I enjoyed this. I appreciated how it was long-form instead of a more cursory survey of the topic.
What struck me was "Heroes are people who, against all odds, prevail and win the day." "Against all odds" means that it will often fail. If the first and last line of defense is essentially a probabilistic and unlikely "solution," then it's simply going to fail a chunk of the time.
I also find "hero" to be a patronizing and manipulative term in a lot of corporate contexts. Working overtime to keep up the backup generator for a hospital, sure. Missing your daughter's recital to keep widgets.io selling a subscription service to ai.tech, not so much. It creates a framing that makes the dissolution of important boundaries more palatable.
I will admit that with a lot of tech roles, it's essentially priced in—we have a lot of privilege, and occasionally getting ramped up to keep a service running is a fair enough tradeoff. I think the "hero" mentality is significantly more harmful in the service industry, without reasonable compensation, e.g., a lot of the talk of heroes and frontline workers in the pandemic without more meaningful, structural support.
Excellent post and I look forward to seeing more from you!
I enjoyed this. I appreciated how it was long-form instead of a more cursory survey of the topic.
What struck me was "Heroes are people who, against all odds, prevail and win the day." "Against all odds" means that it will often fail. If the first and last line of defense is essentially a probabilistic and unlikely "solution," then it's simply going to fail a chunk of the time.
I also find "hero" to be a patronizing and manipulative term in a lot of corporate contexts. Working overtime to keep up the backup generator for a hospital, sure. Missing your daughter's recital to keep widgets.io selling a subscription service to ai.tech, not so much. It creates a framing that makes the dissolution of important boundaries more palatable.
I will admit that with a lot of tech roles, it's essentially priced in—we have a lot of privilege, and occasionally getting ramped up to keep a service running is a fair enough tradeoff. I think the "hero" mentality is significantly more harmful in the service industry, without reasonable compensation, e.g., a lot of the talk of heroes and frontline workers in the pandemic without more meaningful, structural support.
Excellent post and I look forward to seeing more from you!
Good callout on the cultural connotation that "hero" has and the weight the word itself has.
And yes to the probabilistic nature of the problem as well. Even if there is success, there is damage.