Context switching is a skill that gets easier the more you practice it, just like any other. There are techniques like leaving good notes to yourself to pick back up where you left off more easily, but a lot of it just mental training. You sort of learn to hold some of the context in your head all the time but keep it idle when you aren't using it.
When I'm hacking on a hobby programming project, I can often fix a bug or tweak a small feature in fifteen minutes, make a commit, and get a little serotonin hit, all while I'm waiting for the wife and kids to get ready to leave the house.
It doesn't always work for all kinds of tasks. Sometimes for more challenging stuff I really do need a larger chunk of time to load it all in my head. But you'd be surprised how easy it is to eat an elephant one tiny bite at a time if you really try.
> Context switching is a skill that gets easier the more you practice it, just like any other.
Totally agree with this!!
I learned this when I started off as a junior dev. We had some shitty machines and the project compiled for like almost 10mins. Most of the people just read the news and stuff and for some reason I started reading Clean code from Bob Martin (probabbly someone sent me a pdf of it or something). I remember reading it all in a few weeks using those breaks. Then I just kept the habit for almost a year (until we got some better workstations).
I need a good chunk of time to settle into "productive" work, even if it is just reading. I suspect that what is needed is a little bit more discipline at first and slowly it gets easier, but I just never had the ethic to stick to it, and because of this friend I don't even have the ability to claim any doubt as to how impactful it would be.
Since youth I've had (what was always termed a bad habit) the habit of jumping into a task and then never touching it for a week.
For sure there was constant worrying and ruminating on the thing I need to do, but I also have my mind ample amounts of time to 'sleep on it'. So when it came time to sit down and finish the thing, so much of the thinking and ideating had been done and I simply had to convert that into mechanical output.
Context switching is a common and accessible state, but it's severely taxing and relies on stress. To the point that ADHDers might purposely 'proctastinate' to make use of this stress.
But, not only is it not good for the system to constantly rely on stress, it also means that everyday /mundane / low stakes things simply can't utilize this "superpower" effectively.
At least, how I interpret and navigate my own bouts with ADHD
For some reason, a forced time constraint based on external pressure motivates me enough to finish a task.
I got much more thoughtful about how I used my time and also got better at pre-planning what I had to do so as to make the best use of it. Mostly the key was to just try to tackle smaller tasks and accept that progress would be slow.
Accepting that progress will be slow has been the most difficult adjustment, and applies to more than just side-projects. Choosing books or games also becomes a more strategic decision when what used to be a weekend sprint, turns into a several week marathon.
I'm not good at it, because I prefer to cross things off when I finish them, but when I can pull it off it saves some of that time getting oriented to what I'm working on.
I'm astonished at how productive I can be while waiting around outside a job site for late deliveries/people or even my kids music lessons for an hour or two, or when sometimes I can sit at my desk and get nothing done in the same time. Maybe it's the constraints of the time/space? I (only half) jokingly wonder if some times I'd be more productive sitting in the van in my own driveway rather than in my home office.
My "truck desk" is the rear parcel shelf/cargo blind out of a Hyundai Accent and the moulded counters fit my laptop and mouse pad perfectly. It also tucks nicely into the void behind the back seats when not in use.
I recently acquired a Vision Pro and am still coming to terms with how incredible it can be sitting in the back of my van parked literally anywhere in the country and having a full ultra-wide desktop experience that packs away into something the size of a lunchbox.
This is the cyberpunk future I dreamed of as a kid.
* https://www.ford.ca/support/how-tos/more-vehicle-topics/f-se...
* https://www.jdpower.com/cars/shopping-guides/what-is-the-for...
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a45497067/ford-transit-ste...
Want me to go over each make/model and their characteristic failures?
They're all crap that will be run circles around by a GMC Savannah in every category except fuel economy.
Obviously if you're hauling a 4 ft cube of depleted uranium, it's not going up be up to the task. But getting 25 mpg vs a two-ton work truck's eight mpg adds up. A lot if you're driving 300 miles a day. If you're a locksmith in a city your hauling needs are different than the general contractor or someone more specialized, that actually has one ton of equipment and a trailer generator to bring to the job site.
