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Comment by hef19898 | Hacker News Reader

hef19898

The worst thng about that, at least for me, was that I actually liked it. I felt alert, productive, full of energy. Things moved gast and I felt on top of them, it was just great.

When things changed, arguably forvthe better, I kind of wanted the previous status back. Took me quite a while to cool down again, yet I still prefer high pressure high speed environments.

Funn thing is, my body felt good too. I was healthy as check ups showned. I even managed to trian more than today. Strange period that was indeed...

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There is good stress and bad stress, as I'm coming to find out the hard way.

I also do very well in environments most would call "high stress" - I ran a medium-sized hosting company for many years, being the guy where the buck stopped if things went wrong. Sure there were days that were pretty terrible, but in the end I controlled the entire stack, the people working on that stack, and even which customers I took on. Yes, the work was incredibly hard, fast paced, and sometimes very stressful. But it was enjoyable because I had personal agency to effect change. We have a service going down daily causing escalations at 2am? I can put a couple guys on it and fix it, with a sane solution we all felt proud of. That sort of thing.

In another environment where I in theory had a "nice easy 9-5" with effectively zero external stressors such as customers yelling at me - I was the most stressed out I ever was. The job was entirely internal politics and jockeying for position with all the subterfuge and backstabbing that implies. Effectively being put in charge of outcomes I had practically no real agency over.

That latter time period of stress has likely damaged me long-term, and caused many forms of health problems I would not have expected. It is a long road to recovery from something like that, if it's even fully possible.

I'd say the dividing line is how much control you have. If there is short burst of stress for the amount of work you are sure to be capable of, the stress is nothing. The problem is with the duration and the uncertainty.

There is also a genetic factor: I remember there was a gene (or a base pair?) that is called "worrier or warrior", and if one has the warrior one, one performs worse without stress than with stress whereas the worrier one is the opposite.

Agree on the politics part, the one thing that wears me down the fastest. Hope you recover quickly, it might take I guess so...

I think there's a difference between high pressure environment and experiencing anxiety and stress.

I've done months of work in a high pressure environment where my job and the company itself was on the line and experienced the same as you. For about four months I did nothing but work. I was laser focused, sharp and extremely productive. I was fine. I worked long days, did pretty much nothing else but work and sleep.

I've been looking for that kind of focus and productiveness ever since. It's like a drug.

In case you're wondering.. The company is still around. We hit our deadline and grew from three people to almost 40 since. Still there.

Where there any negative consequences?

Physically and medically, no, thank god. Personality wise, well, let's say my acquired habbit of pushing for a better solution constantly and focus on efficiency didn't sit well with a lot of people. But it's getting better now, still struggling to be as patient as I, somtimes pretending, am now two years later.

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