We Will Get You Through It!
When deadlines become impossible, what I call the "Norfolk and Waypal" approach helps teams name the absurdity, protect their limits, and focus on what matters to get through it.
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A Different Kind of Content
Writing With AI — Part Two: Last time, I told you where this loop came from — a year of an AI telling me my architecture ideas were great, a manual workaround that only half worked, and a skill that finally automated the fix. I ended on the sentence I actually said out loud: I called it a content design interview — let's try a different kind of content. This is what happened next.
That's a Great Idea!
Writing With AI — Part One: I was three responses deep into an architecture review, and the AI had opened every single one of them the same way. "That's a great idea!" I'd offer a fix, it would say that, then it would raise the next issue for me to work through. Three in a row. And for about half a second, I let myself believe it: Man, this must actually be a great idea.
A Checklist When You're Stuck
I was two hours into a bug and completely certain it was mine. Properties I'd added on the Java side of an application weren't showing up on the JavaScript side. I'd just touched that code. It had to be my change — that's not a hunch, that's just how these things go, you break the thing you were last inside of.
Do It Wrong First
Somewhere in your organization there is a slide that says do it right the first time to save costs. I have sat in the room where that slide goes up. It always gets nods. It is the kind of sentence nobody can argue with, because arguing with it sounds like arguing for waste.
It's OK to Get Lucky
I couldn't write this post. I'd tried three or four times. I knew there was something I needed to say about feedback and track records and the way both of those quietly poison each other, but every draft came out either smug or evasive. So I did something I'd been circling for a while: I let an AI interview me about my own blind spots.
The Ground Is Moving
I want to be upfront about what this post is and isn't. It isn't a list of five things you should do to stay relevant in the age of AI. I've read plenty of those, and I've tried to write one myself more than once. Every time, it came out sounding like advice I didn't actually have the standing to give.