The argument that light work vans are small and underpowered so no one should use them is the same argument as big pickups are big and stupid and no one should use them, just from the other direction. Different strokes, as appropriate, for different folk who have different needs than you.
The same way you do a Sprinter. <eyeroll>
You are confusing the Transit and the Transit Connect. I actually really love the Transit Connect.
I am complaining about the Transit, Sprinter and their ilk.
As an aside, the Ducato is ironically actually best in North American markets because none of their the diesel engine options are great in terms of ownership cost or frequency of downtime but the Pentastar they got when they bought Chrysler is ok, if over-taxed to the point of lesser reliability in such an application.
Good thing you specified that in your comment [1] then, where you wrote
> Fiat, Mercedes or Ford
and never used the word Sprinter once, so of course I should deduce that was the vehicle you were talking about, along with the full size Transit, especially since the linked Road and Track article was discussing the Transit Custom, which has never reached the states and is of the smaller NV200 size class, so please forgive me for the confusion.
The great thing about the Sprinter is that it's big and tall and spacious inside. Unfortunately, the problem with the Sprinter is that it's big and tall, which is a real problem in high wind conditions. Yeah it could stand to have a bigger engine and beefier chassis, no argument from me there, but I have a carpenter friend who uses it to haul around his tools and lumber and he loves his so much that he bought a second one. The Sprinter's not got the powertrain of a GMC Savannah or RAM 2500 or F-250 Super Duty, but saying it's only good for moving boxes full of air is hyperbole.
As far as vehicle turnover goes, given the stronger union protections that workers in the trades in Europe get, not having to drive a busted 15 year old work truck that veers to the left because the suspension is shot and gets eight miles to the gallon doesn't seem like, to me, a bad thing! The most brilliant electrician I know owns his own business, but is driving a 15-year work truck that should have been replaced 10 years ago, but he can't afford to replace it.
IMO, the real question is who's going to be first to come out with a work truck/van that's comma.ai compatible. That thing makes driving long distances so much more stomachable. Not going to hold my breath for Waymo or Tesla or anybody else to compete there. Well except Mercedes, but that still likely to be a premium Mercedes car feature for a long time and not something on any of their brands work vehicles. Supposedly some F-150's can take it, but afaik those ones are the premium package, already have Blue Cruise, and aren't fleet vehicles anywhere (I'd love to be wrong though!).
By the late 90s the domestics had refreshed their vans to use engine architectures designed in the early 90s. They all have a bunch of tasks that are shit to do depending on the model and options. 6.0 Ford head gaskets are legendary in that regard. Ford is generally bad since so much stuff is a "pull the cab" problem which is a much bigger problem on a vehicle with a box truck body that extends over the cab and their infatuation with OHC engines makes things naturally more cramped. But it's just a lot less of a problem when you're not shitting out turbos every now and then or dicking with all the potential leak points of an cooling system that has 3x the components it needs to (looking at you Mercedes) or R&Ring a rear cylinder head in a transverse application (Fiat obviously). I'm not saying they're unreliable, but if you have a fleet of 5/10/20 there's always gonna be something that needs fixing and "needs fixing" is generally more expensive on the euro designs. And it's not really the engines. It's the whole chassis that has stupid stuff randomly distributed around it.
The Mercedes door tracks and tearing a suspension mount off on a minor sideways slide/bump that should've just required a change of underwear and maybe a tire/rim weren't things I made up, those were examples I've cleaned up after. Another example that comes to mind is how the Front of a Transit is 10lb of shit in a 5lb bag. That doesn't leave a lot of room for oopsies. Can't really bump them into anything without causing problems. I've seen a GMC van (Uhaul truck specifically) eat a deer at highway speed without even popping a leak because they had the foresight to put a whole bunch of dead space there. Imagine not having to incur $$$ downtime in that situation.
They're fine vehicles when new, have a lot of space, are as ergonomic as anything else out there but if you aren't buying a huge fleet that will be strictly managed so nothing gets routinely abused/overloaded, can't afford to pay games depreciating over 3yr and then trading in can't easily use rentals to cover downtime (<cough> Amazon <cough>), walk into your local Chevy dealer and say "I want what Uhaul has".
