Greetings!
This week, I wanted to kick off with the pattern “Retreat Into Competence” from “Apprenticeship Patterns” by Dave Hoover and Adewale Oshineye.
Retreat Into Competence relates to scenarios when you realize how little you know or you’re facing a challenge that’s making you reflect back on your knowledge, and you feel overwhelmed. The solution to this is to give yourself a moment–or a little longer, and step back from the challenge you’re facing. Then, take some time to work on something you’re familiar with or know that you’re capable of doing.
The pattern touches upon how you may feel the thrill of learning new technology along the way of your journey, and the satisfaction of delivering things to customers. And then, you meet more experienced people along the way who make you feel that you really know nothing, and you can also feel this way when there are fast-approaching deadlines and product issues. And sometimes, to deal with this, you need to go backwards to move forward again.
The book warns to not retreat too far back into what you’re comfortable with if you’re afraid of failure, because what you’re comfortable with may no longer be used in the future and the extent of what you know is very limited and you may need to face the consequences of that. Therefore, the book says to use this pattern only as a little pick-me-up, and not to use it for too long because it can be a double edged sword. For action, it’s suggested to pick up something you are well acquainted with and work with it once again.
I find it interesting that I have utilized this pattern with my internship. When given a new task to code for something in a report, I often change the report template and form corresponding to that report. My biggest challenges come from changing the code in the report, so I sometimes find myself taking a break from that and moving to the template or changing the report form–tasks I find more simple that I have a better grasp on. I agree with the book that it is a short-term fix and should eventually move forward. I’ve recently realized how much I’ve learned from my internship when I took a step back to work on the form and template. It had been something that I had no idea how to handle not too long ago, and now it’s something I’m most comfortable changing. And that’s what made me feel so accomplished and happier to move onto the report code, knowing that I’ll eventually be able to consider the report code something not too difficult to handle. There wasn’t anything I disagreed with.
CS With Sarah 