jeff kushner
Well-Known Member
I know, catchy title for a plumber. I couldn't resist.....but the subject has nothing to do with "plumbing".
Who else flushes information b/c of the "next" project or a met deadline has been reached so you just flush all that info and move on to the next thing or the next project? I know some of you guys have or have had more intense jobs than mine that require doing the same so I'm sure I'm not alone. I would guess this mostly applies to folks that work but who knows?
If you do;
Do you find difficulty remembering things in your personal life that could be attributed to that work-habit spilling over? Forgetting for instance that you had dinner with friends from Florida a month earlier while you happen to be discussing those friends with your sweetheart? When she reminds me, I remember instantly but it's almost like I flushed the event from my mind.
I am wondering if there is a parallel between forgetting things now and the chosen habit of mentally flushing project information for the past 40 yrs at work? Some of our large pjts have 20,000 pages of docs of which I may read 4000, in a weeks time. There is a cost associated with not reading them but since I've never risked having someone come back to me screaming "It was right there in the gd specifications!", I have no idea what value of that mistake is but on those big ones, it's more than we make! LOL
The point is,
We learn so much information about a project, then have to "flush the drive" to make room for the next project and in my business, it's no real advantage to retaining it, you'll just get projects and specifications mixed up when you hit "overload" and you will at some point. I'm not the only chief estimator that does this. If I need "recall" a year later, I check my pad of notes for that project and somehow, most of it magically reappears in my mind.
So part of me wonders out loud...am I searching for vindication that I'm not headed south mentally or am I indeed viewing the glass from a different perspective, which would be growth for me?
So, to close the loop on this and look at it from the other end....now that I'm done doing that for work, can I retrain myself to remember everything?
Hmmmmm- don't know if I should say this cause some of you will get big heads like me....but since in my opinion, this is one of the sharpest yet most socioeconomically varied groups I've ever been part of so I'm curious what you guys think?
Who else flushes information b/c of the "next" project or a met deadline has been reached so you just flush all that info and move on to the next thing or the next project? I know some of you guys have or have had more intense jobs than mine that require doing the same so I'm sure I'm not alone. I would guess this mostly applies to folks that work but who knows?
If you do;
Do you find difficulty remembering things in your personal life that could be attributed to that work-habit spilling over? Forgetting for instance that you had dinner with friends from Florida a month earlier while you happen to be discussing those friends with your sweetheart? When she reminds me, I remember instantly but it's almost like I flushed the event from my mind.
I am wondering if there is a parallel between forgetting things now and the chosen habit of mentally flushing project information for the past 40 yrs at work? Some of our large pjts have 20,000 pages of docs of which I may read 4000, in a weeks time. There is a cost associated with not reading them but since I've never risked having someone come back to me screaming "It was right there in the gd specifications!", I have no idea what value of that mistake is but on those big ones, it's more than we make! LOL
The point is,
We learn so much information about a project, then have to "flush the drive" to make room for the next project and in my business, it's no real advantage to retaining it, you'll just get projects and specifications mixed up when you hit "overload" and you will at some point. I'm not the only chief estimator that does this. If I need "recall" a year later, I check my pad of notes for that project and somehow, most of it magically reappears in my mind.
So part of me wonders out loud...am I searching for vindication that I'm not headed south mentally or am I indeed viewing the glass from a different perspective, which would be growth for me?
So, to close the loop on this and look at it from the other end....now that I'm done doing that for work, can I retrain myself to remember everything?
Hmmmmm- don't know if I should say this cause some of you will get big heads like me....but since in my opinion, this is one of the sharpest yet most socioeconomically varied groups I've ever been part of so I'm curious what you guys think?
