 6:05 work life balance & setting boundaries
• 15:54 when to ask question?
• 23:30 using chat bot at work
• 32:47 meeting versus building

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Full transcript text

[00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.720] Today, I want to just discuss with you a feeling that I feel recently, which is in full-time
[00:00:07.720 --> 00:00:10.960] job usually I don't feel very tired after a full day of work.
[00:00:10.960 --> 00:00:15.160] Whereas back in my PhD days, I always feel like, oh, at the end of the day, like time
[00:00:15.160 --> 00:00:19.000] is long, the workout might be longer because we stay in the lab all the time, but I don't
[00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:20.000] feel tired.
[00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:24.640] But now that in the real work environments, especially in the past couple of weeks, because
[00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:32.000] we have all these internal deadlines and even though it's only probably an eight hour, probably
[00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:36.040] nine hour workday, at the end, I felt exhausted.
[00:00:36.040 --> 00:00:41.920] I feel like a zombie afterwards, like a soulless, just want to lay in the couch in the evening.
[00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:48.760] I want to get your, do you feel that now that you are almost a year at a full-time job?
[00:00:48.760 --> 00:00:53.320] That's such an interesting topic and question because we're coming from different points,
[00:00:53.320 --> 00:00:54.320] right?
[00:00:54.320 --> 00:01:00.280] I only joined and left the PhD life and very closely remember how exhausting those long
[00:01:00.280 --> 00:01:01.520] days were.
[00:01:01.520 --> 00:01:04.440] And so this feels like paradise.
[00:01:04.440 --> 00:01:08.840] But then I see my managers and people who have been in industry a little bit longer
[00:01:08.840 --> 00:01:11.160] and they're fatigued and they're tired.
[00:01:11.160 --> 00:01:14.660] And so at some point you sort of transition over.
[00:01:14.660 --> 00:01:20.800] I'm not sure when that is, but the PhD life is just exhausting because there's always
[00:01:20.800 --> 00:01:26.800] more to do and you're always trying to impress the boss, your advisor.
[00:01:26.800 --> 00:01:30.480] And so you feel like it's never good enough.
[00:01:30.480 --> 00:01:33.760] You're tackling imposter syndrome.
[00:01:33.760 --> 00:01:37.720] You're trying to get the next result, so it's more impressive.
[00:01:37.720 --> 00:01:40.380] And you're also like, don't really know what you're doing half the time.
[00:01:40.380 --> 00:01:41.380] It's research.
[00:01:41.380 --> 00:01:46.680] So you're bouncing against these walls where you try something and it doesn't work and
[00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:52.080] then you have to understand why it doesn't work or you have to try something new versus
[00:01:52.080 --> 00:01:56.760] in an I guess industry, things are a little bit more regulated.
[00:01:56.760 --> 00:01:58.280] You know what you're testing.
[00:01:58.280 --> 00:02:00.960] You have like a lot more support.
[00:02:00.960 --> 00:02:07.860] But I'm curious as to when this fatigue started setting in for you and like what is it because
[00:02:07.860 --> 00:02:09.560] of the deadline crunch?
[00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:13.120] Are you do you find yourself working more these days than you were a couple of weeks
[00:02:13.120 --> 00:02:18.900] ago, like just like hours on the clock, or is it just that the work is much harder because
[00:02:18.900 --> 00:02:23.400] it's like there's suddenly the stress of the deadline and that if you get this wrong, you
[00:02:23.400 --> 00:02:25.160] might have to push for the next cycle?
[00:02:25.160 --> 00:02:28.480] Yeah, I think they are.
[00:02:28.480 --> 00:02:34.880] As you're talking about your experience in your PhD, I think we're complaining two things.
[00:02:34.880 --> 00:02:39.680] One is the physical fatigue, like just tired, like physically unable to move.
[00:02:39.680 --> 00:02:43.920] The other one is anxious, like you're not going to meet the next deadline.
[00:02:43.920 --> 00:02:45.340] You don't know when you can graduate.
[00:02:45.340 --> 00:02:49.920] You don't know when your advisor is going to say, "Oh, now we've registered to meet
[00:02:49.920 --> 00:02:50.920] the paper."
[00:02:50.920 --> 00:02:52.480] Otherwise, just keep working on it.
[00:02:52.480 --> 00:02:54.000] Like there's no end in sight.
[00:02:54.000 --> 00:02:57.580] So one is more like on the mental, one is on the physical side.
[00:02:57.580 --> 00:03:04.320] And then right now I'm feeling more and I share the mental stress doing PhD as well.
[00:03:04.320 --> 00:03:06.840] But more recently, my fatigue is more on the physical side.
[00:03:06.840 --> 00:03:11.680] I just feel like, oh, it's a long workday and compared with a couple of weeks ago, what
[00:03:11.680 --> 00:03:12.680] has changed?
[00:03:12.680 --> 00:03:19.320] Maybe my interns have arrived for the summer, so I got to spend a significant amount of
[00:03:19.320 --> 00:03:25.000] work time to them, to mentor them, to get them on board, to know all the internal tools
[00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:31.780] and internal projects, code names, to help them understand what my priority is and hopefully
[00:03:31.780 --> 00:03:38.560] convince them the project that they are working on is important and helpful.
[00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:42.800] And also, meanwhile, we also have internal like deadline that we set ourselves, which
[00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:44.760] coincide with the interns arriving.
[00:03:44.760 --> 00:03:49.360] I think the additional workloads, but the work time is fixed, right?
[00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:54.260] Like I do not want to just extend my work hours into the evenings and the weekends.
[00:03:54.260 --> 00:03:55.800] So we kind of have to fix amount of time.
[00:03:55.800 --> 00:03:58.360] So the work intensity, like the focus is much more.
[00:03:58.360 --> 00:03:59.360] It has to go up.
[00:03:59.360 --> 00:04:00.360] Yeah.
[00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:06.400] So maybe before this couple of weeks, I would take a break between meetings and like focus
[00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:07.400] work.
[00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:12.380] I would maybe just chill for a couple of minutes, but now it's like meeting, meeting and meetings.
[00:04:12.380 --> 00:04:21.920] Like for example, yesterday in the office, I remember it's from 9 a.m. to 3 to 4 p.m.
[00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:26.600] It's like meeting back to back meetings, maybe with a five minutes, like bathroom break and
[00:04:26.600 --> 00:04:29.740] even lunch hour is a meeting.
[00:04:29.740 --> 00:04:32.880] So that was quite intense.
[00:04:32.880 --> 00:04:37.240] And you brought up this idea of you're now just joining a new company and you feel like,
[00:04:37.240 --> 00:04:39.960] oh, it's much, much more relaxed than PhD.
[00:04:39.960 --> 00:04:43.840] And you see your managers and your senior people are experiencing that.
[00:04:43.840 --> 00:04:49.080] I'm not sure if I'm transitioning to that like senior stage now, just more responsibility
[00:04:49.080 --> 00:04:50.080] and everything.
[00:04:50.080 --> 00:04:51.080] Yeah.
[00:04:51.080 --> 00:04:55.160] Well, I think I found some of the clues in there and what you said.
[00:04:55.160 --> 00:05:00.360] So there's a couple of interesting points you raised and that's that somehow magically
[00:05:00.360 --> 00:05:04.600] when you get to industry, you set these boundaries and you say, okay, I'm done.
[00:05:04.600 --> 00:05:07.540] I'm only going to work the five days of the work week.
[00:05:07.540 --> 00:05:10.480] And then when it hits a certain hour, I'm going to go home.
[00:05:10.480 --> 00:05:14.880] And then so when there's more work to do, it doesn't bleed over into the weekend or
[00:05:14.880 --> 00:05:15.920] into the night.
[00:05:15.920 --> 00:05:19.480] It just means your intensity increases during the day.
[00:05:19.480 --> 00:05:23.200] And that was 100% absolutely not true during the PhD.
[00:05:23.200 --> 00:05:28.400] It was just like, okay, Saturdays are working day, Sundays are working day, 9 p.m., 10 p.m.,
[00:05:28.400 --> 00:05:32.760] 11 p.m., you're still sending messages out and your advisor responds at like one or two
[00:05:32.760 --> 00:05:34.840] a.m. for whatever reason one day.
