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Subject: Re: The conversations that could/should have happened earlier
From: Raphael 'kena' Poss <knz@cockroachlabs.com>
To: team@cockroachlabs.com
References: <56B25A4F.8030105@cockroachlabs.com>
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Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2017 23:41:55 -0400
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Hi everyone,

taking a little time tonight to follow-up to this 576-day old thread.
The new folk may need the pasted quote below for context ;)

I want to share three things I learned last summer, because I myself
wish I was told those things earlier and so I figure perhaps they will
be useful to someone:

1) "you're the average of the five people you interact most often with"
[1]. Maybe you heard, I have stopped going to the University last year
to spend more time at CRL and working with you guys. What's new is that
this made me change as a person. It's very noticeable because I had a
very controlled environment (I didn't move away, I didn't change my
circle of friends, I didn't change my social activities -- just the set
of people I was interacting with every day). I hadn't expected this
change to happen so fast. I wish everyone to take sometime in their life
to also experience this and realize this at a personal level.

[1]
http://www.businessinsider.com/jim-rohn-youre-the-average-of-the-five-people-you-spend-the-most-time-with-2012-7

This first-hand learning experience has also had a profound impact on my
priorities at work. "Before" (I will probably say "when I was younger")
I would choose activities solely because they were "interesting",
"exciting", "impactful" and so forth. Now, *who* I am interacting with
has become #1 priority. Retrospectively, I now realize that many times I
was stalled in my life in the past were due to poor choices of
environment, choosing to surround myself with "interesting" people
working on "important" things but without realizing they were very
competitive & individualistic and not particularly willing to work with
me unless I was "useful" to them. I like to think I am striving to do
this differently now. It's hard and I am & will be making mistakes, but
it makes me feel so much more engaged.

2) the truth of "you can learn by failing" (a.k.a. "don't be afraid of
asking stupid questions", a.k.a. "make mistakes, then learn from them",
a.k.a. "let's be transparent about our shortcomings", etc.) hinges on
two unspoken assumptions. Here I'm going to state two things that may
sound obvious in hindsight, but what I truly learned is that many
individuals in our field are not mindful when these assumptions are
made, and can fail to recognize when they are invalidated.

The first assumption is that there is a safety net. Making a
professional mistake and getting fired as a result, in a small town, can
be devastating, because despite one's willingness to "learn from the
experience", the reputation derived from the mistake can cause loss of
job opportunities, and subsequently economic difficulty. Making a
serious social faux-pas in a startup with just 5 employees can poison
the workspace so thoroughly as to endanger the whole company. I can name
many examples, but you probably get my drift: this is true, and the one
safety net that y'all have been implicitly depending on is a) money and
b) your support network: enough cash to get by if something materially
bad happens, enough family to get by if something socially bad happens.

Thanks to CRL, I have been able to develop my previously near-inexistent
monetary safety net. For this I am very grateful. But I am also still
wary -- US-flavored at-will employment makes this very fragile. I have
little in terms of family; I am moving too often around the world to
afford the kind of friendships that provide unconditional support; and
autism is still fundamentally impeding my ability to form balanced,
two-way emotional bonds. All in all, I do not feel safe in my life. And
this still impedes my ability to "learn from my mistakes".

This realization is novel, and enlightening. I knew I was afraid of
risk, but didn't understand why. What I now can bring into words is that
 this fear can actually be rational. A minimal safety net is a
privilege, and it is not available in the same way or the same amount to
everyone.

The second assumption is that mistakes are recognizable as such. A
person can fail, and fail again, but only when the mistake is recognized
can there be a learning experience. How does this happen? There's a
combination of two things.

At a basic level, a neurotypical person usually naturally realizes they
are not reaching their goal after the 3rd time trying, and will
recognize this repeated non-success as a failure. It sounds very simple
and obvious when phrased this way, but consider that we are doing plenty
of different things throughout the day! Maybe your 2nd or 3rd attempt at
doing something is interleaved with many other activities, and sometimes
life and distraction can get in the way of recognizing a pattern. Or
perhaps you're not neurotypical, like me, and end up trying again and
again things that don't work without the ability to step back and
recognize the pattern.

