
Sabotage - sgentle
https://samgentle.com/posts/2015-10-18-sabotage
======
TeMPOraL
+5 Insightful.

I know I personally like to keep the opinion people have that I am overworked,
whether I actually work hard or procrastinate - it's just a really convenient
social shield, not only against failure but also against random requests from
people. When people notice you have too much free time, for some reason they
feel obliged to start inventing things for you to do.

I think it's an alternative to just saying "no". Some people are assertive and
can simply refuse a request. Personally, I find assertiveness very cognitively
taxing, not to mention socially, so maintaining a bubble of "he's constantly
working on something" impression helps. It's probably not the most ethical
approach, but it's a coping strategy.

As for self-deprecation of your work, I know I've been guilty of this at times
to cover for stress and lack of motivation. It would be true that the
particular piece of work is not the best thing I can do (and I can always
point to examples of a better work), but fortunately people immediately assume
(without me having to suggest anything) that's because of being tired, or new,
or something, and not because I am having trouble finding the motivation to
pursue a task at 100% of effectiveness. This buys me necessary time to sort my
motivations out and hopefully regain the energy to do a better work next time.

~~~
franciscop
You just oppened my eyes. Being a programmer from Spain I receive an average
of 2-3 project proposals for free from friends and acquaintances per week. To
friends I normally explain why not, but to acquaintances it's way easier to
say I don't have time than to explain why I don't think it's a good idea or
that I just don't want to work for them for free, which is expected for side
projects or internships in here. Now I'm also experimenting with asking for
how much when it's work-like and some people just back off.

Then from time to time an awesome project with shared workloads comes and I
magically find the time to do it (;

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _To friends I normally explain why not, but to acquaintances it 's way
> easier to say I don't have time than to explain why I don't think it's a
> good idea or that I just don't want to work for them for free (...)_

I've noticed that things can also loop around when you're dealing with family.
Just recently I received a proposal from a next of kin for basically making an
Android app for equity (i.e. for free). He's younger and I recognize this as a
temporary fascination with the startup world ("If everyone buys it for $2, the
app will make millions (PLN)!") and I don't want to shut down his dreams
(he'll get over it soon by himself), so I can't just say no. Fortunately, I
have a convenient excuse of being stuck in China for the next month or so -
therefore I'm absolutely busy and have no time!

(OTOH if he still wants that when I get back I'll probably go for it - the app
is simple, and who knows? Maybe it will earn some cash, which will be a
valuable experience for both of us.)

By the way, should I start tagging those comments as #HNTherapy or something?

------
derefr
More commonly known, in competitive rather than cooperative endeavor, as the
scrub mentality. From [http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/more-on-
losing](http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/more-on-losing):

> The loser usually takes the imagined moral high ground by sticking to his
> Code of Honor, a made-up set of personal rules that tells him which moves he
> can and cannot do. Of course, the rules of the game itself dictate which
> moves a player can and cannot make, so the Code of Honor is superfluous and
> counterproductive toward winning. [...] This type of player is trying
> desperately to remain a “winner” any way possible. If you catch him amidst a
> sea of losses, you’ll notice that his Code will undergo strange contortions
> so that he may still define himself, somehow, as a “winner.”

Working long hours, showing people unfinished prototypes, etc. are such "Codes
of Honor." For the people who work under such rules, even if their output
stinks, they can still feel like keeping to their Code has made them a
"winner."

Even if, y'know, the ROI on their time and effort was effectively zero.

~~~
placeybordeaux
This is one of the many things that starcraft taught me. If my goal is to be
better, there is little point in placing blame on anything except what is
under my control.

If the opponent uses a strategy that seems unfair, then I should use that
strategy.

If they are using a high risk strategy, instead of saying that they are just
gambling and being mad at them I should instead become better at finding out
if they are going to take that path and deal with it.

When it comes to improvement it is self defeating to say that anything out of
your control was the problem. If that was in fact the case you shouldn't have
let that situtation arise. If someone else is constantly causing a problem for
you then you need to create a situation where they can't cause you problems
anymore. Be that improve their abilities, isolate yourself from them or be
good enough to solve that problem.

Then again I never quite made it to the grandmasters league.

------
skrebbel
As a European, this article intrigues me. In most European industries,
overwork isn't at all celebrated as much as in the US (from what I can tell
reading HN).

