Smile

I learned a great lesson from my wife the other day. It's not the first time, and I'm sure it won't be the last.

She has worked in various service roles over the years, both as a customer service representative and as a store / site manager, and she has a real eye for these things. We were waiting in line at a lab, and all of the employees were miserable. They seemed to hate their jobs, and the customers seemed to hate being there as well. Not a smile in the room.

In these situations, it's difficult to tell where the problem starts. Were all the customers so rude that the employees started hating their jobs, or are the employees so rude that the customers hate being there? It's a chicken and egg paradox, but the thing that is certain is that each side feeds off the other. One side's discontent feeds the other's and vice versa. It's a vicious circle.

But my wife has this great trick - she smiles anyways. She is really nice even if the person on the other side of the transaction is rude and clearly not having it. She asks them how their day is going. She finds pleasant conversation. She sympathizes with their situation when it's appropriate. There isn't always a response, but many times - possibly most times - there's an overwhelming and positive change. The vicious cycle is replaced with a virtuous one, where everyone is pleasant and helpful.

Just a couple weeks after I learned this lesson, I had the chance to put it into practice myself. I had a routine doctor's appointment at a practice with terrible reviews. When you read the comments online, the doctor himself is generally praised but practically every review refers to the support staff as either rude, unprofessional, impatient or disrespectful.

From the moment I walked into the office, the reviews were confirmed. The staff did not smile at all, they were short with all of the customers and acted talked like a kindergarten teacher would towards a kid in timeout.

But I tried my wife's trick. I smiled. I said "good morning!" to everyone. I asked them how their day was going. I commented that they must be bored of listening to the same 10 songs that the Christmas channel plays. And you know what? They were really nice! The same people that were universally derided in the online reviews smiled, helped me through the forms and even went out of their way to give me some suggestions on how to best handle the insurance transactions. They were a joy to work with. 

Sometimes, when you browse reviews on sites like Yelp and Trip Advisor, you'll realize that there's a subset of the population that go to restaurants, bars, gyms, and all kinds of institutions looking for a fight. They usually find it. They have haughty expectations and harbor suspicions of subpar service that they'd like to have confirmed. We all like to feel outraged on some level, because it usually comes with another feeling that can feel very good - vindication. If you look for vindication, and you harbor suspicions that others want to wrong you, then you may find that you have a knack for finding exactly that.

But the opposite can also be true. You can look for the good in others¹, and you know what, you may find that too. So, smile more. It could just be that after I left that doctors office, the staff members were nicer to the next customer, and that she was nicer to the waiter at dinner, who was in turn nicer to the people at the table next to her. It may be the thing you do each day that has the biggest impact on the world as a whole, and it doesn't cost anything. 

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1 In the recent passing of George H.W. Bush, his son's eulogy had this great line. He said "He [George H.W. Bush] looked for the good in each person, and he usually found it". ^↩

Work Rules

Habits are hard to change once they are formed. This is something I think about often at work, where all of us are susceptible to the worst habits, from surfing the web, to slouching at the desk, and communicating poorly in various ways.

Our standards at work tend to degrade over time. You wear the button up shirt with the new pants on the first day, but by the end of the first month, you're wearing that old polo with the pizza sauce stain.

I have found, though, that when you start in a new work environment, there's a blank slate. Everything can seem so new that all of your old habits are able to be rewired with relatively little effort. This is both good and bad, because you could also have habits worth keeping, like getting in early.

Over time, I've become increasingly conscious of my bad habits, as well as the good habits I admire in others. Each time I start in a new environment, I take that time to reinforce the behaviors I've come to desire. In its latest iteration, I've written down a list of "work rules" that I check each day. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Sit up straight
2. Don't check your phone
3. Don't check personal email
4. Communicate well
5. Dress well, be prepared
6. Listen more than you talk
7. Don't pretend to know something you don't
8. Check email sparsely
9. Be honest
10. Be decisive
11. Don't be envious of others

Numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 10 fall into the category of things I admire in others that I lack. When I think about the best leaders I've known, both in the workplace and in my personal life, they all are decisive, listen more than they talk and never pretend to know things they don't.

The other rules fall into the more pessimistic category of inner demons I need to battle.

So far, this list has worked pretty well for me, but I'm only on week two. I have to expect that these will slip over time, since past performance in the best indicator for the future. But my plan for combatting the inevitable is to spend (roughly) a minute each day reading the rules and reflecting on them.

If this seems corny, keep this in mind: a large part of our identity as viewed by others is made up of the habits we form, whether consciously or not. Whatever we can do to reinforce the behaviors that we believe in, the more we determine our own identity.

The Infinite Scroll

Although a week and a half late, I've decided today that I am giving up scrolling through my phone for Lent. I sort of promised this to myself on Ash Wednesday, but failed quickly because I hadn't put any specific rules in place. So let's be specific - here's some behavior that needs to stop:

• Flipping through news sites like CNN, Washington Post, Fox News to check headlines when the day's news doesn't really affect me, and the news that does affect me would have been told to me by someone else anyways. 
• Reading articles about politics, technology and sports just because I can't think of anything more productive to do at that moment, or worse, precisely because I know of something more productive I should be doing.
• Checking my email on my phone, not because I'm expecting something specific, but because of a vague sense of anticipation.
• Watching youtube videos like SNL skits, funny clips, etc. for light entertainment.
• Scrolling through my facebook newsfeed to see what other people are doing.