Sure, none of this matters if you're paying the mechanic/autobody rates in Turkey or Lithuania to keep them going or trading in every 3yr before MOT starts screwing you at every pass through but we can't all be that lucky.
maybe you think they are under powered but the ratings allow it and they seem to have no problem when I see them. Winning races isn't the point.
>The transit has 3060-5110lbs cargo capacity.
I assume that's half ton through 1-ton single rear wheel (because 5k would be comically low for a DRW).
The axle they put in the half ton (ford 9.75 semi float) isn't gonna live a long life at 3k + vehicle weight. The bearing just isn't up to it. They use the same assembly on the E-150 so lateral move there. The full float is good, but they nerf'd it by spec'ing the bare minimum for tube diameter/thickness so you're one "oops that's a way bigger pothole than I thought" away from expensive problems though they did a very good job on the spindle and hubs. I don't think anyone even knows what the realistic capacity of a single rear wheel E-350 is. The axle tube, hubs, bearings, spindles, etc, are solidly in the 10k ballpark, but you literally can't buy a single 16" tire that'll get you there. The front suspension is also way more maintenance intensive and less stupid proof over its life than the I beam system in the E-series though I'd say the GMC is comparable. Brakes are probably a lateral move but the general unibody construction is just gonna have less margin for stupidity/error when operating at/above rated capacity. Do that habitually and you'll eventually break something that you're not supposed to break whereas the legacy van with it's body on frame construction will just wear out parts fast. Like imagine you get a little sideways in an icey parking lot at 10mph. In the old van that's just a bump and a scare. In the new van that could be a replacement subframe. The customer is expecting the former.
>maybe you think they are under powered
It's not that they're under powered so much as they're unnecessarily high strung and over-engineered in the name of fuel economy for whatever power level they do have. On the Fords you're gonna deal with stupid ecoboost problems, wet belts and that stupid valve that makes the transmission warm up faster (probably doesn't even pay for itself over its life) that you have to drop the transmission to replace and the 9.75 rear axle being generally unsuited to hauling (though maybe they've fixed that at this point, all they needed to do was spec a different bearing with more smaller rollers) and unnecessarily expensive brake jobs. Ironically, if you embrace the low end (which most buyers don't because on paper the ecoboost options will save you enough fuel to be worth it) Ford's NA V6 is actually really good.
Then on the Mercedes side everything is typical german engineering. Tons of "gotta replace X before Y or it will Z" gotchas on the 07+ sprinter platforms. You basically wind up replacing everything outside the engine but in the engine bay over 200k. And everything inside it likes to fall apart. Mercedes loves to use over-engineered plastic for everything so it works great for the design life until the 1-millionth slam after which the door won't shut or whatever. Typical "Klaus got a bonus for reducing part count or labor operations" type behavior that the germans are stereotyped for. They generally buy decent transmission from ZF so those are solid
>when I see them
When was the last time you saw an 00s Sprinter? They're probably outnumbered by the Dodge vans they replaced at this point. When was the last time you saw a Transit that wasn't in "new enough to still be kinda nice" condition. There's a reason you see old E-series and not old Transits despite the overlapping production years putting the last of the E-series and first of the Transit right about what should be perfect "old work van" age.
The problem with these Euro vans is that every maintenance event has one more digit in front of the decimal than the more well rounded north american vans they replaced and they don't require any less maintenance so they're a money suck to own unless you're turning your fleet over rapidly (like swanky airport shuttles and property management companies and whatnot do). This obviously doesn't matter if you expect your average customer to trade in a 5yr due to MOT nitpicking and the trade in will be sold to Africa where any work it needs can be done for peanuts.
In conclusion, I'm not talking about a categorical difference, but European vans are just not properly engineered for the North American customer. Yes, the customer can make do, but they're making do with something that's a little worse across the board and will spend a little more time in the shop over its life and with higher bills for marginally better fuel economy they don't benefit from and interior space they weren't constrained by. This is why GM still sells the Savannah and Ford still doesn't consider the Transit a replacement for the E-series when it comes to selling cab and chassis vehicles.