[00:05:34.840 --> 00:05:36.800] And so then you feel like you need to be up.
[00:05:36.800 --> 00:05:42.360] And so there's a sort of physical exhaustion of always being on forever for years.
[00:05:42.360 --> 00:05:44.280] And it continues forever and ever.
[00:05:44.280 --> 00:05:48.820] You don't know when you can take a vacation because you should always be working and not
[00:05:48.820 --> 00:05:50.560] everyone else taking a vacation.
[00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:55.400] And so all that somehow goes away in industry.
[00:05:55.400 --> 00:05:59.120] Now everyone else is taking vacations, is having their weekends, they're not responding
[00:05:59.120 --> 00:06:01.460] or they want to respect that other people might not do it.
[00:06:01.460 --> 00:06:04.240] So they feel weird about requesting something.
[00:06:04.240 --> 00:06:09.280] And so then everyone sort of aligns and falls into only working during the week.
[00:06:09.280 --> 00:06:13.600] So that really helps with the, I guess, the fatigue and the recovery.
[00:06:13.600 --> 00:06:15.720] You end up like not working the weekends.
[00:06:15.720 --> 00:06:19.280] You can actually escape a little bit, which means you are a little bit more focused during
[00:06:19.280 --> 00:06:20.280] the week.
[00:06:20.280 --> 00:06:24.760] And then when work picks up, you really have to work during those hours.
[00:06:24.760 --> 00:06:29.400] And sometimes you forget how to do that once you've been like relaxed for so long.
[00:06:29.400 --> 00:06:32.880] And then the other point you made is about meetings.
[00:06:32.880 --> 00:06:38.640] I think one of the most exhausting parts of being in engineering or doing research or
[00:06:38.640 --> 00:06:47.160] even in industry is the communicating with people and dealing with people and inter-relationships
[00:06:47.160 --> 00:06:53.200] of products and teams and getting resources and stuff like that, or just mingling around
[00:06:53.200 --> 00:06:54.680] the office.
[00:06:54.680 --> 00:06:58.240] And not because of any sense of being antisocial.
[00:06:58.240 --> 00:07:02.600] You know me, I'm very much like a more social engineer.
[00:07:02.600 --> 00:07:07.640] But it's just that you're used to working on your own and getting into the zone and
[00:07:07.640 --> 00:07:08.680] doing all these things.
[00:07:08.680 --> 00:07:12.400] And then people come up and ask you questions and it's distracting.
[00:07:12.400 --> 00:07:16.560] Or it's just like you're juggling a lot of people you don't know and a lot of different
[00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:17.560] cases.
[00:07:17.560 --> 00:07:22.720] So if you're meeting all these interns, suddenly you have to put on this great smile and say,
[00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:24.200] "I really like working here.
[00:07:24.200 --> 00:07:25.200] I hope you will too.
[00:07:25.200 --> 00:07:27.320] I want you to work on my project and not someone else's.
[00:07:27.320 --> 00:07:29.480] And I want you to get excited by it."
[00:07:29.480 --> 00:07:33.720] And once you know people, that's really easy to do and it just flows.
[00:07:33.720 --> 00:07:39.160] But when you're meeting people for the first time, there's a lot of extra attention to
[00:07:39.160 --> 00:07:44.120] how people are reacting and how you're coming off because you want to have your best foot
[00:07:44.120 --> 00:07:45.640] forward.
[00:07:45.640 --> 00:07:48.640] And that is happening all the time in industry.
[00:07:48.640 --> 00:07:51.760] You're constantly meeting new people from new teams or interacting with more and more
[00:07:51.760 --> 00:07:54.680] people because the company is so big.
[00:07:54.680 --> 00:07:59.040] In my office alone, there's like 15,000, 16,000 people.
[00:07:59.040 --> 00:08:03.280] Obviously I don't work with all of them, but there's a flow and a constant buzz of different
[00:08:03.280 --> 00:08:05.560] faces passing by.
[00:08:05.560 --> 00:08:10.120] And then when you're in your PhD, your first year, you're nervous and you're getting to
[00:08:10.120 --> 00:08:12.200] know your advisor and your lab mates.
[00:08:12.200 --> 00:08:15.640] By your second year, third year, you already know everyone, everyone knows you, and you
[00:08:15.640 --> 00:08:16.800] sort of just relax.
[00:08:16.800 --> 00:08:19.880] And you're not worried about how you come off or anything like that because everyone
[00:08:19.880 --> 00:08:21.320] knows you.
[00:08:21.320 --> 00:08:26.520] And so you're much more just being yourself and talking to them and knowing that they
[00:08:26.520 --> 00:08:28.040] understand you.
[00:08:28.040 --> 00:08:33.480] Whereas here, just having to be on all the time when dealing with social interactions
[00:08:33.480 --> 00:08:38.160] and then switching focus to very intensely looking at code and using that part of your
[00:08:38.160 --> 00:08:40.500] brain for hours by yourself.
[00:08:40.500 --> 00:08:44.140] The back and forth is physically, mentally exhausting.
[00:08:44.140 --> 00:08:47.720] So I imagine that sort of contributes to your past week a little bit.
[00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:48.720] Yeah.
[00:08:48.720 --> 00:08:50.280] And I want to add a couple of things.
[00:08:50.280 --> 00:08:51.280] Disclaimers.
[00:08:51.280 --> 00:08:54.560] The first, working nights and weekends doing a PhD is not a norm.
[00:08:54.560 --> 00:08:57.460] I think we are the outliers.
[00:08:57.460 --> 00:09:01.980] And the advisor answering Slack and email at 2 a.m. is also not a norm.
[00:09:01.980 --> 00:09:05.280] Do not expect your advisor to do that for whoever that's listening to this.
[00:09:05.280 --> 00:09:06.280] Yeah.
[00:09:06.280 --> 00:09:07.280] Yeah.
[00:09:07.280 --> 00:09:08.280] I know many-
[00:09:08.280 --> 00:09:09.280] I think you need to set those boundaries.
[00:09:09.280 --> 00:09:10.280] That is what I would say.
[00:09:10.280 --> 00:09:11.280] Yeah.
[00:09:11.280 --> 00:09:14.620] I think I know a lot of PhD students who have a good work life balance.
[00:09:14.620 --> 00:09:16.400] They handle it really well from the very beginning.
[00:09:16.400 --> 00:09:20.400] I only started to handle it like probably midway through my PhD.
[00:09:20.400 --> 00:09:24.700] And yeah, because I wanted to just set the boundary, as you said.
[00:09:24.700 --> 00:09:29.200] And the other thing you mentioned that I, you came through it, but then I think it's
[00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:34.080] one part that's exhausting is put on a smile and then talk with the intern with all this.
[00:09:34.080 --> 00:09:35.680] It's not that I don't want to smile.
[00:09:35.680 --> 00:09:42.800] I'm happy to see all my colleagues, interns or not, full time and product partners, everyone.
[00:09:42.800 --> 00:09:48.800] It's just that we have to just pretend that nothing else happens.
[00:09:48.800 --> 00:09:50.600] All the previous meetings just moved on.
[00:09:50.600 --> 00:09:52.120] All the problems in life just gone.
[00:09:52.120 --> 00:09:54.760] Now we're focusing on this particular conversation.
[00:09:54.760 --> 00:09:57.680] That focus is helpful.
[00:09:57.680 --> 00:10:00.280] That helped me get focused on this conversation.
[00:10:00.280 --> 00:10:02.960] But those other things are just still happening.
[00:10:02.960 --> 00:10:07.520] I just learned the bad news in my previous meeting and I just, yeah, this morning, oh,
[00:10:07.520 --> 00:10:11.600] like there was something wrong with my pets and I need to take care of that.
[00:10:11.600 --> 00:10:14.760] But those all, those are mentally draining.
[00:10:14.760 --> 00:10:19.320] And then when I have to fill myself that just put on additional, like maybe the fatigue
[00:10:19.320 --> 00:10:21.240] is just added on.
[00:10:21.240 --> 00:10:22.240] Yeah.
[00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:27.300] It's interesting because with the added time that you get by having your evenings and having
[00:10:27.300 --> 00:10:32.680] your weekends, you have access to all these fun things that you want to do, which is great.
