This is a weird comparison. On one hand you have an independent contractor preparing for an engagement. The other is actively collaborating with a team to make a thing. The less bad (but still not great) comparison is to Reeves' allocation of time during principal photography.
On multiple occasions I've spent weeks out of the office in training sessions. Even with on-site training we were pretty good at turning peoples' responsibilities off so they could maximize the time spent with someone we flew in for a few days. Or there's that big bit of training before getting a job at all: university. (That's another rabbit hole of arguing about topical focus within education, but still a portion of someone's life dedicated to learning.)
I can kinda see what the author is trying to get at, but it's weird to use training to make a point about time management. Training is the main type of work I've seen offices willing to let someone go fully incommunicado. Unless you work somewhere that doesn't believe in training. And cramming an online module in between normal tasks isn't training, it's more like reading documentation (it's a con so the personnel software can get an entry that X is trained in Foo).
Oh?… I like weird! (I don’t care for how you use the word though.)
Stylistically, semantically, and philosophically I think you’ll get more mileage by avoiding your negative, constrained, unfamiliar-is-bad usage of “weird”. And now my unsolicited advice comes to a close.
Maybe 'unfit', 'ill-suited' or 'irrelevant' would be more suitable.
I love Cal's writing, but I feel like it's really going against his mantra (of Deep Work) to be making posts like this that try to pluck meaning out of nothing for the sake of marketing.
Your comment is so bloody weird. It gives off vibes of those dudes who one day shave their heads and then spend the rest of their lives telling you you should get rid of anger and embrace the light and all that rubbish. Or of Christian assholes wailing on repeat "Jesus still loves you" whenever you disagree with them.
I've too often found that weird is an indirect way of casting aspersions on something. For example, most people are unlikely to say...
> "That idea is unfamiliar to me, therefore I reject it."
... but many would be comfortable saying ...
> That idea is weird.
Shifting the language in that way isn't genuine; it obscures the core reasoning behind a rather vague word ("weird").
Of course, lots of other things can be happening when people use the word "weird"; they might select it carefully for some particular meaning. That's fine.
I sometimes suggest that people be more aware of how their writing comes across. If that is "weird" (definition below), then maybe we need more weird.
A comment gets read by many people, but it is only written by one. So if an author wants to communicate well, the author should be aware of the audience.
weird
suggesting something supernatural; uncanny:
the weird crying of a seal.
(informal) very strange; bizarre:
a weird coincidence |
all sorts of weird and wonderful characters.
On multiple occasions I've spent weeks out of the office in training sessions. Even with on-site training we were pretty good at turning peoples' responsibilities off so they could maximize the time spent with someone we flew in for a few days. Or there's that big bit of training before getting a job at all: university. (That's another rabbit hole of arguing about topical focus within education, but still a portion of someone's life dedicated to learning.)
I can kinda see what the author is trying to get at, but it's weird to use training to make a point about time management. Training is the main type of work I've seen offices willing to let someone go fully incommunicado. Unless you work somewhere that doesn't believe in training. And cramming an online module in between normal tasks isn't training, it's more like reading documentation (it's a con so the personnel software can get an entry that X is trained in Foo).