I genuinely like and trust my colleagues. I really enjoy working with people who care about very similar things and are deeply into the same ideas/culture. I’ve learned a lot from them.
Being able to (somewhat) shape the role to what I enjoy and am good at (e.g. I hate public speaking but love writing—others at CEA are the opposite, so I can write speeches for them). This is something that we try to do for everyone at CEA: to find a role that really plays to their strengths.
Facing a lot of open-ended and challenging projects, and having feedback (either from colleagues, stakeholders, or reality) on them. I think this is a great way to learn (and again, I think this is maybe pretty common at CEA).
When I feel like we’re making progress, it’s amazing. It’s so good to invest deeply in something and see it pay off.
Negatives: (I think this basically boils down to “when it goes wrong, it’s stressful”)
The flip side of shaping the role around me is that I can’t always shape the role to my interests and personal likes! I gave a talk at the EA Coordination Forum and that really stressed me out (I think probably it was a mistake to give the talk).
The flip side of the progress is that I feel pretty bad when we mess up or I fail at some project I’ve been working on.
The flip side of the open-endedness is that it’s often unclear whether I’m doing the right thing. I spend a lot of time reflecting on this sort of thing. It’s a bit stressful.
I love my job, and feel very lucky.
Positives:
I genuinely like and trust my colleagues. I really enjoy working with people who care about very similar things and are deeply into the same ideas/culture. I’ve learned a lot from them.
Being able to (somewhat) shape the role to what I enjoy and am good at (e.g. I hate public speaking but love writing—others at CEA are the opposite, so I can write speeches for them). This is something that we try to do for everyone at CEA: to find a role that really plays to their strengths.
Facing a lot of open-ended and challenging projects, and having feedback (either from colleagues, stakeholders, or reality) on them. I think this is a great way to learn (and again, I think this is maybe pretty common at CEA).
When I feel like we’re making progress, it’s amazing. It’s so good to invest deeply in something and see it pay off.
Negatives: (I think this basically boils down to “when it goes wrong, it’s stressful”)
The flip side of shaping the role around me is that I can’t always shape the role to my interests and personal likes! I gave a talk at the EA Coordination Forum and that really stressed me out (I think probably it was a mistake to give the talk).
The flip side of the progress is that I feel pretty bad when we mess up or I fail at some project I’ve been working on.
The flip side of the open-endedness is that it’s often unclear whether I’m doing the right thing. I spend a lot of time reflecting on this sort of thing. It’s a bit stressful.