[00:10:32.680 --> 00:10:35.500] That's why we're here to enjoy those moments.
[00:10:35.500 --> 00:10:37.320] But also it adds a little bit more stress, right?
[00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:41.480] Like now you have all these extra responsibilities happening and things that are outside of work
[00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:43.140] that you're juggling.
[00:10:43.140 --> 00:10:48.080] And for many years during the PhD, I just, I was like sort of only focused on the PhD.
[00:10:48.080 --> 00:10:49.920] I didn't have extra things going on.
[00:10:49.920 --> 00:10:50.920] I didn't have pets.
[00:10:50.920 --> 00:10:55.040] I wasn't hanging out with like people other than like through work and through like stuff
[00:10:55.040 --> 00:10:56.660] like that.
[00:10:56.660 --> 00:11:01.080] So you get these extra responsibilities and they start to also take a toll.
[00:11:01.080 --> 00:11:02.200] But it's a good toll.
[00:11:02.200 --> 00:11:03.200] That's what you want.
[00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:07.920] But like you said, like while you're in the day, you're juggling the fact that today for
[00:11:07.920 --> 00:11:12.060] whatever reason, I need to leave by like five 30 or six because I have a dinner with this
[00:11:12.060 --> 00:11:14.660] person who's in town who I haven't seen forever.
[00:11:14.660 --> 00:11:18.040] But also my deadline is coming up and I am a little bit behind.
[00:11:18.040 --> 00:11:19.280] And so how do you juggle both?
[00:11:19.280 --> 00:11:23.480] These are like the good decisions you have to make, but it does cause stress.
[00:11:23.480 --> 00:11:27.440] And you're also juggling everyone else's like schedules also.
[00:11:27.440 --> 00:11:31.200] Like I need to meet with this person, that person, they can only meet this hour or so.
[00:11:31.200 --> 00:11:33.240] Okay, I'm shuffling things around.
[00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:37.960] Whereas the PhD life, everyone is in this like blob together where everyone knows they're
[00:11:37.960 --> 00:11:39.440] always accessible.
[00:11:39.440 --> 00:11:42.000] As long as you set your boundaries, you don't worry about it at night.
[00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:45.560] But otherwise people are messaging you left and right.
[00:11:45.560 --> 00:11:50.640] And you don't have to juggle as much because everyone knows what situation you're in.
[00:11:50.640 --> 00:11:53.800] They know you're going to be there a while and there's like less of this like demand
[00:11:53.800 --> 00:11:56.440] for people's time and attention.
[00:11:56.440 --> 00:11:59.840] Whereas now like if I'm working with someone else on a project, I don't know what other
[00:11:59.840 --> 00:12:01.120] 10 things they're juggling.
[00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:05.480] So it's like hard to sort of align with what it is that we need to do together.
[00:12:05.480 --> 00:12:06.480] Yeah.
[00:12:06.480 --> 00:12:07.480] Yeah.
[00:12:07.480 --> 00:12:08.480] Yeah.
[00:12:08.480 --> 00:12:14.200] I just want to add another personal story to this because as you mentioned, just many
[00:12:14.200 --> 00:12:16.880] other things that's happening behind the scenes that people don't know.
[00:12:16.880 --> 00:12:21.280] I think in around 2019 or 20, I forget the exact timing.
[00:12:21.280 --> 00:12:28.020] When I bought my house in Seattle, the house was closing and I need to put all the funds
[00:12:28.020 --> 00:12:30.480] and get the money from the lenders.
[00:12:30.480 --> 00:12:33.640] And then it wasn't going through because some visa issue because I was on a student visa
[00:12:33.640 --> 00:12:36.120] at the time.
[00:12:36.120 --> 00:12:39.640] And then I was getting this phone call, like it's not going through and I, oh crap.
[00:12:39.640 --> 00:12:42.520] And then I lose all my deposit and earnest money and all those things.
[00:12:42.520 --> 00:12:46.260] It's a lot of money for me at a time.
[00:12:46.260 --> 00:12:50.000] And then, but on the same day I need to talk with a product tech transfer team to show
[00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:52.560] my latest progress on the physics demo and so on.
[00:12:52.560 --> 00:12:56.080] Like back in the day I was still working on a lot of physics project, like building physics
[00:12:56.080 --> 00:12:58.280] engine to some of our products.
[00:12:58.280 --> 00:13:03.960] And then I had to put that space and then like, but it was, my heart is dead inside.
[00:13:03.960 --> 00:13:04.960] How do I solve this?
[00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:09.280] Like I can't, I can't deal with this visa situation on my own and so on.
[00:13:09.280 --> 00:13:10.540] But then I still have to do that.
[00:13:10.540 --> 00:13:16.220] That was one of the hardest moment for maybe doing that year on that hardest moment.
[00:13:16.220 --> 00:13:20.680] And but then after that, I think it helped me grow and I need to learn to compartmentize
[00:13:20.680 --> 00:13:21.680] that even better.
[00:13:21.680 --> 00:13:24.720] Like this just belonged to life, it belonged to work.
[00:13:24.720 --> 00:13:29.160] I should not try to mix them together and that's one of those moments that happened
[00:13:29.160 --> 00:13:30.160] to me.
[00:13:30.160 --> 00:13:34.880] It's tricky because you want to be yourself as best you can at work.
[00:13:34.880 --> 00:13:38.480] And so you want to just like share with people because you're excited about things, but then
[00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:40.280] also you want to treat it as work.
[00:13:40.280 --> 00:13:45.160] So you have to be like professional and leave some of that like at the door when you walk
[00:13:45.160 --> 00:13:46.160] in.
[00:13:46.160 --> 00:13:49.760] But that's like, it's so like, you're not telling other people about it, but you're
[00:13:49.760 --> 00:13:51.480] still carrying it around.
[00:13:51.480 --> 00:13:52.680] So that's really tricky.
[00:13:52.680 --> 00:13:57.440] It's also tricky because we've gone back and forth in this like hybrid like work style
[00:13:57.440 --> 00:14:01.240] where a lot of people work from home, a lot of people work from the office or people are
[00:14:01.240 --> 00:14:02.600] coming in and out.
[00:14:02.600 --> 00:14:06.960] Or we did a couple of years in the pandemic and we were used to having more time to do
[00:14:06.960 --> 00:14:07.960] these random errands.
[00:14:07.960 --> 00:14:13.820] And now as people are sort of like slowly returning to office or for whatever reason
[00:14:13.820 --> 00:14:16.320] you come in, you're trading off that time.
[00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:20.140] You can't run these errands while you're waiting for your code to do something.
[00:14:20.140 --> 00:14:21.540] You can't just go and quickly do that.
[00:14:21.540 --> 00:14:27.200] Now all that piles up in the afternoon and you have to always be on while carrying these
[00:14:27.200 --> 00:14:30.780] things with you while you're in the office.
[00:14:30.780 --> 00:14:33.560] And that's really hard because you don't really know what else is happening in people's lives.
[00:14:33.560 --> 00:14:35.320] So you have to always respect that.
[00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:39.640] And like I said, as you meet more and more people in a company versus a PC life where
[00:14:39.640 --> 00:14:43.700] it's your advisor and you, that's the main connection.
[00:14:43.700 --> 00:14:45.340] Everything else is kind of extra.
[00:14:45.340 --> 00:14:48.860] And so like you really only focus on that relationship.
[00:14:48.860 --> 00:14:53.200] Now you're focused on like 10 different relationships with 10 different teams and products and whatever.
[00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:55.800] And you're thinking about the future and also like, yeah.
[00:14:55.800 --> 00:14:58.160] And so it's much trickier to juggle.
[00:14:58.160 --> 00:14:59.160] Yeah.
[00:14:59.160 --> 00:15:04.140] You mentioned, you mentioned in PhD, we like maybe once after the first year or two, your
[00:15:04.140 --> 00:15:06.660] collaborators become more or less fixed sets.
[00:15:06.660 --> 00:15:10.600] Then you don't feel like you have to keep social with other people.
[00:15:10.600 --> 00:15:14.960] But then when you join a company, do you feel like you are still on ramp of knowing all
[00:15:14.960 --> 00:15:19.100] the engineers or like people that you need to know to work effectively?
