Thread

When I started consulting almost 1.5 years ago, I made the decision to not be hands on. My idea was to have more flexibility and being able to run more projects at the same time. Currently I'm more or less in between projects and started to push myself to code, and it's amazing.

I think the original assessment was right. From my days as a manager I know that workloads which are mostly meetings and doing stuff yourself don't mix well. For meetings you need to be flexible and you'll context switch often. Coding means putting in hours of uninterrupted time.

Still, I'm a bit surprised just how *therapeutic* getting into the good ol' tinkering flow really is (aka "nerdvana"). I don't consider myself to be someone who doesn't like to work with people. Helping people is deeply fulfilling for me.

On the other hand, I have had to realize that while I often start out as a consultant brought in for technical stuff, eventually we get to the "other stuff". Team setup, processes, team responsibilities, interaction with product management, and all those fun topics.

Not that these are things that are inherently painful to deal with, but influencing these when you're officially there for technical support is challenging.

And then there is all that stuff that happens in big companies which is confrontational in nature. Goals that are set against people's will, needs of teams that are ignored, people who take a confrontational approach to resolving differences or solve problems, etc.

I once attended a discussion on "structural violence" at university. Someone asked "but what is structural violence?" to which the reply was "actually, I'd consider this question structural violence."

I think the sad truth is that some organizations intentionally create environments which rely on tension to make people do stuff, and reward people who get shit done no matter the cost.