Speed Merchants vs Perfectionists
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Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Nottingham UK
Posts: 241
Speed Merchants vs Perfectionists
I don't know if this is a question related entirely to ACoA or not, but this is the only remotely psychology-related forum i am a member of, and i have no idea how to phrase this as a question for Google, so I'll ask you guys.
Why is it some (most?) of us are speed merchants, who rush through tasks given to us by others in good time, but risk getting criticised for the quality of our work, whilst others are "tortoises", finding themselves hung up over details and always getting criticised for taking too long? Furthermore it seems to be a lifelong trait, what causes it, and how do you go about changing, is it even possible?
My Dad was a perfectionist. If he did any DIY task, the results would be absolutely professional. If he decided to hoover the bedrooms, it would take him the whole afternoon. He worked in engineering.
My Step Dad was fast, doing everything. He had a managerial, office type job.
My Mum (the one who, increasingly, drank..) was a bit of both.
By the time I was old enough to be doing chores, my stepdad was on the scene. And this is where i first noticed that i was a tortoise.
If I was asked to wash the kitchen floor, well i'd get down on my hands and knees and start scrubbing. Down there, with a child's good eyesight, i could see a whole lot more dirt than stood up, so i had to get it all too, right? I'd always get told, "you've got two speeds - dead slow, and stop!" by mum and step dad. Mum would always inspect the work afterward though, and would often point out things i'd missed too. I don't think I ever got a "Good job..." that wasn't qualified in some way in the very same sentence.
At this point, you may be wondering what difference it makes if, while watching TV on a saturday afternoon, someone takes two hours to wash your car rather than 90 minutes, provided the job is good? Well Step Dad would point out when i finally leave school and start working, i'd be expected to work fast so shape up !
And so it has proved ! So why have i always weathered such criticisms, why can't i change?
I suppose I need to try and understand the mentality of someone who is the opposite way. Most kids if asked to do something like that will rush though it as quick as possible to get it over with, and get back to doing something they enjoy.
I suppose part of the issue was I didn't have anything in particular to look forward to doing after. My parents moved frequently, so i was a bit of a loner and seldom had anything great lined up for the weekends - other than not being at school !
The other was that rushing and forcing the task would make the work physically harder and more unpleasant, which might be a worthwhile tradeoff if you can get it done in 10 minutes , but if it's going to take an hour to do even working flat out and ending up wreathed in sweat and risking minor cuts etc. i'd rather just try and zone into the task, find a way of making it less unpleasant and it's done when it's done.
The above two definitely applied when it came to doing homework (though not to my working career). There may actually have been skills reasons to do with why "finishing fast" wasn't an option, i now realise as an adult, it wasn't just stubbornness on my part.
I had issues with my handwriting. I was a lefty with an unusual way of holding the pen. My handwriting had been extremely untidy throughout my education, and the only way i could achieve halfway acceptable quality was to go extremely slowly and concentrate hard on the forming of each letter. I see also, there's a link between handwriting difficulties and Asperger's spectrum disorder - perhaps that's me?
My new school also placed very high emphasis on the physical presentation of submitted school-work. Fancy binders to protect our exercise books were compulsory. All homework HAD to be written with a fountain pen.. ballpoint pens were not allowed.
The other problem was that, while i was now quite motivated, as a younger child i hated school. I had few friends, got picked on, which made me not too interested in the learning process either. Right about the time they were teaching english grammar etc. Whilst I've subsequently learned to construct sentences that read ok, it was a trial and error process, and still have no idea about the rules and principles involved. When answering a homework question, i'd have a perfectly formed argument in my head, then get desperately fustrated when trying to make a sentence expressing the same. It would start ok , then i'd realised i couldn't fit all the arguments in , or had left something out, or had left too big a gap between the two points that needed linking the most.
I'd cross out and cross out and try over again until i got something that sounded right. Because of the school's policy on presentation, i could not submit something covered in corrections nor could i manage good handwriting when concentrating on WHAT was being written rather than HOW it was written. So, I'd always have to write it out again as a neat copy for submission once i'd finished my "draft" .
Once i started working, i soon learned that employers indeed value speed above all else. Like my first Saturday job, aged 14 at a Supermarket. My supervisor told me to go through this aisle, check the stock level at each shelf location, anywhere where there was room for another box worth of stock, retreive such a box from the warehouse and bring that item too full. A few hours later she showed up furious, why wasn't i finished yet ? You've been slacking, this is a verbal warning, next time it's a written warning then you get sacked. As I stood there with sweat pouring off me etc.
This place was the only supermarket in miles around and was pandemonium on a Saturday. Actual trolley-rage fight would break out between housewives, and it was in fact impossible to keep the shelves 100% stocked and fronted on the busy day - we had a night shift for that very thing. My classmates had the nous to somehow read between the lines , fill up only the items that were in danger of running out completely and ignore the rest , but i took the instruction literally.
