Poms in the Time of Corona
I flew to New Hampshire on March 12 with the intention of visiting for a week. A few days after my arrival, news started coming out regarding various states issuing stay-at-home directives. Given the uncertainty that those orders carry, I decided to cancel my return flight, and I’ve now been living in Portsmouth for 3 weeks. Wednesday, day 20, was the day the news and the state of the world were finally too much, and I had to stand in the kitchen and cry for 5 minutes before I could sit back down at my computer and try to work.
I’m a newly minted software engineer, after having graduated from the Turing School last April. For more effective problem solving, productivity, and attention spans, our teachers encouraged us to employ the use of the Pomodoro Technique, which is essentially a 5-minute break every 25 minutes. As students, we would “take poms” whenever the instructors allowed. We would also do this whenever we ran into a particularly challenging problem in need of solving. By some magic, in the process of walking outside to get some fresh air and people watch or walking to the sink to wash a dish, a new solution would often present itself and we could return to the problem with fresh eyes and a new way to frame and hopefully solve the challenge.
Once I started working as a real developer in the wild, I tried to continue the practice of taking poms, and sometimes that’s just looking out the window for a few minutes, walking around the block, or taking a water break when I’m stuck on something. At first, I found that this technique still worked in a real job setting, and I would occasionally* have an “ah ha” moment while washing my hands or walking up and down 5 flights of stairs a few times. For the last three weeks though, poms haven’t been helping.
When I look out the window now, my eyes fixate on the woman in her car across the street who is putting on a face mask before cutting the engine and walking inside. When I’m washing my hands, I’m either counting to 20 or singing “Ms. Jackson” by OutKast, so there’s no free space for solutioning there. I’m trying really hard to keep my distance from people when I go for walks around the block, so it’s difficult for me to focus on anything other than traffic and trying not to get hit by a car when I step off the sidewalk to create space.
The frustrations from my current inability to problem solve, coupled with my anxiety for the whole world right now have slowly been building, and I think two days ago, it just hit its zenith, and I couldn’t stop the tears from gushing.
The anxiety is not just fear for my parents or my siblings (brother: a new dad, sister: an ER nurse) or the rest of my friends and family scattered across the country. It’s for people in abusive homes, for the homeless, for children whose parents can’t or won’t teach them, for people dying in isolation, for people left isolated because of the death of their sole-caregiver, for medical professionals and emergency responders, for job loss, for all those who are scared, and for the uncertainty of how long these feelings will last.
It’s a lot. And yesterday, it felt like too much, so I cried in the kitchen, standing over a pot of boiling broccoli and noodles**.
So what’s the solution here?
There’s uncertainty and hurt all over the world right now, and I’m trying to remind myself that there’s still good. There are stories of people who are starting to feel better, strangers are finding ways to care for one another, and my alma mater is reminding me that my favorite flowers are blooming.
My poms may not be leading me toward better code right now, but I still believe they’re worthwhile. I know I can’t solve any problem with worry and I should focus on the things I can control instead, one of those being how I care for myself and others. I hope you’ll take some care for yourself, along with at least one intentional pom today, and whether you use that 5 minutes for praying, meditating, crying, or angry dancing, I believe it’ll be worthwhile for you too.
*It bears repeating that I have received extensive support from the more experienced devs on my team, without whom my “ah ha” moments would be significantly scarcer. Also, I love my team.
**My favorite feeling-sorry-for-myself recipe: Frozen broccoli with Maruchan Ramen. Drain off all the water, add half of the packet of chicken flavor, add a spoonful of peanut butter, sprinkle sesame seeds and a little ginger if you have it, and top it off with Sriracha.
