Dealing with technical glitches

Rabea Gransberger: Once, I was at a conference and I was on the stage preparing to give a talk, but after the previous talk, some of the pins of the VGA adapter were not straight anymore. I couldn't fit them into my port and so there was a technician coming, and so on. It was probably only one minute before my talk that we actually got this fixed.

This incident didn't make me nervous: it actually made me more relaxed because I had something to focus on. I had to focus on the technical problem and not focus on being nervous about my talk and what to say. So, for me, it was a good experience because after that, I became much more relaxed before my talks.

Geertjan Wielenga: Have you ever had an experience at a conference that really did make you nervous?

Rabea Gransberger: The only experience I had where I was really anxious was at Devoxx Morocco.

I had a new laptop and I didn't know if my adapter would work because there were some scary stories online about the adapter that I had to use.

When I did the setup before my talk, I couldn't get a connection to the projector. I was worried because I wanted to do some live coding and I also needed my slides. At some point, one guy from the audience pointed out that the other end of the cable wasn't connected to the projector. I was very happy that he did because I didn't check that!

At a conference last year, they had many technical issues because they were using very long cables and half of the signal would be lost before it reached the projector. I was doing some live coding, which was an integral part of the talk, and whenever I moved the mouse, you would only see black-and-green lines on the projected screen. So, it didn't work at all.

In the end, I had to point people to a video recording of the talk, so they could actually watch that at home. That was kind of sad, but I think nobody was really angry because they did know that it wasn't my fault and there were many technical problems throughout the conference.

Geertjan Wielenga: Is burnout something that you have experienced?

Rabea Gransberger: Usually, when I'm coding, I forget about time. I tend to work too much. I think the most I did was two weeks in a row with more than 80 hours per week. After that, I was really exhausted.

Now I know the symptoms that I have when I work too much and I usually try to monitor them. Whenever I get some of the symptoms that show that I'm very overworked, I try to have a day to actually relax and not do that much work. There's no point in working so much because you will get slower and slower in actually getting your work done.

Geertjan Wielenga: What are some of the symptoms of burnout?

Rabea Gransberger: For me, when I work too much, I struggle to find my words and when I speak, it sounds terrible.

I find that I'm not able to remember things that easily, which I'm usually very good at. For example, I forget my lunch and leave it at home in the fridge. Then, I'm sitting in the office and don't have my lunch. Sometimes, I try to make some coffee in the office and forget to turn on the coffee machine, or I just brew some hot water because I forget to put in the coffee powder. All kinds of funny things happen!

I know how to monitor myself now, but three years ago, it was really bad. I had one day where I couldn't get up.

I was only staying at home and I couldn't get up because I was just so exhausted that my body refused to work. I made an appointment with a traditional healer and he found out that every muscle in my whole body was so tense that he couldn't do any of the tests he was trying to do.

The healer showed me some exercises to shake off the stress in the evening. Actually, you should do it three times a day. If you watch a dog, for example, after a dog has experienced a stressful situation, it shakes because it releases the tension of its muscles. Humans have forgotten how to do this. Shaking out stress used to be in our genes, but it became socially unacceptable and this is why we don't do it anymore. So, shake like a dog! It looks funny but it helps, so I'm trying to do that.

This is also one of the reasons that I'm not coding in the evenings anymore when I come home. I just need to take the time to recharge overnight to be able to work the next day.

Geertjan Wielenga: If you go to a conference and you attend a number of sessions, how much do you learn from that?