But this article's reasoning makes sense. So do we have different social
shields in place? If I work 8-ish hours a day and screw up, what's my excuse?
I can't completely figure this one out.

~~~
junto
As another European I concur. Moreover I'm British but I left to live in
"continental Europe" over a decade ago, so I've seen some of the Anglo, Anglo-
Saxon and the southern European models.

When I worked in the UK, many businesses had a work environment that steered
towards the US model, but 9am - 5:30pm was the norm. More flexible working
hours are starting to be more common, but statistically the total hours worked
is very static over the last decade. [1]

On the other hand, here in Germany the concept of "Feierabend" is sacrosanct.
Feierabend is the word Germans use to describe the time after work (and the
point at which they "clock off"). Germans start work earlier than in the UK,
but many finish around 4:30pm or even earlier on a Friday.

That being said, the productive hours of work here in Germany appears to be
different (possibly just observer bias). They seem to get a lot done in those
hours. I see less meetings and less general chit-chat throughout the day. In
the UK I would often experience the collection of people around the coffee
machine discussing last night's TV programs. I've never seen that kind of
thing here.

Spain was a completely different experience. People didn't appear to work so
much, but that was simply because initially I didn't realise that many people
have two jobs, with siesta parked in the middle. They often start earlier and
finish late in the evening. The statistics show that Spain (and Greece more
so) have a higher number of hours worked annually than Germany (and the UK).

From an economic perspective though, those extra hours haven't traditionally
produced growth in the same way as the Germans have. That's not to say that
the Germans are particularly more productive (I think that is rather hard to
quantify and there are many more factors in play than just being
"productive"), but in terms of pure economic success, Spain and Greece are
certainly well behind their northern European partners.

A lot of that is also due to the kind of economies these countries have
though. Germany produces things for export and benefits greatly from a
depressed Euro and has done so for the last 15 years. Spain and Greece do not
have such economies, and have been hit with the triple punch of economic
depression, reduced EU financial support and forced austerity. It is like
taking a heroin addict (EU grant money) and forcing him to go cold turkey, but
also removing all the furniture in the room and leaving him with a cold
concrete floor and walls and leaving one barred window that overlooks a
methadone clinic day centre.

[1]
[https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS](https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS)

~~~
qznc
As a german, what I often see in older generations is the attitude that work
is not something you enjoy. You endure it. Suck it up and drudge. This implies
you have a Feierabend after work, where you can do what you enjoy.

Younger generations have a different attitude, which I assume is spilling over
from the US: Follow your passion. Find work you love to do. This implies you
love to work longer hours.

------
andrew-lucker
Not related to overwork or sabotage, but the "talk it down" is expected in
certain cultures and has a name: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-
deprecation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-deprecation)

~~~
tajen
In my city (Lyon, France) we look down at the rich people. So much that every
time I go to a start-up pitch session, I hear words like "My goal is NOT to
enrich myself, it's to serve the community" and the people make choices
accordingly, such as belonging to a cooperative and not earning dividends,
etc. It seems like an obligatory language to gain the support of the society
in order to do our business. A striking example: my coworking space is awesome
and the founders don't get dividends for it, apart from having a free office.

------
SZJX
That's a very peculiar perspective to say the least. However I don't think it
makes much sense TBH. Nobody would lower his/her expectation of the work just
because that guy said he worked so hard and didn't even sleep much in the past
several months. _On the contrary_ , the more likely thought is that "you've
worked so hard and sacrificed a lot already, then the work you've done must be
awesome, otherwise you're really even more of a fail." If the guy said that he
just did a random side project for 1 hour per day, _then_ the expectation
would indeed be much lower. So I can't see myself agreeing with the author's
line of reasoning. Pointing out that people sometimes would like "freedom to
fail" for more personal projects is a good point, and a wish to lower
expectations of others is indeed commonly seen in many occasions
(reasonable/moderate or not), but this attribution of reason seems quite
arbitrary.

In any case, overworking and sleep deprivation are definitely bad. No matter
what the reason behind them and what actions to be taken, they should not be
an acceptable norm for any sane person. That's for sure.

------
binaryapparatus
Excellent article. I have always been fascinated with how conscious /
subconscious brain works and deeper I dig stranger things are there to
observe. Almost all that appears on the surface is not what it seems after
analysis. We are all actors, whether willing to admit or not. "You are not
really John" [http://www.wimp.com/goodactor/](http://www.wimp.com/goodactor/)

------
chris_wot
I'm a bit confused... Is he saying overwork is good to shield you from over
expectations and mistakes?

~~~
skrebbel
Yes. And then he says that if we could come up with better shields than that,
then maybe we could overwork less.

------
ommunist
Actually, author's observation is bullseye. Self-sabotage to lower bosses'
expectation is the reason of the crappy look of the modern Internet visual
environment, and who knows for how much of its guts.

~~~
TeMPOraL
This seems to be corollary of the old adage: "the better you get, the better
you'd better get".

------
TurboHaskal
Posted at 2:00 AM.

~~~
stronglikedan
> Posted 10/17/2015, 8:00:00 PM

Likely adjusted for timezone. EST here.

------
kazagistar
I don't feel like I have this motivation, but I also cannot identify a
rational reason for still being up at 4:40 am.

------
imrehg
Oh, on my work computer WinXP + Chrome I end up with a "This webpage is not
available ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH" (though looking at the ssltest
result, I should tell this to Cloudflare)