One of the things I have started doing last year is taking mental notes,
also sometimes on paper, of when I try something and don't get to a
result, and how I *feel* about it afterwards. This is new: previously I
would just throw a bunch of random things in the air and feel happy when
one of the things "stuck," carelessly forgetting about all the others. I
was basically discarding plenty of opportunities to recognize patterns.

By starting making notes, I have started to discover plenty of little
things. About how people work with each other (not only with me), about
which forms of communication work better with some people than others,
about what people care about, etc. It's making my life much easier, in a
way, but also more mindful. However, I also can't take note of
*everything*. I still make a lot of mistakes, and many times don't
realize I do.

I said above there was a combination of two things. The second thing is
feedback. Basically my notes are incomplete; I can't fully function as a
human being "learning from mistakes" unless others tell me when I make a
mistake. Of course it's better when feedback is "constructive" -- when
you tell me both when I make a mistake and how I can correct it.
However, I  do not believe that feedback should *always* be
"constructive". I personally need to know when things don't go well,
even if you expect me to do something about it on my own.

But I think here the lesson is reusable too. Honest feedback on things
that work well is important, but feedback on things that work not-well
is even more important, and *valuable even if it's not constructive*.
Sometimes, the construction of an altered course of action can only
occur after a mistake is recognized. Sometimes finding a better course
of action is best done as a team. Requiring all feedback to be
"constructive" robs us of the opportunity to acknowledge and work on
shortcomings or failings.

So, what then? Obviously I am not advocating for "careless feedback"
either, where an emotional reaction could inhibit a learning experience.
But perhaps we could innovate and start using "trust-based feedback":
you tell me I'm wrong about something, and I trust you that you are
saying this not because you have an agenda and want me to feel bad, but
because you want to provide me something (the understanding of a
mistake) which I may not be able to perceive on my own. Then I may say
"thank you," you accept that it will take me some time to react to it,
and perhaps we check in some time afterwards to reflect on things. This
works both for technical and non-technical stuff. Conversely, if I look
at you and say "you're wrong", or "this is bullshit", or "I don't like
what you're saying", I do not mean "I don't like you", "I think you're
stupid" or "you're failing me". I am simply saying literally what the
words mean, and I don't really expect anything to happen as a result.
You're free to do anything in reaction to this, and I will not judge you
negatively if you don't react to it, and I will be open to revisit the
conversation later and change my own appreciation of things.

3) (I started the email with "three things"...)
Cockroach Labs is currently a very special place. Yet, things change
over time. As the company grows, it will likely become special in a
different way.

What I learned however is that once I decided I was working "with my
colleagues" as opposed to "for this company", the optics of this change
became very different.

It was for me an eye opener when I understood how Matt and Marc
transitioned jobs to be able to continue to work with the same people. I
had never envisioned this is something that people could do. To see
where I'm coming from, you have to understand that in lower economic
classes, you don't get to pick jobs. In my world, the process of finding
a job is a nebulous prospect, and where I would find any job is
something that is for me deeply ingrained as an event on which I have
little to no agency over. Anyway, now I know things can be different. I
am very convinced we can do great things together, in this organization
or another.

The keyword here is "agency". I only learned the true meaning of this
word after I turned 33.

This change of perspective is not limited to work by the way. Society
and civilization are the same, at a larger scale. I found a very good
book that expounds on this topic, entitled "Finite and Infinite games"
by J. Carse [2]. I highly recommend reading it.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_and_Infinite_Games

