Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

We have emotions. That is fine. Feel fill-in-the-blank fully and deeply for ten minutes. Get over it and move on.

About ten years ago I was writing proposals for a company. The day before I had finished a couple of pages for a proposal. New orders came down. “We decided to change our approach. Revise those pages to a new approach.”

I sat in a person’s office when we heard the news. Well, what to do? I told the other person “I will be mad for ten minutes and then rewrite the pages. I should be done in a couple of hours.”

I wish I could claim the origin of this idea, but once again someone else taught me what I am passing along in this little blog post.

We have emotions. Many of us engineers and others of the same ilk deny such, but it is true. It is okay to admit and have emotions. Do it. Do it full force. Do it for ten minutes and move on.

Angry? Be as angry as you can without destroying things or others for ten minutes. Move on.

Disappointed? Be as disappointed as you can without destroying things or others for ten minutes. Move on.

Add to the list as appropriate.

Feel fill-in-the-blank as hard as you can for ten minutes. Move on.

We can do this.