😴 AI is making me tired

I’ve found myself being pretty tired the last few weeks. Ever since I started my new job, I’ve actually felt energised and have been enjoying feeling more vital and being able to do stuff after work rather than just collapsing onto the sofa. Coding more has been an absolute joy and I really missed that when I was a Staff Engineer in my previous role. My ex-colleague posted a really interesting article about AI fatigue on LinkedIn and it really resonated with me. It posits that using AI means you are reviewing code all the time instead of writing it - writing code is creative and energising, whereas reviewing code is exhausting, especially when it’s been written by an AI agent and you need to carefully double-check everything for hallucinations and errors. Add to that the fact that I’ve been up against a deadline so I’ve been sending Claude off to work on the feature work while I do various admin tasks or reviewing colleagues’ PRs and I am starting to feel like I’m spreading myself too thin. I started setting pomodoro timers again this week and making sure I focus on just one thing during those 25 minute periods and it has really helped. Having the five minute break afterwards is also a good excuse to walk around and have a stretch which meant my body wasn’t as fatigued either. If you’re using AI a lot and you’re feeling knackered, this might be an issue for you too.

🎉 I passed my probation

I got some fantastic news this week - I passed my probation, so now I am a fully-fledged member of the team! This has made me inordinately happy. I don’t know about anyone else, but my brain never feels very settled during a probation period. By all accounts, things here have been going really well - I’ve been doing lots of feature work, weighing in on big decisions, sharing knowledge through talks and pairing and getting lots of shout outs from my colleagues - and yet, I’ve felt like I could get fired any moment. Anxiety can be a right pain - you can tell yourself everything is fine all you want, but when it comes down to it, you never really believe it. Fingers crossed having my probation in the bag means I will be able to put down those insecurities. If you're in your probation period too, hang on in there and I hope you get good news soon too.

😅 It’s okay to be wrong

I suggested something this week that I was quite excited about. I had seen an opportunity to make our workflows easier and improve testing. It was something we did in my previous role that I thought I could bring across. I shared it with the team and was met with an (understandably) lukewarm reception. Initially, I was confused - surely this is a good idea? Why is everyone being so negative? But then I actually thought about it for a minute and realised I was the one in the wrong. Just because something works in one workplace doesn’t mean it will in another. I’m glad my colleagues felt able to stand up to me in this way (they were very nice about it!) and help me figure out why what I was suggesting was a bad idea. I ended up agreeing completely and this is the thing I took away from it: it’s okay to have ideas and it’s okay for those ideas to be bad. Not every idea is going to be the amazing thing that changes people’s lives and that is totally fine. It's important to be graceful when this kind of thing happens and not let it get you down. I’m definitely not going to let this stop me from making more suggestions - maybe next time will be the one!