[00:15:19.100 --> 00:15:20.100] I think that's tricky.
[00:15:20.100 --> 00:15:21.860] It depends how big your team is.
[00:15:21.860 --> 00:15:27.340] Like my immediate team, I know everyone pretty well and they know me now having worked with
[00:15:27.340 --> 00:15:28.460] them for a while.
[00:15:28.460 --> 00:15:32.940] But I'm starting to realize how small we are in like the larger scope.
[00:15:32.940 --> 00:15:37.020] There's like so many other teams that touch code that interfaces with ours.
[00:15:37.020 --> 00:15:40.000] And in the beginning I thought we were just like doing our own thing, which is really
[00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:41.000] nice and controlled.
[00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:46.880] And now I'm realizing there's a ton of other people that are messing with what we do or
[00:15:46.880 --> 00:15:48.620] expecting things from us.
[00:15:48.620 --> 00:15:52.940] And so I'm starting to learn their names first of all, and then I'm starting to learn what
[00:15:52.940 --> 00:15:54.060] they do.
[00:15:54.060 --> 00:15:56.940] And a lot of it is hard because you don't want to ask like dumb questions.
[00:15:56.940 --> 00:16:01.660] So you don't want to be like, oh, I see that you guys take these things from our product
[00:16:01.660 --> 00:16:02.940] and we take these from yours.
[00:16:02.940 --> 00:16:04.380] But like, why?
[00:16:04.380 --> 00:16:07.240] Or like, what do you do with it when you get hit?
[00:16:07.240 --> 00:16:11.720] And so you have to think of like how to communicate with them, how to tell them that you're still
[00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:12.880] trying to understand.
[00:16:12.880 --> 00:16:16.540] And then also you don't know what level they are.
[00:16:16.540 --> 00:16:19.280] If they've been here 20 years, if they've just got here.
[00:16:19.280 --> 00:16:25.000] So who do you even ask as like a point of contact for when you have questions like that?
[00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:29.660] And there's like friendly people who in your PhD you go to and you know that they can point
[00:16:29.660 --> 00:16:31.260] you in the right direction.
[00:16:31.260 --> 00:16:33.900] Here you only know, I only know my immediate team.
[00:16:33.900 --> 00:16:37.240] So I'm still getting to know who are these other people who I can ask these sorts of
[00:16:37.240 --> 00:16:39.880] like noob questions to.
[00:16:39.880 --> 00:16:40.880] Yeah.
[00:16:40.880 --> 00:16:45.720] You said that there are this other team who use some of your code and you're using some
[00:16:45.720 --> 00:16:51.160] of their code and you are afraid to ask why they took the code and how they're using it.
[00:16:51.160 --> 00:16:54.580] Why did you, why do you feel like you don't want to ask them?
[00:16:54.580 --> 00:16:59.960] I just don't want to, I want to figure out what they're doing with it or like have like
[00:16:59.960 --> 00:17:04.380] better questions to ask them other than just like wasting their time.
[00:17:04.380 --> 00:17:05.740] You're like, what are you doing here?
[00:17:05.740 --> 00:17:09.460] The reason why I ask you this question is because I do that all the time.
[00:17:09.460 --> 00:17:14.140] Whenever I see somebody taking my codes and I immediately follow up with them.
[00:17:14.140 --> 00:17:15.140] Hey, thank you for using my codes.
[00:17:15.140 --> 00:17:16.500] What are you doing with it?
[00:17:16.500 --> 00:17:18.420] How can I help?
[00:17:18.420 --> 00:17:21.580] And yeah, like if you're sharing more broadly, please let me know.
[00:17:21.580 --> 00:17:24.460] Cause I, maybe my code is not set up to scale very well.
[00:17:24.460 --> 00:17:28.620] I want to be able to add disclaimers and also just, yeah.
[00:17:28.620 --> 00:17:31.760] But the expectations and evolve it.
[00:17:31.760 --> 00:17:32.760] Yeah.
[00:17:32.760 --> 00:17:33.760] Yeah.
[00:17:33.760 --> 00:17:40.640] For us, it's like these teams like are aware of each other, but as I'm new, I'm not aware
[00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:43.420] of all the teams that are interacting with each other.
[00:17:43.420 --> 00:17:49.440] So I, it's mainly about like saving face and understanding these people obviously are using
[00:17:49.440 --> 00:17:52.920] us and they've been using us since the beginning, but like why?
[00:17:52.920 --> 00:17:56.880] And then trying to understand that before I go in and tell them that their code is bad.
[00:17:56.880 --> 00:17:57.880] You know what I mean?
[00:17:57.880 --> 00:17:58.880] Yeah.
[00:17:58.880 --> 00:17:59.880] Yeah.
[00:17:59.880 --> 00:18:04.060] Maybe I've, I also, maybe I also went through this saving phase periods where I feel like
[00:18:04.060 --> 00:18:09.660] I should wait a bit until I figure something out to ask insightful questions.
[00:18:09.660 --> 00:18:17.500] Now maybe because I learned that I'm not smart enough to figure it out by myself or that's
[00:18:17.500 --> 00:18:21.440] my, my time and my team's time is also valuable.
[00:18:21.440 --> 00:18:25.820] I tend to reach out people sooner than what I, what I'm used to.
[00:18:25.820 --> 00:18:26.820] Yeah.
[00:18:26.820 --> 00:18:30.800] So that's something you learn, I think, and it's hard and I'm still figuring it out myself.
[00:18:30.800 --> 00:18:35.720] Like there's an imposter syndrome in the PhD and, or at certain points, cause you're still
[00:18:35.720 --> 00:18:38.000] figuring out how to do research.
[00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:42.600] And then once you get a PhD, there's like an imposter syndrome of why do I have a PC
[00:18:42.600 --> 00:18:44.600] and not the guy next to me.
[00:18:44.600 --> 00:18:51.120] But then also like making sure that people like that feel respected or smart and that
[00:18:51.120 --> 00:18:54.440] you also feel respected and are smart.
[00:18:54.440 --> 00:18:58.840] And so like asking the right questions, you always want to be like, you want to pause
[00:18:58.840 --> 00:19:02.140] and ask the more insightful one, right.
[00:19:02.140 --> 00:19:07.580] Rather than coming off as like, oh, you didn't really pay attention, something like that.
[00:19:07.580 --> 00:19:10.700] But that's hard to do when you're new to a place.
[00:19:10.700 --> 00:19:15.340] And so I think the right idea is what you're saying is to ask the questions early.
[00:19:15.340 --> 00:19:18.740] Cause there's always someone smarter than you, like in the room.
[00:19:18.740 --> 00:19:23.080] This is always true in the PC and there's true in life and everywhere you go, right.
[00:19:23.080 --> 00:19:24.240] Especially at the company.
[00:19:24.240 --> 00:19:28.340] And so I think the way to really be effective is to play to everyone's strengths.
[00:19:28.340 --> 00:19:31.920] And rather than being the guy who has to solve everything yourself, right.
[00:19:31.920 --> 00:19:37.440] Like you need to sort of just disseminate the problem quicker, ask for the right person
[00:19:37.440 --> 00:19:39.920] and they will help you solve it or they will solve it.
[00:19:39.920 --> 00:19:40.920] Right.
[00:19:40.920 --> 00:19:42.460] So like use everyone else's strengths.
[00:19:42.460 --> 00:19:44.400] At some point you're going to be that person, right.
[00:19:44.400 --> 00:19:47.560] Someone's going to be clueless and if they reach out for help, oh, that's something that's
[00:19:47.560 --> 00:19:48.560] easy.
[00:19:48.560 --> 00:19:49.560] I can do that for you.
[00:19:49.560 --> 00:19:50.560] No problem.
[00:19:50.560 --> 00:19:55.200] But instead of having to do it all yourself, which comes from, I think that imposter syndrome
[00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:56.680] of like, no, I need to prove myself.
[00:19:56.680 --> 00:19:59.680] I need to really show that I know what I'm doing.
[00:19:59.680 --> 00:20:04.080] It's smarter and better to just like reach out, ask the person who actually knows or
[00:20:04.080 --> 00:20:05.920] who built the code from scratch.
