Things that make your brain short out (metaphorically)
I’m warm bodying a class at work this week and wondering if there’s something wrong with me or if this is at all something that happens to other people. Here’s the scenario:
Class is described as domain modelling for business analysts, and yet there are only three of us and the rest of the 40 or so people are developers. The teacher is a software architect and you can tell that although he keeps trying to say how this stuff is “business domain” and how it will make our business analysts “rock stars”, we’re down deep in the weeds on the technical side because that’s how he thinks too (being an architect). My team for an exercise (all developers) just called him over for some questions and he answered by saying they were thinking of software implementations, we need to talk about business domains… and then he finished his thought by talking about packages and .jar files.
I have a technical background although I’m now a business analyst. So I do understand modelling and am comfortable with abstraction. But this confusion between saying we should be talking business domains, and actually talking technical layers of a solution has my brain locked up and smoking. I can’t get past it to get on board with what he’s (supposedly) trying to teach. I can’t keep myself focused, my mind keeps wandering. Then we break into teams for exercises and I’m like “what are we supposed to do?” Then when each team presents their exercise to the class, it’s all technical modelling.
It seems like I should be able to let it go and get past it, but I can’t. Does this happen to anybody else?
Yes, all the time. But I do have ADD. Even trying to listen to someone talking to me while I’m trying to write an email blows my brain fuses.
Sometimes while working on a committee project, I get frozen if the group goes off track from the project’s Big Picture and starts discussing a bunch of [del]crap[/del] details that don’t follow from our purpose or work toward our goal. It’s like my brain decides on its own that nothing of what they say matters, and then my consciousness keeps spinning its wheels trying to make sense of the discussion but the group’s voices are drowned out by my brain’s DOES NOT COMPUTE sirens. Or something. Sorry for the mixed metaphors.
Me too. If we haven’t laid the groundwork or framework/big picture, my brain stalls and can’t get into the details. I tune out until they get their pressing issue off their chest, and then try to circle back to the organization. I have to have the boundaries in my head before filling them in with detail.
And for the OP, yeah, if the trainer is not good and is off track, it’s hard for me to salvage pieces and run with them – my brain does an internal throwing up of its hands.
“Shorting out” is a good way to put it! What does it to me is when I’m listening to someone speak in a meeting, and the person next to me starts trying to whisper to me. I hate that! I can no longer focus on the original speaker, and can’t focus on what the whisperer is saying either. Maybe it’s because I think it’s rude to whisper in meetings, and I wish they would just shut up. Sometimes I slide over my notebook and pen - I don’t mind if they write me a note. But I definitely avoid known whisperers if possible when choosing a place to sit.
What I thought of when I read “short out” is more like a stun, when something completely unexpected happens and my brain just goes spaz for a moment.
But this other thing oh yeah, it happens too. It’s happening to me a lot lately, in fact. “Why the hell am I here? Why is he telling me that? Why is he telling us that? What’s this got to do with anything? Is there any reason why I’m here instead of, dunnow, dusting my shelves or watching paint dry?”
I think we’re having a big language problem in my job, but I’m not sure who to talk about it. in Spain we refer to “people who can analyze and design processes” as “analysts” or “consultants”, and to people who can implement those designs but who would never be able to create one as “juniors” - it’s not about time in grade, but about the grade itself. You know, like the difference between an exec and a senior exec, only our default is the higher level.
From information I’m slowly gleaning from our training, conversations with my direct manager, speeches by the Big Honchos and so forth, it looks as if this company’s default is the lower level, with the higher level being called “architects”. They’ve hired several hundred people that they expect to be at the “junior” level, but who are actually “seniors”; if they want people who are “junior” they’re even asking for the wrong type of degree, and if they want people who will eventually be above that, we’re starting higher than they think… so, we’re getting the wrong messages and the wrong training. Not just me, several hundred people.
But the problem I have is, I’ve got no idea how to tell this to someone who can do something about it (I don’t care about the risk of being ‘the nail that gets hammered down’: my employability is ridiculously good, if they’re that stupid I’d rather work somewhere else).
Oh, good, so I’m not alone on this! That makes me feel less dysfunctional.
This also reminds me of when I was in college, doing a computer science major full of hard classes, so hard work wasn’t a problem for me. But the only class I failed was physics. Not because the material was too hard. It was because the teacher’s oddball teaching style. He would describe a concept and then illustrate it with sort of a Greek Chorus playacting. He’d spread his legs into a wide stance, lean back and slowly pretend to throw a softball to give us the mental picture of the ball’s flight vector, arc, etc. Every time he did that, my brain would go bzzztt… shhhhhhhhhhhhhh… flubbablubbabubba…
Something about the overly slow, very large gestures seemed condescending and it also seemed too gendered. Of course girls play softball too, but it just had a kind of vibe to it that I can’t explain, and then I didn’t hear the next 15 minutes of lecture. When he did that several times in a single lecture I was boned.
Even trying to listen to someone talking to me while I’m trying to write an email blows my brain fuses.