Then there was the time i was temping, my assignment that day was an office, the task data entry. "This is accounts information, accuracy is essential" I was told as it sat down. Got it.
I'd touch type on the numeric keypad, but glance to the screen before hitting ENTER to make sure the digits matched what i thought i'd typed. Around lunchtime, boss shows up with a scowl "This isn't good enough, job must be finished by 5pm today!".
Panicked, i never lifted my eyes from the receipt roll again, simply bashing ENTER after each group of keystrokes and hoping for the best. I made the deadline, and was surprised to receive a "well, done, your data was by far the most accurate entered today."
Accurate? WTF this morning i'd made only the briefest glance to check my input and this afternoon i might as well have had the monitor turned off because i didn't look at the screen at all. I think his instruction would have been well targeted to the typcial kid who splashes a bit of water around and makes a few quick wipes on his dad's car before rushing back upstairs or out to play with his mates. For me, the best thing for my supervisor to say would have been
"We're really under the kosh today and need to get all this data entered by 5pm no matter what. Be as accurate as you can though, this is accounts stuff". Then i would have known how to play it.
**I can't resist this anecdote.
They asked for me to come back to that accounts office to do a 6 month stint, of data entry.
Every lunchtime , we'd have to stop for one hour while a backup was run onto DAT tapes.
They had 5 tapes, one for each day of the week.
Now , I was using this income to build my own pc and try teach myself the arts of PC tech. I had recently added a backup tape system to my computer , since windows 95 responded to tinkering much like a bomb, and cd burners were not yet affordable. I also experimented with digitally storing my music collection on this PC and it's tapes, and was impressed with the quality.
I noticed with interest that the same 5 tapes were re-used every week, and that the backup software did not have the "vefify" option checked.
One monday we came in, and the server was OFF. It had a UPS, which was flashing an error code number on its screen, I wondered if it would be a good idea to find the manual and look up what that code meant? But I was a lowly temp, and the boss simply plugged the server directly into one of the wall outlet, bypassing this UPS with it's backup supply battery that was clearly faulty. There was an almighty bang and a jet of smoke emanated from the back of the server. It transpired that some kind of short circuit had developed within the server and the UPS had instantly killed power to prevent damage. Once bypassed, this server proceeded to fry itself and every hard drive contained therein.
"No problem!", he said, "we have the tapes"
Unfortunately it turns out these were all knackered as well. Lacking separate read/write heads it could only do one or the other, it spent an hour dutifully writing the contents of the server to the backup tape every lunchtime, but had no way to know if the tape actually kept the magnetic imprints implied upon it, without going over the reel again in "read" mode - aka the Verify checkbox. Those tapes had worn out and become unsuable goodness knows how long ago, and nobody found out till today.
The boss kept his job, and simply ordered the old files brought up again from archive for us to start our last six month's data entry work over from scratch. At this point i'd seen enough however and asked the agency to find me another assignment!
Why is it some (most?) of us are speed merchants, who rush through tasks given to us by others in good time, but risk getting criticised for the quality of our work, whilst others are "tortoises", finding themselves hung up over details and always getting criticised for taking too long? Furthermore it seems to be a lifelong trait, what causes it, and how do you go about changing, is it even possible?
My Dad was a perfectionist. If he did any DIY task, the results would be absolutely professional. If he decided to hoover the bedrooms, it would take him the whole afternoon. He worked in engineering.
My Step Dad was fast, doing everything. He had a managerial, office type job.
My Mum (the one who, increasingly, drank..) was a bit of both.
By the time I was old enough to be doing chores, my stepdad was on the scene. And this is where i first noticed that i was a tortoise.
If I was asked to wash the kitchen floor, well i'd get down on my hands and knees and start scrubbing. Down there, with a child's good eyesight, i could see a whole lot more dirt than stood up, so i had to get it all too, right? I'd always get told, "you've got two speeds - dead slow, and stop!" by mum and step dad. Mum would always inspect the work afterward though, and would often point out things i'd missed too. I don't think I ever got a "Good job..." that wasn't qualified in some way in the very same sentence.
At this point, you may be wondering what difference it makes if, while watching TV on a saturday afternoon, someone takes two hours to wash your car rather than 90 minutes, provided the job is good? Well Step Dad would point out when i finally leave school and start working, i'd be expected to work fast so shape up !
And so it has proved ! So why have i always weathered such criticisms, why can't i change?
I suppose I need to try and understand the mentality of someone who is the opposite way. Most kids if asked to do something like that will rush though it as quick as possible to get it over with, and get back to doing something they enjoy.