[00:20:05.920 --> 00:20:09.080] And they can just tell you in two seconds rather than you like banging your head against
[00:20:09.080 --> 00:20:10.800] the wall trying to figure out what's going on.
[00:20:10.800 --> 00:20:11.800] Yeah, I agree.
[00:20:11.800 --> 00:20:13.640] And also there is a dedicated balance, right.
[00:20:13.640 --> 00:20:18.280] Like you don't want to use the expert as a Google.
[00:20:18.280 --> 00:20:19.800] And that's the other side of extreme.
[00:20:19.800 --> 00:20:25.040] I don't think any of us is doing that, but it's something to take note of.
[00:20:25.040 --> 00:20:28.880] What I told my intern when they first joined is that they should time box it.
[00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:33.520] For example, if they run into API, like the internal product API that I don't know how
[00:20:33.520 --> 00:20:38.480] to use, they should first search on the forum, whatever internal, external forums and stack
[00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:40.600] overflows and that kind of thing.
[00:20:40.600 --> 00:20:46.060] And if it doesn't work out in maybe like an hour, then they should pack up their findings.
[00:20:46.060 --> 00:20:47.060] That's the important bit.
[00:20:47.060 --> 00:20:48.060] Pack up the findings.
[00:20:48.180 --> 00:20:53.740] I look at this 10 posts and none of them give me the exact answers and then send that finding
[00:20:53.740 --> 00:20:56.340] to whoever expert within the company.
[00:20:56.340 --> 00:20:57.860] Hey, here's what I found out.
[00:20:57.860 --> 00:21:01.620] I man the right track and I'm misinterpreting this post.
[00:21:01.620 --> 00:21:06.220] And then at this point, the expert can give you some more clear guidance.
[00:21:06.220 --> 00:21:09.580] Otherwise you just throw them, Hey, how can I use this API?
[00:21:09.580 --> 00:21:11.220] That sounds not very...
[00:21:11.220 --> 00:21:12.580] It bugs them and it bothers them.
[00:21:12.580 --> 00:21:17.300] And they also feel like you're not learning or being involved in the process.
[00:21:17.300 --> 00:21:18.300] Mine is slightly different.
[00:21:18.300 --> 00:21:21.680] It's like 10 to 30 minutes is my box.
[00:21:21.680 --> 00:21:26.740] And so I am more interested in like, I'll search internally our tools.
[00:21:26.740 --> 00:21:31.820] If I don't get it, then I'll raise it to like a chat, like a smaller chat and then go larger
[00:21:31.820 --> 00:21:32.820] and larger with the chat.
[00:21:32.820 --> 00:21:35.740] If someone can figure it out immediately, that's great.
[00:21:35.740 --> 00:21:40.300] And then I'll start bothering more and more people just to not spam everyone's like chat
[00:21:40.300 --> 00:21:41.940] messages.
[00:21:41.940 --> 00:21:48.500] And then I don't necessarily go in with the packed up findings, but I pack up afterwards.
[00:21:48.500 --> 00:21:53.860] And so I have this running document of like every time I've ever gotten stuck while working
[00:21:53.860 --> 00:21:56.580] here, here's where the solution was in the end.
[00:21:56.580 --> 00:22:00.900] And so next time I get anywhere near a problem like this, I have this kind of like quick
[00:22:00.900 --> 00:22:06.140] help tab, my own personal stack overflow that says, these are the commands that I use or
[00:22:06.140 --> 00:22:08.860] this is the person that you should talk to.
[00:22:08.860 --> 00:22:14.980] And then this sort of like running log of like bugs and issues that I've had, I've made
[00:22:14.980 --> 00:22:18.520] it public and I've seen other people make theirs public also.
[00:22:18.520 --> 00:22:23.040] And so now you have like this big resource of like, you know what worked for you.
[00:22:23.040 --> 00:22:26.540] And then it's written in your own style and your own language so that you can really interpret
[00:22:26.540 --> 00:22:27.540] it.
[00:22:27.540 --> 00:22:32.820] And then you also talk to people who are like friendly and have theirs open and then you
[00:22:32.820 --> 00:22:34.900] can see, okay, they also ran into this problem.
[00:22:34.900 --> 00:22:37.940] So then we all feel like we're running into problems together, which is like a good way
[00:22:37.940 --> 00:22:42.140] to commiserate and feel better about the fact that we're running into problems.
[00:22:42.140 --> 00:22:45.340] But also we can learn from like, oh, this is the command that helped them.
[00:22:45.340 --> 00:22:49.060] And so I should probably try that first before I go bug everyone.
[00:22:49.060 --> 00:22:50.060] Yeah.
[00:22:50.060 --> 00:22:51.060] Yeah.
[00:22:51.060 --> 00:22:52.060] It's nice that you have this document.
[00:22:52.060 --> 00:22:53.980] I don't think I have a document.
[00:22:53.980 --> 00:22:54.980] I just use Slack.
[00:22:54.980 --> 00:22:56.980] Like I just create Slack groups.
[00:22:56.980 --> 00:22:57.980] Yeah.
[00:22:57.980 --> 00:22:58.980] Search Slack.
[00:22:58.980 --> 00:23:02.940] And then from myself, like, cause whenever I run into a problem, I usually share it with
[00:23:02.940 --> 00:23:06.020] whether with an intern directly or with the broader group.
[00:23:06.020 --> 00:23:09.220] And then I just search from my handle and then about this topic.
[00:23:09.220 --> 00:23:13.140] And usually I find something like I'll thank myself in the past.
[00:23:13.140 --> 00:23:14.300] Exactly.
[00:23:14.300 --> 00:23:17.580] It's funny how you keep running into the, like, if you stop using a certain part of
[00:23:17.580 --> 00:23:21.660] the code for a while, you go somewhere else and then you come back several months later,
[00:23:21.660 --> 00:23:25.300] you're like, I wrote all this, but what does it do?
[00:23:25.300 --> 00:23:26.300] I have no idea.
[00:23:26.300 --> 00:23:30.460] You so quickly lose that when you're so focused on something else.
[00:23:30.460 --> 00:23:31.460] Yeah.
[00:23:31.460 --> 00:23:32.460] Yeah.
[00:23:32.460 --> 00:23:33.460] Yeah.
[00:23:33.460 --> 00:23:36.860] And another thing that you said, you have this personal document.
[00:23:36.860 --> 00:23:42.380] Do you, do you, um, train any LMS to like chat bots to retrieve those?
[00:23:42.380 --> 00:23:49.180] Cause one thing, um, I, I want to use more chat bots in my work, but I'm just not building
[00:23:49.180 --> 00:23:51.220] up that habit just yet.
[00:23:51.220 --> 00:23:57.380] But my intern, for example, they use it more frequently than Google because they feel like
[00:23:57.380 --> 00:24:01.900] it's more customized and they can give them the input and output and they would just write
[00:24:01.900 --> 00:24:04.020] the skeleton code for them immediately.
[00:24:04.020 --> 00:24:08.460] Whereas Google is not immediately, you still need to read through the stack overflow and
[00:24:08.460 --> 00:24:09.460] so on.
[00:24:09.460 --> 00:24:14.700] So I wonder if you kind of train your personal document through some LMS and then, yeah.
[00:24:14.700 --> 00:24:19.580] So we have a lot of these tools internally at Google, uh, where we have our own Google
[00:24:19.580 --> 00:24:22.420] engine and we have our own LLM engines internally.
[00:24:22.420 --> 00:24:28.140] Um, and they also read through our own internal stack overflows and through our code base.
[00:24:28.140 --> 00:24:31.520] So a lot of times you can just ask them and they will point you in the right direction.
[00:24:31.520 --> 00:24:36.540] And so like, yeah, you use Google for, for like facts or to get lots of data.
[00:24:36.540 --> 00:24:41.240] And then if you want like an opinion or a suggestion, I would use an LLM or a chat bot
[00:24:41.240 --> 00:24:46.100] that would go here, like a couple of different ways you could do this, uh, or here's some
[00:24:46.100 --> 00:24:48.440] skeleton code that you can start with.
[00:24:48.440 --> 00:24:49.860] That stuff is pretty useful.