On 03-02-16 14:51, Raphael 'kena' Poss wrote:
> Hi guys,
> 
> this email is long overdue but... as these things usually go,
> better late than never :)
> 
> So here I am. I'm your new colleague from abroad! You've seen me in
> NYC but I don't think I told you about my situation in NL yet.
> 
> I think writing is useful: you will have less opportunities to hear this
> from me during lunches or outings, so let's be upfront, and this way
> you can picture me better in your mind when I'm not at the NY office
> and until we get some kind of telepresence going on.
> 
> First the obvious: we have 6 hours difference! I get up 6 hours
> earlier than you, in the early hours of your night. This means that
> eventually I will try to leave you during the day around 2pm unless
> there is a meeting afterwards (like on Tuesdays). But for the time
> being, I am putting extra hours in my evening so that we spend
> more time together everyday.
> 
> My values:
> 
> - I am a staunch defender free speech and freedom to think and
>   tinker. Also it's important to me that things are open to outsiders,
>   because as an ex-outsider to a lot of things I owe a lot to openness
>   and equal opportunity. I'll always rather deal with a cheap or
>   shitty open standard than a expensive or shiny closed
>   technology. For example I still promote IRC and XMPP and I despise
>   Apple and Facebook for teaching the next generation to accept walled
>   gardens without asking questions. That's also why I don't like Slack
>   too much. I give my money to the EFF and am a member of the Dutch
>   Pirate party.
> 
> - I believe in redemption. I don't do forgiveness and neither
>   retaliation; instead I make things good by giving and expecting
>   sufficient personal investment towards a better future, and
>   believing that people can change (of their own accord). For example,
>   I will never forgive the shitty behavior of Microsoft in the 90's
>   but I am OK with the company they have become and very OK with how
>   Bill Gates is spending his ill-earned money.
> 
> - I live by and promote the idea you can generate value and meaning in
>   your life by the act of sharing. Working "Open Source" is not only a
>   work strategy that collectivizes investment; it's also a life
>   philosophy that suits me at an emotional level.
> 
> - I believe that broadcast TV and broadcast advertisement rots your
>   brain and that the world would be a better place without either.
> 
> - I believe that teachers, librarians, journalists and philosophers /
>   spiritual guides are the foundations of society. I can explain that
>   one next time we have a drink together.
> 
> About circumstances.
> When I am working with you, I do so either from my home office or from
> my university office. About the latter, here are two things I want to
> share here.
> 
> About this university office. You could (and should!) ask how come I
> still have an office there. First of all I still have a teaching
> assignment there the coming four months (feb-may) so I will be giving
> lectures 2 times per week during that time.
> 
> I really love teaching. A lot.
> 
> Note that I discussed this with Spence prior to me being hired and
> this was OK, that will be my own little way to spend "free fridays"
> (the teaching will be happening outside of NY office hours so no
> conflict).
> 
> Also the university has provided me an unpaid guest position so that I
> could still be available to answer questions there, for the people who
> took over my previous responsibilities. Also, they are still paying
> for my work insurance and retirement fund, because I asked them to (I
> didn't want to deal with the mess that is insurance for an independent
> contractor).
> 
> So we could say I am "working at cockroach but officially still
> affiliated to the university of amsterdam" and I also think that this
> is going to be an asset to the company.
> 
> My university office is my favorite so far and the best I've ever
> had. The university is OK with me working with you from there. I share
> this 270 sq. feet (25m2) office with just one ex-colleague. We each
> have a 5"2-wide desk (1.6m) at opposite corners, mine has two plants
> on it.  I sit next to the window -- an entire wall in the room, with
> view on both the playground 3 floors below, the sky, and a tree line
> somewhat further. One year ago, I have bought a carpet and two bean
> bags, and a friend gifted me a couch, so we have our own personal
> lounge in there that is used every day for naps, quiet study time and
> sometimes small meetings. I'll try to get you a picture; but you can
> imagine that this works much better for me than the somewhat cramped
> conditions in our NYC office.
> 
> Then there's my home office. This one is about as wide as a NY
> cockroach desk, and not very deep either. But it's comfy and I get
> direct daylight from the window behind me, with a view on trees. Not
> complaining about that. However it's at home, and that kinda
> sucks. I don't really like working at home, because I feel quite
> isolated there. But this is the office that allows me to be with you
> guys when it's afternoon in NYC.