I suppose part of the issue was I didn't have anything in particular to look forward to doing after. My parents moved frequently, so i was a bit of a loner and seldom had anything great lined up for the weekends - other than not being at school !
The other was that rushing and forcing the task would make the work physically harder and more unpleasant, which might be a worthwhile tradeoff if you can get it done in 10 minutes , but if it's going to take an hour to do even working flat out and ending up wreathed in sweat and risking minor cuts etc. i'd rather just try and zone into the task, find a way of making it less unpleasant and it's done when it's done.
The above two definitely applied when it came to doing homework (though not to my working career). There may actually have been skills reasons to do with why "finishing fast" wasn't an option, i now realise as an adult, it wasn't just stubbornness on my part.
I had issues with my handwriting. I was a lefty with an unusual way of holding the pen. My handwriting had been extremely untidy throughout my education, and the only way i could achieve halfway acceptable quality was to go extremely slowly and concentrate hard on the forming of each letter. I see also, there's a link between handwriting difficulties and Asperger's spectrum disorder - perhaps that's me?
My new school also placed very high emphasis on the physical presentation of submitted school-work. Fancy binders to protect our exercise books were compulsory. All homework HAD to be written with a fountain pen.. ballpoint pens were not allowed.
The other problem was that, while i was now quite motivated, as a younger child i hated school. I had few friends, got picked on, which made me not too interested in the learning process either. Right about the time they were teaching english grammar etc. Whilst I've subsequently learned to construct sentences that read ok, it was a trial and error process, and still have no idea about the rules and principles involved. When answering a homework question, i'd have a perfectly formed argument in my head, then get desperately fustrated when trying to make a sentence expressing the same. It would start ok , then i'd realised i couldn't fit all the arguments in , or had left something out, or had left too big a gap between the two points that needed linking the most.
I'd cross out and cross out and try over again until i got something that sounded right. Because of the school's policy on presentation, i could not submit something covered in corrections nor could i manage good handwriting when concentrating on WHAT was being written rather than HOW it was written. So, I'd always have to write it out again as a neat copy for submission once i'd finished my "draft" .
Once i started working, i soon learned that employers indeed value speed above all else. Like my first Saturday job, aged 14 at a Supermarket. My supervisor told me to go through this aisle, check the stock level at each shelf location, anywhere where there was room for another box worth of stock, retreive such a box from the warehouse and bring that item too full. A few hours later she showed up furious, why wasn't i finished yet ? You've been slacking, this is a verbal warning, next time it's a written warning then you get sacked. As I stood there with sweat pouring off me etc.
This place was the only supermarket in miles around and was pandemonium on a Saturday. Actual trolley-rage fight would break out between housewives, and it was in fact impossible to keep the shelves 100% stocked and fronted on the busy day - we had a night shift for that very thing. My classmates had the nous to somehow read between the lines , fill up only the items that were in danger of running out completely and ignore the rest , but i took the instruction literally.
Then there was the time i was temping, my assignment that day was an office, the task data entry. "This is accounts information, accuracy is essential" I was told as it sat down. Got it.
I'd touch type on the numeric keypad, but glance to the screen before hitting ENTER to make sure the digits matched what i thought i'd typed. Around lunchtime, boss shows up with a scowl "This isn't good enough, job must be finished by 5pm today!".
Panicked, i never lifted my eyes from the receipt roll again, simply bashing ENTER after each group of keystrokes and hoping for the best. I made the deadline, and was surprised to receive a "well, done, your data was by far the most accurate entered today."
Accurate? WTF this morning i'd made only the briefest glance to check my input and this afternoon i might as well have had the monitor turned off because i didn't look at the screen at all. I think his instruction would have been well targeted to the typcial kid who splashes a bit of water around and makes a few quick wipes on his dad's car before rushing back upstairs or out to play with his mates. For me, the best thing for my supervisor to say would have been
"We're really under the kosh today and need to get all this data entered by 5pm no matter what. Be as accurate as you can though, this is accounts stuff". Then i would have known how to play it.
**I can't resist this anecdote.
They asked for me to come back to that accounts office to do a 6 month stint, of data entry.
Every lunchtime , we'd have to stop for one hour while a backup was run onto DAT tapes.
They had 5 tapes, one for each day of the week.
Now , I was using this income to build my own pc and try teach myself the arts of PC tech. I had recently added a backup tape system to my computer , since windows 95 responded to tinkering much like a bomb, and cd burners were not yet affordable. I also experimented with digitally storing my music collection on this PC and it's tapes, and was impressed with the quality.
I noticed with interest that the same 5 tapes were re-used every week, and that the backup software did not have the "vefify" option checked.