[00:24:49.860 --> 00:24:55.540] Um, but for, for this document that I'm talking about, I don't necessarily use, I don't, I
[00:24:55.540 --> 00:24:59.100] don't feed it as training or as, as, as resources to these LMS.
[00:24:59.100 --> 00:25:06.480] Cause I mainly just want to understand and it's myself, what it is that I got stuck on
[00:25:06.480 --> 00:25:11.040] and it's kind of like writing it down is how you learn it, at least for me.
[00:25:11.040 --> 00:25:16.000] And so like by, by if I fix it and then I don't save it or log it anywhere, I'll likely
[00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:17.000] forget about it.
[00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:21.620] But by writing it down and creating this document, uh, and then referring to it and reading it
[00:25:21.620 --> 00:25:24.160] is how I'm actually mastering the part.
[00:25:24.160 --> 00:25:28.620] Cause then I see how it fits into like the larger scheme of other issues that I run into.
[00:25:28.620 --> 00:25:30.920] So I find that really useful.
[00:25:30.920 --> 00:25:32.200] Yeah.
[00:25:32.200 --> 00:25:33.200] That's good to know.
[00:25:33.200 --> 00:25:34.200] Yeah.
[00:25:34.200 --> 00:25:35.200] I wish we had some internal tools like that.
[00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:36.720] I think somebody must be working on it.
[00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:38.520] Just, I don't know it yet.
[00:25:38.520 --> 00:25:39.520] Um, yeah.
[00:25:39.520 --> 00:25:43.280] But, uh, sorry, go ahead.
[00:25:43.280 --> 00:25:45.400] I was going to go back to the fatigue and see.
[00:25:45.400 --> 00:25:46.840] Yes, that's what I'm going to do.
[00:25:46.840 --> 00:25:47.840] Yeah.
[00:25:47.840 --> 00:25:52.040] So I'm feeling this fatigue in the past couple of weeks and for the past five years I'm with,
[00:25:52.040 --> 00:25:53.120] uh, my company.
[00:25:53.120 --> 00:25:57.760] I don't really feel that because I feel like it's, um, maybe it's because I'm getting more
[00:25:57.760 --> 00:26:02.100] senior, maybe it's because of mixture of other responsibilities I'm taking on outside of
[00:26:02.100 --> 00:26:03.700] work and so on.
[00:26:03.700 --> 00:26:10.020] Um, but I want to ask you that as you are onboarding to this new team of the small team
[00:26:10.020 --> 00:26:16.020] that you were part of with part of what, what's the most challenging thing that you feel like
[00:26:16.020 --> 00:26:19.060] that you are adapting or you are still adapting?
[00:26:19.060 --> 00:26:20.060] Yeah.
[00:26:20.060 --> 00:26:21.060] Yeah.
[00:26:21.060 --> 00:26:24.580] I feel like it's such a large code base that I work in.
[00:26:24.580 --> 00:26:30.380] And so you, it, you either take a step back and try and learn all of it.
[00:26:30.380 --> 00:26:33.520] And then all you get is really a high level information.
[00:26:33.520 --> 00:26:37.580] So every time you ask someone, they give you something super high level and, and that's
[00:26:37.580 --> 00:26:40.180] not super useful because you're like, okay, I get it.
[00:26:40.180 --> 00:26:43.240] There's this, this is your input and this is your output.
[00:26:43.240 --> 00:26:47.580] That's what I was expecting, but I need to understand like how or why, like, and for
[00:26:47.580 --> 00:26:52.860] that you really need to dive in closer to what the code is doing, to the assumptions,
[00:26:52.860 --> 00:26:57.680] to the history, like, Oh, the reason we called this up is because the year we coded it up,
[00:26:57.680 --> 00:27:00.440] we had like a bad, whatever server or something.
[00:27:00.440 --> 00:27:03.900] And so we, we made it a small version that worked on the servers we had.
[00:27:03.900 --> 00:27:08.380] And then for whatever reason, four years later, this is still the version that's there and
[00:27:08.380 --> 00:27:09.540] that's it works.
[00:27:09.540 --> 00:27:12.980] And it's like, okay, yeah, but now we don't have bad servers, right?
[00:27:12.980 --> 00:27:13.980] Can we do this?
[00:27:13.980 --> 00:27:19.420] Uh, that's like a completely made up example, but it's just, there's a lot of like history
[00:27:19.420 --> 00:27:20.900] baked into the code.
[00:27:20.900 --> 00:27:24.060] And you're almost like an archeologist, like trying to figure out like why they did this
[00:27:24.060 --> 00:27:27.980] at the time that they did or whose decision it was.
[00:27:27.980 --> 00:27:30.480] And you're, you start by doing this just for your team.
[00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:34.460] And as you learn, like how, what your code does, you, you start to see the boundaries
[00:27:34.460 --> 00:27:37.900] and then you go, okay, now who's on the other side of that boundary?
[00:27:37.900 --> 00:27:41.620] Can we expect more from them or can they expect more from us if we change certain things?
[00:27:41.620 --> 00:27:46.780] Cause we're constantly trying to evolve, like, or make our products slightly better.
[00:27:46.780 --> 00:27:47.780] And that's really hard.
[00:27:47.780 --> 00:27:51.860] Like you just don't know if what you're asking for is too much.
[00:27:51.860 --> 00:27:55.680] You don't know if you're being too ambitious and they're like, why are you doing this?
[00:27:55.680 --> 00:27:57.500] Why do you want to change everything?
[00:27:57.500 --> 00:28:04.620] So a lot of it is, is the learning part where you feel like, at least for me, I was very
[00:28:04.620 --> 00:28:09.060] much an expert in a very specific subject area, like physics based simulations and stuff
[00:28:09.060 --> 00:28:12.780] like that, or just like, I, I was very up to date on all the papers that were coming
[00:28:12.780 --> 00:28:14.340] out, all the methods.
[00:28:14.340 --> 00:28:19.860] And now I'm learning a completely new, like sub areas, computational photography in my
[00:28:19.860 --> 00:28:20.860] case.
[00:28:20.860 --> 00:28:25.860] And so having to like relearn that from scratch is sort of exhausting.
[00:28:25.860 --> 00:28:30.220] Mainly because you don't, you can't follow up on all the intuitions that you had before
[00:28:30.220 --> 00:28:32.900] you're constantly questioning yourself a little bit.
[00:28:32.900 --> 00:28:35.280] So that part is really tough.
[00:28:35.280 --> 00:28:39.780] And then the other part is just the frustration of like learning internal tools.
[00:28:39.780 --> 00:28:42.940] Like you're used to using all these things when you're doing your PhD or you're working
[00:28:42.940 --> 00:28:46.780] outside of a company and then your company has its own version of it.
[00:28:46.780 --> 00:28:49.620] And the version they have is, is definitely better in a lot of ways than what you were
[00:28:49.620 --> 00:28:50.900] using before.
[00:28:50.900 --> 00:28:54.980] But now you have to sort of relearn the commands or you're not taking advantage of the tool,
[00:28:54.980 --> 00:28:55.980] right?
[00:28:55.980 --> 00:28:59.340] Because you're used to using this outside version, which is like much more rudimentary.
[00:28:59.340 --> 00:29:05.100] And so it's, it's learning just the infrastructure, which is, is hard, which is why I think in
[00:29:05.100 --> 00:29:08.460] a lot of these companies, they don't expect much from new hires for the first few months,
[00:29:08.460 --> 00:29:14.460] because you just have to sort of like learn what tools exist and how to use them.
[00:29:14.460 --> 00:29:19.140] And that part is frustrating because it used to be able to crank up things so quickly.
[00:29:19.140 --> 00:29:24.140] And now you're sort of like, you see everything come to a crawl and that's, that's what hurts.
[00:29:24.140 --> 00:29:25.140] Yeah.
[00:29:25.140 --> 00:29:26.140] Yeah.
[00:29:26.140 --> 00:29:31.180] I, on the second point, if you make you feel better, I think at least in Google, I think
[00:29:31.180 --> 00:29:35.920] the internal tools from what I've heard from many, many people and also online blogs and
[00:29:35.920 --> 00:29:40.580] so on, the internal tools at Google is better than the rest of the industry that's open
[00:29:40.580 --> 00:29:41.580] source and everything.
