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Comment by maerF0x0 | Hacker News Reader

> Celebrate progress. Burnout is often caused by a feeling of stagnation. Seeing the progress you’re making day-to-day is hard. Managers should create space to celebrate small wins and reflect on the mountains you’ve climbed.

I really appreciate this one. As a very high conscientiousness and med-high neuroticism person a manager asking for a "status check" on a project actually sounds like "You did something wrong that gave me cause for concern/doubt" which causes an inordinate amount of stress and self doubt that I'm truly giving it my all -- which leads me to push harder regardless of how hard I already am...

Celebrating progress allows me to say "Yeah, things may not be on our desired timeline, but also we're making progress and that timeline was unrealistic... We'll get there so long as we continue to invest".

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It a very, very fine line to tread before it becomes Defiant Jazz (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Turq37lntO0)

This video is an amazing summary of the GitLab article itself.

I'll be honest that I dont really get it. Is it just that the one guy is the only one trying to get work done and everyone else is hindering that?

That too, but mainly how ridiculous corporate efforts to "reward" their workers look.

I really dislike this when it feels forced and artificial.

Also there's a strong risk of doing some little employee-appreciation gesture that backfires and pisses people off. Most of them do, because it feels like the company has cheaped out, or worse, spent a shit-load of money on something that you hate and then expects you to be grateful about it.

I very much feel you on this. At some point I have enough company swag.

I do think the "appreciation store" model is a really good one. Allowing each to choose their reward.

I very much think that the "give me money" model is a really good one.

There's this very odd strain of infantilization that runs through a lot of corporate office management, like they are trying to reward second-graders with a choice from the prize box if they collect enough gold stars, rather than dealing with fully-grown adults that have their own children.

I actually really agree with this too. It helps normalize comp across all life choices too. There are so many, some which people get salty about suggesting it's a form of "comp" .

For examples:

  * I basically don't drink so anything that has alcohol as it's selling point is non-comp to me

  * I'm not going to be a parent so why cant I have a sabbatical in place of parental leave?

  * I basically don't get sick, and when I do I still manage to deliver decently. Why not pay me out sick days? I could just lie and take them, but why should I have to?

-* and before someone goes exclaiming "Privilege!" remember these are real life choices with costs borne in other areas of life -- for example the choice to not have children is going to be very expensive when I'm older and have to pay for everything that children do for free taking care of their elderly parents. It's not a pure privilege, but a temporal shift of cost/benefits. *-

Yeah it pisses me off when I've been squeezed for every drop for the whole project by some bozo manager, and then I'm also now forced to be forget and forgive all of that, and pretend to be happy, because of some awkward celebration, just becomes another ass kissing for the manager and salt in the wounds for me.

Corporate "celebrations" are anything but. They are just posturing and virtue signalling. Only on groups of teams in high-trust situations (e.g., a small military unit winning a tough battle) will you experience real celebrations. They won't even have to be planned; they'll just happen!

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