Ben User Manual

# Ben User Manual ### My style - **Direct**. I like it when everybody gets to the heart of an issue, doesn’t beat around the bush, and addresses elephants in the room. If someone disagrees with something I like to just hear it so we can hash it out. (In part this is because I am very bad at picking up on subtleties and subtext 🤦‍♂️) - **A weird mix of abstraction and low-level details.** I flip between the big picture (“why are we doing this thing?” “What does this look like in 10 years” “what are the principles behind this”) and brass tacks “ok what does implementing this actually look like.” I try, but I don’t always hit the right level of abstraction for a specific situation. - **High trust.** I like to be in situations where I trust that everybody is competent and aligned towards the same goals. I hate keeping secrets, politics, looking over people’s shoulders, having other people look over my shoulder, etc. - **I think by writing.** Externalizing my thoughts via writing helps me unpack a situation and actually feel confident in a decision about it. ### What I value - **Initiative/bias towards action.** I really value it when people see something that needs to be done and just takes care of it. - **Good, long-form writing.** I think long-form writing is the best way to both think through things and make sure multiple people are on the same page. In my dream world, Spectech would be writing-based similar to [Amazon](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2022/08/30/why-and-how-every-company-should-use-amazons-six-page-memo-format/?sh=3bccaa18311e) or [Stripe](https://slab.com/blog/stripe-writing-culture/) are. - **Candidness.** If you disagree or think something is stupid, tell me! - **Agency.** Similar to bias towards action, I value the ability to do things without needing to ask for permission and hope to be able other people to do as much as that as possible. - **Specificity.** I think details matter, so I value specificity about ideas, plants, etc. The corollary of this is that I value the ability to say “I don’t know (but will figure it out).” (I also think this makes communication much more efficient.) - **Walking the line between silliness and seriousness.** I think that for the most part, people shouldn’t take themselves too seriously, but there are serious situations that one shouldn’t take lightly. - **Wonder.** In large part this is an aesthetic thing, but I think the world is just a better place if we can maintain a sense of wonder/try to inject things into life that aren’t purely utilitarian. - **Ambition.** To a large extent this is an aesthetic thing, but I also think that ambition tempered with reality, leads to great things. This includes ambitions towards things that I don’t necessarily understand! - **Numbers, when possible.** This is perhaps a subset of specificity, but I like to be able to put numbers on things as much as possible *but no more.* Putting numbers on things that don’t matter can be just as bad. - **Systems.** I like explicit statements of “here is how we do things and why.” Partially because I think it makes things work better and prevents miscommunication and partially because of aesthetics. (Of course premature systematizing is also bad!) - **Long chunks of uninterrupted time.** I need big chunks of uninterrupted time to get into the brain-state to do long-form writing-thinking (see above). This is why I try to clear my calendar on Thursdays. - [Here is a much longer list of values](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Values) ### What I don’t have patience for - **Half-assing things.** I hate it when people do part of a job but don’t do the full thing or do the absolute bare minimum instead of trying to do it well. Note that this is different than a principled decision to 80/20 something. - **Bad writing.** As you might have realized by now, I take writing really seriously. I don’t think writing needs to be amazing, but there are some guidelines that, with some work I think everybody can use avoid the things that make writing truly bad. - **Pointless meetings (and more generally pointless things)**. I’m in the school of thought that meetings are the thing that enables the real work. I just generally hate pointless things more generally. - **Bureaucracy**. See above! More broadly, I actually believe that the overextension of bureaucracy is one of the great evils of the modern world. (I do realize that bureaucracies serve a purpose in moderation.) - Unnecessary Metrics - **Having to dig around for links.** This is just one of my pet peeves — I really like to meta-know where I would look to find the link for a doc, etc. ### How to best communicate with me - **Keep me in the loop!** I do like to know what’s going on with things, even if it’s not actionable on my part. (Of course if it’s a lot of work to keep me in the loop and I don’t need to take action, don’t go out of your way.) - **Let me know whether something needs action on my part.** Unless it’s explicit, I’m of bad at figuring out whether something needs me to take action on it (and what that action is) or whether it’s just informational communication. - **Let me know how urgent something is.** I have the instinct to drop everything and work on something that someone else puts on my plate. This is not always the best move, so please do let me know how urgent something is. - **Texting for urgent things and chatter; email and docs for bigger things.** I find unpacking complicated things via text hard and if decisions are being made I find they get lost in text chats. - **Agendas for meetings.** It’s easy for meetings to be useless without agendas. - **If it’s a complicated topic with pros and cons I’m a big fan of a short memo followed by a meeting to discuss** See previous points about pointless meetings, texting, and long form writing. - **Treat asynchronous communication as asynchronous.** I like to be able to shoot off texts or emails whenever I want without worrying whether it’s bothering/putting pressure on someone to work when it’s off time. Similarly, I like to be able to ignore texts/emails when I want to unplug! (This also ties to the specifying urgency thing). ### How to help me - **Prevent open tickets / take things off my plate.** You can help me by giving me the confidence that something is actually being taken care of so I don’t have to think about it or check in. - **Direct feedback.** Please give me feedback on what I’m doing, what the org is doing, etc. I can sometimes be oblivious. ### What people misunderstand about me - **I understand things by arguing.** I will often argue about something not to try to win or pick a fight, but to poke at an idea. - **An expression of strong opinion doesn’t mean it’s not negotiable.** I have strong opinions about most things and I like to express them, but that doesn’t mean I won’t change them (see point about arguing). - **Criticism is not personal.** When I criticize work, I am not making a value judgement on the person who did that work. - **I’m actually an intense introvert.** I like people! I just find them exhausting. (This is one reason why I avoid unnecessary meetings) - **I’m an optimist at my core.** I usually imagine the best case scenario for anything. ### RANDOM BEN IDIOSYNCRASIES - Just because taking time off makes me antsy does *not* mean you should follow my lead. - I think everybody should eat/drink whenever they want/need, including during meetings! - I eat one meal a day because otherwise I eat too much.  [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Ben+User+Manual) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Ben+User+Manual)