[00:29:41.580 --> 00:29:44.620] Basically, if Google makes something really good, the open source part of it, but then
[00:29:44.620 --> 00:29:48.100] the internal version is still way better because of the integration, you know, it's Google
[00:29:48.100 --> 00:29:50.340] is engineer first company.
[00:29:50.340 --> 00:29:55.800] Whereas where I work right now, I want, I want to name the name explicitly, but it's,
[00:29:55.800 --> 00:29:58.340] it's public information.
[00:29:58.340 --> 00:30:03.080] The internal tools, we spend a lot of time to learn it and the result is not good.
[00:30:03.080 --> 00:30:10.660] Like it's horrible to use and, and that's kind of a, something that's Googlers can feel proud
[00:30:10.660 --> 00:30:12.020] of at least these new something.
[00:30:12.020 --> 00:30:14.940] And then that will accelerate your work in the years to come.
[00:30:14.940 --> 00:30:20.400] If you stay at Google, but for us, like when we learn the internal tool, it's, it's usually
[00:30:20.400 --> 00:30:22.100] worse than what's out there.
[00:30:22.100 --> 00:30:28.660] As a, for example, if we use some vanilla AWS, we will get AWS, but for internal, whatever
[00:30:28.660 --> 00:30:32.100] reason compliance, you know, like we need to use an Adobe.
[00:30:32.100 --> 00:30:33.100] Oh, sorry.
[00:30:33.100 --> 00:30:37.160] I let a blob name, but use the internal version.
[00:30:37.160 --> 00:30:41.580] And then it's just not as good because of the, we're not a, I don't think we are an
[00:30:41.580 --> 00:30:42.580] engineer first company.
[00:30:42.580 --> 00:30:48.460] We're more like creativity, you know, creative tools, digital experience company.
[00:30:48.460 --> 00:30:52.140] And we're just lacking a little bit in that, in that regard.
[00:30:52.140 --> 00:30:56.740] And I felt that strongly in the past couple of years whenever we have a chance to use
[00:30:56.740 --> 00:31:02.260] external API directly, I will very much do that, but most of the time we are, we're not
[00:31:02.260 --> 00:31:04.140] allowed to do that.
[00:31:04.140 --> 00:31:08.300] The internal tools are nice because they speed up things, but there's also so many of them
[00:31:08.300 --> 00:31:12.620] that it, it, it becomes like learning a new language like every other week.
[00:31:12.620 --> 00:31:17.000] And then there's like multiple teams that will come up with tools for the same thing.
[00:31:17.000 --> 00:31:20.380] And they'll have like slightly different variations, even if it's just like a script.
[00:31:20.380 --> 00:31:23.740] And then you're, you're sort of everyone, just whatever they learn first, that's what
[00:31:23.740 --> 00:31:24.740] they use forever.
[00:31:24.740 --> 00:31:28.920] And so your manager has like a slightly different preference for how he sets things up than
[00:31:28.920 --> 00:31:30.060] you do.
[00:31:30.060 --> 00:31:32.820] And there's not necessarily a right way or a wrong way.
[00:31:32.820 --> 00:31:36.140] So that's the, that's the good part, the flexibility.
[00:31:36.140 --> 00:31:41.220] And then the bad part is that it's confusing and then you don't know who to ask for help.
[00:31:41.220 --> 00:31:42.340] And like, that's just growing pains.
[00:31:42.340 --> 00:31:45.340] Like you go to any new place and you start to work there, you have to like figure out
[00:31:45.340 --> 00:31:47.400] the ins and outs of how they do it.
[00:31:47.400 --> 00:31:52.460] But it is frustrating having gone from like a very stable situation for so many years
[00:31:52.460 --> 00:31:57.020] to go to one where now you feel like you have to learn everything from scratch.
[00:31:57.020 --> 00:32:00.580] But that's also like the whole reason why we did it.
[00:32:00.580 --> 00:32:03.340] We graduated so we could move on and do the next thing.
[00:32:03.340 --> 00:32:04.340] Right.
[00:32:04.340 --> 00:32:10.820] So I don't feel no remorse about that, but it is part of the frustration is I know how
[00:32:10.820 --> 00:32:16.740] to, I know the idea, I know the math, I know exactly what I need to do to get this to work.
[00:32:16.740 --> 00:32:19.640] But that's like only like 30% of it.
[00:32:19.640 --> 00:32:24.360] The other part is like, who do you talk to and what teams and then also what tools are
[00:32:24.360 --> 00:32:27.980] you using and how do you integrate with everyone else's existing system.
[00:32:27.980 --> 00:32:31.820] And that's something that five years out, you no longer have these pains, you know exactly
[00:32:31.820 --> 00:32:37.220] how everything works and now you're just stuck in meetings and talking to people rather than
[00:32:37.220 --> 00:32:39.220] working on it.
[00:32:39.220 --> 00:32:40.220] Yeah.
[00:32:40.220 --> 00:32:41.220] Yeah.
[00:32:41.220 --> 00:32:42.220] Yeah.
[00:32:42.220 --> 00:32:43.900] And is this the fatigue topic, question that you want to brought up?
[00:32:43.900 --> 00:32:45.700] Because I remember I interrupted you.
[00:32:45.700 --> 00:32:46.700] Yeah.
[00:32:46.760 --> 00:32:50.960] I think I was going to, we can also save this for another time, but discussing the sort
[00:32:50.960 --> 00:32:55.000] of balance between how many meetings you have versus how much time you spend actually working
[00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:56.040] on stuff.
[00:32:56.040 --> 00:32:57.520] That part is hard.
[00:32:57.520 --> 00:33:02.680] Like especially with return to office and hybrid, we have like days where no one's allowed
[00:33:02.680 --> 00:33:07.120] to schedule any meetings, which is nice because that's when people get their work done.
[00:33:07.120 --> 00:33:11.840] But then other times where that means that there's days where you're full of meetings
[00:33:11.840 --> 00:33:15.080] and you're just constantly telling people what you want to work on, but you don't have
[00:33:15.080 --> 00:33:16.080] time to work on it.
[00:33:16.080 --> 00:33:17.080] Yeah.
[00:33:17.080 --> 00:33:18.080] I'm not sure if you have the same experience.
[00:33:18.080 --> 00:33:19.540] I don't think it's a topic we can cover today.
[00:33:19.540 --> 00:33:25.700] I don't have a sense right now because I think in different stage of their career, people
[00:33:25.700 --> 00:33:30.660] will have different opinions and for an individual contributor, which is what I am right now,
[00:33:30.660 --> 00:33:33.380] I think you're also an individual contributor.
[00:33:33.380 --> 00:33:38.900] I don't think meeting is a big, big part of our work yet.
[00:33:38.900 --> 00:33:41.660] The meeting is just a means to an end.
[00:33:41.660 --> 00:33:42.820] It's to get work done.
[00:33:42.820 --> 00:33:48.360] You need to talk with the engineer, with the other team to make sure you're aligned.
[00:33:48.360 --> 00:33:50.080] But that's not the end goal.
[00:33:50.080 --> 00:33:53.880] But for managers, I think the meeting ratio is a lot higher.
[00:33:53.880 --> 00:33:55.440] They just need to have one-on-ones.
[00:33:55.440 --> 00:34:00.320] They just need to have weekly sync up with various other teams.
[00:34:00.320 --> 00:34:05.880] I'd like to believe that the meeting is not the end, but the way that they're structured
[00:34:05.880 --> 00:34:11.820] so regularly and so frequently and the number of them makes it feel like it is the end.
[00:34:11.820 --> 00:34:16.360] They are just coming from meeting A to meeting B and meeting C, it's back to back.
[00:34:16.360 --> 00:34:20.460] And earlier I shared that yesterday was a full day of meeting for me because I intentionally
[00:34:20.460 --> 00:34:23.640] scheduled that because that's my in-person in-office day.
[00:34:23.640 --> 00:34:26.280] I want to be able to meet in person.
[00:34:26.280 --> 00:34:31.200] And then for my work from home days, I usually work from home three to four days a week.
[00:34:31.200 --> 00:34:36.160] And for those days, I schedule way fewer meetings and get focused work done.
[00:34:36.160 --> 00:34:42.980] And I feel like for me, I don't have a ton of meetings.
