The knowledge of a job well done

[simont]

Something I've always found annoying about the fixing of certain kinds of problem – particularly those around the house – is that it's very hard to take pleasure in having done it, because my brain quickly forgets the problem was ever there.

For instance, many years ago I lived in a house where the door handle kept falling off one of the kitchen cupboards. Every time I tried to use the cupboard, the handle would come off in my hand, and in order to get the cupboard open I'd have to reinsert it and then twist it at an angle so that the loose screw would apply friction to the inside of the screw hole. Eventually I lost my patience and filled the screw hole with superglue, and then it was fine.

In my ideal world, I would have liked this action to be followed by an active sense of satisfaction at a job well done every time I used the cupboard and didn't have to fiddle with the door handle. This ongoing sense of satisfaction ought properly, it seems to me, to have lasted for a length of time commensurate with the length of time for which I'd had to put up with the problem.

But in fact, in only a day or so I had almost completely forgotten the problem had ever existed. I think this is because I'd always been bad at remembering about it anyway: it was rare that I'd go to that cupboard and remember to twist the handle at the angle that made it not fall off, and more usually I'd pull the handle in the normal way, swear, put it back on and then try again more carefully. So I very quickly reached the point where I'd reflexively yank the door open as if its handle had always worked fine, and not think twice about it. So that sense of satisfaction at having fixed the problem was completely gone.

(None of my housemates commented on the door handle having started working either, which I guessed was for the same reason.)

Of course, that doesn't mean it wasn't worth fixing the problem. It had previously irritated me every time, and afterwards it didn't. Clearly that bit of work with superglue did improve my life. But it didn't feel as if it had made my life better, since to know your life is better you have to remember that it was previously worse.

There's a whole class of household (and other) irritations that have this same property for me: as long as they're unfixed, they annoy me, but as soon as they're fixed I forget about them too quickly to derive any real satisfaction. It's as if such problems find one last way, with their metaphorical dying breath, to annoy me again.

Comments

[gerald_duck]

This happens plenty often in software engineering too, of course. Especially with build and version control scripts.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. I'm thinking of Joel Spolsky's essay about little splinters in life and UI design. Basically that there's lots of things that are not quite bad enough for you to remember them, so you always expect them to work, and then feel horribly maligned when they don't, like the cupboard door. The gist was that smoothing those out makes a tremendous difference to your life -- even if I don't remember it afterwards, on the few occasions I get round to it, I think I get enough satisfaction from fixing something like that to be very happy.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Isn't that the point of fixing the problem, though - to use up less energy thinking about the damn thing so you can concentrate on things that are more interesting? If there was a door handle that said "Look! I didn't fall off! Amn't I clever?" every time you opened it, it would be almost as distracting as one that fell off.

[simont]

Perhaps, but it would be distracting in a good way. For instance, if I get distracted from a complicated train of thought by somebody smacking me round the head, that's just bad all round. But if I'm distracted to an equal degree by someone kissing me (assuming it's someone I actually wanted to be kissed by), then on the one hand it's a shame about my train of thought, but on the other hand, I'm not sure I wouldn't rather be distracted like that more often!

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think we differ on this point. If I was distracted by somebody kissing me when I was thinking about something I would be a bit irritated that they hadn't told me first so I could write down where I'd got to and pick up where I left off later.

[simont]

I suppose it would depend on the proportions. If someone distractingly kissed me every time I was trying to think about something complicated, I might start to feel that that was all very nice but really there ought to be enough space in my life to include both kisses and getting useful stuff done...

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I would also wonder why this person was hanging around my lab with nothing better to do than kiss people; for starters they could make everybody some tea.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:) Although, if feeling productive is sufficiently helpful to our actual productivity, maybe we all ought to tape "look how clever I am for opening doors" notices to all our doors... :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I fear my labmates would not appreciate this.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Then serves them right for not making tea before offering to kiss people :)

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

My labmates do not kiss their colleagues! (Thankfully)

[keirf.livejournal.com]

Taking a step backwards, don't you find it odd that there is a kind of absolute scale of satisfaction/neutrality/dissatisfaction? I mean, relative to the dissatisfaction you used to experience, feeling nothing is a form of satisfaction, but you sense it as nothing.