Commercial vehicles are used hard and long. They wear out much faster than private cars. Sure they tend to go a lot more miles, but the time is not long. I don't see many vehicles from the 00s - the ones you do are either rusty (road salt gets them where I live), or they are collector vehicles that are rarely driven.
I almost never see Dodge cans either - and when I do they don't look roadworthy.
Well, when gasoline is nearly $10 a gallon a good fuel economy kind of becomes the primary goal.
Its like complaining European and Japanese cars are bad at everything except being small.
Good luck finding parking in Paris or Tokyo with a Ford F150 or Dodge Ram.
This story would have taken a very different turn if early on he had realized that befriending the office staff would have scored him a permanent place in one of those empty unused cubicles. No need to be best friends, but just being friendly and forthcoming now and then would have avoided their attitude of "who's that weirdo let's involve the site manager to get rid of him". It fits with his lonely wolf persona though which makes it easier for him to be a hero in his story and which he seems to cultivate in purpose.
It makes me sad that pleasantries are viewed by some as a time-consuming chore. You can recognize that person who really cares about how you are doing or what you did on the weekend, and it makes you warm inside. You don't need to shoot the shit for 30 minutes, but human interaction is what builds community, and most of us like that; all of us need it.
And sometimes I just really need to be able to walk over to the coffee maker and refill my cup while processing a complex problem in my head. Unfortunately due to my brain wiring, having even that 5 minute conversation makes a ton of that problem solving context evaporate and it’s exceptionally frustrating when that happens.
I’m fortunate that I can plan where I’m going to be working based on the probability of working on hard problems on a given day. The pleasantries are deeply pleasing for me, except when they’re not.
This guy is amazing - the dedication to his craft is inspiring!
It's a great piece of writing. We don't have enough contractors with truck desks writing or programming or making art.
Oh the horror!
> Oh the horror!
Indeed, that is precisely the case for some folks - with social anxiety. Or autism. Or a number of other mental states.
Maybe they're tired to their bones and barely have energy to even have one meal a day? Maybe they lost a loved one and never quite recovered since then?
It costs nothing to be polite and assume best intentions from the other side.
Pleasantries are fine, but that was never going to be a long term solution for him. He needed a space that was always available to him, where he is always welcome. For better or worse, that's not the site office. (Even if it worked on that job, you don't stay in one place as a contractor)
Most guilty, indeed.
(I'm in the UK, and I tend to associate that kind of approach to casual employment with dock work in sea ports. That ended with containerisation in the 1980s)
There are still union trades in the US, but they're a dying breed.
I don’t know why this is, but it’s always been this way. Workers don’t go into the building.
The office staff don’t want you there and if you stay too long, your fellow workers will rib you for hours about going to “the dark side”.
In my few years at the job, I had only been in the office area for 5 minutes to fill out some sort of paperwork. Most of that from when I was hired.
Seeing as he was in there on multiple occasions, he probably did establish rapport with the office staff, but left that out because it messed with the flow of the story.
The warehouse workers were explicitly banned from entering the office space. I assume because the company didn’t want them enjoying the free snacks and catered lunches.
I feel like you don't have any first hand experience with the kind of classist horseshit that is endemic to these kinds of work environments.
The key is to use this to your advantage.
> They’d followed my oily bootprints down the hallway and begun to leer. Who is this diesel-stinking contractor?
That's probably the real reason. Being a welder is messy, stinky work and office workers don't want that in their space.
https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/truck-on-rebuilding-a-worn-out...
I also really enjoyed the writing style.
https://www.booktopia.com.au/truck-john-jerome/book/97808745...
Has anyone had success finding a way do this, but for drawing? I've been trying to make time for a small comic project and, while I do have plenty of fifteen-minutes breaks I could use, those breaks are usually in places where drawing is impractical (such as buses).
If you are sewing a ballroom dress (that is any very large project) you probably need longer stretches to get it together. However you could take an individual piece and put in a few embroidery stitches.
Still it does feel like you get 2 minutes of work for your 15 minute break