> 
> So to summarize when it's morning in NYC I'm at the university,
> usually working with you but sometimes teaching; and when it's in the
> afternoon in NYC I'm working from home, probably more productive but
> wondering why I have a shitty social life. In 4 months, this will
> change: I will work from the university office in my morning (your
> night) and from my home office in my afternoon (your morning), and
> you'll see me somewhat less after 2pm, and I'll get a social life
> back. ;)
> 
> So all this was about hours and locations.
> 
> Next to this there's my relationship to the US as a whole.  It's a
> very conflicted relationship.
> 
> On the one hand you have to understand that I have a background from a
> lower social class, and a number of personal issues (explained below)
> would otherwise prevent me from climbing the social ladder by sheer
> force or projection of personal merit: I can say I owe a lot of who I
> am to a number of government support structures around me, and I feel
> that the US is this big place where I'd have been miserable (and where
> you'd never have met me) if I grew up there. I also assume quite often
> that the US being like this, and USAmericans liking their country,
> means that the stereotypical USAmerican would have a hard time letting
> people like me get a sucessful place in society, assuming instead that
> I'm a lazy poor who doesn't deserve help. Of course, in my daily life
> in NL this is not relevant, but it does mean I have serious
> reservations about coming to live in the US.
> 
> And on the other hand, some of my best friends are USAmericans or
> living in the USA, and I *really* want to spend much more time with
> them than I currently do.
> 
> So my solution, and that's what you are dealing with now, is to stay a
> resident of the EU, keep identifying with this and come as often as
> possible to the US trying to ignore everything there other than the
> special relationships I have with some specific friendly individuals
> (like you guys!)  And I'm ok with not gtting some of your employee
> benefits, if that means I get financial support from cockroach to come
> and visit you more often.
> 
> And then I was mentioning issues.
> 
> For one, I've had serious health issues in the past, before I got
> well-paying jobs, when I was poor and without a social network. You've
> heard about healthcare over here, I know how your healthcare works (or
> doesn't) when you're poor, I think I need not draw a picture! And I'd
> be lying if I pretended I am not scared I will become ill again, lose
> this job and not have much to claim afterwards. That's why salary is
> much more important to me than stock options, and why I'd rather be
> saving most of this money and pay back my mortgage (so I have a house
> when nothing else) instead of moving to the US and start anew with no
> safety net.
> 
> Also...
> 
> (before you read further, please do me a favor, keep your thoughts in
> check and consider how much of that follows triggers your prejudices,
> if any. If you think different about me or my abilities after reading
> this, let's make this an open issue to deal with via friendly
> conversation.)
> 
> So as some of you already know I am autistic, albeit "highly
> functioning". This means I can't deal normally with stuff like body
> language, social cues, sarcasm, relationships, negotiations, etc. It
> takes me a very long time in comparison to most of you. In the US
> culture that would mean my social and emotional life is seriously
> impaired (USAmericans really have issues dealing with "weird" people,
> there are definitiely cultural stigma around autism), and this would
> put a glass ceiling above my head at work because I don't now how to
> negotiate successfully beyond a certain point.
> 
> In EU, at least the places where I've been, people base their
> relationships (personal & work) much less on how you display yourself
> or how successful you appear to be at the social games, and more on
> your concrete actions and your personal values. And on those
> things I'm doing OK.  Actually these issues of autism are much
> less visible/imparing when communicating with people electronically,
> I made by best friends and lovers over the Internet,
> and working remotely is actually going to make me better at this job
> than if I was sitting with you in NYC!
> 
> Also this specific issue makes me emotionally overwhelmed when there
> are more than 2-3 people talking around me. That's why I needed
> headphones often during our DR trip, it's called "tuning out". It's
> also why I'd probably be rather unhappy staying in an open office with
> you in NYC all the time, even if short stays like a week are perfectly
> fine. Over here in the EU, it's still customary to have have smaller
> offices, or at least with fewer people per room, and that's what I'd
> need at Cockroach if I come for longer stays.
> 
> And now I have reached the end of the time slot I had allocated to
> write this, so let's put a comma on these topics until another
> occasion.
> 
> Until then, I'm a happy Roacher!
> Feel free to ask questions.
> 
> 


-- 
Raphael 'kena' Poss