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#+title: True Engineering Grit

- tags :: [[id:0dd1aabc-1a00-4a8e-b80f-8163e6d36480][Blog Post]] [[id:423b6d5f-30c0-4250-a31c-5182df515fea][Engineering]]
 
* Brief
We all love to feel productive. The internet is rife with posts that will help you level up your productivity on those days when everything is going right. So. What about when everything is going wrong? It would be nice if we could throw in the towel and go on vacation when things get hard. Unfortunately for most career engineers, that's not a viable option.

What does it mean to have [[id:ee61ccfa-b892-4328-a0b6-f183b7a6d01e][Grit]]? At it's most basic, grittiness is associated with seeing things through when they get hard. In the 2010 Cohen Brothers film «True Grit» each of the protagonists has to struggle through their own challenges.

* Challenges
One of the most difficult aspects of grit is knowing when it's appropriate to apply. There are a great many situations on an engineering team where grit is completely in appropriate and bordering on self-abusive.
* Failure
A key aspect to grit is the ability to fail over and over again and try again. In [[id:4a19f537-f23c-45d7-a030-36bbab77f95b][The Drunkard's Walk]] the authors make an crucial observation about the impact of randomness in our lives. Seeing the ups and downs of our working day as a series of events we have complete control over means that when we fail, it's personal. But the random in our day means that some days we'll have less energy. Others we will have more. Still other days will demand more of our attention on those around us. Parents or people with others that depend on us know this all to well.

[[id:4ce1438f-4604-4ab7-8db5-be3f377262f3][Embracing Randomness]] is a whole other topic. But when it comes to grit, you have to acknowledge the effect of random events on your life and learn to let go of your expected list of daily, monthly or annual tasks.

When the [[id:c66c0da1-f62d-4d5d-a5ac-99acf74d2c07][Coronavirus Pandemic]] hit the United States, our company had to pivot on our goals.

* Quotes
**  [[id:b3d003e1-5d18-4e01-9ca4-0efc32052a31][Running Versus Football]]