In fact, there isn't a need to do any of these things on my phone, even if I considered them to be productive habits. For example, if I wanted to answer emails and clean up my inbox, I could take out my computer and do that more efficiently. Using my phone is just a lazier, more passive, way that leads to other distractions.

When we let our phones control our actions implicitly, we lose much more than just the time wasted. Humans are not great multitaskers, and switching context is an expensive action. Every time you change the context of what you are doing, you lose focus. Have you ever noticed that a 30 minute task (let's say writing an email) takes an hour and a half with just a few small distractions? This is because it can take substantial energy to find your place in that email and regain your train of thought.

There is something else too, that I've been trying to put my finger on. When I'm scrolling through my phone, I tend to switch context so often that nothing get's resolved. After half an hour or so, I usually end up with some half read emails and other uncompleted tasks. It's like a garbage build up. In my mind there is this building sense of things left undone, and as time passes, it just becomes a vague anxiety that seeps into everything I do. It's subtle, and it sometimes takes me days to sense it, but when I do, I realize how much these distractions are affecting my confidence and well being. 

So what are some safe things to do on the phone? I'd say maps, weather, texting, calling and taking notes are safe. These are all actions that are done with purpose and are generally completed without straying. When I look up directions for going to a friend's house, I don't find myself scrolling through a map of the USA for 20 minutes. I get the directions and I go. When I want to call my Mom, I don't suddenly have the itch to call my whole family too...

I'm going to keep using these, and I will keep my smartphone with me. But I'm going to shut off WIFI and cell data to my email and my browser - that way, I'm faced with the conscious choice to abandon my lenten promise if I ever have the itch to scroll. 

2018 Goals

2017 was the most eventful year of my life so far. I proposed to my girlfriend of 3 years and married her(!!), took a 2 week honeymoon to southern Italy, graduated with a masters in Applied Mathematics, paid off all school and car debt, moved out of my parents’ house and left my job of 4 years to start a career in Software Development.

In a dramatic change, I hit almost all of my 2017 goals. I have a habit of being way too ambitious with my goals, so I sort of dialed it back last year. The one exception will be obvious to readers of this blog - I failed to write!

Per tradition, Greg’s goals can be found here. Mine follow below.

Write

Essays, technical documents, personal notes, anything really. I find writing to be very difficult, mostly because everything I write tends to sound really stupid initially, and only less stupid once I publish. But I also consider it important as it’s the best (and maybe only way) to formalize thinking.

Get Finances in Order

Being recently married means that the whole money thing has become much more real all of the sudden. Now is the time for me to understand how to work towards financial security for my family, especially before the hustle and bustle of kids comes along. This means finally understanding investment, 401Ks, taxes, etc.

Stay In Shape

I often put down lofty fitness goals. This year, I just want to make sure I don’t fall off the wagon, so I am going to set my goal at an average of 4 workouts per week. I expect I will do some races, and I kind of want to learn to swim, but for now the important thing is to stay active.

Learn Piano

I have this on my goals every year. It may seem trivial, but I think it’s important for a few reasons:

• Music can keep you sharp mentally, and it’s something you can do into old age
• You can pass it along to children
• There is a lot of beautiful music, and playing is a new way to enjoy it

Unfortunately, I tend to fail at this goal miserably. In the long run, I want to be able to play many of my favorite classical pieces. It’s less clear what to do in the short run. In past years, I have focused on learning to play a certain number of songs within a year, but without the necessary foundations, each song took me way too long to learn.

I’ve resigned myself to two conclusions - I need to learn to sight read, and I won’t be able to do that on my own. Last year, I started lessons with an instructor for 30 minutes every two weeks. Progress has been slow, but incremental. I’m hoping it’s like math - if I master basic arithmetic now, then I’ll be doing calculus in a few years.

Learn about Technology

Let’s face it. Technology is taking over every segment of our lives. Although it can be a force for good, that’s often not the case. Sometimes, when I’m overwhelmed by the pace of change in the world, I wish it was possible to just look away and plead ignorance. Unfortunately, the pervasiveness of technology makes this risky, especially for those in a technical profession. It’s important to understand and control this force rather than the alternative. There are many ways to do this, and the level of rigor required differs based on the individual. Most people can get away with understanding the basic risks of technology and being scrupulous in their choice of tools, but I probably need to embrace a deeper relationship at this point.

There are three areas I’d like to address:

1. Learn about core technology. For me, this means a more fundamental understanding of computers, cybersecurity and the internet. I think the best way to learn something new is to employ a combination of action and reflection (I’m hoping to write more on this later), so here are some of the “actions” I’m considering this year in order of importance:
• Launch my own web app
• Contribute to open source
• Do a kaggle competition
• Make something cool with a RapsberryPi
2. Reflect more on my relationship with technology. Hopefully this manifests itself in some new blog posts.
3. Reduce mindless screen time. Right now, I watch too much TV out of laziness, and I unconsciously scroll through my phone out of anxiousness. Both can be bad habits, which, as they grow, can have increasing control over moods and actions.

Be Present

Last year really taught me the importance of spending quality time with others. Too often, I find myself distracted or anxious in social situations. I need to calm down and learn to listen and enjoy company without agenda. Part of the problem is that I’ve always been a daydreamer, and find it easier to observe rather than “participate”. I have been doing better over the last few years but have a long way to go.