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Schedules and Deadlines
Feb. 7th, 2024 03:31 pmI’ve been thinking a lot about schedules and deadlines lately. Partly that is because there are a bunch of things in progress around here. My son is working through the end of high school and the enrolling in college process. MIL moved recently from central Florida to the east coast of Florida. I had been trying not to get too involved in either process, and trying _very_ hard to err on the side of pushing for slower / delay / let’s wait and see. In both cases, the people whose decision it truly was basically stepped up and pushed hard for what they wanted, and moved things along through the process. I was really happy about all of it.
Also, we talked a bunch about replacing the washer and dryer, and decided to delay and then the washer decided to die and thus we took action there.
So from my own, recent, personal perspective, I am often representing the side of a decision that is not taken AND which is a Wait-and-See approach. I’m _completely fine_ with how all of these things are going. In particular, I’m very proud of my son, am _super_ happy MIL is moved and we can quit talking about whether, and extremely pleased with the new laundry machine.
I mention all this because it has recently occurred to me that this is probably another one of those things where how I do things and why I do things and how I feel about all of it is perhaps not particularly helpful when making sense of what other people are doing and why and how they feel about it.
In fact, if I had to propose a general rule, based on watching and listening and reading people talk about trials and elections and so forth, but also about things like EVs and the transition to renewables, I would say, “When People Talk About Schedule, They Are Actually Telling You Whether They Want to Do Something.” People who are pushing for a rapid schedule are excited to do the thing. People who are pushing for a long timeline are trying to figure out how to kill the project. “When People Talk About Budget, They Are Telling You Whether They Want to Do Something.” Same rule: lots of money for a thing? They want it. Thing has to pay for itself rapidly, or you have to get rid of something else to get the thing? They really want to NOT have it.
This isn’t how I do things. Also, this is a fucking stupid way to do things. If you don’t want to do it, say so. Ideally, come up with some compelling reasons why. Don’t tell me it will take a long time and be expensive, because I’m quite good at coming up with the money and putting together and scheduling a thing, and furthermore, _when I do_, I will discover that it really is not that expensive and it won’t take that long and then I’ll come bring all that information to you and sincerely ask you what your data is for the discrepancy between what you said and what I found and now I’m basically forcing you to either admit that you made that shit up rather than say, “I don’t want to”, or double down and let me just tell you that latter option is not a pretty thing.
I’m reasonably certain that everyone else already knew what I just described (except maybe the parts specific to me). This feels very “hidden curriculum” to me. Also, JFC people. It shouldn’t be _that_ hard to express your feelings.
If you are wondering, but then walkitout, why were you trying to slow walk MIL and son and the laundry? Well, basically, I have a long history of wanting to do a thing or wanting to make it happen and running other people’s lives and making people uncomfortable (at the very least) or incredibly unhappy / frustrated / angry. I’ve been trying to Do Better, _especially_ in situations where it’s pretty easy to predict I am absolutely going to hear about it afterwards if I Make It Happen and then it goes wrong somehow. Also, in the three named instances (MIL moving, son going to college, buying replacement home appliances), waiting had some very attractive features (more opportunity to learn about the very new laundry option we were committing to, gap year / separating hazards of finishing high school and starting college, MIL’s move destination costs more money so delaying has merit right there).
I think I just had it in my head that everyone else who was slow walking something was just weighing the now-versus-later and coming up with later-is-better. It hadn’t occurred to me they were trying to kill it. Watching the Delay to Death strategy in action for a few years has finally forced through my extremely thick skull that that’s not at all what’s going on. I mean, I _knew_ orange guy was delaying to death. I just didn’t realize how common that was.
Also, we talked a bunch about replacing the washer and dryer, and decided to delay and then the washer decided to die and thus we took action there.
So from my own, recent, personal perspective, I am often representing the side of a decision that is not taken AND which is a Wait-and-See approach. I’m _completely fine_ with how all of these things are going. In particular, I’m very proud of my son, am _super_ happy MIL is moved and we can quit talking about whether, and extremely pleased with the new laundry machine.
I mention all this because it has recently occurred to me that this is probably another one of those things where how I do things and why I do things and how I feel about all of it is perhaps not particularly helpful when making sense of what other people are doing and why and how they feel about it.
In fact, if I had to propose a general rule, based on watching and listening and reading people talk about trials and elections and so forth, but also about things like EVs and the transition to renewables, I would say, “When People Talk About Schedule, They Are Actually Telling You Whether They Want to Do Something.” People who are pushing for a rapid schedule are excited to do the thing. People who are pushing for a long timeline are trying to figure out how to kill the project. “When People Talk About Budget, They Are Telling You Whether They Want to Do Something.” Same rule: lots of money for a thing? They want it. Thing has to pay for itself rapidly, or you have to get rid of something else to get the thing? They really want to NOT have it.
This isn’t how I do things. Also, this is a fucking stupid way to do things. If you don’t want to do it, say so. Ideally, come up with some compelling reasons why. Don’t tell me it will take a long time and be expensive, because I’m quite good at coming up with the money and putting together and scheduling a thing, and furthermore, _when I do_, I will discover that it really is not that expensive and it won’t take that long and then I’ll come bring all that information to you and sincerely ask you what your data is for the discrepancy between what you said and what I found and now I’m basically forcing you to either admit that you made that shit up rather than say, “I don’t want to”, or double down and let me just tell you that latter option is not a pretty thing.
I’m reasonably certain that everyone else already knew what I just described (except maybe the parts specific to me). This feels very “hidden curriculum” to me. Also, JFC people. It shouldn’t be _that_ hard to express your feelings.
If you are wondering, but then walkitout, why were you trying to slow walk MIL and son and the laundry? Well, basically, I have a long history of wanting to do a thing or wanting to make it happen and running other people’s lives and making people uncomfortable (at the very least) or incredibly unhappy / frustrated / angry. I’ve been trying to Do Better, _especially_ in situations where it’s pretty easy to predict I am absolutely going to hear about it afterwards if I Make It Happen and then it goes wrong somehow. Also, in the three named instances (MIL moving, son going to college, buying replacement home appliances), waiting had some very attractive features (more opportunity to learn about the very new laundry option we were committing to, gap year / separating hazards of finishing high school and starting college, MIL’s move destination costs more money so delaying has merit right there).
I think I just had it in my head that everyone else who was slow walking something was just weighing the now-versus-later and coming up with later-is-better. It hadn’t occurred to me they were trying to kill it. Watching the Delay to Death strategy in action for a few years has finally forced through my extremely thick skull that that’s not at all what’s going on. I mean, I _knew_ orange guy was delaying to death. I just didn’t realize how common that was.