[00:34:42.980 --> 00:34:44.900] Yeah, I mean, that's nice.
[00:34:44.900 --> 00:34:51.780] I think for me, it's like, if you're like a lead on one of the projects, then you spend
[00:34:51.780 --> 00:34:56.380] a little bit of time working on it and then a lot of time aligning people to know they're
[00:34:56.380 --> 00:35:01.380] expected and then some amount of time promoting it as if this is something cool and everyone
[00:35:01.380 --> 00:35:03.500] should get excited about it.
[00:35:03.500 --> 00:35:08.360] Whereas before you didn't have to do so much chair leading, at least in the PhD, once you
[00:35:08.360 --> 00:35:12.000] picked your topic, everyone agrees that it's okay.
[00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:16.720] And then you're aligned because it's just you working on it with your advisor.
[00:35:16.720 --> 00:35:21.120] And so now it's like, I have to be aware of what other teams are doing and I have to constantly
[00:35:21.120 --> 00:35:27.620] promote myself and my project, which is how you get people to use what you're doing.
[00:35:27.620 --> 00:35:29.620] But that sort of came for free before.
[00:35:29.620 --> 00:35:31.200] And so these are some-
[00:35:31.200 --> 00:35:32.200] Not for free.
[00:35:32.200 --> 00:35:33.740] Some people just don't get it.
[00:35:33.740 --> 00:35:37.280] Like, the professor don't advertise it and then department don't advertise it, then your
[00:35:37.280 --> 00:35:38.700] work just get unnoticed.
[00:35:38.700 --> 00:35:42.040] It's just published, but never get publicized in any way.
[00:35:42.040 --> 00:35:43.720] It depends how people react on the conference.
[00:35:43.720 --> 00:35:47.200] If people really like it, suddenly everyone wants to be involved.
[00:35:47.200 --> 00:35:50.500] Yeah, that's still not something you control.
[00:35:50.500 --> 00:35:52.960] It's not for free.
[00:35:52.960 --> 00:35:57.660] And yeah, one thing that I think is helpful is that whenever I did something nowadays,
[00:35:57.660 --> 00:36:03.360] I record a video and then I send it out to as many people, like relevant people, of course,
[00:36:03.360 --> 00:36:07.540] I won't send it to random coworkers and then just ask them for feedback.
[00:36:07.540 --> 00:36:10.840] And if they want, we can hop on the meeting.
[00:36:10.840 --> 00:36:12.880] And I find that's more sane.
[00:36:12.880 --> 00:36:17.160] Otherwise, because previously I was doing the, "Hey, I built this cool thing.
[00:36:17.160 --> 00:36:18.160] Let's meet.
[00:36:18.160 --> 00:36:19.620] Let's grab a coffee and chat."
[00:36:19.620 --> 00:36:20.840] And that's not really sustainable.
[00:36:20.840 --> 00:36:25.280] First of all, we're not physically co-located.
[00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:27.220] Coffee is not possible.
[00:36:27.220 --> 00:36:31.480] And then Schedule 101 out of the blue, it's also not something people appreciate.
[00:36:31.480 --> 00:36:34.200] So I started to do, Slack has this nice built-in feature.
[00:36:34.200 --> 00:36:38.780] You can record yourself and then it's kind of a time limit of five minutes.
[00:36:38.780 --> 00:36:42.580] So it's really short and then people watch it and they say, "Yes, no."
[00:36:42.580 --> 00:36:45.440] And it's looking interesting, but I'm not really interested in this.
[00:36:45.440 --> 00:36:47.760] Sure, I'll reach out next time.
[00:36:47.760 --> 00:36:51.500] But some people, hopefully a small proportion of those people got really excited.
[00:36:51.500 --> 00:36:56.500] And then that kick off a set of meetings that hopefully pan out to a tech transfer or research
[00:36:56.500 --> 00:36:58.720] collaboration or things like that.
[00:36:58.720 --> 00:36:59.720] Yeah.
[00:36:59.720 --> 00:37:00.800] That's actually how we do it too.
[00:37:00.800 --> 00:37:04.400] We have our different levels of Slack channels.
[00:37:04.400 --> 00:37:05.400] We have spaces and Google-
[00:37:05.400 --> 00:37:06.400] But Google use Slack?
[00:37:06.400 --> 00:37:07.400] I thought Google use chat?
[00:37:07.400 --> 00:37:11.880] No, we use our Google Meet, Google Chat, Google Everything, Google.
[00:37:11.880 --> 00:37:12.880] Yeah.
[00:37:12.880 --> 00:37:16.080] So we have these spaces as part of the Google Workspace.
[00:37:16.080 --> 00:37:20.720] And then there'll be small team ones and then larger and larger, like when I'm asking for
[00:37:20.720 --> 00:37:21.720] help.
[00:37:21.720 --> 00:37:25.960] And then there's some that are very friendly just to send around.
[00:37:25.960 --> 00:37:30.060] Anything that you found, like, "Oh, cool result," or "Here's a paper you might be interested
[00:37:30.060 --> 00:37:32.320] in," or stuff like that.
[00:37:32.320 --> 00:37:37.200] And so usually if you have a good result, you'll create either a small demo or just
[00:37:37.200 --> 00:37:39.800] a little highlight reel and then put it there.
[00:37:39.800 --> 00:37:41.860] And then you'll get lots of congrats from people.
[00:37:41.860 --> 00:37:44.800] And then one or two people will reach out on the side and be like, "This is actually
[00:37:44.800 --> 00:37:46.640] what I've been looking for, waiting for.
[00:37:46.640 --> 00:37:47.640] Now let's talk."
[00:37:47.640 --> 00:37:51.060] But yeah, but I think you have...
[00:37:51.060 --> 00:37:52.060] This is a good point you make.
[00:37:52.060 --> 00:37:55.720] You have to be good about doing that every time you have a good result or whenever you
[00:37:55.720 --> 00:37:59.640] want to promote yourself, that's the right channel to do it.
[00:37:59.640 --> 00:38:05.920] Otherwise, the chasing people around and trying to talk to them one-on-one, it becomes infeasible,
[00:38:05.920 --> 00:38:08.040] especially at different offices.
[00:38:08.040 --> 00:38:12.840] My team is spread out across three or four offices, and so it's hard to do.
[00:38:12.840 --> 00:38:13.840] Yeah.
[00:38:13.840 --> 00:38:14.840] Yeah.
[00:38:14.840 --> 00:38:18.980] I feel like today it's mostly been a therapy session for me.
[00:38:18.980 --> 00:38:21.640] Thank you for walking me through the thought process.
[00:38:21.640 --> 00:38:22.640] Anytime.
[00:38:22.640 --> 00:38:24.600] Yeah, I already feel a lot better than before.
[00:38:24.600 --> 00:38:26.120] I hope your energy comes back.
[00:38:26.120 --> 00:38:30.440] I think as soon as you introduce yourself to everyone, you can go back to working and
[00:38:30.440 --> 00:38:31.440] it'll be easy.
[00:38:31.440 --> 00:38:32.440] Yeah.
[00:38:32.440 --> 00:38:34.840] And also the internal deadline has passed in the last week, so I think next week I'm
[00:38:34.840 --> 00:38:38.160] going to just be not rushing to the deadline.
[00:38:38.160 --> 00:38:39.160] There's no deadline anymore.
[00:38:39.160 --> 00:38:43.000] The next one is coming out in a couple of months, so I can take some time to just refactoring
[00:38:43.000 --> 00:38:46.440] the code and not implementing some hacky work around.
[00:38:46.440 --> 00:38:48.200] Sounds good.
[00:38:48.200 --> 00:38:50.040] I'm excited to see it.
[00:38:50.040 --> 00:38:51.040] Yeah.
[00:38:51.040 --> 00:38:52.040] Yeah.
[00:38:52.040 --> 00:38:53.040] All right.
[00:38:53.040 --> 00:38:57.520] So if you want to share your experience of work fatigue or other experience, leave a
[00:38:57.520 --> 00:39:00.640] comment below and we'll see you next episode.
[00:39:00.640 --> 00:39:01.640] Bye.
[00:39:01.640 --> 00:39:02.320] Bye, guys.