Do You Feel Excited Panic When Work Gets Complicated?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the emotional responses and coping mechanisms participants experience when faced with complicated work situations. It touches on themes of excitement, anxiety, and the challenges of managing expectations in professional environments.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express feelings of "exciting panic" when encountering complicated tasks, suggesting that the thrill of discovery can be both exhilarating and anxiety-inducing.
  • Others indicate that they do not panic but instead become busy and take complications in stride, viewing them as interesting challenges.
  • One participant recounts experiences with unrealistic promises made by bosses, highlighting the tension between expectations and technical feasibility.
  • Concerns are raised about the practicality of achieving "zero background counting" in experimental setups, with some participants questioning the feasibility of such claims.
  • Several quotes about the nature of new ideas and the resistance they face are shared, emphasizing the challenges of innovation and acceptance in scientific discourse.
  • Participants share personal anecdotes about the excitement of presenting new results and the disappointment of timing when colleagues are unavailable to share in the moment.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally express a mix of feelings about complicated work, with no clear consensus on whether panic or productivity is the more common response. Multiple competing views on the nature of challenges and the emotional responses they elicit remain present.

Contextual Notes

Some discussions reference specific technical scenarios and personal experiences that may not be universally applicable, indicating a reliance on individual contexts and definitions.

J77
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Do you panic when your work gets complicated?

Not through the complication, but through finding something new.

I even have thoughts that someone else will write about it before me - and I hate ambition :biggrin: :wink:

It's like an exciting panic.

And the results always take so long in coming - especially when you can visualise the results already...

Or is it just me? :biggrin: :-p
 
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I don't panic - I just get busy.

Complications occur - it makes life interesting and sometimes intense.

I'm in one of those situations presently. :biggrin:

I just take it in stride.

I've worked in situations where the bosses promise the impossible to a client, and I have to figure out how to do it, which has been interesting when the boss is technically incorrect about the work/results which have been promised. :rolleyes:
 
Astronuc said:
I've worked in situations where the bosses promise the impossible to a client, and I have to figure out how to do it, which has been interesting when the boss is technically incorrect about the work/results which have been promised. :rolleyes:

Yes, mine just did something marvelous: he committed to background counting ZERO.
He told me so when I told him I found a complaint about "high background" of an instrument scientist on a new prototype a bit exaggerated. I stared at him for about :bugeye: , dunno, 30 seconds, then asked if he'd buy me a coffee for that one :redface: :cool:
Well, given that the instrument will not last for longer than, say, 20 years, I think we can live with less than 1 count in 50 years :biggrin: :bugeye:
 
vanesch said:
Yes, mine just did something marvelous: he committed to background counting ZERO.
:smile:

Depending on where this instrument (detector/detection system) is and how sensitive it is, I find ZERO practically impossible.

One of my physics lab experiments 35 years ago was counting muons and estimating muon lifetime - in the basement of a physics building. :rolleyes:

So taking 31,556,952 seconds in an average year for 20 years - then one is trying for 1.584e-9 cps. Good luck! :biggrin:

I hope you have a clean power supply/voltage source.
 
When the going gets tough at work or elsewhere, I remind myself of two things:

"Be positive"

"Relax and focus"

It's worked for me for many years, through the college years, through work, and through a successful startup company. When you work a 90 hour week (among many other 70-80 hour weeks), you definitely have to learn to Relax and Focus!
 
...but through finding something new.

I even have thoughts that someone else will write about it before me.

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats... Howard Aiken

A few more quotes.

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it...Max Planck

One measure of the power of a new idea is the resistance it meets. Leroy Jack Syrop

Many great ideas have been lost because the people who had them could not stand being laughed at. (anon)

The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein -- it rejects it. P. Medawar

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer

but borrowed from...

Every great scientific truth, goes through three stages. First people say conflicts with the Bible. Next they say it had been discovered before. Lastly, they say they always believed it. Louis Agassiz (ice age inventor)

Don't worry, nobody steals it.
 
You've made my day, Andre... classic quotes... now I'm happy that I've fired my Thesis Supervisors & am re-building the examination team... too much ramming was required - inhouse...
 
Andre said:
Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats... Howard Aiken

A few more quotes.

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it...Max Planck

One measure of the power of a new idea is the resistance it meets. Leroy Jack Syrop

Many great ideas have been lost because the people who had them could not stand being laughed at. (anon)

The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein -- it rejects it. P. Medawar

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer

but borrowed from...

Every great scientific truth, goes through three stages. First people say conflicts with the Bible. Next they say it had been discovered before. Lastly, they say they always believed it. Louis Agassiz (ice age inventor)

Don't worry, nobody steals it.


That said, many of the quotes apply to bad ideas too :smile:
 
Some people say that Columbus 'discovered' America.

Well - it was more the case that he showed up unannounced and told the people living there that they had new owners. :rolleyes:

The rest is history.
 
  • #10
vanesch said:
That said, many of the quotes apply to bad ideas too :smile:

exactly! Since:

"It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive".
Mark Twain

But then again

"If you want to be famous, just invent a witty quote", ... Anonymus
:biggrin: :approve:

much easier than having new ideas because:

It is fatal to be right when the rest of the world is wrong... Brother Theodore
:rolleyes:
 
  • #11
For me, when things get complicated is when they get fun! It's boring when everything is going smoothly...I feel like I really don't even need to be there. Though, yes, I do sit around anxiously awaiting every result, and have been known to bounce around the lab showing a graph or microscope image to everyone who pauses long enough to look sharing my new results. There's nothing more depressing than plotting out a new graph with data that actually supports one's hypothesis for a change, and running back to the lab to show it to everyone, and finding they're all out getting lunch. :frown:
 
  • #12
vanesch said:
Yes, mine just did something marvelous: he committed to background counting ZERO.
He told me so when I told him I found a complaint about "high background" of an instrument scientist on a new prototype a bit exaggerated. I stared at him for about :bugeye: , dunno, 30 seconds, then asked if he'd buy me a coffee for that one :redface: :cool:
Well, given that the instrument will not last for longer than, say, 20 years, I think we can live with less than 1 count in 50 years :biggrin: :bugeye:
You could forget to wire to power switch to anything:wink:
 

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