One monday we came in, and the server was OFF. It had a UPS, which was flashing an error code number on its screen, I wondered if it would be a good idea to find the manual and look up what that code meant? But I was a lowly temp, and the boss simply plugged the server directly into one of the wall outlet, bypassing this UPS with it's backup supply battery that was clearly faulty. There was an almighty bang and a jet of smoke emanated from the back of the server. It transpired that some kind of short circuit had developed within the server and the UPS had instantly killed power to prevent damage. Once bypassed, this server proceeded to fry itself and every hard drive contained therein.
"No problem!", he said, "we have the tapes"
Unfortunately it turns out these were all knackered as well. Lacking separate read/write heads it could only do one or the other, it spent an hour dutifully writing the contents of the server to the backup tape every lunchtime, but had no way to know if the tape actually kept the magnetic imprints implied upon it, without going over the reel again in "read" mode - aka the Verify checkbox. Those tapes had worn out and become unsuable goodness knows how long ago, and nobody found out till today.
The boss kept his job, and simply ordered the old files brought up again from archive for us to start our last six month's data entry work over from scratch. At this point i'd seen enough however and asked the agency to find me another assignment!
Member
Join Date: Feb 2013
Posts: 923
Liberator--this is a great post...mostly because (as a tortoise)--I have spent years and way too much time wishing I was a speed merchant (& am surrounded by them)--it has become harder in the technology age...and I have been going through quite a bit of angst for various reasons.
Nice to know I'm not the only one who notices this kind of thing...have a 22 year old daughter who was the same way...homework was very hard and time-consuming for her...but I knew she was a perfectionist in Kindergarten and so worked with her and worked also in her first elementary grades to have her in lower key teaching situations.
Nice to know I'm not the only one who notices this kind of thing...have a 22 year old daughter who was the same way...homework was very hard and time-consuming for her...but I knew she was a perfectionist in Kindergarten and so worked with her and worked also in her first elementary grades to have her in lower key teaching situations.
Member
Join Date: May 2010
Location: USA
Posts: 13,560
My DD who is nine is as slow as syrup. It drives me nuts sometimes b/c I am the opposite. I have to sit back and regroup b/c when I look at things, I think she is the one who is taking the time to enjoy life a bit more, while I am rushing through it.
Bunnies!
Join Date: Aug 2012
Location: Florida
Posts: 1,905
I honestly don't have an answer for this. My problem is I'm a procrastinator. If I can put it off, I will. But I also get to a point where I couldn't care less what the outcome is, and I shut down and isolate under the pressure. Great food for thought, though.
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Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2014
Location: Nottingham UK
Posts: 241
I can procrastinate plenty too. Not at work, and not during the phase of my education i was talking about - i had it managed/under control then. But i'm likely doing it now, wrt to my own recovery. For example, I'd get stressed thinking about schoolwork, because i was worried about my future, and contemplating doing the schoolwork would trigger my anxieties. So I could get into procrastinating over it, which of course would make me more worried and want to procrastinate more, though eventually the flight or flight response would kick in and i might pull an all nighter catching up on missed work.
My way of "motivating" myself to work was to tell myself over and over how important this all was to my future etc and that if i didn't get the work done i was lazy and a worthless person etc. which in the long run just made things worse, amping up the anxiety behind it all. Increasingly worked in an all-or-nothing manner, studying for crazy long hours because it made me feel like a good person and dealt with my anxiety, but when i eventually missed a day or two through needing to rest, i'd find it impossible to get started back up again, because my anxiety about the work would build out of control after two day's break making it impossible to pick up the books again.
Anyway... at the exams you take in the UK aged 16 i did well, but thinks fell apart afterward. By that stage, things weren't so good at home and I just needed to get a place of my own and a job for my own sanity.
Re: tortoise housework
I realise now that I don't have this issue cleaning my own house/car whatever, i'm quite pragmatic. That's because i don't need to worry about another person coming over to inspect the workmanship afterward.
My way of "motivating" myself to work was to tell myself over and over how important this all was to my future etc and that if i didn't get the work done i was lazy and a worthless person etc. which in the long run just made things worse, amping up the anxiety behind it all. Increasingly worked in an all-or-nothing manner, studying for crazy long hours because it made me feel like a good person and dealt with my anxiety, but when i eventually missed a day or two through needing to rest, i'd find it impossible to get started back up again, because my anxiety about the work would build out of control after two day's break making it impossible to pick up the books again.
Anyway... at the exams you take in the UK aged 16 i did well, but thinks fell apart afterward. By that stage, things weren't so good at home and I just needed to get a place of my own and a job for my own sanity.
Re: tortoise housework
I realise now that I don't have this issue cleaning my own house/car whatever, i'm quite pragmatic. That's because i don't need to worry about another person coming over to inspect the workmanship afterward.
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