<story><title>Mental Model: Difficult Problems vs. Hard Work</title><url>https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2022/06/22/Mental-Model-Difficult-Problems-vs.-Hard-Work/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>catchclose8919</author><text>&amp;gt; there are problems that are solvable by throwing a lot of human-hours at it (“Hard Work”), and problems that are not a function of raw work hours, but rather require dealing with ambiguity (“Difficult Problems”)&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s also the 3rd category of the &lt;i&gt;hell&lt;/i&gt; of work that is easy, ambigous, but just uses up a ton of mental space to work through that mushy ambiguity. I&amp;#x27;d solve difficult problems all day, can stomach doing hard work when its requirements are clear, but god keep me away from the hell of &amp;quot;death by a thousand papercuts&amp;quot; in the marshes of easy-but-mindspace&amp;#x2F;time-sucking quai-ambiguous problems...&lt;p&gt;Clarifying ambiguous requirements at least is rewarding when you achieve that clarity and help people understand what they actually need. But there&amp;#x27;s hellish work that is just unclarifiable before doing this, you just have to crawl to that mud of trivial but not-so-trivial-that-you-can-think-about-something-else-while-doing-them... 100% better to work a garden or serve in bar than that!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>zackmorris</author><text>Ya after graduating from college, I spent 3 years moving furniture from 2001-2003 and consider that the epitome of hell work. In that time, on the paltry wage I received, I could have designed and built a machine to do the work for me. So I spent 3 years being gaslit that I should be grateful for that job and that it was my patriotic duty to be there since someone had to do it. The whole time coming up with an invention a day that would have made the job safer&amp;#x2F;easier&amp;#x2F;lucrative. That broke down my psyche to such a degree that I didn&amp;#x27;t fully recover until going through ego death and healing during the pandemic 20 years later. Now when I hear people say &amp;quot;nobody wants to work anymore&amp;quot;, I think of successful people who didn&amp;#x27;t do what I did, and think to myself &amp;quot;damn straight they don&amp;#x27;t&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The yakk shaving of today&amp;#x27;s programming has become hell work. We need a better way, yesterday. But we&amp;#x27;re all too busy spinning our wheels doing hard work to make rent as the world burns.&lt;p&gt;Edit: I want to add that I miss the days of my youth and would trade if I could, even taking the good with the bad. Just because something is stupid doesn&amp;#x27;t mean that we have to let it fill our reality. Turn the guilt&amp;#x2F;shame into empathy and let go.</text></comment>
<story><title>Mental Model: Difficult Problems vs. Hard Work</title><url>https://benjamincongdon.me/blog/2022/06/22/Mental-Model-Difficult-Problems-vs.-Hard-Work/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>catchclose8919</author><text>&amp;gt; there are problems that are solvable by throwing a lot of human-hours at it (“Hard Work”), and problems that are not a function of raw work hours, but rather require dealing with ambiguity (“Difficult Problems”)&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s also the 3rd category of the &lt;i&gt;hell&lt;/i&gt; of work that is easy, ambigous, but just uses up a ton of mental space to work through that mushy ambiguity. I&amp;#x27;d solve difficult problems all day, can stomach doing hard work when its requirements are clear, but god keep me away from the hell of &amp;quot;death by a thousand papercuts&amp;quot; in the marshes of easy-but-mindspace&amp;#x2F;time-sucking quai-ambiguous problems...&lt;p&gt;Clarifying ambiguous requirements at least is rewarding when you achieve that clarity and help people understand what they actually need. But there&amp;#x27;s hellish work that is just unclarifiable before doing this, you just have to crawl to that mud of trivial but not-so-trivial-that-you-can-think-about-something-else-while-doing-them... 100% better to work a garden or serve in bar than that!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mynameisash</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt; problems that are not a function of raw work hours, but rather require dealing with ambiguity (“Difficult Problems”)&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; work that is easy, ambigous, but just uses up a ton of mental space to work through that mushy ambiguity&lt;p&gt;Am I missing something here? Because I read your third category as being exactly this second category. Or maybe it&amp;#x27;s halfway between categories one and two?&lt;p&gt;Solving ambiguity, and probably lots of it, &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; the difficulty. Easy but ambiguous is generally not a combination I see.&lt;p&gt;I frequently tell my manager&amp;#x2F;team that we have two kinds of problems: easy ones that just take a lot of work&amp;#x2F;time to slog through and difficult ones that may not be much actual work except for figuring it out.&lt;p&gt;Like, many hikes are just a whole lot of one-foot-after-another. But mountaineering is sometimes a short distance of don&amp;#x27;t-fuck-up-or-you-die.</text></comment>